Moving To Salinas

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I was thinking back to when I came to Salinas back in 1969, my wife and I already had two sons and in the not to distant future we would have two more, you may remember the movie "My Three Son’s," well we had four.

We came to Salinas because Congressman Robert McNamara had been busy closing and/or reducing the size and scope of the Navy and other military bases around the country and I had been working for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Pink slips were floating around like confetti, lines at the unemployment office were around the block, people were selling their homes to get out from under house payments they could no longer afford and packing up their families and moving away, renters were leaving in droves, Portsmouth was becoming a ghost town. I was no exception, my little family and I sold what we could, left the rest and headed west to California where my wife’s family lived.

I remember the trip, we were short on cash but high on hope, the slogan "Go west young man, go west" is exactly what we were going to do. My wife and I went shopping and bought a Coleman Camping Stove, two cans of fuel, paper plates, plastic utensils and a variety of canned food, I remember canned potatoes for some reason. Thankfully gas was cheap back then, our only problem was making it over the Sierras before the snow started. We had a new 1969, Blue, Chevrolet, Impala, 4 Door Sedan, 283 four barrel, what a car, how I wish I still had it today.

We were in New York State and it was hot, I mean hot. The kids were sweaty and grumpy and my poor wife was wilting. I stopped and got everybody a cold drink, my wife and I wished that we could go back to Portsmouth but there was no work and no money to last while trying to find something and then it would be starvation wages, we had no choice, we had to continue west. We would stop for brief periods where I would set up the Coleman , my wife would get out a couple of pots, open a few cans of something to feed the kids and us. We would eat as quickly as possible and hit the road. My wife would often feed me while I was driving, we had to beat the snow that would be coming in the mountains.

While on the road we met a couple heading west as we were. The way we came to meet was because we each stopped at the same gas station at the same time as we headed west. I wish I still had their name, it would be fun to speak to them again.

On our way to Salinas there was a terrible storm, the rain was coming down in sheets, visibility was very limited and people were pulling over to the side of the road but this New Hampshire boy, being no stranger to bad weather, kept on going.

What else could happen? We came to a terrible wind storm, sand was so thick in the air it was getting hard to breathe. We came to a large motel and had no choice but to stop. I had to weigh my wife down with two pieces of luggage to keep her from blowing away. The funny part of this is that when we all got in the motel the kids, my wife and I were hungry so I called and requested, of all things, remember the wind is blowing up a hurricane, room service. Some poor guy had to bring a meal for the four of us. I sure hope I gave him a good tip.

When we finally arrived in Salinas what amazed me was the immense amount of farm land under cultivation.

I remembered that back in Portsmouth we use to buy lettuce grown in the Salinas Valley but never thought anything of it, now to see all this beautiful flat land of fantastically rich soil, well, it was just beyond belief. I remember stepping out of the car and grabbing a handful to feel and smell. There were sugar beets along the side of the roads that had fallen off the trucks as they headed to the Spreckels plant and elsewhere, I have never seen anything like them.

As I learned my way around the Salinas area I saw more and more of this rich beautiful land growing lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower, chili peppers, radishes and the list goes on. No wonder this area is called "America's Salad Bowl," I finally understood. This was back in the late 60’s.

Spring forward a few years to the 80’s, the area has been growing, the city has been expanding, especially North and South Salinas and the Alisal area. Farm land has been used up to build roads, houses and condos. The Prunedale area also has experienced growth and many of the farmers have to take turns irrigating their fields because there just isn‘t enough water for everybody to do it all at once.

The 90’s are here and people are concerned about saltwater intrusion of their wells, but the land continues to disappear under more roads and countless homes and businesses and all the while we are being told that we must conserve on our water usage. There was talk of people with even numbered addresses watering during one period and the negative another.

Here we are in 2008. Salinas and surrounding areas have grown dramatically and all at the expense of our precious natural resources, our rich, fertile land and water. The immense but still finite amount of farm land that produced vegetables for the entire country is being consumed at an alarming rate while the surrounding hills have gone relatively untouched. Hungry builders and speculators have been allowed by city and county leaders to come in and desecrate our land and leave with dirty streets, houses and car lots occupying land that once produced vegetables. We have only a fraction of our farm land left and it‘s falling pray to encroachment constantly, precious top soil gone forever.

Water is being used up at an alarming rate, saltwater intrusion becoming an ever greater problem.

What have we got to show for all this? Drive up and down the valley and around Salinas and houses are everywhere, shopping areas, car lots, dirty streets, trash, filth, an expanded crime rate, people here illegally by the thousands and the city complaining that more schools are required, while never having the determination and character to do anything about the problem. We have more traffic then we can handle and more police are required. We are still being told that we must conserve water, there just isn’t enough to go around, then you drive downtown and see these immense condo type complexes going up, give me a brake.

Soon there will be little left of what once was. As Salinas and the surrounding cities and towns continue their unbridled growth they are actually going into decline. What a thing to see happen. Someday the question will be posed, by many more then just me, asking why this was allowed to happen, why such beautiful and precious natural resources were allowed to be squandered. What a legacy we are leaving to our children and grandchildren.