What’s now cliché is the notion that anything that so becomes does so because of the large element of universal truth it contains. Such with the nugget of wisdom given voice in this epoch by Mark Twain, to the effect that the older Twain got, the smarter his father seemed. My experience certainly accords with Mark Twain, and so I looked forward to spending Father’s day with my own dad.
As most of my loyal cadre of readers know, my parents, indeed most of my family, are in Fresno, and that is where Sunday took me. As with my own esteem of my father, Fresno continues to grow in estimation. Following our Father’s day brunch, we drove back through the heart of Fresno. It has to be my favorite route, down Van Ness Boulevard from Old Fig Garden to Fresno High, then a jog to the left on Weldon Avenue to Wishon, crossing Olive Avenue to Fulton Street, and all the way to Downtown.
On the one hand, it grieves me to find that so much of the commercial development of the central corridor has languished over the course of the last 50 years. The art moderne monument that is the Tower Theater sadly now no longer contains the Daily Planet, the astonishingly kicky bar and restaurant that the late Hannah Benson made a neighborhood mainstay for nearly 30 years. What a tragedy! With interiors by designer Gary Steinert, it articulated perfectly with the space it occupied. Its back wall in the bar area was dominated by Steinert painted nude women of sinuous mien in the manner of a Lalique vase. A nod to the era when Keith and I were Planet habitués, we invariably referred to them as the nudes on ‘ludes. Not that I had any more experience with Quaaludes than repeating that phrase…it’s something somebody told me about. Honestly, though, with Hannah’s well-stocked bar, we had plenty of opportunities to, shall we say, misbehave. Some two decades ago, on an evening a day or two in advance of a planned trip to London, Keith and I, along with our traveling companion who shall remain anonymous, were revving up prior to departure. Our friend took a shine to a comely new server and, doubtless given impetus from the many healing waters on offer, asked the young man if he would like to go to London with us. Surprised more than shocked, he declined. The redoubtable Hannah got wind of this, and told the young man that he was making the mistake of his life. Well, possibly, but risking a digression, I don’t recall anyone feeling bereft, and the trip itself was cheerful to the point that one’s health was at risk.
On the other hand, it’s pleasing to note that so much of Fresno’s heart survives. A bit further south, beyond where Wishon gives way to Fulton Street, Tokyo Garden, what’s by now a camp classic, is still as popular as it ever was, with a menu that is unchanged since I first went there 40 years ago. Actually, that’s not quite true. Although always with sashimi on offer, a nod was made in the direction of modern cuisine some years back with the introduction of sushi. But I’m somewhat plodding in my own taste, and it’s nice to know that venerable dishes like sukiyaki are still available, and still cooked the same way. A kimono clad waitress will plug in a burner that looks like one of my parents’ wedding presents, and stir fry the fresh ingredients, always including a fair number of straw mushrooms, to toothsome perfection. Although the restaurant has done a jazz night every Thursday for years, the food has nevertheless kept it in front of a younger clientele. If one wants to corroborate this, take a quick look at the reviews on Yelp. That Yelp may be new to you confirms, alas, that you are not yourself ‘younger’. A pleasant surprise surrounding all this is the aggressive building of loft style live/work spaces that presumably respond to modern day yuppies- that seems a tautology, but I was once a yuppie and am now, shall we say, mature- who would rather walk to work and walk to entertainment, and walk to the nearby Fresno Free Market. Not quite so well known as Les Halles, the Fresno Free Market serves the same function, and is nearly as old. My father and I share similar memories of enjoyable Saturday mornings, him in the early 1930’s and me in the early 1960’s, browsing with our mothers the fruit and veg stalls in what was, and still is, an egalitarian and multicultural mecca.
One can divine from all this that Father’s day in Fresno was a pleasant one for me, and I have to say, my father in fatherly fashion is enlarged by his children’s pleasure. This blog entry moved away from what my readers, and me, too, thought it might be, a simple reminiscence about my father, but it, in fact is. Our own fond memories of living in the same town, albeit separated by a generation, indicate not so much shared external experience but a shared internal matrix that can only exist between parents and their children. Fun in and a fondness for Fresno is but one of many reasons I am grateful to my father.