Grapes

When I was a boy, our home was located in the midst of vineyards, Thompson seedless table grape vineyards, to be precise. I loved these grapes. When you pop one in your mouth it provides an explosion of refreshing flavor.

Viticulture was originally brought to California by Spanish Franciscan friars, who in 1769 began cultivating grapes at California missions in order to produce sacramental wines. It was not until the 1800s that the production of table grapes became popular.

So picture me if you can, a skinny boy of 11 or 12. I would go into the vineyards after the pickers were done. This is what the Bible called gleaning, (Leviticus 19:10), a noble tradition where the pickers would leave some of the fruit on the vine for hungry peasants like me who came along.

I would trundle home with my box of grapes and sit in front of the TV, eating as many of those delicious morsels as I could. I would stuff a handful of grapes into my mouth and chew and swallow while sitting in the cool breeze of the air conditioner. This was a little bit of heaven on a hot June afternoon. Of course within an hour I felt a little bit sick to my stomach. I guess even a little bit of heaven has its costs.

Speaking of costs, prices for table grapes in recent days were approximately $701 per ton. I don’t think I ate a ton of ‘em, but I probably owe someone some money.

Exams

In 1989 I took the exams to be a licensed marriage and family therapist. I had spent three years getting a masters in marriage and family counseling, and the license would give me the authority to practice independently in California and bill insurance for my work. I passed the written exam first time, but the pass rate for the oral exam was about 50%. Needless to say I was nervous about coming this far and not making it. I took a prep course that was widely touted as the best in the region. Tom and I were living together by then, so he helped me study my flashcards. By the time the test came around he could tell you almost as well as I whether a concept was Freudian or Jungian, and whether a Satir intervention would work better than a Minuchin intervention with a particular family.

The Oral exam was being held in the Hilton Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport. Since I needed to be there early for the exam on Friday morning, Tom and I went to the Hilton on Thursday night and took a room. I was very nervous. He did what he could to calm me down, shoulder rub, back rub, foot rub; enough said. I was fully prepared and completely relaxed in the morning. The exam went smoothly, I made no obvious errors. And then the waiting began

I don’t know if it’s better today, but in those days waiting weeks and weeks for the results of the exam was just what we had to put up with. It was during that waiting period that we sold our house and moved to San Diego. The idea was if I had passed my licensing exam, I could more easily find a job and make a living for us in San Diego. Tom would be making more money in his new job but it was still necessary for us to be a DINK (Dual income no kids) couple. So we moved into the future on faith, faith that I had passed. When I interviewed for possible jobs I told them that I had taken the exam and was still waiting for my result. I must’ve looked competent. I got a job offer. A month later the test result arrived in the mail.

I passed. I gave Tom full credit… and from time to time you can still overhear him quoting the great therapists of our time.

Ships in the Desert

A month ago my husband and I, along with two of our loyal friends, went to Coachella Valley High School, to join in the celebration of its 100^th anniversary. The school's steel reinforced concrete walls look very much like they did when I was in school in the 1960s. One feature I enjoyed even as a student was the way the campus was designed around a collection of connected quadrangles. As I recall, a lot of the student life could be conducted outside in the shade of the quads, because the weather wasn’t oppressively hot until June when school was out for the summer.

During our visit to the campus I was struck again with the design features at the entrance; large concrete structures that sweep up and over the roof look like the superstructure of a ship. And the corners of the buildings are rounded as if to cut through the waves more easily.

My understanding is that the architect of the original Coachella Valley High School was E. Charles Parke. So the design features that reminded me of a ship in the desert came as no surprise. It was E. Charles Parke who designed my grandparent’s home in Thermal in 1939. And that home certainly had some ship-like features. There was a round porthole window in the front door, a second-floor deck that wrapped around the east side of the house, rounded corners on the exterior walls, and a glass brick window in the stairway.

Parke was a Canadian, born in 1886, he became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. and moved to California where he set up offices in Riverside and Chula Vista.

Information about Mr. Parke is thin. I can only guess that the man who grew up in Ontario, Canada, was more accustomed to lakes than sand. But when he encountered the waves of sand dunes in Southern California, he couldn’t resist designing around some nautical inspirations.