In fair Benicia, where we lay our scene, we find a modest sized burg that has always been more “town” than “city.” Historians tell us the original founders had a vision of urban grandeur for our city, and you can see this for yourself when you look at early city maps showing a planned grid of streets and blocks that would do a major metropolis proud. Anticipated streets extend over hills and into the water with heady optimism. But with the gold rush, the role of alpha city for the region was quickly usurped by San Francisco, so Benicia ended [...]

About fifteen miles south of Benicia is a small town called Alamo, a place really more suburb than town. In the way that Benicia is about the water, Alamo is about hills and oak trees. I know because I grew up there. In the seventies, right before I shipped out for UCLA, developers had the idea of transforming nearby cow grazing land at the base of Mt. Diablo into a “gated community” where quarter acre parcels of land could be sold for top dollar. They named it Blackhawk Country Club. Because I had lived in Round Hill Country Club in [...]