As it did exactly one year ago on October 13th, this seven-mile stretch of the Carneros Highway between the Sears Point Road and the village of Big Bend groaned under the weight of far more traffic than the two-lane road was ever designed to accommodate. Fewer Napa Valley-bound enophiles, today, though. Most of the traffic was bound for the new, Big Bend Memorial Park just south of the village, final resting place for most of the victims of the Mount Bonita disaster.
Pick a few weeds from around the gravesites. Remember those who were loved and are now gone. December 16th — the awfulness of it all. Then, having communed, go home.
Several miles east, across the sloughs, great mounds of silt and debris lined the solitary railroad track that marked the northern boundary of the wetlands. The ugliness wasn’t visible to most people, so cleanup would be addressed in some future year. Or — in perhaps a hundred years — rains and flood tides might erase the scar.
Traffic coursed in opposite directions across the bridges at the Carquinez Strait. An oil tanker passed underneath — double-hulled, of course. If a passenger should remind a driver that this was the site of a great and fiery oil spill, the driver would look at the dragging tailpipe of the car ahead, or look at his gas gauge, or respond to the smile of the lady inside the tight sweater inside the passing convertible. Today is what counts. Ancient history is for fools and schools and the convergence of same.
Wide, straight, beautiful — the new stretch of freeway between Richmond and the restored, Bay Bridge toll plaza. No debris in any direction — not even any trash along the highway. Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville — squeaky clean. New construction. Framers needed to put up new homes. Top wages, benefits. Hammers communicating in jungle telegraph from rooftop to rooftop, block to block, city to city. Hotels, marinas, fast food — presto! They appear. And, parks — places to sit and reflect.
What’s that noise off to the left? Oh, just the students. Nothing new on the Berkeley campus — students seriously creating the same styles, issues, concepts and crises that their predecessors had been sure they were creating in school years long forgotten. What goes around — et cetera, et cetera. Ah, but there is something new — a multi-disciplinary course for those wishing to major in Mount Bonita.
There was something new just beyond the toll plaza — a 21st century sewage treatment plant. Oakland could flush again. It took so long. The Oakland and Alameda waterfronts — all meadow, now. The solid debris had been used to build the foundation for the new Treasure Island. The other junk was gone, as well as the remnants of fences, sidewalks, streets, railroads. Just grass these days. Many salivating entrepreneurs were gazing across that green expanse, though, jingling the investment capital in their pockets, visualizing green of a different hue.