Small Town Fourth

Devon was under the weather yesterday morning and Andy was still away at a sleepover, so I took a swing at doing the "Dad" thing and hauled Jem out to the coast in search of a place to dodge waves and build sandcastles for a few hours. I mean - I was expecting him to do the wave-dodging-sandcastle-building thing. I was just going to sprawl out on a beach towel and murmur approval whenever he looked over in my direction.

When I mentioned Half Moon Bay, Jem remembered an awesome bowl of clam chowder he'd had somewhere. Maybe somewhere near Half Moon Bay. But maybe in Monterey, or maybe Seattle. But the clam chowder idea lodged in his head, and by the time we'd made it over the hill to the coast, I think he was convinced that if he didn't have another bowl of this particular ambrosia, then a) he would die an agonizing death and b) I was the worst parent in this arm of the galaxy.

It wasn't that long before noon by that point, so I worked out a compromise: we'd pull into town and look for a bowl o' chowda before going to the beach. Failing that, we'd eat some sort of lunch, and resume ChowderQuest after we'd spent time getting sand in our knickers.

It was only when I turned left on Main, one block shy of Highway 1, that I realized that for all the times we'd "gone to Half Moon Bay", I'd never actually gone through town. We snaked across a narrow bridge and into unfamiliar territory. "Hey Jem - are you ready for a little exploration?" He started humming the "Indy's Theme" from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The kids do that when they think I'm lost.

But we only got two blocks in before we came to the road closure - Main Street was closed off for the parade. Okay, now this is the sort of serendipity I like. Small town Main Street Fourth of July Parade. I am so there!

Snaked our way down a side street, found a place to park, and hoofed back to check up on the action. Parade was to start at noon, so we had time to dig up food. Corner diner looked as local as they come, with the metal-rounded 1950's tabletops, old jukebox, and elderly fry cook behind the counter who sang out scattered lines from whatever was playing as if in delirium. Every minute or he'd absent-mindeldly come up for air with something like "Start-a spreadin' da newwwwwwws...." some ten or so seconds after Frankie had sung that line from the jukebox, as if the thought had just occurred to him in a dream.

But it was a nice show. No chowder, but Jem wasn't fazed. He had recalibrated for a turkey sandwich and chocolate milk, and we managed to pay our check just as the parade got rolling.

The town fire truck, Foreign Legion, Boy Scouts, Smokey Bear (with a surprisingly large potbelly - isn't it a little early to be loading up for winter?) down the center of Main St. A pair of vaguely-frightening whiteface mimes working the crowd, handing out ... something. Old cars with horns blazing and... at this point Jem was D-O-N-E and ready to hit the beach. But it was a lovely little slice of Americana.

Beach: Venice Beach, named, presumably for the not-even-vaguely-a-canal stream that runs from the horse pastures above. Sign warns "DANGER: contaminated water" - ahyup, just like Venice. But the warning is for the stream, and fifty yards windward is the honest-to-Bob beach with folks barbecuing, flying kites, chasing kids, and marveling at the dead seal that just washed up. Dead what?!?

Yeah, dead seal. A little unnerving - it seemed intact except for the missing head. Shark? They do hang out offshore. Generally leave humans alone, but are known to love snacking on seals.

We reflected on this thought for about 30 seconds, then moved a bit further down the beach.

After ten or so minutes gathering seashell fragment treasures (stashed in some pocket that we'll undoubtedly remember the next time we do laundry), Jem fell in with an older Indian boy on one of those classic games: jump the wave. Or don't jump the wave. Or fall over when the wave hits you. Or, in its simplest form: get wet and slapped around by the water. Damn, that boy loves water. I joined in the frolic for a bit, then decided that our beach towel was in danger of blowing away if it didn't have a grownup sprawled across it, half asleep with hat over face, and excused myself to remedy the situation.

Must've been nearly an hour later that Jem sauntered over and declared himself done. We pulled up camp shook the sand off, and piled into the car. He was asleep before we hit Hwy 92 coming back over the hill. Yeah - now this is what the Fourth of July should feel like, shouldn't it? I mean, except for the dead seal part.

What a Long Strange Trip it's Been

Walking along 5th Ave - Pittsburgh - this morning, traversing the four or so blocks from the Holiday Inn to Craig Street, triggered a flood of memories. That was no surprise: the first time I'd made this walk, eleven years ago, I was pretty sure I was walking into the opening page of the next big chapter of my life. The Menlo Park startup I'd been with for the past three years was ready to implode, and I'd been lured to Pittsburgh for an interview with a small research lab that many of my friends extolled as utopian.

If the idea of leaving California for P...p...Pittsburgh weren't bad enough, it meant taking my 5th-generation California wife (and 6th gen Cali daughter) with me to this city that evoked the collapsed rubble of abandoned steel mills. But Andrew, Dayne, Rich and Shumeet swore that they'd make me a convert - "Just come visit," they said, "and make your own decision."

On that walk from the Holiday in to JPRC's office just off Craig Street, I probably hadn't fallen in love yet. But as looked up at the gothic Cathedral of Learning, past St. Paul's Church, around the corner and past the quirky bookstores and indecipherable shops of Oakland ("Haircut and talking - $9!"), it must've been starting.

When I got home two days later, I explained to Devon that, somehow, it felt like "home" there. We went out a second time, together, and by the time we touched down back in California, we agreed to make the move.

Found a home in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Literally. He lived a few blocks from the Malvern Ave corner where we bought our house, and his daughter lived just down our street. Our house was known as the "school bus house", because kids would wait on our porch for the bus when the weather was particularly bad. We later learned that, when Devon had been in kindergarten, she'd lived four blocks up on the same street while her father finished grad school.

We were a block from the sprawling urban woods of Schenley Park, with broad lawns and dark leafy mysterious walks that traversed Panther hollow on old stone bridges. A few more blocks from CMU and the Carnegie Museums. Kid-loving neighbors who everyone addressed as "Mr. and Mrs." - mulberry trees and yards to run through.

Of course, I know I'm embellishing a little as the years pass, but D and I decided that this was the place we were going to raise our kids and grow old. Who could've known that four years (and three failed startups) later, we'd be packing our bags for a return to California.

JPRC started to crumble soon after we arrived - the Japanese stock market had tanked, and our parent company, a Japanese software house, was under seige by Microsoft. Just over a year after we arrived, the Lab shut its doors. D and I surprised each other by wanting to stay, so I joined a couple of other JPRC survivors in opening the Pittsburgh office of a Burning Glass, a San Diego startup that needed some machine learning chops.

That lasted another year before they needed to retrench and retreat, after which I jumped to DigitalMC, a tiny CMU-based startup that was just coming off the blocks. Those were heady times. We were small, agile and naive. We knew we were probably doomed, but like the proverbial hotrod burning down the open highway, the ride was just too good to stop.

When DMC ran out of money in early 2002, we kept working for three months out of our CEO's attic. We lived off our savings and took side jobs to postpone the inevitable. Finally, the savings were gone, the industry was clearly still dead, and it was time to get a real job. The economy was still dragging through the scuppers, and our choice was to hang on in hopes of a faculty position at Pitt the next spring (a long shot), or declare defeat, and move back to California to join one of a few tech companies that seemed to be weathering the storm.

When we left, we literally mourned leaving. Packing up the house where we had planned to grow old was, saying goodbye to the neighbors who had welcomed us so warmly - these were tear-filled affairs. I'd moved many times before, but this time it was for keeps, and it hurt.

...

That was seven years ago. Life in the intervening time has been good to us. We have a nice house in Palo Alto with friendly neighbors. I have - in my humble estimation - the best job on the planet, and get to bike to work along the Baylands, past herons, rabbits and pheasants. Our kids can walk to the library and city pool. We're close to family. I can't complain, or shouldn't.

But walking along 5th Ave this morning brought me back to the promise of that time, over ten years ago, when I first stepped out into this strange city, knowing that it likely held the key to my future, but when I didn't yet know how much I would come to love it, nor how much I would miss it when this chapter of my life ended.

Recounting a long winter

"When the Seattle schools called their fourth 'snow day' of the month, I looked online and noticed that only one of my friends with kids had a Facebook status that didn't involve drinking."

-Elizabeth, recalling why Seattle isn't for everybody