On the heels of the news that Linda’s longtime friend, beloved Colorado neighbor and essential worker Margaret “Muffin” Hecht, DVM, passed away Monday following a mysterious decline that began late last spring it was precipitously announced to faculty, students and alumni that CCA will be replaced in a year by, as SF’s millionaire mayor gushed, a “world class research

university”, Vanderbilt*, effectively erasing 119 years of Bay Area history**. Meanwhile Monday

here after a walk in the wet ‘n’ misty, the ’45 was dead so I took the Tundra to the dentist

and on to SP Auto Parts, laying in supplies for the eventual radiator swap…the tailgate then needed to be pried open with one of L’s industrial screwdrivers as the bed had swollen in the

wet. Tuesday [the day of the CCA bombshell], having most of the day, I got that out of the way,

cleaned the battery terminals, started it up and had it off the ground right after lunch,

then took a hazy afternoon bikeride followed by

PT for sore knees at Kaiser.

After the fog lifted the next day

L. dropped me back in Vallejo to collect the Taco [$527.00 for a thorough electrical inspection which concluded not much could be done about the drain] which entailed a bit of a wait at

Tuoloumne, then Safeway [in the throes of their “Grand Re-Opening”]

and after lunch and the Draining of the Radiator, sorted out the tires in the Tundra before a ride to the water.  Next day even foggier, no place to go for the first time all week and though

L had an interview with Benicia Magazine about her upcoming library show there was time to catch up, lunch in the yard and at least get the hood off the little truck before arthritis insisted

I give it a rest. More than a rest, actually, as later one of those knees took issue with whatever I’d done though it was still possible to delicately hobble over to Mai Thai for fried calamari,

fresh rolls and green curry, some of the last surviving unto Friday’s lunch after

a morning babying the knee [no dog walks], moving the trucks to the street so local

photographer Michael Van Auken could do a shoot with the ’45 as background and then

take Linda to Concord to retrieve her Mini, freshened by a $4400 servicing that did not,

thank you anyway BMW, include the $7300 [!] clutch replacement.

Clutch works quite nicely for us…back home my next lifetime’s supply of stretcher bars had been propped against the door by FedEx which will take a bit of sleuthing to figure out.  All in a day’s work…

 

*An institution whose values will obviously be much more in alignment with the libertarian leanings of a millionaire mayor and techbros than the potentially ungovernable anarcho-antifascist beliefs of a bunch of artists, thinkers and students [not to be confused with “creatives”] in an “art school”.

**For some reason the saying “A land without people for a people without land” keeps coming to mind***…but also how long was this SO secretly in the works and, um, “Cui bono?” Very Trumpian, all in all. All the more so when it came to light that CCA’s smarmy last president, currently trying to dampen down the furor of a betrayed and blindsided community, will be transitioning into a position at a “world class research university” called…Vanderbilt. Cui bono, indeed.

***VU promises to preserve the Wattis Institute and maintain a CCA archive within it though how willing they’d be to support such a generous offer if the Wattis Foundation decided to terminate its association with the now erased CCA is an open question, as is much else…like why this, why now, who was [really] involved]?  Lots of maybes…