Eureka Memories: People, open space, unique sensitivity made Eureka special

(Please consider expressing whatever pleasure and enjoyment you gain from reading "Eureka Memories" by clicking on the "Donate" button above and contributing a dollar, 50 cents, a little more or a little less to my PayPal account. If you find value in the work, I hope you'll consider a financial donation that will help me continue to present my work to you. -- Ted Sillanpaa)


Tree swings.

Homemade bicycle ramps.

Forests where most towns had buildings.

The clerks at the stores who knew shoppers' names.

Those are the things that made growing up in Eureka special.

My youngest children are growing up in the San Francisco Bay area. They can go shopping at their choice of department stores, so I can't make the case that they're missing much not having shopping at Daly's or Bistrin's.

The kids can pick and choose hamburger joints. They've have just exactly the number of intimate conversations with the person who cooked or served their burger as I had conversations with the workers at the Fresh Freeze, Deb's or Arctic Circle. Kids stopped hanging out at burger joints in Eureka before I even hit high school in 1971. My children aren't missing anything.

So, much as I've enjoyed sharing memories of Eureka, it doesn't necessarily seem like the buildings and the businesses separated growing up there in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s from growing up anywhere right now.

My kids, however, will never enjoy a tree swing. They don't live in a house bordered by forest filled with stumps, fallen trees and a little stream.

There's no one like Gary Grannis to drag a long, thick rope down to a tall tree for them. They don't have a friend who will climb that tree and secure the rope. They won't go looking for a piece wood to use as a seat for the swing.

There's not a forest within walking distance of where my kids live. It's a healthy drive to the nearest forest, really.

The swing we so enjoyed right outside our front doors sent us swinging out over a little gulch. We started by swinging off of a steep, little hill and wound up swinging and spinning far out over the top of trees and lush, green ferns. Before we lost momentum, we stop ourselves back safely on the hill.

We all liked the big swings at Sequoia Park, but we loved our tree swing. Whenever I'd see Gary dragging the rope to the forest or, better, when I'd find the swing hanging from the tree with no one around -- I was euphoric. It felt like I'd gained admission to the finest amusement park.

That reminds me, the forest was so filled with things to do that we'd lose ourselves. I once climbed a tree I'd seen bigger kids climbing. I was alone. Getting up was easy. Getting down seemed impossible. I was 7 years old, stuck far up a redwood tree ... and calling to my mom to come and help me down.

The city dismantled the most memorable little rides from my years playing at Sequoia Park. The swings, the big slides and more were judged unsafe. There were no judges of the risk versus reward involved in riding that tree swing for hours. Thank God.

I was in my back yard one afternoon throwing a rubber baseball against the wall. I heard what sounded like a groan, maybe a cry. I walked into the woods and saw Brian King, a neighbor kid from around the corner, laying flat on his back at the bottom of the big hill below the tree swing.

"I slipped off," he said, trying to catch his breath and wiping tears from his eye.

I was old enough to help the younger boy, off the ground and up the hill. He'd never been on the swing because, well, not just anybody could jump on that tree swing. There was a protocol for earning the chance to swing on it just any old time a kid felt like it.

There were obviously no official rules, but the 2, 3 older kids didn't let me just get to swinging over that gully all by myself. They were willing to tolerate my presence, so they told me how to secure the seat between my legs and how to hold on tight. They showed me how to avoid having the swing stop swinging with me hanging out over the gully.

Brian King didn't know what he was doing.

Knucklehead.

I felt, suddenly, like one of the older boys. One thought crossed my mind watching the neighbor kid limp away from the tree swing, "Serves him right."

My older pal Rocci Barsotti was the most creative play pal a kid could have. Yes, we had bicycles. Yup, we bought 'em at Western Auto or Bill Beasley's. Whoopee!

Those bikes weren't so special. Heaven knows those stores weren't.

Rocci's ability to take a couple bricks, maybe a big rock, and some pieces of wood and turn them into ramps for kid bicycle daredevils was special. I'll forget where we bought the bikes well before I'll forget how much fun we had riding them.

The bicycle ramps kids all over town would piece together made Eureka special. There aren't many plots of land where my kids live with wood, bricks, big rocks or anything else they'd need to build a bicycle ramp. Even if there was, there's not a quiet enough street to allow kids to really enjoy wildly, recklessly, mindlessly speeding their bikes off the ramps and into the air. Even if there were, somebody would run them off because it's not safe to jump and fly through the air on bicycles.

I thought I had to be the only kid who had that much fun riding a bike. We'd built a ramp to jump from and a ramp to land on, well before Evil Knievel became an internationally-known daredevil. Lots of kids did that type thing, and more, in Humboldt County then.

Rocci thought of places to race on bikes that required more than just speed. He devised a way to make riding our bicycles as fast as we could around Gary Grannis's square driveway an absolute blast.

The square driveway was only built for two cars, so ... it took ingenuity for Barsotti to turn it into a raceway for a kid like me.

Rocci theorized that there was some peril in riding as fast as we could as closely as we could to the very edge of the slightly raised driveway. I imagine, he realized there was peril when I tried to copy him and zip around the square driveway faster and faster. I remember, still, having my front tire slip off the cement, drop hard onto the grass and send me ass over tea kettles into the big bush by the Grannis mail box.

So, we'd race around that driveway 2 or 3 at a time and stay as close as we could to the edge. It was more fun that I can make it seem, I'm sure.

We all remember every store, clothing and grocery, we ever frequented in Eureka.

So?

Just remembering that Cutten Market or Shears/Kacy's/Murphy's existed isn't a particularly meaningful memory. Children are growing up with easier access to more competitive prices now. They don't, however, know the clerks and baggers at any grocery store. They won't walk in to a department store to buy school clothes and have a clerk say, "Oh, you've grown since last year! Your favorite Hush Puppies are in stock!"

I knew all the clerks at Cutten Market and Shears/Kacy's/Murphy's. My pals and I ran around Cutten for years. The clerks knew us as well as we knew them.

Still, that's not really memoriable either. We couldn't have cared less about the clerks. We wanted to get away from adults. I didn't realize how special the intimate relationships with people who served us in Eureka stores was until I was a parent myself.

My older sons and I lived in Cutten, down the street from Murphy's Market. The younger of the two older boys was in third grade at Cutten School. He walked the mile from there home. Typically, he'd make the walk while I was at work. One afternoon, I'd come home early.

A full hour after school got out, he still wasn't home. I'd lost his mom, but I didn't want to lose him. It was what I perceived as a more dangerous time -- 1989. I hopped in the car and went to look for him.

I drove the route from the little shack duplex to Cutten School and back -- three times. I circled off Walnut Drive to drive down Cypress Street. Then, I drove down by the old slaughterhouse where 2 giant, mean dogs kept me from ever daring to take a shortcut home as a kid at Cutten School. I couldn't find my son.

In desperation, I stopped at Murphy's Market. My kid didn't have any money, so I held out little hope he'd be in the store.

I walked in and saw the tall, big-haired blonde woman who was always so friendly to my kids and I. I was an adult in 1989, so I wasn't the one with the intimate relationship with her. She just knew that I was a single dad with polite sons who helped me shop.

She saw me enter the store and looked up from her customer.

"Hi! He's right over there," she said, pointing at the magazine rack where my son was sitting on the floor cross-legged reading a college football preview magazine. He might as well have been sitting in our living room.

"Hey, Trent! Your dad's here," she shouted down the aisle.

He paid no attention.

"He stops in here almost every day and looks at the sports magazines," the clerk said. "It's so cute. He's not hurting anybody and he always puts the books back exactly like they were."

She assured me he caused no trouble, making sure I wasn't too mad at the boy. Mad? I was happy that my biggest parental problem, thanks to the clerks who knew my boys, was that my seven-year-old son was unusually interested in sports magazines.

My youngest kids wouldn't be allowed to sit on the floor at the nearby Safeway or Raley's. If they did, they'd be kicked out of the store. In Eureka, in Cutten, no sweat ... life was a little slower and folks had time to care a little more time and my older sons were in the best of hands at any business anywhere near our home.

So, the businesses and clubs and TV shows of our youth were important. The memories are important. They aren't what made Eureka, or Humboldt County special, though. Not really. The people, the pace of life, the extra spaces we had before everything was paved over and built up is what some of us remember most.

Eureka Memories: Wal-Mart's OK If the Market Demands It

(Please consider expressing whatever pleasure and enjoyment you gain from reading "Eureka Memories" by clicking on the "Donate" button above and contributing a dollar, 50 cents, a little more or a little less to my PayPal account. If you find value in the work, I hope you'll consider a financial donation that will help me continue to present my work to you. -- Ted Sillanpaa)

The Bayshore Mall was built in my hometown of Eureka, Calif. in the 1990s with the promise that it would invigorate the economy decimated by the loss of the timber and fishing industries.

The mall performed as advertised ... for awhile. Folks stopped making the four-hour drive south to Santa Rosa to escape locally-owned chain stores who controlled the market and didn't provide the options available to those who could pick and choose from chain stores like Mervyn's, Sears, etc.

The Bayshore Mall died an inglorious death, as the Humboldt County economy continued to sag. People don't buy at speciality shops or need three or four places to buy athletic shoes when unemployment is through the roof. The movie theaters at the mall lost business when theater complexes were built in neighboring towns, thus removing the need to drive to Eureka to see a film.

Gottschalk's was one of the anchor stores at the mall. It has been empty for awhile because, well, the area really can't support a slightly upscale department store. If Mervyn's and Sears -- other cornerstones of the facility -- had died ... what chance did Gottschalk's have?

The mall is a sad place to be and more sad to see, assuming one remembers when it was bustling and full of promise for a community short on such a thing.

It seemed like exciting news that a "mystery" business was ready to move into Gottschalk's. Well, the Times-Standard newspaper called it a "mystery" business. Most readers seem certain that the old Gottschalk's will become either a Best Buy or Wal-Mart.

Best Buy? OK. If the Humboldt County economy can support a electronics store, great. Based on what I read in the Times-Standard and hear from old friends, a big electronics chain wouldn't seem too anxious to make a home in Eureka.

Wal-Mart, however, suits Humboldt County just fine. It offers low prices and tons of controversy. The same type controversy folks in Fairfield remember when the old, empty shopping center that took up an entire city blocks became home a Wal-Mart superstore.

The folks who don't like the idea of Wal-Mart, and its questionable business practices and low prices, coming to Eureka insist it will kill what's left of locally-owned Humboldt County businesses. Mostly, they focus on the questionable business practices because the majority of locally-owned Eureka business began to disappear years and years ago.

As a Fairfield resident who cares what happens in his hometown of Eureka, I'm confused by the anger expressed by folks who can't stand the idea of a Wal-Mart moving into the Gottschalk's space.

The bulk of locally-owned businesses are speciality-type spots. One Times-Standard reader complained that Wal-Mart will kill such stores. Another reader, rightly, mentioned that local stores don't sell shampoo, vitamins, pet food, toilet paper, etc. So, Wal-Mart would actually pose no threat to local shops.

The anti-Wal-Mart reader eventually said that, indeed, there are businesses that sell essentials like toilet paper and more. He mentioned a speciality shop called Bubbles as a spot that sells shampoo. And, he explained that a local health food story in Arcata (a town across the bay from Eureka) markets vitamins. Finally, he mentioned a locally-owned pet store that does sell pet food.

I was born, raised and spent most of my life in Humboldt County. There are folks who buy shampoo at Bubbles, but the average family that uses the biggest container of the least costly shampoos and soaps shop at CVS, Walgreen's or grocery stores.

Small health food outlets sell vitamins, sure. The monster-sized containers of generic multi-vitamins available at Wal-Mart are affordable and more in line with what people who want a supplement as opposed to a committment to health-conscious lifestyle would buy.

The argument that Wal-Mart's business practices are shady can go on forever. Folks who can't afford to shop at speciality stores in Humboldt County just want to be able to buy the cheapest goods they can, cheap goods that people flock to the Fairfield superstore to purchase at all hours of the day and night.

The area most densely filled with low-income housing is located not far from the Bayshore Mall in Eureka. So, a Wal-Mart store would be as popular and affordable to folks who need alternatives as it is in Fairfield where local businesses have died and the economy is an absolute wreck.

The folks who shop at speciality stores, locally-owned stores, in Fairfield aren't the folks filling the Wal-Mart parking at 10 p.m. most nights. So, I imagine that
small businesses in Eureka would keep their clientele and that folks who can barely afford toilet paper and dog food, let alone a DVD for their kids once in awhile, would consider Wal-Mart, Target and other chain stores that might be alive up there.

Obviously, those people who own or have reason to support small businesses are going to fight Wal-Mart. Heck, they're fighting the idea that Best Buy might move into town. They'll try to sell the idea that Trader Joe's or Cost Plus World Market would somehow help Eureka's struggling economy everybit as much as something like a Wal-Mart.

People who would shop at Wal-Mart, maybe get a job because they'll take what Wal-Mart pays and live with the sketchy benefits, don't really have a voice. For whatever reason, they don't have much time to spend online debating the merits of locally-owned businesses in a town where the mall that was supposed to save the economy is standing nearly vacant.

The Wal-Mart superstore in Fairfield is busy all the time. Regular folks are in their shopping for things they, often, couldn't afford elsewhere. I imagine lots of kids are wearing school shoes purchased at Wal-Mart, for instance. The Fairfield market clearly demands a Wal-Mart.

Up in the Humboldt County, the folks with the most juice seem to like the idea of keeping things as they are. Local business owners and folks who buy their shampoo at a speciality shop can afford to live in what many insist is God's Country -- and look down their noses at people who'd shop or want to work at Wal-Mart.

That's unfortunate because God's Country wasn't intended only for people who want a certain type of business, a limited amount of pricing competition and the ability to pass judgment on chain stores that could help their neighbors get by and live a little bit easier.