First Street is prepping for the big holiday weekend as I write. The weather has warmed up, umbrellas and flags unfurled, and the sidewalks marked with chalk where families have staked their preferred parade viewing venues.
My sister Janie and brother-in-law Tom drove down from Idaho earlier in the week for their first visit since Covid. Following a few days behind also from Idaho were their son Ben and his wife Heather, mother extraordinaire of their three children. Sister Susan and I had seen Liam, now ten, as a toddler but had never met the twin girls. On their agenda were: the Farmers market, hunting for beach glass, and visiting their grandmother/great grandmother’s grave up at Benicia City Cemetery. Eating fish and chips at Sailor Jack’s was Tom’s main priority.
Walking down East B St. to the Farmer’s Market we headed straight for the Masquerade Face Painting booth. Liam picked the skull design. His eyes mutated into black pools below a ragged Frankenstein forehead. Scary! Twins Samantha and Charley, six, were transformed into a dog with a green face and serious hanging tongue syndrome and a butterfly with sparkly pink wings resting on her forehead face. Sammy, now a dog on all fours, barked at us and somehow convinced Charley the butterfly to do the same. Had never witnessed a barking butterfly — clearly an endangered species.
We decided to stay for dinner which included lobster rolls from Cousin’s Main Lobster truck and pizza by the slice. “Walking up to the truck, the prices seemed really expensive. But after my first bite, I found it was worth every penny,” Tom said with a satisfied grin. We stopped to talk to one of Benicia’s finest —Officer Kevin Kops, who was patrolling on a bicycle. With his ideal name, charisma, and engaging manner he could have been a character in the movies. At Sepay’s Olive Oil next to the Pink Arrow boutique, Janie and Tom picked up several bottles of their Lemon Meringue Balsamic Vinegar which they paired with the Lisbon Lemon Olive Oil. You can also pair it with a pear that has been pared and finish it off with their U Stuff It Olives. Three big bags of kettle corn — garlic, caramel, and basic, Chay’s strawberries from Watsonville, fresh blueberries, peaches, plums, and apricots completed the food haul.
The next day Ben, Heather, and the kids hunted for beach glass, something my sister Janie and Tom had done some years ago at Glass Beach. At that time, the little cove near 6th St. was wall-to-wall green glass chards, sparkling like emeralds on the white sand. We carefully climbed down the now rebuilt wooden steps but there was no sign of the green gold, and the tide was too high to cross over the slippery rocks to the next inlet. Another hike down Semple Crossing turned up some treasures — a sun glass bottle top from a medicine jar from the1800s and a perfect row of tiny fish teeth, both found by Liam. The girls discovered small white clamshells and part of an old bottle that had “Refresher” written on it.
On the walk back we saw a bearded man wearing an old straw hat sketching the view from a waterfront bench. It was Benicia artist Greg Renfrow, who I hadn’t recognized. Locally, his work graces the space above the fireplace in Benicia Library’s main reading room. His abstract “light and space” paintings reside in the collections of both the SF MOMA and the Oakland Museum, among others. Renfrow shared that he finds peace and inspiration in his daily outdoor drawing excursions — a form of meditation which gives his work a spiritual, healing quality.
Later, my nephew Ben and I were having a cool drink at the Drift, formerly Java Point, when a fellow stopped to compliment Ben’s hat — a wide straw number with an Idaho logo on the front. “Where are you from?” we asked the stranger. “Idaho,” he said. “But I have lived in Benicia for seven years.” “Where in Idaho?” asked Ben. “Boise,” the man answered. “We live near there in Nampa,” Ben said. “I once lived in Nampa,” replied the friendly fellow. “No kidding! What a coincidence,” I said. “But I’m originally from Indiana,” he continued. “So are we,” I whispered, marveling at the coincidence. They say if you stand on a street corner in Paris long enough all of the people you have ever known will eventually walk by. Sometimes while strolling down First Street it feels like that.
Ben. We used to stick a Christmas bow on his bald head when he was a baby. Now he has a family of his own.
“I don’t remember growing old
When did they?
Sunrise sunset.
Sunrise sunset.
Swiftly fly the years.
One season following another
Laden with happiness
and tears.”
(From the Broadway play Fiddler on the Roof)
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Letters From Benicia 