4A Group #2

Essay 1
1. Write the story title and author name.
Ode to CalTrans by Hector Tobar

2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph.
Tobar writes about how the Los Angeles freeway has affected him throughout his life, giving him different perspectives on things as he grew older. When he was a child, the freeway was a way to go home, and had almost magical properties of transportation. As he grew older, Tobar began to see it as a “place of pollution and peril.” (pg 57) He mentions that when his wife was pregnant, he refused to take the freeways, because of the danger he saw there, mentioning the accidents he had seen. He also talks about how he had seen the area grow bigger and more developed and congested over the years. Despite the negative aspects of it, Tobar conveys a respect and snese of nostalgia about the freeway and the impact it had on his life and many others.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph.
“I was, then, just becoming aware of the cycles of life and death, and how the flow of traffic sometimes guides us against our will onto the cloverleaf exchanges between our earthly selves and the great highways of the beyond.” pg. 54

4. What did the reading make you think of?
The reading made me think of how I have seen Santa Rosa grow and become more congested in the 18 years I’ve lived here. When I was a kid, Hwy 101 didn’t really have bad traffic, and two lanes were enough for all the residents in the area. In the past ten or so years though, it seems like the population has grown exponentially, and I find myself missing the way things were. The reading also made me think about CalTrans, and how we take for granted the people who maintain our freeways so that we can get to where we need to go.

5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know.
I learned more about traffic in other countries, and how it’s very different than in America. Tobar says “cars and pedestrians live incestuously” (pg 52) and gives the example of Montevideo, Uruguay, where you can drive really fast on freeway-like conditions and still have to dodge pedestrians. It sounds very stressful!


Essay 2
1. Write the story title and author name.
Montalvo, Myths and Dreams of Home by Thomas Steinbeck

2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph.
Steinbeck says “California has always been all things to all people”. The “myth” of California is always reinventing itself, and has been shaped by people’s needs and desires, making the state unique. Steinbeck believes Big Sur to be the epitome of a mystical, magical place, and feels it’s representative of the beauty and power of California. He explains how the Spanish Renaissance movement indirectly affected the naming of California; an author named Montalvo named his fictional utopian island California, and when Cortez and his men found Baja California in 1533, they felt inspired to name the place after Montalvo’s creation because of it’s beauty.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph.
“There is nothing I know that compares with the magnificence of a sunset seen from high in The Big Sur, and nothing as mysterious and enchanting as riding through the fingerlings of fog as they trace through the scrub oak up the canyons.” (pg 67)

4. What did the reading make you think of?
The quote I picked specifically made me thing about Armstrong Woods, located in Guernville. It’s a redwood forest that is absolutely beautiful, and since it’s located close to the coast, there are days when it stays foggy until midday, when the fog finally burns off. I was hiking there one time on such a day, when the fog started to burn off, and through the trees you could see wisps off fog riding on the sunlight. The whole experience- the incredibly ancient, tall, aromatic trees; the shimmer of fog carried on the rays of sun leaking down between the branches- was filled with the majesty Steinbeck mentioned, and I can see why our state was named after a beautiful utopia.

5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know?
I learned that there have been Sasquatch sightings in the area of Big Sur, and that there are local legends of beings called “Dark Watchers,” who sound a lot like brownies or fairies. They are little beings who are hard to spot, and will take offerings of food, leaving behind small gifts of thanks such as a pretty sea shell.


Essay 3
1. Write the story title and author name.
The Last Little Beach Town by Edward Humes

2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph.
Since the 1960s, Seal Beach had remained virtually the same size, and despite being located in Orange County, retained much of it’s old time “Beach Town” charm. Most of the businesses have been locally owned, and there is a relaxed feel to the town versus the hustle-bustle of Los Angeles and other SoCal towns. It continues to be a very family oriented town, and there is a sense of trust among the citizens not found in big cities. Today the city is in need of money, and has started to open up areas for development, which is slowly impeding on the small town feeling.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph?
“The water becomes monochromatic in this light, a pattern of grey and white circlets, moving sinuously, like scales on a reptile’s skin, rippling and sparkling in the sunlight, the waves so close together it’s impossible to differentiate them, their sounds merging into one sustained hiss, the reptile’s mesmerizing sigh.” Pg 74.

4. What did the reading make you think of?
The description of Seal Beach’s tourist based past reminds me of what I think of when I think of Santa Cruz, and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I think of a beautiful beach town that’s sunny, with lots of shopping, rides, beach related recreation, and a long pier.

5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know?
I learned that Seal Beach went in reverse of a lot of beach side towns/cities in California. It started out being a place for tourists and recreation, and later ended being a quiet town comprised mostly of it’s residents, without attempts to pull in tourism.


Essay 4
1. Write the story title and author name.
Surfacing by Matt Warshaw

2. Summarize the reading in one brief paragraph.
Warshaw talks about Half Moon Bay and how it has a small but dedicated surfing crowd, despite not being known as a surfing town. He weaves in half Moon Bay history, how it had been a whaling point and resulted in carcasses of ships being scattered in spots, about bootleggers during Prohibition sneaking their contraband in small custom boats. He focuses on a sixteen year old surfer named Jay Moriarity, who attempts to surf a treacherous wave at a place called Maverick’s Point in Half Moon Bay. At first he is unsuccessful and gets dragged down under water, fighting to resurface. His board gets broken in two. After a rest, he takes a replacement board out to reattempt the wave, and this time he is successful; he rides wave after wave and manages to stay on the board and above the water.

3. Which was your favorite sentence or paragraph?
“In the late eighties, a surf magazine writer theorized that the essential requirement for big wave riding is not courage, or daring, or fitness, but a placid imagination.” Pg 87

4. What did the reading make you think of?
The reading made me think of the movie Surf’s Up, which is an animated movie about a young penguin surfer who enters a surfing championship, in part because of his surfing idol and his reverence for the sport. The penguin reminds me of Jay Moriarity, and how he kept persevering to try to achieve his goal to surf the wave at Maverick’s Point.

5. What is one thing you did not know before you started the reading that you now know?
I learned that the first surfing in America took place in Santa Cruz in 1885. I had no idea that it had been around so long!