Reflections on Monterey
A few images from 2023
Earlier this week, on the evening of the day of the High Tides, I turned a corner in New Monterey to encounter the fresh moon in the distance above the bay. This moon was alert as a beacon, poking out from a wave of night-dark clouds. I stopped my vehicle and caught the image through the windshield. It is the type of photograph my old newspaper chums would call a “drive-by shooting.”
I posted the unfiltered photo on social media. A friend replied to say that she too saw that same moon, from her home. She remarked that we are lucky to live in a place like this. I replied to her reply with something like, “yes, I am still constantly stunned at the quiet beauty of Monterey.”
The State Seal of California was conceived and developed by a couple of fever-dreaming captains of civic industry who gathered in Monterey to help draft a constitution that would turn this territory into a respectable state of the union in 1849. Minerva is featured prominently on the State Seal. Minerva is the Roman goddess of wisdom with a god-awful origin story. In California, she purportedly represents the state’s immediate ascension to statehood, without having to be a territory first.
Minerva’s image is emblazoned into the brick walkway in front of Colton Hall, where the constitution and the seal idea were inspired.
Yes. I have a dog and his name is Buster. He’s a regarded character in the Monterey neighborhood and he’s left his mark on all the hot spots.
This is a mysterious house around the corner from where I live. It is a grand home, absent humans during most of the calendar year. Grand little mansions like this are scattered about Monterey, mixed in with the bungalows and the adobes and the bland apartments, each with a history of its own and each now a hobby house for the undistinguished and distant rich.
Street lights cast shadows across them all.
Morning is my favorite time of day in Monterey. Buster and I stroll dreamily along the rec trail; we encounter poets and artists and other strolling dreamers. Some mornings God slaps me silly with his poetry.
Another drive-by shooting. This one depicts a turkey standing in front of the Monterey Public Library. I can’t recall where I was going when I saw the bird out the corner of my eye. The turkey looked as though it was seeking the sum of all the truth and knowledge contained behind those glass doors, for libraries are the most noble public buildings invented by man.
But then I remember that it was only a turkey, and turkeys can’t read.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium. There’s not much else to say about a place like this.
My brain saw this before my eyes did. It’s a reflection on Cannery Row I’d never noticed before, what with all the gimcrackery and razzle-dazzle of commerce. I’ve looked for it ever since that morning but it’s eluded me somehow.
Josh was obsessed with the common squirrel. He thought they were cute and comical in their twitchy character. This one showed up on my back fence in the days before Josh died in October and now I’m sorry I didn’t share this picture with him.
May I share it with you?
Here’s that turkey again.
Some of my favorite folks are the people I’ve met walking their dogs around the neighborhood. I don’t know the people attached to the dogs standing watch at Duffy’s Tavern on High Street one afternoon, but I would guess that they are good people.
Ed Ricketts died after his jalopy hit a train at this spot in 1948. The waterfront went to hell during the years that followed. Today his bust is public art, subject to acts of occasional whimsy.
There’s money to be made in Monterey’s real estate and housing market, and so the building trades prosper. The smart money is in scaffolding.
The neighborhood on the hill above City Hall is gentrified. Old homes once alive with youngsters and family dramas are now mostly occupied by retirees from the Central Valley and the Bay Area willing to pay top dollar for their piece of paradise.
Our block is an anomaly, with several homes filled with toddlers and teenagers and such. They bring life and color — and colorful rocks — to the ‘hood.
Someone planted California poppy seeds along the rim of Monterey Bay, and they pop up every spring, an embellishment to the normal beauty of the place.
All photos by Joe Livernois, 2023
I have been waiting for someone to use “gimcrackery” in a sentence; thank you!!