INDIAN HILL

Rubidoux Drive-In The pure passage of time rarely does any of us any favors.  Its inexorable movement towards what we know is inevitable becomes more pronounced with, what else—the passage of time itself.        However, one advantage of a longer perspective is that nostalgia, used in limited dosages, can provide rich, delicious memories.  The memory as it ages attains a patina or veneer of truth that we can harness to learn from our past.  Or at least keep those memories alive that we choose.      I sometimes strip away the present and the assault of media-overload by taking day trips down old country roads.  In Southern California, the freeway is the preferred method of daily transportation and weekend travel for most.  We jam into the closest five-lane and merge as quickly as we can into the fastest lane possible and strain to keep up with the flow of traffic lest we become the target of the tailgater....

     Lido's gripping a metal cane and he's limping .  I stop and hit the window.  ‘You hanging out?’ I say.      ‘Waiting to catch a train.’      ‘Where are you going?’      ‘Rancho.’      ‘I’ll give you a ride.  You going across the street to the bakery?’      We meet up at the corner table just outside the door.  He settles in, puts the cane down.  I ask him about his foot and he gets that vague, distant look, and starts in with a disjointed series of half-phrases, hints, references to Indian ceremonies, going over to ‘the other side’, almost dying, being in a hospital for a month.      ‘The foot was burned to the bone,’ he says.       With Lido, when he gets going on his Indian references, I find it’s best to nod as if I know what he’s talking about, even if I don’t.  This ...

      It’s around 10:30 AM when I turn off into Nevada City and find a parking spot along the main street.   Around the corner is the Café Mekka, a place I’d been in a few years ago, a funky, high-ceilinged coffee house with comfortable old velvet covered sofas and small tables where a few people sit with computers, holding forth with coffees in the warm Gold Country morning.   Locals wander in, checking in with the owner-proprietor Cory who fills my order for a latte.   He’s okay with me taking a few photos and I try and become unobtrusive, snapping natural light shots of the interior, catching a couple engaged in conversation across the room, another with a computer rigged up and glowing.   Cory has perfectly drawn the flowery spot of cream on the top with a simple design that signifies a knowing barrister.   He gives me his email so I can link him up to my blog post.     The Mekka has broken-in comfort   The Mekka...