Fish To Fry: Postscript

We had a real English fish and chip shop near my house while I was growing up, run by an actual English family: Rhodes Fish and Chips. The English part amazed me, and I preferred the food from this shop over, say, the H. Salt, Esquire down the road in the other direction, run by locals, not immigrants from England. (I was an early Anglophile in books and fish.)

We often wondered how the Rhodes family ended up in our small town alongside San Francisco Bay. While I was growing up, San Pablo was only known for its murder rate and its proximity to Richmond, with the refinery and formerly the shipyards. I was too polite to ask about the family background, but now I wonder if they didn't come from a small town on the edge of urban and suburban sprawl back in England. I had a friend who moved out to sunny California from Detroit, and he ended up feeling at home in industrial Oakland. I recall my first trip to Portland, Oregon, and feeling at home because it was a scruffy working town/city and it had Powell's Books.

Throughout my childhood, my family often ordered take-out from this fish and chip shop, and as an adult I was saddened when the family gave up the business and the building was bulldozed to make way for an auto parts emporium. (On the other hand, that family must have operated that shop over 20 or 25 years, so I get that the day was done.)

Now, if I want good fish and chips, I head to Bodega and the Boat House Cafe.

Tonight, I baked the cod in wine with garlic and thyme, which proved quite tasty, but the fish market guy's words have awakened a craving: a greasy, salty craving.

I'm planning to hit Rodeo Beach in Marin for some surf action and photography tomorrow, but maybe I should aim a bit further north.

Fish To Fry

I asked the fish market guy how he likes to cook true cod, and he first gave me a handful of good healthy ideas.

Then, he confessed, "I like to bread it and fry it. I like fish and chips. Not that you can say that in Berkeley."

Me: "You can say that to me. I'm from San Pablo."

Time-Travel: First Frames

That's a close-up of a photo of a photo (see below) from my fifth grade year, the year I first started wearing glasses. My parents noticed that I seemed to have a hard time reading road signs, though I tried to fake my way through the I-See-the-A-in-the-San-Pablo-Exit-sign game as best I could. I recall being hit by the ball--softball, hardball, football, whatever--a lot as I tried to keep track of the slightly blurry object hurtling my way, but would I tell my folks? Let them think I was clumsy, for I was obviously trying to catch whatever came my way, but to admit I needed glasses! No way!

What amuses me in looking at this shot from, what, 1971 is how much of myself I can see in that boy. I am not sure if a stranger could put my aging face together with that child's face, but friends and family should be able to see the same ears, chin, forehead, eyes (glasses and all), and smile.

I recommend pulling out old photos like this. If only to recall what being such a kid was like. I'm smiling there because I'm in the midst of a good time with my cousin Steve, and it's good to recall such good times, fleeting though they may be, fleeting though time itself has proven to be.

My parents picked out those frames, by the way. The thick plastic frames were very uncool at the time, but the folks hoped they'd be hardier than wire frames. I am not sure if I broke that pair, but I certainly broke the next two or three plastic frames playing sports in school.

Later, when I convinced the folks to buy me wire frames, I showed them how easy it was to bend them back into shape, more or less, my first week after I got them. I doubt if those frames were really any more stylish.

What was that character's name from My Three Sons? Ernie? Something like that, right?