ANYONE FOR ESCARGOTS? NO. 1 OF 4
One day in the early 1980s, on the front page of the "Wall Street Journal", there was a story about Ralph Tucker in Fresno CA who was raising escargots. Oui, messieurs/madams, real snails like in Ugh! It seems that Ralph had started a flowering business and was supplying the upbeat restaurants in the Fresno area with, what some folks believed were delicacies. We were living in Haddon Township, NJ, at the time. Just across the street was a large, one-story building that apparently had been unoccupied for some time. I'm sitting on the porch, reading the "Journal", and looking at that building. Bingo! If Ralph could raise snails in California, why couldn't I do the same thing in New Jersey.
I dropped the paper, went down to our office, picked up the phone and called Ralph. The saga begins. Ralph had scheduled a Convention within the next couple of weeks and I told him we would be there. As long as we were going to the other side of he world, we decided to make the trip worthwhile. The itinerary ended up being: We would fly to San Francisco, three days there; fly to Fresno for the convention. Spend three days there. Drive to Phoenix, AZ via the Mohave Desert, take our timeshare week at Flagstaff, fly to Boise Idaho to visit my wartime buddy Mike Spero. Stay a few days there. Fly to Salt Lake City. Rent a car and drive to Yellowstone Park for a few days. Fly back to Salt Lake City for a couple of days. Then fly home.
We pretty much followed that schedule except for the leg from Fresno to Phoenix. We were delayed in Fresno for a day longer than expected and when I looked at the map, I didn't think we would have time to drive so we switched to the airplane so we would arrive in Flagstaff on schedule. We still arrived two days late.
Back to day one. San Francisco was interesting because I was advised to moved there at one time. One of the buyers at Food Fair, Dick Hooker, had spent a number of years there and had suggested that I would like Frisco because of the coast and the fishing and sailing possibilities and not too far inland, fresh water fishing and the mountains were available. After giving it some thought, and as I look back, possibly my sheltering angel nudged me in a different direction, for which I am forever grateful.
The first day we drove to Pasadena to look up someone who was an Amway distributor. I forget why, or if we ever met him. There's a highway that parallels the coast and frequently we would see the ocean and the fog bank off shore that the sunshine kept at bay. It was late in the afternoon when we returned to San Francisco. There is a ridge of mountains between the road and the coast. The sun had declined and permitted the fog to move inland and as the fog followed the contour of the mountains, it looked like a giant waterfall descending over the earth. It was magnificent. I guess that is how the plague descended on the city.
We visited Fisherman's Wharf and became acquainted with sour dough bread, took a ride on a cable car, drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and took the ferry to Alcatraz. At this moment in time, I believe Alcatraz would be a wonderful place to exile all 535 members of Congress, along with Obama and his 32 czars, and the nine U. S. Supreme Court justices. Here they would have time to read the Constitution of the United States and find out what's in it.
I think this would be a good place to stop, and then proceed to Fresno and Ralph Tucker in Nomad News No. 100
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