Independence Day

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday. It's nondenominational, nonsectarian, nonreligious, and, in Davis, it's a community celebration. All day long, there's stuff going on—Little League pancake breakfast, softball tournament, the kiddie parade featuring tiny children riding their crepe paper-decorated trikes, the fireworks in the park, and, downtown, the bike club's annual criterium, where I worked this morning from 6 o'clock until 8. After my corner marshaling shift was done, I went to the farmers' market, where I bought tomatoes, basil, nectarines, blackberries, yellow corn, dino kale, curly parsley and what Jim Eldon at Fiddler's Green Farm dubbed "cosmic" carrots:


The inside is a surprise, too:

Walked back downtown, met Stu and Linda for lunch at Bernardo's where we sat outside and watched the women's race while we ate. Then home to listen to the Giants beat the Astros 9-0 (a nice follow-up to last night's 13-zip Giants win) while kind of more-or-less napping. Don't know what I'll do later on; some bike club friends are hosting a Tour de France watching gathering around 8, so I may head over there. Word has it that the fireworks are visible from the end of their street. Or I may just stay home; sometimes, if they shoot them high enough, I can see the fireworks from my deck.

The power! The passion! The produce!

Robin and I took a road trip to Oroville on Saturday. Stated purpose, to meet with the owners of the fitness center that will be one of the controls on the upcoming Davis Bike Club's Gold Rush Randonnee. Not-so-hidden agenda purpose, all those produce stands along Hwy. 70.

Not much to say about Oroville except that it's original downtown appeared utterly deserted. Storefronts vacant, the only open shops a couple of antique stores, the only lively appearing human a skateboarder taking advantage of the empty streets. The name of the business center kind of says it all . . .

Time to leave. On to . . .

!

!!

!!!

First stop, a smallm open-front stand, where we netted some blackberries, cherries, lemon cukes and cherry tomatoes.

Then we found Tony's, clearly the winner in both produce and ambience . . .

Tomatoes, nectarines (yellow and white), peaches (ditto), cukes, jams, olive oil, berries, potatoes, corn, melons, and Tony's famous sweet red onions . . .

Definitely sweet!

(N.B.: The corn, we were told, is trucked in from Dixon. What this implies about other items at Tony's is anybody's guess, but for sure the tree crops are local; we saw the trees.)

Robin's haul

. . . and mine

Don't buy more than you can carry!

So far, the tasting experience has been as good as the shopping experience. This may have to become a regular road trip.

Stars and stripes

Today is Flag Day. Back in the late '60s and into the '70s, the American flag became hugely politicized, with the left scorning it and the right wrapping itself in it. As someone who has always loved my country's flag, I found myself hesitating to say so, fearing the label of "hawk" or "super-patriot." But several years ago, during George W. Bush's tragic reign, I decided to reclaim my flag. I bought one, and on patriotic holidays, I fly it at the front of my house. I like its crisp red and white stripes, I like the blue field with those white stars, one for each of the 50 states, and as I put it in its holder I think about what my country has given me, what it offered my immigrant grandparents, and the hope this grand experiment holds for my granddaughters and the world. Flawed? Sure. But all I have to do is consider whom this country chose as its president this past November, and I take heart. Three cheers for the red, white and blue.

Reading baseball

I'm reading three books about baseball (while I'm not actually watching, that is). One is OK, one is good (and a keeper) and one is terrific (and also a keeper).


The OK one is Ron Darling's The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching and Life on the Mound. Darling is the former Mets pitcher, now a broadcaster for SportsNet New York. To give the reader the "feel" of the pitching experience, Darling organized his book using specific innings of games in which he was the starting pitcher. So, for instance, Ch. 1 describes the first inning of his first major league start, against the Phillies on Sept. 6, 1983; Ch. 2 is Game 4 of The 1986 World Series, Mets vs. the Red Sox; etc. The intro chapters (before we got to actual games) were so-so, but it's improving, and the descriptions of Darling's game-day preparation (he took a nap just before going out to warm up) are interesting. How these guys handle the pressure is mind-boggling to me.

The second book is called Watching Baseball Smarter, by Zack Hample. (Hample's other claim to fame is having grabbed more than 3,000 baseballs from major league games, including Bonds' 724th home-run baseball; his first book is titled How to Snag Major League Baseballs.) He's played professional ball himself, which gives him street cred to describe various aspects of the game, from the different grips pitchers use and the effect each has on a pitched ball to details about fielding, base running, and the answer to the question all baseball fans ask: Why do those guys grab their crotches all the time? (Ans: Those cups are uncomfortable, dammit!) Hample includes a glossary of terms, which are italicized in the text, so you can look stuff up as you read, or just read the glossary through all at once. It's a good dip-into book while watching a game and some play is a new one on me or Mike Kruko uses a term I haven't heard before. (This book was recommended to me by Heather Hafleigh, with whom I've been having an e-mail conversation about baseball in general and the Giants in particular.)

The best one, though, is As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires, by Bruce Weber. Weber is a reporter for The New York Times, and he brings the same clear, well-written, literate style of that newspaper to this book. I'd recently become intrigued by the enigmatic nature of the umpire, curious about not only the nuts and bolts of umpiring but what motivates a man (the female umpire is rare beyond rare) to want to be one in the first place. Weber interviewed dozens of current and former umpires, players, managers, and Major League baseball execs, and also trained as an umpire, after which he spent a season working games, from Little League to Spring Training. ("Just about the first thing they teach you at umpire school is ow to yank your mask off without upsetting your hat." Talk about your great lead . . . .) I checked this out from the library, but it's too good to let go of, so I've decided to buy it, to have the time to read it at a slow, delicious pace. Get this book; it's good.

Rubber ducky, you're the one

From the wires of the Associated Press . . .

Woman, 90, is rescued after three days stuck in bathtub

WALNUT CREEK — A 90-year-old Northern California woman too weak to get out of her bathtub was rescued after three days during which she drank water collected in a rubber duck to stay hydrated. Shirley Madsen was found in her Walnut Creek home by her daughter after the family became concerned that she hadn't returned phone calls. . . . Madsen had climbed into the tub May 27 after returning from a seniors group trip to a casino. She had not eaten since breakfast and found she was too weak to get out, authorities said. . . . She was also too weak to cup water in her hands, so she used a rubber duck as a cup. She repeatedly added hot water to the tub to stay warm.

Senior citizen emergency first aid kit