We are pleased to be on familiar turf, which turf is actually incorporated into the adobe walls of our Cliff May design premises. ‘No place like home’? Not exactly- but something along the line of a realization, in my seventh decade, that one’s hometown is an ineluctable part of one’s matrix. Of course, a body can change locales, but takes with him inescapable elements of home. I cannot ever escape the link I have with the clay soil of this neighborhood and at this point in my life, I have no desire to.
Some wags when reading this might, when considering our move, borrow a thought from Louis D’Ascoyne in ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’, to the tune of changing the medieval splendors of Chalfont Castle for the modern conveniences of Balaclava Avenue, SW, but as with Fresno’s impact, so has everything else had an effect, arguably not as great, but nevertheless things that, wherever and how often I move, will stay with me. The occasional whiff of coal smoke on a cold night in Islington, the smell of sewer gas at Jackson and Sansome in San Francisco, and the enveloping warmth of the plumeria scented night air in Honolulu. Why all these smells? In fact, the clay soil of old Fig Garden in Fresno has a particular smell that when damp, adobe bricks give off, too. I don’t really know why scent is the predominant sense as I write this. Actually, I do- the lawn is being mowed and the scent of newly mown grass is pervasive as it can only be on a warm Fresno day.
We’ll further consider vernacular Fresno- art, architecture, and culture generally. My own interest aside, I have to say, however, that the arts organizations locally find fundraising more than a modest struggle, the presumption on the part of the well heeled donor base that anything locally must perforce be second (or third or fourth) rate, that high culture is a phenomenon found in the great urban centers. Piffle. Culture is the natural byproduct of the sentient beings we all are, and from the vantage point of experience, over sixty years worth, I look forward to exploring this from the respite of Shaw Avenue.