If you find yourself reading this, you will most likely be my friend. As a friend, you'll know most of this story, so I apologize in advance for waxing nostalgic about my time in this place. For anyone who just happened onto this letter, I hope I don't bore you to sleep.
The Capay Valley is a special place, well, at least it is to me. I have met some really special people up here. Some of my dearest friends, their families, their kids, and now their grandkids. I've had some great times, shared in some tragedies, and watched the valley change over the decades.
For many folks it's just a place, out in the middle of nowhere, where they built an Indian Gaming Casino. I remember the valley before the small tribe of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation started building a Bingo Hall up in Brooks. Who would have thought that tiny Bingo Hall would become a huge Casino and Resort?
I came here in June of 1983. A few days after graduating high school in Redding. My parents had to sell the ranch I grew up on when the economy tanked. The home they bought wasn't in the Capay Valley, but it was pretty close. It was between the small town of Winters, and the microscopic town of Madison. If you know the 20 acre marijuana farm, with the huge greenhouses on the old Winters highway, that's the place. A big Spanish-Mediterranean home, with a small barn, and irrigated pasture. That's where I first came to live in Yolo County.
When I moved in, I didn't know a soul. I alway tell people, it's challenging not knowing anyone, and having to make new friends. The upside is that line from the old Lynyrd Skynyrd song, The Breeze. "I ain't hiding from nobody, nobody's hiding from me." I was free to start from scratch.
The big town back then was Woodland. It had more people, so that is where I spent most of my time. It also had a huge Cruise Night back in the 80s, but that is another story. I met my first friends at the YMCA in Woodland at a Taekwondo class. Funny how those first friends sets in motion a chain that links you to so many of the other friends.
My father started leasing cattle ground up in the Capay Valley around Guinda. We would lease the ranches, and charge per-head for ranchers to bring their steers and heifers out to graze all winter. The valley is good winter-pasture, when it rains. We would ride the hills, doctoring any sick cattle, fixing fences, and gather the cattle up to ship out in May as the grass dried up.
That's all the valley had back then; a few orchards, some farms, and a lot of rolling hills for cows. I rode those hills, pushing and gathering cattle from Cache Creek, over the top of the ridge all the way down to other side. At one time, we leased thousands of acres up in those hills. I put some miles on on some horses back then.
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It's funny, I tell people, back in the early 80s, you could set up a poker game at 10PM, right in the middle if Highway 16 up the valley, and you would not be bothered by a car until the farmers started moving around 5AM.
I was working on the ranch, going to junior college, and having fun on the weekends. My friend network was growing. Not through any special ability, or charm mind you. It's just I can get along with most people, I chew with my mouth closed, and can make small talk without sounding like a lunatic. I was having a great time.
Big changes came along quickly for me. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say I met my wife, my father passed away suddenly, we lost everything, again, and I ended up in Sacramento for a few years.
That was the only time I lived in a house in town. One good thing I can say about living in town is they will bring a hot pizza right to your front door. That's about it.... I always liked Yolo County. Especially the valley, and if I had the chance, I'd get back here one day.
That day came in 2001 when we bought the 27 acres where I live today. Keep in mind that it had an actual crack-house on it, overgrown yards filled with broken down crap everywhere, and there was a three-legged goat (true story) in the old falling-over barn. My wife had enough faith in me to agree to buy it. With some help from a few friends with equipment, we cleaned the place flat and started working on our new place.
I started work at UC Davis since it was close, and that was important for this chapter in my life. I had enough of working on the road, along with managing projects all over the state. I wanted a 30 minute drive, and to be home every night. I wanted to see my kids grow up.
With our place a mile south of Esparto, we settled in with our two kids and started enjoying our time. Esparto was pretty limited back at the turn of the millennium. One grocery store, The Burger Barn, maybe a Pizza place downtown? There wasn't much.
There was one bright spot nearby; The Capay Junction. The Junction was your typical locals bar. The place was filled with the guys who worked at all the gravel plants up and down Cache Creek. Many of the older fellas would meet up for coffee at the junction in the mornings, with their own coffee mugs on hooks behind the bar. The place slowed down to a trickle until two or three in the afternoon when the gravel crews would show up. If you drove by The Junction at 4:00 almost any afternoon, you would find a dozen or more white pickup trucks in the parking lot. Man I had some good times at the Junction.
It was not a dive-bar, or a locals-only bar, if you minded your manners. If there were women in the bar, you might let out a cuss word, and get 'the look' from one the burly fellows in a Ben Davis shirt. If you dropped an 'F-bomb' and there were women present, someone would tell you mind your language, and they meant it. I have seen a few faux tough-guys get thrown out the front door into the parking lot when they blew off the warning. The Junction was the ultimate FAFO place. Like I said, man I had some good times at The Junction.
Since I had moved to Sacramento for those 7 years, it was hard to keep in touch with my old friends. Once I moved back, I fell right back in with my old friends, and made a bunch of new ones. Meeting new people at the yearly Almond Blossom Festival in February. Shooting days with a bunch of families on ranches up and down the valley. Calf brandings, 4-H fundraisers, poker games, and more recently, Wednesday horseshoes, and music nights at different places.
One thing you have to understand about the Capay Valley, are the dozens of pretty large families that shape the social interactions in the valley. When you are introduced to new people, you keep hearing the same names. After a while, you almost need a program to figure out who is who. Who are siblings, who are cousins, and who married into which family.
I was always kind of an outsider, as I didn't go to school with anyone here, but that all kind of changed one day. One of my best friends, a confessed bachelor, and someone I had been on some great road trips and adventures with, called me one night and said he was getting married. He asked me if would become officially ordained to perform the ceremony. I said I would, and I did.
It was a Capay Valley special. Our friends basically pulled a goose-necked horse trailer across both ends of the Rumsey Bridge to stop traffic for 20 minutes, and I married them right in the middle of the span. The bridge was packed with all their friends and family. It was a special day to be sure. That was 20 years ago.
The thing about being a guy who attends church on a fairly regular basis, and who can speak in front of a crowd without stammering uncontrollably, is I kept being asked to officiate more weddings. I agreed, but only if I knew them. I don't do this as a side hustle, or as a job, I do it as a friend.
The other side of being that guy was being asked to officiate a graveside service for a friend's father. I like officiating weddings a lot more than funerals. One thing I learned, having attended some funerals where the pastor, or someone officiating, didn't really know the person, or the family. I came to the conclusion that being asked to officiate a funeral for a friend was as important request. It was something to put some thought and effort into. Over the years, I think I'm about 50/50 on weddings and funerals. I've done dozens of each.
Look, everyone is going to have fun at a wedding, even if I screw something up. Funerals and celebrations of life are different. Having a friend come up and tell me how grateful they are, for what I said, or the way I said it, after finishing a memorial service for a family member, is a moving experience. I always try to get the family members to speak. Most say they can't, and I always say that if they want to write their thoughts down, I will read them. However, I always try to coax them into speaking. Even if they hate speaking in public, I tell them I'll be standing right next to them, and let them know they can do it. I've put a hand on their shoulder to help steady them as they said goodbye, and it's always moving. I've had people come up to me, years after, to thank me for urging them to share their stories.
Over the past twenty years of marrying and burying people, I've had a few where I've performed both ceremonies for them. That is hard. Being there on a very special, joyous day, and years later, being there to say help say goodbye. It's all part of being a member of this valley.
The valley is changing, as places are sure to do. These days lots of city folks seem to want to live out here. There have always been interesting sorts of people up the valley. Hippie farmers, Bay Area professors, and folks just moving to the country for a bit of quiet each night, just so they can drive an hour and a half back to the city to work. More keep coming.
With the Casino came a lot of jobs, a lot of money, and a lot of traffic. It is what it is, and it's not going back, so I just try to adjust. On the main road, Highway 16, you get most of the casino traffic flying up the road doing 70mph, in a hurry to lose their money. On the same road, you get all the farmers and farm workers who can almost get their trucks up to 55 mph. These two groups seem to be in a Grand Theft Auto video game. It's calmed down now that the state widened highway 16, but there are still people passing on double yellow lines try to get around a guy hauling a tractor to his farm.
As I write this, my place is up for sale.
Yep, I am retiring from UCD in June and we are heading to Tennessee. Our son is back there with his family and our granddaughter. Our daughter in a few hours away with her husband, and we are tired of the big house and the almond orchard. The faster pace of life out here doesn't match our desires these days. Not that it ever did. A fun day playing horseshoes with friends up in Tancred, or a music night playing and singing with friends in someone's backyard or shop is about as much excitement as I need.
Yep, I am going to miss this place. But to be more precise, I am going to miss these people. These people are what make this place so special.
Thank you to everyone,
Walt
