 A pigeon enjoys an afternoon snack of grapes at Palermo's Capo market. Note to self: wash grapes well before eating. On our first morning in Palermo, Sicily, Rich bounded out of bed with the unbridled joy of a man who knows he’s having ice cream for breakfast. I’d read about the Sicilian tradition of starting the day with scoops of gelato stuffed into brioche, and as Rich kept pointing out, I owed it to my readers to dig deep into this subject. We found a café and tried to place our order. “Brioche con gelato? Now? Well, yes, you could,” said the proprietor, in the dubious tones of one who acknowledges that yes, you could wear pink to Don Corleone’s funeral, but are you sure you want to? “It’s not for breakfast?” I asked incredulously. How did I get this so wrong? “When is it eaten? Later in the morning?” “Yes. Morning, lunch, afternoon. Any time.” Except, apparently, now. We ordered croissants instead. This was my first hint of just how slippery I’d find Sicily’s culinary traditions. Palermo is famous for its street food, which is sold in carts and hole-in-the-wall eateries all over town, and I soon learned what people really prefer for breakfast is pani ca' meusa (in proper Italian, pane con la milza).  A vat of milza, breakfast of champions: boiled cow spleen, lung, and trachea. To make milza, you boil up cow spleen, lung, and trachea, fry them in pig lard, and tuck them into a bun, possibly sprinkling cheese on top. Everyone assures me this meal will give you the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. Did I try it? Oh, hell, no. There are some things at which even I draw the line. But those raised here love this kind of stuff. Frequently conquered and perpetually impoverished, Sicily has spent centuries getting creative with obscure animal parts. Whenever I see gusts of smoke rising from a grill, I know it’s stigghiola, lamb or goat guts rolled around a skewer or leek and cooked over the flames. Another common sight is a large, cloth-covered basket known as a panaru, inside of which is frittola. Nobody seems to know exactly what ingredients make up frittola, but the prevailing theory is cartilage, lard, and some kind of meat. Street vendors dip their hand under the cloth, extract a greasy blob, drop it onto oiled paper, and pass it over to you. Mmmmm. I’ve had ample opportunity to observe all this as our Airbnb apartment is in the heart of Capo, one of the city’s largest street markets, built a thousand years ago to serve the new Arab overlords. Since then it has been a favorite with everyone from families to princes to pirates and has sustained generations of pickpockets. These days Capo has reinvented itself as “a bustling agri-food trading hub,” catering to tourists as well as locals. There’s constant hubbub. Vendors shout out their wares, delivery boys whistle and sing, bands play, fireworks explode (mostly at night, but on Sunday at 9 am) (nope, no idea why), weddings are celebrated, religious statues are carried through, and astonishing amounts of fresh produce and street food change hands. I love the sprawling, shouting, chaotic vitality, and so did Sicily’s renowned artist Renato Guttuso. He painted another old Palermo street market La Vucciria so vividly that it is now among the most beloved works of art on the island.  Renato Guttuso's 1974 painting, La Vucciria, captures the colorful chaos of the city's markets. I was determined to see Guttuso’s painting, now displayed in the 14th century Steri Palace. We went there the first morning, right after our croissants, and I was slightly dismayed to discover viewing the painting could only be done in the context of a gruesome guided tour of an Inquisition prison. The building housing the prison, the painting, and a few other random artifacts started out as home to Palermo’s nobility; 200 years later it was surrendered to the Spanish when they became Sicily’s newest overlords. As this happened during the Inquisition, the palace was soon filled with prisoners who created elaborate graffiti using scrapings from terra cotta floor tiles and their own bodily fluids. (You do not want to know the details.) Eventually everyone in those cells was executed in the palace’s front garden, on the spot now occupied by the Strangler Tree, said to have grown to its enormous proportion thanks to all the blood soaked into the soil. Yes, eventually I saw Guttuso’s painting, which was marvelous, but emerging into the sunlight of late morning, I realized the grisly tour had left me a bit demoralized. Rich said he knew just what I needed to recombobulate: brioche con gelato. Apparently it's typically eaten as a second breakfast. The day proved typical of our time here in Palermo: the delightful, the delicious, and the deeply disturbing all jostling for attention. On the positive side I reconnected with a bookseller I’d met during a brief visit here in 2016. Retired accountant Pietro Tramonte presides over the Biblioteca Privata Itinerante (Private Traveling Library), a warren of 75,000 books in a back alley near the marina. For those who love to read, he says, “the paper material is like cheese on macaroni.” I showed him the photo of us from seven years ago, and he was delighted, posing for more pictures and then taking us out for coffee. Another wonderful experience was lunch with a Palermo couple in their home, arranged through EatWith. Piera and her husband Rino gave us a warm welcome and platters of scrumptious food. Soon all four of us were talking at once, waving our hands around for emphasis, and laughing together like vecchi amici (old friends). Inevitably, talk turned to one of the island’s most famous exports: the mafia. “More dangerous than ever,” said Rino. “They do not affect our days, our lives directly, but they are deep inside industry and government.” I’d heard about the anti-mafia movement, started in 2004, that included local businesses placing a sticker on their window to indicate their refusal to pay “pizzo,” extortion money. So far I have only seen one such sticker, and I can only assume everyone else who posted them now sleeps with the fishes.  Is it me, or does posting an anti-mafia window sticker seem like asking for trouble? To be fair, Palermo’s blood-curdling side was evident long before the mafia, as witnessed by the Cappuchin Catecombs. Here we found 8000 dead bodies hanging from the walls, hooks in their backs and a wire around their chest to keep them from toppling forward onto us. Many appeared to be screaming. Frankly, it was all I could do not to scream myself. The oldest were 17th century monks, some wearing heavy ropes of penance around their necks. In the 19th century it became fashionable for prosperous citizens to pay the Capuchins to place deceased relatives in the catacombs. Families would visit, dust the corpse, and replace any clothing that had rotted. They had to keep paying the Capuchins, and if they fell behind, the bodies would be removed and set aside until the account was paid up in full.  Not the most peaceful way to spend eternity. Photo: Juan Segal, Flicker “Sicily is a Nutters’ paradise,” a friend wrote to me some months ago, and boy, was she right. Palermo is eccentric, rich in history, and quirky in nature. I just love this ancient city. But in a few days, we’re off to another part of the island where, among other things, they claim to have an actual letter written by the Devil himself. More on that next week.  Ice cream: it's not just for breakfast anymore! Apparently you put vanilla ice cream through a potato ricer, add a strawberry topping that looks like tomato sauce, and buon appetito! Rich has already volunteered to be a taste tester. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR SUMMER 2023: CALIFORNIA SPRING 2023: SPAIN WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.
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 Rich and I give a little love to Uni, a seven-year-old German Shepherd whose owner lost his housing and couldn't keep the dog any more. No, we didn't adopt Uni, we just had the pleasure of hanging out with him awhile. “It was like being hit over the head with a baseball bat: This is what you’re going to do,” says Alice Mayn. Naturally this staggering epiphany came when she least expected it. “I had retired. I was living in a house that I had remodeled and was going to live in the rest of my life. My young grandchildren were right down the road from me. I was never going to move again. Then Lily comes into my life.” Lily just wanted a little peace and comfort in her old age (don’t we all?). Instead, she was found wandering the streets of Santa Rosa, California with no place to call home. As a golden retriever, Lily couldn’t share details of her backstory, but she had a host of pesky health problems that suggested she’d been alone for a while. She went to a shelter but was still at risk; sadly, senior dogs are often the first casualties of an overburdened system. When Alice fell for Lily’s sweet charm and took her home, no doubt the dog could hardly believe her luck.  Lily's favorite retreat was always a siesta in the tub. Lily enjoyed four contented months before succumbing to a fatal blood disorder. But according to Alice, Lily’s work wasn’t finished. “She had an agenda for me.” That agenda — Alice’s new mission in life — was establishing a sanctuary for other hard-to adopt, at-risk, large, senior dogs. Fifteen years later, thanks to generous donors and a team of 75 selfless volunteers, Lily’s Legacy sits on a five-acre ranch with room to run, a canine swimming pool, and a barn where old dogs get a daily cuddle, letting them know they are not forgotten, marginalized, or invisible. They are loved. I was in Seville when I first read about this “Cuddle Club” just before Christmas of 2019. When I realized it was located in Petaluma, just half an hour from our cottage in California, I printed their flier and gave it to Rich, with the words “We are doing this!” scrawled across the top. But before we could act on the plan, the world was upended by the pandemic. It wasn’t until last Sunday — three and a half years later — that we finally made it to Lily’s, sat on those comfy sofas, and scratched some of those sweet old dogs behind the ears. They are all great dogs, carefully vetted to make sure their personalities and temperaments will mesh comfortably with the rest of the pack. There are typically ten to twelve dogs in residence and a few fostered; all are larger animals (50+ pounds) older than 7 years. After some vet care and TLC, around 85% of them get adopted to a “furever” home, and the rest live out their days at Lily’s. Alice’s mission keeps expanding; she launched Saving Senior Dogs Week USA and the Lifetime Care Program that guarantees your dog will have a home at Lily’s after your demise. I know, estate planning for dogs; who knew? I explained to Alice this visit marked the final chapter in this summer’s Nutters’ Tour of California. “I don’t mean to imply you’re a nutter,” I added hastily. “Rich and I are very clear that we’re the nutters, exploring the world in our own eccentric way.” She laughed. “Oh, I’m a nutter all right.” Glancing around her office, filled with dog beds, canine memorabilia, and the large, lovable Uni, she grinned. It was clear she wouldn’t have it any other way.  Alice in her office at Lily's Legacy Rich and I are leaving California next week, and my view of life here is already taking on a warm, nostalgic glow. Rich keeps reminding me of all the stuff I won’t miss. The chaos caused by two water main breaks this month, causing flooding and endless repairs on our street. The recent energy blackouts disrupting our lives. The neighborhood firebug who has twice started towering blazes in the middle of the night on a property adjacent to ours.  The first fire took out part of the fence, the second melted trash bins and scorched the branches of trees. Well, yes, there’s all of that. But most of the time it’s been a great, fun-filled summer. I’ll miss our CA companions — human, furred, and feathered. Every morning Rich and I sit in the garden and have breakfast with the birds. They are messy eaters, and we keep a birdbath underneath the feeder to catch the inevitable spilled sunflower seeds. This spring, the squirrel we call Peanut discovered this treasure trove of easy eats, and for months he’s been gorging himself. In fact, he’s grown so stout I began worrying about his mobility and his cholesterol. When he disappeared for a while, I wondered if he was off having his stomach stapled or visiting a health spa, but he recently returned, hefty as ever, to resume his favorite position.  Peanut and his appetite are back! When I told my sister-in-law we were glad he’d come to no harm, she gave me an incredulous look. “You’re feeling nostalgic about Peanut?” she asked. “Squirrels are just rats with better PR.” “I won’t tell him you said that,” I replied. Right now my main preoccupation is packing for the five-week Nutters’ Tour of Sicily we're taking before returning to Seville. Rich has devoted the last month researching ever-smaller suitcases. As a packing minimalist, his preference would be to hop on every plane or train carrying nothing but a toothbrush and a passport.  It took Rich 20 years to convince me to try luggage-free travel. It's great fun for short trips, but for anything over a week I require a few more creature comforts than I can stuff in my pockets and purse. Rich is not the only one with a “less is more” attitude toward luggage these days. To promote more sustainable travel, Japan Airlines is testing a clothing-sharing program called “Any Wear, Anywhere.” You pack the bare necessities and find pre-worn (but clean!) rental clothing waiting at your hotel. European ski resorts are pioneering similar programs. To be honest, I’m having a hard time warming to the idea. Will these rented clothes fit comfortably, let alone express my personality and tastes? Somehow I doubt it.  As we’re not heading to Japan or an Alpine ski lodge, we couldn't rent a travel wardrobe even if we wanted to. So two weeks ago we bought trim new four-wheel suitcases, just 22 x 14 x 9 inches. I’m happy to report I’ve done a successful test pack, fitting in everything shown below. (I always get questions about brands and details, so I’ve linked to some new discoveries for those who are interested. As my regular readers know, there are no paid promotions on this blog.) My Minimalist Packing List for Sicily Suitcase: 4.6 pounds, 22 x 14 x 9 inches Featherweight travel vest 2 pairs trousers 2 short-sleeved t-shirts 1 sleeveless t-shirt Button-down no-iron dress shirt Sweater Light rain jacket, detachable hood Yoga pants for PJs and exercise Sundress Socks & underwear Espadrilles Slippers Toiletry kit Kindle  Another reason I never check bags. Meanwhile, I’m busy researching Sicily. My friends, this is one nutty island. Rich was ecstatic to learn they serve ice cream with brioche for breakfast. I’m fine with the ice cream but a bit worried about the brioche. Turns out the Sicilians say, “If you drop even a single crumb, there is a place reserved in purgatory where you are doomed to pick up breadcrumbs with your eyelashes for hundreds of years.” Yikes! Here’s hoping I don’t find myself in God’s doghouse, collecting crumbs for eternity. “Buckle up,” I told Rich. “It’s going to be a wild ride.”  "Ice cream for breakfast?" said Rich. "I think we owe it to your readers to try it." Watch this blog for more on this topic! I'll be On the Road, So No Posts for a Week or Two After that, my schedule may be erratic, by I promise to keep you informed of all the oddball things I find Palermo and the rest of Sicily. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR SUMMER 2023: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA At Last! We Finally Visit the Cuddle Barn (Senior Dog Rescue) The Accordion Is Hip Again. Yes, It Is! (Cotati) Boonville: A Town So Remote It Has Its Own Language (Anderson Valley) Can't Stop the Madness, But Let's Slow It Down a Bit (Thrift Shops) It's Only a Movie. Or Is It? (Bodega Bay) Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings) Please, Please, Please Don't Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo) Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books? (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  "If I had been sitting on a chair, wearing black pants, some old shoes, a white shirt, and an uncovered accordion just playing polkas, I wouldn’t have lasted," said The Great Morgani (aka Frank Lima), shown here at the Cotati Accordion Festival. "People want to see the spectacle.” I once got into a hot dispute with an accordionist, and it didn’t end well. Around the time of our tenth anniversary, Rich and I often went dancing in a small club in Cleveland’s Little Italy, where local bands played ballads made popular by Rat Pack crooners. On a whim, we hired their best band — accordion and all — to play at our anniversary party. A few weeks before the festivities, we dropped in to listen to the band only to discover, to our horror, that the accordion player had made his new girlfriend lead vocalist, and her screechy voice had caused the rest of the band to walk out. We couldn’t inflict the girlfriend’s ghastly voice on our guests, but the accordion player refused to take “You’re fired” seriously, insisting he’d show up and play, refusing to return our hefty deposit. What to do? A Sicilian-American friend said, “What you need is a fifty-dollar man.” “What’s that?” asked Rich. “What instrument does he play?” “The accordion.” “Well, he’s going to have a hard time playing the accordion with ten broken fingers.” Yikes! “For five dollars,” asked Rich, “will he just break the keys of the accordion?”  Accordions are hand-made instruments ranging from $600 to $6000 and up. Not to keep you in suspense, we didn’t hire a fifty-dollar man to harm man nor instrument. We let the musician keep the deposit, figuring that having to perform with his no-talent girlfriend was punishment enough for his sins. To my surprise, few of my guests seemed sorry to hear there would be no accordion music at the festivities. It seems the instrument isn’t universally held in high esteem. “A gentleman,” remarked Tom Waits, “is someone who can play the accordion but doesn’t.” Ambrose Bierce called it “an instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.” My brother Mike, a jazz musician, says, “In heaven they play harps. In Hell they play accordions.” General Norman Schwarzkopf weighed in with the remark, “Going to war without France is like hunting without an accordion.” Huh?  But the world didn’t always sneer at the box-shaped, bellows-driven instrument. In fact, when it burst on the scene in 1822 Berlin, it was quickly embraced with rapture in just about every nation and musical genre, finding its way into folk tunes, music hall numbers, classical compositions, and later jazz and pop. In America, its popularity peaked in the 1950s, in large part thanks to Dick “the Legend” Contino, the “Rudolph Valentino of the accordion.” Think the accordion can’t be sexy? I saw Dick Contino play one night at that club in Little Italy, and let me tell you, it was steamy stuff. He sported thick, wavy silver hair and a satin shirt which, as the first tune really began heating up, he suddenly ripped off and flung aside. This revealed a form-fitting sleeveless t-shirt and an abundance of chest hair; everyone leaned forward with baited breath, sure that he’d catch that hair in the accordion’s bellows. Of course, he never did, and pretty soon we forgot all about it as we lost ourselves in his passionate music. By the time he got to “Flight of the Bumblebee” his fingers were moving so fast they became a blur.  Dick "the Legend" Contino in performance, after ripping off his tear-away shirt It was rock ‘n roll that killed the accordion’s popularity. Suddenly the guitar was king, and the accordion was downgraded from cool to quaint. Oh sure, it cropped up in a few hit songs by the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan, but mostly it languished as a novelty, kept alive by old-school music venues and celebrations such as the Cotati Accordion Festival, which I attended this weekend. “I go every year,” said a women who’d danced at the festival despite a dislocated shoulder and mild concussion. “I always tell people how much fun it is. I say, ‘It’s really great. You should come too.” And they always say —” Here she imitated their condescending tone. “‘Uh, you go. And, uh, enjoy yourself.’” We both laughed. Because the Cotati Accordion Festival is a total hoot and her friends and family (like mine) had no idea how much fun they were missing. This was its 32nd year, and the festival has never been more popular, drawing dozens of top performers from around the world, a crowd of several thousand a day, and vendors selling everything from kettle corn to kitsch figurines. There was an ongoing musical jam session in one tent, a polka dance hall in another, a zydeco dance party at a nearby bar, and two stages filling the air with music guaranteed to make everyone smile and tap their feet. Are accordions finally making a comeback? Absolutely, says Canadian Martin Hergt, owner of Tempo Trend in Victoria, British Columbia. And it’s all thanks to a phenomena some are calling “the accordivirus,” a sudden outbreak of accordion fever that became highly contagious during the pandemic lockdown. “People were home,” he told me. “They pulled out their old accordions and started playing again. They ended up wanting lighter ones, or something different. Their kids started taking lessons. We got emails from all over the world. We’d never shipped so many accordions. And it’s still going strong.”  Martin Hergt says the pandemic may be over but "the accordivirus" (a sudden outbreak of accordion fever) is still going strong. In the early afternoon, all the female accordionists were invited onto the main stage to play “Lady of Spain,” the song that launched Dick Contino’s career, became a signature tune on the Lawrence Welk Show, and has been sung by everyone from Bing Crosby to the Muppets. The audience, sitting on hay bales, folding chairs, and the grass, cheered them on, and when they followed up with "Beer Barrel Polka," we all sang along. Yes, even Rich and I joined in; with a crowd that large, I figured no one would notice how off-tune we were. “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is,” said Rich. As the musicians packed away their instruments, an announcer from an adjacent stage said, “And now, presenting the annual Dick and Judy Contino Accordion Scholarship, we welcome Judy Contino.” My head whipped around. And there she was — the widow of “the Legend,” who passed on to the Great Music Stage in the Sky in 2017. Later I introduced myself and told her how much I loved her husband’s music. We agreed the festival was a great way to help keep accordion music, and his memory, fresh.  I was lucky enough to meet Judy Contino at the Cotati Accordion Festival 2023. So OK, I’ll admit the accordion may never again be mega-hip. It won’t garner lavish praise from music critics at Rolling Stone, Billboard, or Mojo. Fashionistas won’t have themselves photographed holding one in an amusingly provocative manner. And even if they read this post, my family and friends will not speak in awe and envy of my good fortune in attending this year's Cotati Accordion Festival. But I know what it’s like to sit on the grass, belt out an old favorite tune with thousands of other voices raised with mine, and embrace the whimsical, cheerful world of accordion music. And that’s hip enough for me.  In the end, it's all about how the music makes you feel. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA The Accordion Is Hip Again. Yes, It Is! (Cotati) Boonville: A Town So Remote It Has Its Own Language (Anderson Valley) Can't Stop the Madness, But Let's Slow It Down a Bit (Thrift Shops) It's Only a Movie. Or Is It? (Bodega Bay) Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings) Please, Please, Please Don't Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo) Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books? (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Every year during our family reunion, Rich and I visit the stump of a 280-foot, 1244-year-old giant sequoia, so large the top was once used as a dance floor. “If you write about this on your blog,” my sister said, “be sure to tell them your family thinks you’re nuts.” Over the phone, I could practically hear her eyes rolling. “Oh, I’m pretty sure my readers have already worked that out for themselves,” I replied. I’d answered the call during my visit to the Haggin Museum in downtown Stockton, one of California’s least popular cities. Oh sure, it had enjoyed some glory years, when its San Joaquin River served as a major inland seaport for the Gold Rush and later when Benjamin Holt invented the Caterpillar tractor there. But in modern times, the city has distinguished itself by spectacularly high rates of crime, illiteracy, and obesity, fiscal mismanagement sparking a notorious bankruptcy, and consistently being ranked as one of the most dangerous and miserable cities in America. “So you’re exploring Stockton’s museum scene.” This was my brother-in-law; apparently they were on speakerphone. “Only you two…” But Rich and I were having a blast. The visit started out as an excuse to stretch our legs and grab some lunch halfway along the three-hour journey from our cottage near San Francisco to the family reunion in the Sierra mountains. Rich claims he thought we were going to the Haggis Museum to view prime examples of Scotland's famous dish made of offal (animal guts, heart, liver, and lungs) mixed with suet and oatmeal then cooked inside a sheep’s stomach. Yes, I’ve had it, and it’s just as yummy as it sounds.  In January of 2013, Rich was invited to preside over a Burns dinner, reciting a traditional poem by Robert Burns that concludes with stabbing the haggis, which you see on the table before him. You can imagine how relieved Rich was to learn we were visiting an art and local history museum named for a long-ago big-wig. Arriving at the Haggin Museum, it didn’t take us long to realize we’d stumbled on something extraordinary. The art was spectacular — one painting had hung in the White House — and the lively history section included the ghoulish exhibit of a wooden trunk in which a woman had stashed the body of an inconvenient third husband. An unusual and quirky touch was provided by signs and pamphlets inviting us to consider life’s Big Questions — not hard to do after looking at the blood-soaked trunk of a murderess. (More about that later.)  Ronald Reagan borrowed this work, Albert Bierstadt's."Looking Up Yosemite Valley," to hang in the White House press room. Stockton’s early good fortune included acquiring art during the nineteenth century, when artists devoted whole careers to capturing the majesty and romance of America’s vast landscapes and demonstrating how well man and nature were co-existing. Their style, known as the Hudson River School, soon carried them from the East Coast to the Golden State, where each new painting seemed to shout, “Think the Hudson Valley is cool? Wait till you see Yosemite!” Ronald Reagan borrowed the Haggin’s “Looking up Yosemite Valley” for the White House press room to glamorize his California roots. You can’t really view these landscapes without hearing a glorious swell of symphony music in your head. But the Haggin curators didn’t stop there. Next to Ralph Albert Blakelock’s “The Canoe,” a small sign asked, “What does being alone feel like to you?” Beside Albert Bierstadt’s “Moose” I read, “What do you remember about the first time you saw a wild animal?” Pamphlets invited us to continue our inner journey via self-guided tours with themes such as “Joy” and “Calm.” The one on “Empowerment” advises you to try “walking through this world confident in your strength as well as your vulnerabilities. It is, after all, the sum of the two that renders us human.” Grand philosophical thoughts, indeed. Every museum is designed to tell us something about what it means to be human, and the Haggin offers many perspectives, from fresh-faced kids shown in early Kellogg ads to Mississippi blues legends to Stockton’s entrepreneurs. Museums also remind us how attitudes change over time. In 1911, the main concern about J. C. Leyendecker’s Cooper Underwear ad was showing the clinging garment while avoiding any hint of the male anatomy beneath. Apparently the homoerotic pose of the artist’s long-time partner/model, shown slipping out of a gorgeous robe, didn’t raise any eyebrows.  The model for this 1911 Cooper Underwear ad was Charles Beach. He and the artist J.C. Leyendecker were a couple for almost 50 years. And then, of course, there was the famous trunk of bigamist and murderess Emma LeDoux. It seems that in 1905 Emma found herself with an embarrassing excess of husbands. Her first marriage had ended in divorce, her second husband died of a suspicious “gastroenteritis,” and after separating from her third, she married Number 4. Growing concerned Number 3 might make things awkward, she poisoned him and stuffed him, still living, into a trunk which she paid someone to deliver to the train depot for shipment to another town. Unfortunately for the plan, she forgot to affix the address label (oops!), and the trunk sat around until the smell alerted authorities something dodgy was going on.  If Emma LeDoux poisoned Albert McVickar, what caused all the grisly bloodstains? Apparently as he was dying of poison in the trunk, the poor guy got a nosebleed from the rough handling during transport to the train station. Anyway, my point — and you suspected I’d get around to one eventually, didn’t you? — is that fascinating museums lurk in the most unlikely places. Here in California I’ve spent many happy hours exploring such offbeat gems as the Bigfoot Discovery Museum, the Museum of International Propaganda, and the tribute to Rosie the Riveter. Every year during the family reunion, I visit the 6,500-acre Calaveras Big Trees State Park, a living museum preserving some of the world’s biggest, oldest trees. It was discovered during the Gold Rush, when a hunter, hired to keep prospectors fed, was chasing a wounded grizzly (some say the bear was chasing him) when he stumbled upon a grove of giant sequoias. The grandest was 280 feet tall and 1,244 years old, and once word got out, it wasn’t long before men decided to destroy it. They peeled off the bark to be reassembled as a cash-generating public spectacle. This killed the tree, so they cut it down and made a dance floor on the stump and a bowling alley inside the trunk. The wanton destruction became a rallying cry for conservation, resulting in the park. I’ve found there are offbeat gems everywhere, often the work of some fanatical collector, mad genius, or quirk of history. Kaunas, Lithuania, for instance, has both the Devil’s Museum and the Atomic Bunker Museum. Prague offers the suitably gloomy and paranoid KGB Museum, the surprisingly charming Museum of Communism, the surreal Kafka Museum, and the 46 outfits worn by the famous Infant Jesus of Prague statue upstairs in the Church of Our Lady Victorious. Zagreb, Croatia is home to the unforgettable Museum of Broken Relationships. The list goes on and on. So if you like unusual entertainment, take a look around wherever you live as well as anyplace you may travel. I’ve discovered ChatGPT literally doesn’t know how to search for quirky stuff, so use Google to burrow down past the “top five museums everyone must see” to more obscure offerings. You’ll soon discover the peculiar charms of something wholly original. Be curious and persistent. And above all, ignore the snarky remarks from family and friends who have not yet embraced the idea of traveling like a nutter. I can't believe those Hudson River School painters never captured a heartwarming nature scene like this! At our family reunion, a mother bear and three cubs took matters into their own paws and broke into the "bearproof" garbage box to enjoy a picnic of leftovers. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Boonville: A Town So Remote It Has Its Own Language (Anderson Valley) Can't Stop the Madness, But Let's Slow It Down a Bit (Thrift Shops) It's Only a Movie. Or Is It? (Bodega Bay) Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings) Please, Please, Please Don't Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo) Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books? (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  How remote is this valley? Legends say a colony of antlered bears make it their home. So far I haven't seen one in the wild. but I keep looking. “And that’s when my Uncle Leo shot the man who killed my grandpa,” Linda concluded. And I thought, “Wow, now that’s what I call a story!” My own kinsfolk have a remarkable flair for melodrama, and I was raised on rip-roaring family tales, many of which may even be true. A few of the more plausible and respectable anecdotes have found their way into this blog, but most can’t be made public until the statute of limitations runs out and/or the main protagonists have passed over to the Great Beyond. My point is: it’s not often I find someone with family stories that blow mine out of the water. My hat was off to Linda. Big time. “It’s a story known throughout the valley,” Linda added, and there are 100 years of newspaper accounts to back her up. The valley in question is Anderson Valley, a sparsely populated rural area of Mendocino County about 100 miles north of San Francisco. Linda was staffing the Anderson Valley Historical Museum on Saturday when Rich and I stopped by, and it didn’t take much coaxing to get her to reminisce about the old days, when this really was the Wild West.  Sheep rancher Kate Mailliard. Photo: Anderson Valley Historical Museum “My grandfather was murdered in 1922," said Linda. "For generations my family, the Crispins, had held a right of way through the Haines land; it was the only way we could get down off the mountain to the main road. John Haines objected, and he and my grandfather fought over it for years.” The cantankerous Haines installed log gates so heavy they required two people and considerable time to open. Ike Crispin received legal advice that he had the right to replace the gates with something more standard and manageable, and he started doing so, assisted by his wife and her brother. “Haines rode up on his horse with a rifle and shot my grandpa,” Linda told me. “The bullet went right through his watch pocket. He was waving his rifle around, and my aunt Hazel, who was just a tiny little woman, jumped up and grabbed it.” Hazel and Haines struggled over the weapon until he knocked her to the ground. “And that’s when my Uncle Leo shot the man who killed my grandpa.” Two men lay dead but no arrests were made. Everyone had seen this coming for years. The coroner (a Crispin) was never called. The sheriff agreed Leo Batt had acted to defend himself and his sister from the enraged Haines. Case closed. But not forgotten. “Haines-crispin” came to mean a blood feud or shootout in the peculiar local “language” of Boontling, the linguistic curiosity that had drawn me to Anderson Valley in the first place.  A beer mat from Anderson Valley Brewing Company written in Boontling. Back in the nineteenth century, the thousand people living in this isolated valley amused themselves by developing a slang that enriched their everyday talk and baffled outsiders. Here’s a conversation NPR recorded in 2015, between Wes Smoot and David Knight. Smoot: "You've been boshin'?" Knight: "Just a slib." Smoot: "You get a granny hatchet?" Knight: "Nope. ... Mostly just gormin' and horse shoes." Translation: Have you been deer hunting? Yes, but only a little. Bagged one yet? Nope … mostly I’ve just been eating barbecue and playing horse shoes. Smoot told NPR, "Strangers come in on the weekends, you know, metropolitan people, and they'd sit down. And we'd sit there and talk about them, things that would normally get your face slapped pretty bad. And they were just grinning at you, and they had no idea what we was talking about, you know. And that, to me, is a lot of fun."  Linda (right) and her daughter Melanie are fifth and sixth generation Anderson Valley residents and descendants of Ike Crispin. I asked Linda if she spoke Boontling. “No, my mother was a schoolteacher and she thought it was a bunch of hogwash. My husband spoke it; he was a year ahead of me in school, and they taught a class in it back then.” Technically, Boontling isn’t a language, just 1600 slang words woven into English. The name is derived from Boonville, the southernmost town in the valley, named for W.W. Boone, second cousin to Daniel Boone. Just about everyone in Anderson Valley was fluent in Boontling from 1890 to the 1920s. They say locals who joined the service during WWI could barely understand English. Boontling's popularity began to wane, then in the 1960s, scholars and the media got wind of it, attracting international and local interest. Today, only a handful of greybs (greybeards, old men) still harp a slib of the ling (speak a little of the language). I love the Boontling story and was charmed to discover that the legacy lives on, if largely in the museum, a raft of books, news clips, and the Anderson Valley Brewing Company. Brewmaster Fal Allenis gives his beer Boontling monikers such as Hop Ottin’. (Ot means hard-working; it’s derived from otto, a reference the mighty Scandinavian loggers of yore.) Here’s Fal harpin' tidrick (having a chat) with a customer in Boontling. Living in two languages myself, I’ve discovered how revealing words can be about a culture. For instance, the Spanish term la madrugada means the small hours of the morning, generally from midnight to dawn. One day I asked my Spanish teacher why I often saw older men in cafés knocking back a glass of anise liqueur at 9:00 am, and she said, “When a man has to get up in the madrugada to work, he must reanimate himself.” Apparently in the stay-up-all-night, late-rising city of Seville, madrugada extends until after 9:00. Possibly until 11:00. Or noon. Words can also conceal our thoughts from the rest of the world. Like Wes Smoot, Rich and I used to enjoy linguistic invisibility in Seville. But now that practically everyone around us is studying English to cope with the influx of tourists, we have to watch ourselves in public places. No more holding intensely personal conversations or making snarky remarks about others assuming no one will understand us.  In Seville, breakfast is typically served in a fully stocked bar, just in case you need to reanimate yourself with a morning liqueur. As the residents of Anderson Valley realized in the nineteenth century, all languages are constantly in flux. Many Boontling words came from people’s names, such as zeese, from Zachariah Clifton’s initials. ZC was the coffee brewer on hunting expeditions, creating coffee “strong enough to float an egg,” especially on the last day, when he’d use up his entire remaining supply. Yowser! And that’s no wess (exaggeration, named for a chronic fibber).  Only in Anderson Valley... There are 7,117 official languages on the planet, and 18 of them are down to a single speaker. On a somewhat more hopeful note, English dictionaries add hundreds of new words every year. Recent additions include cakeage (charging customers for bringing a cake into a restaurant), rage farming (making inflammatory political remarks), petfluencer (posting images of your animal companion to gain social media followers), and meatspace (the physical world, as opposed to cyberspace). (Yes, we need a term for that now.) The West may not be quite as wild as it once was, but our language gets more vivid every day. If you’ve discovered any intriguing or oddball words —new, old, Boontling, or otherwise — it would be bahl (great) if you'd share them in the comments below.  Boonville also has wineries, and as a service to my readers, I checked out the Navarro Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc. Delightful! On the Road Again; No Post Next Week I'm heading off to a family reunion in the mountains, in a cabin that's off the grid, without wifi, TV, or other devices. (Yes, don't worry, there's running water and a generator for basic electricity.) So I won't be posting next week, but I plan to be back after that with all sorts of new, fun stuff. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Can't Stop the Madness, But Let's Slow It Down a Bit (Thrift Shops) It's Only a Movie. Or Is It? (Bodega Bay) Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings) Please, Please, Please Don't Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo) Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books? (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Michaela prefers slow fashion and vintage clothes to the cookie-cutter disposables flogged by corporations. I say amen to that! “Don’t tell me life doesn’t begin at eighty,” said the octogenarian who had just returned from her honeymoon. She looked jaunty and radiant, and her equally venerable new husband had a distinct twinkle in his eye as he nodded in agreement. I always love seeing newlyweds embracing the future with such visible joy. True, they don’t know how many years they might have ahead of them. But then, does anyone? Living in a society obsessed with youth, novelty, and cutting-edge technology, I take tremendous pleasure in people, places, and things with a very long past. It’s one of the reasons I can never resist vintage shops, flea markets, and garage sales; for me, they’re treasure hunts, not just because I find cool and unusual stuff at bargain prices, but because they evoke so many memories and constantly tickle my funny bone. A decorator friend who has puzzled over my house for years recently had an epiphany. “I know what your style is,” she announced triumphantly. “It’s whimsical!” Yep, she's right. They say your home reflects your innermost being, so apparently my quirkiness isn’t skin deep but goes to the very depths of my soul.  Practically everything in my living room has a long and colorful history. My collection of pre-owned, pre-loved stuff includes some vintage clothes I’ll wear until they fall to pieces. The pace of modern life is so rapid, with such constant change, it’s nice to slow something down, if only the turnover in my closet. Luckily I’m not alone in this attitude. Thrifting (as it’s now called) has become a $28 billion industry, and some second-hand clothing retailers predict that by 2029 it’s going to eclipse fast fashion — although that may be more aspirational than realistic. Still, I’m delighted to know that lots of young people are choosing clothes with a past over the cookie-cutter disposables flogged by corporations. I met one young enthusiast last Thursday when we were both browsing through vintage clothes at Shoffeitt’s Off the Square Collective in Healdsburg. Michaela told me she’d been hooked from early childhood, when her mother used to take her on expeditions to second-hand shops, searching for stand-out clothes. “The quality is so much better. They’ve already lasted a long time. If you’re wearing fast fashion everyone’s already seen it before. It’s fun to be unique. I definitely get the most compliments when I thrift it.” She added, “Fast fashion is always a little behind on trends. Fashion goes in circles, and I like to predict what's coming and get ahead of it. When [a style] is everywhere, that’s when fast fashion starts to put it out there.” Just how fast is fashion these days? A few years ago everyone was dazzled by the Spanish chain Zara; their designers could see something on a high-end runway and get cheap knock-offs into shops in just three weeks. Now they’ve been blown out of the water by the Chinese juggernaut, SHEIN (pronounced she-in), which does it all in just three days. SHEIN produces small batches — only 50 to 100 pieces per new product — and goes for volume, delivering up to a million new products a day via online sales. No wonder it became a $100 billion company in just 14 years. Of course, SHEIN has pesky little issues with quality control, trademark disputes, and allegations of human rights violations, slippery tax practices, and health and safety issues. And there was a lot of blowback when people noticed they were selling a necklace with a swastika on it, which SHIEN insisted was a Buddhist religious symbol that had nothing to do with Nazis. (Yeah, right.) The necklace was pulled offline, the controversy died down, and everyone went on shopping. Because cheap, trendy clothes are irresistible to most consumers.  At the Atelier Constance, an artisanal cobbler in Montmartre, Jerôme Voisin repairs footwear the old fashioned way, as his father taught him. The French — long time leaders of the fashion industry — have come up with their own novel solution: subsidizing the repair of clothing and shoes. The idea is to encourage citizens to hold on to decent stuff rather than replace it with junk. A private company is spearheading the project, offering reductions on repair bills of $7 to $28 per item in an effort to stem the flood of discards. With 92 million tons of garments winding up in the world’s landfills each year, the UN is predicting fashion will soon become the second most polluting industry in the world. While there’s clearly some moral satisfaction to be gained by shopping for second-hand goods, for me it’s mostly about fun. Rich and I have spent countless hours at the monthly Alameda flea market (officially it’s the Alameda Point Antiques Faire, but nobody calls it that). There are more than 800 stalls, each quirkier than the last. Outrageous furniture. Eccentric art. Gorgeous clothes you can try on and imagine yourself wearing in another life or parallel universe. Casts of footprints they claim are Bigfoot’s. And countless other oddities you won’t find anywhere else. Including laughter. A kid once set up a chair at the Alameda flea market and offered snippets of humor for 25 cents. Yes, of course, I immediately dug out a quarter and handed it to him. This was many years ago, and I can no longer quite recall which of my favorite puns came from him that day. It might have been “I checked out a book on anti-gravity. I can’t put it down.” Or maybe he said, “I thought about putting an observatory in my house, but the cost was astronomical.” Possibly it was something else altogether. Whatever it was, Rich and I spent the rest of the day chuckling over it. Best quarter I’d spent in a long time. “What’s past is prologue,” William Shakespeare famously wrote in 1611, and (underscoring his point) those words remain equally true today. Everything that has ever taken place, from the Big Bang onward, has been the run-up to this very moment. It all provides the context in which we understand our lives and make decisions, large and small, that will define our collective future. We have much to learn from the past. “The best qualification of a prophet,” the Marquis of Halifax once remarked, “is to have a good memory.” Being around ancient objects helps me keep that in perspective. The oldest thing in my home is the fossil of a seven-inch mollusk called a cephalopod; I found it one day on the edge of the creek that ran through the woods beside our house in Ohio. The fossil is around 300 to 400 million years old. It’s small, flat rock that somehow remained intact through the appearance of amphibians, mammals, and birds, the disappearance of the last dinosaurs, and the rise of humans. Eventually it drifted out of a drying lakebed, tumbled about in various rivers and streams, and finally wedged itself into a pile of rocks, where I happened to spot it on a walk. The improbability of its survival is breathtaking. And I take comfort from that. That fossil, and all the other venerable people, places, and things I encounter, make it clear that life is unpredictable, and that sometimes, we’re just lucky enough to beat the odds.  As an added bonus, every time I look at this 400 million year old cephalopod, I feel so youthful! JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA It's Only a Movie. Or Is It? (Bodega Bay) Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings) Please, Please, Please Don't Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo) Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. 
What can we learn from Hitchcock's The Birds and other films that make us shiver? Photo: Jamie Farrell, staff writer, Secret San Francisco
So tell me, what’s the scariest movie you ever saw? Rich still talks about Alien. “I had no idea what the movie was about,” he says. “I bought a box of Milk Duds and never ate a single one. I clutched that candy so hard that by the end it was just a mangled lump.” For me, it’s The Exorcist; just hearing the theme music makes me start hyperventilating. Everybody has a movie memory that makes them shiver and wonder whether they should sleep with the lights on tonight. Alfred Hitchcock gleefully claimed he gave audiences pleasure — “The same pleasure they get when waking up from a nightmare.” When a moviegoer complained to him that Janet Leigh’s death scene in Psycho left her daughter too traumatized to use a shower, he was unrepentant, saying, “Then, Madam, I suggest you have her dry cleaned.” 
When Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho came out in 1960, its "no late admissions" policy heightened the sense of drama.
Like that moviegoer's daughter, I grew up traumatized by Hitchcock classics. So you can imagine my sentiments when Rich and I began discussing a birdwatching expedition to Bodega Bay, where Hitchcock filmed The Birds. Yes, the one where our feathered friends mass for an attack on humanity, and Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor have to take time out from their mating dance to fight back. Not very successfully. Bodega Bay is a famous spot for birdwatching — Rich’s latest hobby — so I wanted to be a good sport about the outing. And after all, The Birds was just a movie. Pure fiction. Right? Wrong. 
This week, I discovered the movie was based on actual events. Yes, it was partly inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s fantasy about avian mayhem, but it was also based on the very real sooty shearwaters incident in Capitola, 100 miles south of Bodega Bay. There, on August 18, 1961, at 3:00 in the morning, thousands of shrieking birds began raining down from the sky. “Struggling to the door, I was awed at the sight of hundreds of birds — all with the cry of a baby,” recalled Edna Messini, proprietor of Capitola’s Venetian Court Motel. “They were heavy with sardines unable to fly and lost in the dense fog as they came in from the sea attracted by our lights. They slammed against the building, [regurgitating] fish blood and knocking themselves out. Our manager phoned me, asked what to do? She knew it was the end of the world, panic set in, sure it was germ warfare.” Hitchcock immediately phoned the newspaper to get details of the story so he could work them into his plot. The reason the birds — known as sooty shearwaters — went so nuts remained a mystery until the 1990s, when tests revealed they had gorged on shellfish that had eaten a microalgae producing a toxin causing confusion, disorientation, seizures, and death. Yikes! Note to self: avoid eating shellfish in areas where birds are falling out of the sky or flying down your chimney. Luckily Rich and I never encountered any crazed sooty shearwaters on our birdwatching hike — that we know of. Frankly, as rank amateurs, we were rarely sure what we were seeing. Arriving in Bodega Bay, we ambled along the path — called, with more accuracy than originality, “Bird Walk” — enjoying the brisk air, colorful saltwater marsh, and glimpses of deer, rabbits, and various birds. Rich brought binoculars, a field guide, and an app that identifies all known avian species. Unfortunately, unless you’re fairly close, the app has difficulty distinguishing a perching bird from a clump of leaves, so it kept coming up blank. “But I can see the damn thing right there,” Rich growled at his iPhone, which wisely refused to engage further in the conversation. 
Rich and his bird-identification app didn't always see eye to eye.
Falling back on binoculars and his guide book, Rich identified a Vaux’s swift, a turkey vulture, a Brandt’s cormorant, some great blue herons, American white pelicans, snowy egrets, and western gulls. There might have been terns. There was definitely a row of grayish lumps standing on the far side of a distant pond. “I’m almost positive those are turkey vultures,” he said. “No, wait, I think they’re condors. Could be buzzards. Oh, I know, they’re pelicans. Yes, they’re pelicans for sure.” Later he positively identified them as herons. But hey, as long as they weren’t sooty shearwaters under the influence. One of the bird walk’s most charming features was a series of rustic wooden benches, each bearing a heartfelt tribute such as, “In loving memory to Jane Bidinger, better known as Mrs. B. This is her happy place.” There was also kind advice: “Rest your legs. Ease your mind. Celebrate this moment.” Was there an implied “because it could be your last if the birds come back” somewhere in there? I like to think not. Later we ate chowder on a breezy wharf, and as I wandered over to check out a wooden carving of a whale’s tail, Rich said, “Don’t look now, but I think the birds are massing behind you.” Glancing back I saw a dozen or so feathery forms silhouetted against the sun-flecked water. “Not that many,” I said. “I think we could take them on.” All the same, we left soon after. No point in tempting fate. 
Birds gather behind me on a wharf in Bodega Bay. What, me worry?
Why do scary stories claim such a firm grip on our imagination? For a start, they’re exciting, getting our adrenaline pumping while we’re safely ensconced in the comfort of our living room sofa. We know zombies aren’t really about to break down the door, so many of us — especially young people — enjoy the fizzing nerves and heightened awareness. Also, spooky films serve as dress rehearsals, teaching us the ropes so we feel better equipped to deal with actual emergencies that might arise someday. I often find myself calling out good advice to the clueless characters onscreen. When Taylor and Hedren finish boarding up the windows and gather everyone in the kitchen, I couldn’t believe they didn’t think to equip themselves with defensive weapons. “Grab a broom, you idiots! Don’t you have frying pan? A baseball bat? Anything?” When real life becomes as scary as Hitchcock’s imagination, these stories help us formulate a survival strategy. In 2020 Contagion became one of the most-watched films in America. Millions thought, “Oh, so that’s how you cope with this stuff.” One survey showed horror fans had less anxiety and greater resilience, finding enjoyment in life despite the catastrophe playing out across the globe. After reading the latest headlines, it helped to be able to turn to your lockdown companion and remark, “Hey, it could be worse. At least we haven't been kidnapped by aliens today!” 
In 1961 Betty and Barney Hill were (allegedly) kidnapped by aliens and taken to a space ship. Theirs was the first widely reported alien abduction story to hit the media. The rest is conspiracy-theory history.
Not all horror movies end with the good guys vanquishing evil and restoring order throughout the land. Like real life, these tales can leave us scratching our heads uneasily. At the end of The Birds, the survivors drive away surrounded by feathered hostiles; many view it as an allegory for humans' uneasy relationship with nature. If so, I’ve learned my lesson. Rich and I drove out of Bodega Bay and went directly home to fill our bird feeders. If the avian apocalypse ever comes, at least we'll have a few backyard songbirds on our side. 
Rich provides our songbirds with the high-priced sunflower seeds they really love. Buying their affection? Sure, why not? It may save our skins someday.
Postscript After I posted this, my friend and long-time reader Alicia Bay Laurel wrote a comment about living in Bodega Bay and designing a t-shirt for The Big Event with a theme of The Birds. She just sent me this delightful photo of her artwork: 
What a gem! She also sent this wonderful photo of a child's kite from the same event, with a Birds theme.
Thanks so much, Alicia, for sharing your memories and these great images!
JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Why I Spray-Painted My Shoes (Theme Weddings) Please, Please, Please Don't Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo) Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? SPRING 2023: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Necessity was the mother of a Google search that inspired this shoe makeover. Would you dress up as a comic book superhero to attend a wedding? Some friends of mine recently turned down a chance to do just that, and it got me thinking about all the loony ways modern couples try to give their Big Day an extra jolt of pizazz. Wearing zombie costumes. Getting married where they met, even if it’s the Costco frozen food aisle. Or (my personal favorite) having the bridesmaids hold puppies instead of bouquets. With two family weddings this summer, I was braced for anything: an alien abduction theme, instructions to dress like a StarWars storm trooper, or gathering at the new Taco Bell wedding chapel in Vegas. The invitations we got were somewhat less exotic. For the April wedding, held in the Sierras, Rich and I were to don “mountain formal” attire. “No problem,” I told Rich. “Just buy a buffalo plaid suit!”  Rich wasn't convinced this look was for him. The late June wedding involved a posh country club ceremony combining Jewish and Catholic traditions. One Irish grandmother was very keen to include the traditional "Ave Maria" but the kids balked. Incredibly, everyone ignored my suggestion to sing "Ave Maria" to the tune of "Hava Nagila." Go figure. I managed to pull together an outfit swanky enough for the country club, but it required silver shoes, and here’s where I hit a snag. I no longer wear high heels, which in my view is the most welcome perk of aging. But my collection of dressy flats included nothing in a color that was remotely suitable. Running around to shoe stores, I found every style so uncomfortable I could hardly kick them off fast enough. I kept staring into my closet hoping for a miracle. The best flats I owned were maroon — super comfy but hardly worn because the color was so awkward to work with. Why couldn’t they be silver? And that’s when it hit me. Why couldn’t they be silver?  After watching half a dozen video tutorials, I was sure I could do this! Consulting Google, I learned people spray-paint their shoes all the time. It’s fast, cheap, and no, the paint isn’t going to flake off onto the floor like the cloud following Pig Pen in the Peanuts cartoons. Consulting the crafts store staff, I bought specialty fabric spray paint they were confident would do the job. Unfortunately, these particular shoes had apparently been treated with some sort of stain repellant that resisted the spray color with all the vigor of a Victorian maiden spurning the unwanted advances of a drunken lecher. After six coats requiring three $16 cans, my shoes were a ghastly mottled grey-maroon. Time to employ the nuclear option. From the start, several bloggers had recommended Rust-Oleum, and a single $7 can turned my shoes a sparkling silver with plenty of paint left over. I offered to do Rich’s shoes as well, but for some reason he declined. As Rich, my silver shoes, and I headed to the wedding, our flight was delayed, and hanging around San Francisco's Terminal 2 we stumbled on an exhibition called Reflections … from the Unknown Museum. Back in the 1970s, a couple of screwball local artists, Mickey McGowan and Dickens “44” Bascom, started collecting iconic domestic objects, such as toys and lunchboxes, that reflected post-WWII American culture. The collection grew into the Unknown Museum, an ironic name as most people (at least of my generation) will instantly recognize practically everything displayed. Rich and I were having so much fun exploring the Unknown Museum that we almost missed our flight. I’m so glad we didn’t, as the wedding was tremendous fun. No, I’m not going to provide a lot of details or photos; amazingly enough, I’ve discovered not all my relatives, friends, and casual acquaintances are keen to have their personal lives laid bare in this blog. Like me, many of them didn’t grow up with Instagram and still retain quaint notions of privacy. But I will say that I love my new in-laws, laughed a lot, and thankfully did not leave a trail of Rust-Oleum flakes behind me on the dance floor. Afterwards, Rich and I talked a lot about connections — the ones that last a life time and those that come along seemingly at random, often leading to unexpected friendships and surprising outcomes. In fact, life is like one of those classic Rube Goldberg devices, the kind where one small move — such as lifting a spoon — pulls a string that jerks a ladle, which throws a cracker, making the toucan spring off its perch, sending seeds tumbling into a bucket, and after the cord, lighter, skyrocket, sickle, and string have all come into play, the pendulum eases the napkin across your chin to wipe up any dribbles. And you are ready for another sip of from the soup of life.  Rich, channeling the ghost of Rube Goldberg I took this picture of Rich at a Rube Goldberg exhibition we visited during our road trip. Goldberg was a Pulitzer-prize winning American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. He’s most famous for his cartoons, launched in the 1920s, depicting complicated gadgets designed to accomplish simple tasks in a series of indirect, impossibly convoluted moves. Today, some seem almost like premonitions of modern technology. As Rich and I attempted to operate some of the exhibition’s hands-on contraptions, I was struck all over again by the astonishing inventiveness of the human mind. Look at all the useful stuff we’ve come up with over the years: fire, the wheel, the Internet, duct tape. To say nothing of spray paint. Not everything has worked out so well for us (yes, climate change, I’m thinking of you). But even such time-wasting foolishness as Silly Putty, pet rocks, and Rube Goldberg’s gadgets have provided us with chuckles to lift our spirits and remind us it's fun to be alive. I chuckled a lot at the wedding, especially during the vows written by the young couple. Heartfelt, funny, moving; one minute they had us roaring, and then the bride and half the guests dissolved in tears. Afterwards, when I congratulated them on their beautiful words, the groom said, “Yeah, I kind of ran out of ideas at the end. So I used ChatGPT to finish it.” And the bride laughed and said, “Me too!”  We all take shortcuts that seem sensible at the time. “Things that look like shortcuts,” says author and tech guru Seth Godin, “are actually detours.” And as every traveler knows, detours are when things tend to get more interesting, taking us off the beaten path and down side streets filled with fresh possibilities. Sometimes the best way to get somewhere isn't to follow a straight line. Looking back, I’m so glad I was desperate enough to spray-paint those shoes. It's comforting to know that from now on I can always have perfectly color-coordinated footwear in the time it takes paint to dry. Would it have been easier just to buy a new pair of flats? Maybe. But then, this wouldn’t have been much of a blog post, would it?  OK, I have to admit, theme weddings do make the photos a bit more lively! JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Please, Please, Please Don't Ask Me to Sing Karaoke (San Anselmo) Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  I’m telling you this for your own good: Don’t ever hand me a microphone and encourage me to burst into song. “If your singing was a meal,” someone once told a would-be crooner, “it would be a burnt, undercooked TV dinner.” That about sums up my skill level in this arena. Think I’m exaggerating? Many years ago in Kobe, Japan, I went to a small karaoke bar with Rich and his Navy buddy Phil. After everyone else had contributed a song, each better than the last, eventually the microphone came around to us. As a nod to our Western roots, somebody dug out the lyrics to “Danny Boy.” A tune began playing that sounded nothing like any version of “Danny Boy” I’ve ever heard. Gamely, the three of us attempted to sing along, but it was pretty grim. When the music (I almost typed “torture”) stopped, I looked around and realized there was nobody left in the room but us and the staff. We had cleared the bar.  Truer words... So you may be wondering why, last Thursday, I suggested to Rich that we attend karaoke night at our local dive bar. He blanched a little. “Promise me we don’t have to get up sing.” “That’s a given,” I said. “We can listen to others, drink beer, and make snarky remarks among ourselves. As totally unmusical people, we can make this a great Nutters’ foray into one of California’s subcultures.” Professional that I am, I did my in-depth research — which is to say I skimmed the karaoke page on Wikipedia. It explained that in the 1960s, advances in recording technology made it easy to provide background music and a microphone for public sing-alongs. Japan led the way, creating the name from kara 空 "empty" and ōkesutora オーケストラ "orchestra.” Hmmm, not a very exciting a backstory.  What's new in karaoke technology? The Silent Karaoke gadget lets you practice at home without annoying the neighbors. Maybe AI had more to offer. What songs, I asked Bard and ChatGPT, might I expect to hear? Encouragingly, they listed many familiar tunes: "Dancing Queen," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Sweet Caroline," "I Wanna Dance with Somebody," and other classic wedding DJ stuff. OK, great, familiar ground. I noticed "Danny Boy" wasn’t mentioned; they probably retired that one after the hatchet job we did on it in Kobe. Bard also produced some personal advice: “Of course, there are many other great karaoke songs out there. The best song to sing at karaoke is the one that you enjoy the most and that you think you'll have the most fun singing. So don't be afraid to try something different and step outside of your comfort zone. You might just surprise yourself with how well you do.” Yeah, right. Or how badly. Bard, you have no idea what you’re messing with here! The singing was supposed to start at 10:00 pm, so Rich and I arrived at 9:30 to find a handful of middle-aged and older patrons who had clearly been holding up the bar since early afternoon. They knew what was coming, pulled themselves upright, and staggered out into the night.  This photo was taken on another occasion at that same bar. I can't be sure, but these look like the same folks who were there when we arrived Thursday night. Then the younger crowd began trickling in. A smartly dressed young man in a snappy white fedora, who went by the moniker Mad Hatter, began setting up sound equipment. More young people arrived, many of whom greeted the Mad Hatter as an old friend. And when I say “old,” of course I mean “of long-standing,” not “advanced in years.” By now I’d realized I was at least four decades older than most of the new arrivals. One kid named Stella was there celebrating her twenty-first birthday with her first legal drink. To give them credit, the youngsters were unfailingly polite to me and didn’t treat me as a downer sucking all the cool out of the evening (as I’d once felt during a gruesome InterNations meetup in Stockholm). Mostly the twenty-something twenty-somethings in the room were far too busy sipping cocktails and flirting with one another to pay attention to me. Or, somewhat more surprisingly, to the singers. In the movies, whenever someone picks up a microphone, everyone’s attention is riveted; the crowd listens raptly, perhaps chiming in on the chorus, perfectly on key and in harmony. Here the singers were pretty much ignored, and it didn’t take me long to figure out why. A few — most notably Andre, the bar’s bouncer — were brilliant, but most, to put it kindly, were less so. Egged on by their new best friends, that third vodka tonic, and possibly Bard’s advice, they had clearly decided, “Hell, yeah. No fear. Tonight I am stepping outside my comfort zone. I’m going for it.”  A brave woman gets up to belt out her favorite song. Yes, I wrote down the title. No, I couldn't read my handwriting the next day. “This is incredible,” I told Rich, shouting over a particularly screechy soprano. “With standards like this, you and I could get up and perform.” “No, we couldn’t,” he said firmly. “Don’t even think about it.” I didn’t recognize the first half-dozen songs, but then Cory got up to croon Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” That’s when it happened: people all along the bar — including me — began singing along. It wasn’t like in the movies; nobody could hear us over the din, and we weren’t exactly in tune, on beat, or, in some cases, still in any condition to read the lyrics off the screen correctly. But none of that mattered. Because the very act of singing, especially in a group, is not only fun but has profound mental and physical health benefits that last long after the Mad Hatter puts away his microphone. What benefits? Singing is like yoga for our respiratory and circulatory systems. It changes our breathing in ways that can reduce stress, stimulate the immune response, release feel-good endorphins, enhance memory, build lung capacity, reduce snoring, and on top of all that, make us feel part of something wonderful. “When you sing together with others,” says Healthline, “you’re likely to feel the same kind of camaraderie and bonding that players on sports teams experience.” I’m not doing a lot of team sports these days, so for me, it’s more like being in a crowded stadium at that electrifying moment when your team scores, and you and 10,000 other people leap to your feet, roaring as one.  Raising our voices together enables us to feel the warmth of connection with those around us, however different they might seem at first glance. That’s why it’s so popular at church gatherings, political rallies, birthday parties, and ball parks. Looking at the kids in that bar Thursday night, I clearly recalled how it felt to have that kind of bright-eyed wonder at being grown up enough to drink legally, flirt freely, and sing out loud in public. These are the kind of feel-good moments that remind us why life is worth all the effort it requires of us. I hope every one of those kids left the bar with a song in their heart that would last a lifetime — or at least beyond the next morning’s hangover.  Words of wisdom posted in the old Croll's Bar, Alameda, CA ON THE ROAD AGAIN Rich and I are heading off to a family wedding and a round of visits to friends and relatives. so I will not be posting on this blog for a week or two. I'll return with all new stories about America's Nutter culture, dive bars, and modern travel. Stay tuned! JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Keeping It Strange & Wonderful for Future Generations (Fairfax Festival) Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com And check out my best selling travel memoirs & guide books here. PLANNING A TRIP? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Is Fairfax the land that time forgot? Did we all just time travel back to the 1960s? “Are the aliens on their way now or are they already among us?” I asked with interest, pulling out my notebook. It’s not often I get to consult a true expert on intergalactic invaders, and I wanted answers. “Oh, they’re here,” said Justin, a member of the watch group Allies for Humanity. He sounded intelligent, calm, and remarkably plausible for a man whose t-shirt read “Our Turf, Get Lost, NO to Alien Intervention.” His bicycle was festooned with inflatable little green men and pamphlets offering “Free Alien Info!!!” He added, “The aliens can’t survive in our atmosphere, so of course, they’re not here themselves.” He gave a little chuckle, as if to suggest thinking that would be totally loony. I had to agree. “What they do is take our DNA and mingle it with theirs to produce hybrids. And those hybrids are walking among us.” “Have you met any?” “Oh yes. Would you like to see a picture of one?” Yes! Yes I would! He opened his phone and began scrolling through his photos. Justin showed me a slightly blurry image of himself standing next to a wide-eyed, impossibly smooth- skinned, extremely full-lipped woman. Botox, collagen, and plastic surgery? Or a hybrid of human-ET DNA? Justin had no doubts. “You can tell she’s a hybrid because she never blinked. Not once.” So that’s the big tip-off. “And when I went to shake her hand, she grabbed my wrist, and I felt a surge of electricity shoot up my arm.” Tip-off number two! Folks, you might want to take notes. This enthralling conversation took place on Saturday at the Fairfax Festival, held every June in the village next to mine in northern California. Fairfax embraced the 1960s with such enthusiasm the residents never wanted to let it go, and they have kept the countercultural spirit alive for generations. A wild parade kicks off two days of music, street food, and arts in an atmosphere reminiscent of the Merry Pranksters of yore. I arrived to find an eye-popping throng sporting tie-dyed everything — t-shirts, pajama pants, banners, and one dog’s paws — and the glorious rainbow stripes of LGBTQIA+ Pride. Having attended this festival before, I knew the best place to start was the parade staging area. There participants were vibrating with excited anticipation as they made final adjustments to costumes, props, and decorations. No one was shy about posing for photos. I happily chatted with Sharon, an “inspirationist” artist, Elena the unicorn, and members of the Cirque de Fairfax, then watched recyclers rehearsing their dance with garbage bins. One nattily dressed gentleman displayed a red t-shirt saying “Marxist do it with class.” I asked why he was a Marxist. He eyed me as if this were a very odd question. “Because it makes sense,” he said. When I commented on the t-shirt he smiled ruefully. “These kids, they don’t get it.” But maybe they were hipper to his message than he realized. Although old-school Marxism is still viewed as being way out in far left field, polls show that Americans’ enthusiasm for capitalism is on the wane, and voters, especially Black Americans, women, and those under 35, are starting to harbor warmer thoughts about socialism. Today more than half of young Republicans are (gasp!) in favor of reducing the wealth gap. Is the class system starting to crumble?  Gil wants to show the world a more sophisticated, gentlemanly side of Marxist values. Eventually, and surprisingly close to the scheduled time, the parade got underway. Rich and I moved out to the street so we could cheer everyone on as they eased out onto the short parade route. A hundred-year-old woman waved merrily at me from a vintage car. The number of centenarians in the US has doubled in the last 20 years to about 90,000, and I think she could tell I’m hoping to be one of them someday. A small, distracted-looking contingent from the local cannabis dispensary wandered past. The climate activists were out, with sober messages and dull decorations constrained by worries about wasting precious resources. A gun control advocate pushed along a coffin draped with toy assault rifles on which was written “Can we shoot or consume our way to a future worth living in?” I called out something encouraging, and he stopped, ran over to me, and began rummaging around in his pocket. At last he pulled out a crisp $2 bill and handed it to me. “Use it for something worthwhile,” he said. I promised I would. There were kids everywhere, clustered in school groups and scout troops, waving diversity flags, carrying gay pride banners, petting dogs, strumming fake guitars, and (in the case of one baby) riding on the back of a hot pink gorilla with a bubble gun. As a child born in the buttoned-down fifties, I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a world where moms and dads — an entire village of them — could be so uninhibited. The mind reels. Nonconformists have a lot of fun but they don’t always lead easy lives. Places like Fairfax provide a relatively safe haven, but the world at large is difficult for all of us to navigate, and doubly so for those who feel like outliers. If we’re lucky we learn, as sixties icon Wavy Gravy put it, “Laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life.” Comedian and LGBTQIA+ activist Margaret Cho says, “Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think ... Our ability to laugh directly coincides with our ability to fight. If we make fun of it, we can transcend it.” Words to live by.  Now that's worth a nickel! By the time the last truck rolled out of the staging area, both my phone’s photo capacity and my energy level were drained. Rich and I made our way through the throng to a café for coffee and a restorative biscotti. When the caffeine and sugar had kicked my brain back into gear, I said to Rich, “These are my people. Absolute Nutters, one and all.” As my regular readers know, the original concept of our Nutters World Tour was to seek out goofy people, places, and events so I could have fun writing about them. However, the feedback we got from our friends, relatives, and bartenders soon made it clear that the Nutters in question were, in fact, Rich and myself. Our world tour was really all about the two of us stumbling into micro-communities we ordinarily wouldn’t inhabit and learning how to connect with people there. That was easy in Fairfax. I may not precisely share everyone’s viewpoint about saving the world or the galaxy, but it was great fun to revisit the California counterculture of my youth. And I deeply appreciated the sincerity, good humor, and kindness I found in every encounter. But one person left me with a responsibility I don’t know how to fulfill. What meaningful use can I find for that $2 bill? If you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments section below!  So long, Fairfax Festival! I'm already looking forward to next year. JUST JOINING US? THE NUTTERS' WORLD TOUR SO FAR IN PROGRESS: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF CALIFORNIA Why Isn't Anyone Banning My Books (Alameda) When Pigs Fly (Yes, They Can!) (Sacramento Pig Races) Do You Believe in Magic? (Alameda's Macabre Market) My Close Encounter with the Skeptic Society (Outer Space) The Nutters' Guide to Modern Comfort Food (My Kitchen) Relationships: Do Humans Stand a Ghost of a Chance? (Hangtown) For Nutters, There's No Place Like California (Petaluma Chicken & Egg Day) Can Artificial Intelligence Help Me Plan the Next Nutters Tour? RECENTLY COMPLETED: THE NUTTERS' TOUR OF SPAIN Spain Never Runs Out of Offbeat Curiosities (Zaragoza, Barcelona, Tarragona) I Travel Deep into the Heart of Nuttiness (Palencia & Pamplona) Road Warriors: Let the Good Times Roar (Léon & Oviedo) Travel Alert: You Can't Always Get What You Want... (Madrid & Burgos) Gobsmacked at Every Turn but Embracing the Chaos (Jaén & Valdepeñas) All Aboard for the Nutters Tour of Spain (Packing & Organizing) WANT TO STAY IN THE LOOP? Subscribe to receive notices when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. enjoylivingabroad@gmail.com. Curious? Enter any destination or topic in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. |
Karen McCann
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This blog is a promotion-free zone. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only mention things I happen to find interesting and/or useful. Whew! I wanted to clear that up before we went any further. Thanks for listening. 
Winner of the 2023 Firebird Book Award for Travel
#1 Amazon Bestseller in Tourist Destinations, Travel Tips, Gastronomy Essays, and Senior Travel
I'm an American travel writer based in Seville, Spain and my home state of California.
Right now I'm on a Nutters' World Tour seeking eccentric people, quirky places, and wacky food so I can have the fun of writing about them here. Don't miss out! SIGN UP HERE to be notified when I publish new posts. Where else have I traveled and written about? Use this search box to find out.
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