Califresno Wresting Peace

After a year away, one of my first impressions of Fresno this time was the near ubiquity of a sign that I had noticed last year, but which has now multiplied across almost all convenience stores, fast food restaurants and other food-related businesses: "EBT Accepted Here."

Today however there is evidently some kind of glitch across the country. Upon arriving at Piemonte Italian deli on Olive Street, in the Tower District, for the second day in row, we were greeted by a crude handwritten sign in Sharpie: "No EBT Today." The new version has blossomed all over Fresno.

This morning I lazed around in bed watching the UT-Oklahoma game, then texted Rick a what's up. He said he was over at the store. He had a less on in fifteen minutes. "Come on over," he wrote.

I took the freeway into downtown this time and got off at the exit that directed me to "The Tower District," Fresno's little enclave along Olive for off-beat youth culture and nightlife.

Rick's new shop is located a couple blocks down from the theater itself. He rents a front-facing room with a separate door from a woman in the other half of the house. She runs an "eclectic gift shop" that seems to specialize in surf boards and wedding dresses. The little hallway to the bathroom in the back is lined with such dresses in all their frilly-ness.


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Rick comes from the bluest of the blue blood of Fresno music store owners. His grandmother, whom he never got to meet, ran a somewhat legendary local music store on Blackstone, and then branched out to ones in other cities, including San Francisco during the height of the Sixties. From his father and other aunt, Rick learned that his grandmother routinely supplied cutting edge electronic equipment to folks such as The Who and the the Jefferson Airplane.

When I took Rick to San Francisco last year, the first time he'd visited in since he was an infant, he attempted to find the location of the shop there, on Van Ness, he thinks. "My dad said you could see it in the background of that movie they made, with Ryan O'Neil and Barbra Streisand, with the car chase."

What's Up Doc? I said. It was my favorite movie when I was ten years old. I went to see it twice at the theater.