A Half Century of Progress? (Note the same mountains in the background)
When the ancients wrote of the Garden of Eden, they may well have used California’s Santa Clara Valley as their model. “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food ….” Genesis 2:9. Or so it seemed until an enigma called Silicon Valley took root.
The valley, named after the Spanish Mission Santa Clara, was long known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight for its high concentration of orchards, flowering trees, and plants. Until the 1960s, the Santa Clara Valley, with 39 canneries, was one of the largest fruit-producing and packing regions in the world. That all ended as a new class of urban developers descended like locusts to root the trees and trample the land like a herd of Monterey Wild Boar in a cabbage patch.
Bulldozers uprooted orchards and vineyards. Cookie-cutter housing tracts popped up in their wake. Strip malls, shopping centers, factories, and office buildings sprang up where quaint homesteads and villages once stood. Ever-widening streets and new freeways couldn’t keep up with the demands of ballooning traffic.
Fresh out of the Navy, I hit the Bay Area in 1960, driving a 1958 Chevy Bel Air with payments due and about $200 in my pocket. Nine years later, I had a wife, two kids, a house in the suburbs with a 30-year mortgage, a 1969 Ford Country Squire station wagon with fake wood trim, and a 1963 Austin Healey 3000 sports car. I worked as a scientific computer programmer in the Information Sciences Department of Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc.—the seat of the new silicon technology. Some would say that I had made it. I was not so sure.
Sitting in my Austin Healey with the top down, awaiting a turn to get on the new 280 freeway, I watched the river of traffic flow by. The smell of horse manure caught my attention as a pickup truck towing a horse trailer rattled down the highway. I was transported back to my youth, growing up on a ranch in Eastern Oregon. The old saying—you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy—invaded my mind as I joined the throng of indistinguishable commuters on their way to work.
What should I do? Conventional wisdom told me “Stay where you are.” My gut told me “It’s time to move on.”
I compiled a list of every small-town business and institution in the area west of the Rockies I could locate that used a computer. I mailed an unsolicited job resume to each of them. That effort did not involve a lot of resumes at that time in history, but it did result in a job offer from Boise Cascade Corporation in Boise, Idaho.
In the autumn of 1969, amidst much wailing and gnashing of teeth by my in-laws over the tearing away of their only daughter and two grandsons, we watched as the moving van pulled away from our driveway on its way to Idaho. My wife, two sons, and I followed shortly thereafter—on our way to new beginnings. Our lives would be forever changed. My sports car would soon be transformed into a pickup truck. Hard work and clean air would be our future. Silicon Valley would be our past.
The Back to the Land movement of the seventies was just beginning. I don’t know if I was a part of that movement, or if I was simply returning to my roots. But I guess I lived it. How could a country boy know for sure?
10 responses to “Silicon Valley Goodbye”
Hey Bob, I am making a big change. 25 years go I bought 37 acres of raw land in Mendocino county, about 3 miles off of 101. I started developing in between contracting software jobs on the Southwest.
In a couple of weeks this will be behind me, as I am selling this property and moving to Pinole, in the Bay Area.
For the record, here is what I am leaving, and where I am going.
No regrets! From Here:
https://redf.in/txnagh
To Here: https://redf.in/XVwRdv
Keep up the great stories.
Greg Greg 925-324-2752
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Wow, Greg, are you sure that’s what you want to do? Leaving an idyllic rural setting for an urban lifestyle may result in a severe case of culture shock!
Good to hear from you.
Take care,
Bob 480-450-7783
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It is what it is, and it ain’t what it ain’t.
it was a great phase of life for me, full of ups and downs. Yes I will miss the serenity, we put a lot of effort into this. But the physical maintenance is a factor, so we’re thinking to paying utilities and dealing with less space.
every day is a gift.
best wishes
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Bob? I LOVE your little stories! They are such complete vignettes. Please keep them coming. They explain so much about the life you have lived without sounding like ancestry.com! I wish I could put my life into such wonderful stories.
Gay
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Thanks, Gay. Speaking of life lived, we need to figure out how to get more participation in the family Zoom meetings for sharing stories as you set it up in the first place. Hope your antique store is doing well.
Bob
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I just wrote a reply to you, and my message disappeared. I don’t know where it went, maybe somehow to you. Anyway, at the risk of repeating myself to you, I will try again.
I have found that the day and time of our Zoom meetings are simply too awkward for me. Sunday is totally a day of rest, I find I just don’t want to do anything! While it does seem to be working for everyone else, I wonder if a weekday in the middle of the day (for me), like around 9:00 am on west coast might work. I think everyone is retired, so maybe any day of the week might work?? In any case, I will try my darndest to make the next Sunday get-together.
Thanks for your note – I always love to hear from you. And by the way, since I am almost totally isolated from my family out here on the other edge of the country, I had to learn from you and your latest little story that my brother is selling his house. This house that sits on a gorgeous mountainside and that he built himself over about 20 years. I was amazed to learn that little factoid. I have tried to contact him, but no response yet.
I am moving, too, but only next door – we bought the house as a rental about 15 years ago. It is a one story little rancher, almost a shot-gun house, and we are downsizing into it. We love the neighborhood so it is a perfect old-age situation for us!
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The last comment was from me – Cousin Gay.
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Bob, I am trying to leave you a message. Nothing about is easy to do. Anyway, the long message about moving, etc is from your cousin, Gay. I am not Anonymous!
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Got your message. Hope to see you Sunday.
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Lash,
My family farm was taken over by the Mass Pike and the Bose company. It was how things were going.
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