Dear California Central Valley,
As I head south towards that paradise known as “Fres-yes” to a place some call heaven where the beer flows like wine and beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano….I’m talking about a little place called Bass Lake (Thank you Dumb and Dumber for always giving me material) for a weekend of debauchery with some of the best fraternity brothers that dues can buy I found myself cruising down HWY 99 caught up in my experiment of how many times the numerous bubble gum country stations poison society with Hootie’s voice I found myself suddenly slamming on my brakes due to the fact that the minivan in front of me thought that it would be a wise decision to cruise in the fast lane at the radar topping speed of 35mph while at the same time keeping pace with the big rig next to it with not another car in sight and obviously ignoring the fact that the lane for traffic that travels at this speed is situated on the right possibly because the traffic signs states “slower traffic stay to the right” is not written in a language other than English. In my road rage anger of having to travel at a speed not made for a race track (Those of you who have traveled with me know what I’m talking about) it was at this moment when a came to the realization of where I had ventured and was now deep into its heart….The California Central Valley. I’ve always said that if you were not born and raised in the California Central Valley and by chance end up there be it for work purposes, a loved one or you lost a cruel bet it must be like being shipped to an exotic location such as Iraq or Afghanistan. The stretch of road from Stockton to Fresno (I don’t have enough space to write about you Bakersfield) is probably the ugliest thing I’ve seen since the local strip club had a “Girls of Oroville” night to generate some new clientele. As I drove by village after the village with names such as Modesto, Merced, Chowchilla and Madera with nothing but dirt, a lack of water, graffiti and fast food to offer I again realized how well we have it in that little place we call “God’s Country” in Northern California along with our friends on the Central Coast and our counterparts to the South who get the pleasure of enjoying the beach, amazing weather and our water 12 months out of the year compared to you Central Valley. Now I know I’m going to get some hate mail out of this but if I tried to please everyone in this column I would be called a Democrat. So cheer up, and know that if you have not got out of the valley yet there is always that glimmer of hope that you can end up somewhere else in this great state that so many of us call home.
PS. It’s finally Friday peeps make it count and I hope in this triple digit weather you are able to enjoy it next to a body of water with a cold beer in your hand like myself and remember…..I’ll have one more bartender, before the next one.
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