The ER returns to Merced, and other items

Modesto Bee

There’s a columnist for the Modesto Bee by the name of Ron Agostini who uses a writing technique that is appealing to me.  About once a week, Ron publishes a sports oriented column that contains about a dozen items. 

The content of each item is too short for a complete column, but bundled together, it makes for interesting reading.  He always begins the feature with the claim “estimated reading time, two minutes.”

So in tribute to Ron, here is my bundle of items from around Merced County. 

Estimated reading time:  two-and-a-half minutes.

Merced City Signs

It’s so nice to see the letters E and R replaced on the Merced sign heading north on G Street just beyond the railroad overpass. 

The letters had been missing for about a year and it made the city seem a little less than welcoming to visitors and residents.  Thank you to the City of Merced for replacing the letters.  Shame on whoever removed them in the first place.

Speaking of letters, some are missing from the sign in front of Merced City Hall downtown.  Maybe these missing letters can be restored soon. 

Perhaps future designs of signs can take into consideration the elimination of letters and numbers that can be pried off by those with little or no regard for their community.

Town Hall Meetings

Two town hall meetings were held by the City of Merced in recent weeks to gather citizen input on how our community should move forward in the near future.  According to the Merced Sun Star, the north side town hall was sparsely attended while the south side meeting had great attendance.  What’s that telling us?

Presidential Visit

Regardless of your politics, having a U.S. President visit your community is a big deal.  It was great to see Los Banos added to the President’s schedule on his Valentines’ Day visit. 

The visit including a meeting with a foreign dignitary Friday night, and was extended by a couple of days so he’d have time to play three rounds of golf with some school buddies. 

While in Merced County, the President got to see our water issues front and center with a flyover of the San Luis Reservoir.  No matter how long the visit could have been, not every community can have the honor of welcoming the Chief Executive.  

I would have appreciated seeing more diversity among the lawmakers invited to accompany the President, namely Valley Republican House members Jeff Denham and Devon Nunes.  But I still see the visit for what it meant to our community; it was a big deal.

Google at Castle

Speaking of big deals, congratulations to the Merced County Office of Aviation, Commerce and Economic Development on landing Google at the Castle Commerce Center in Atwater.  Google was interested in the wide open spaces offered by Castle’s expansive runways to test new technologies involving cars that drive themselves.  The number of jobs coming to the community may be small, but you never know whether this small step by Google might lead to a giant leap for ancillary jobs that could be created in Merced County by other high tech companies from the Silicon Valley.

Panera and Chipotle

It’s also nice to see Panera Bread and soon Chipotle operating in the old Blockbuster building at Olive Avenue and R Street.  Little by little, the region is picking up more economic activity.  Why not celebrate these small signs of success with a Panera cookie or a Chipotle burrito.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

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The Beatles, the Ed Sullivan Theater, and Memories of New York City

It was fifty years ago this month that the Beatles made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show live on CBS television from New York City.  I have many thoughts about that event: the band, the venue, and New York City.

The performance took place on the stage of what is now called the Ed Sullivan Theater.  The theater is now the home of Late Night with David Letterman. Most of America saw it from their family living rooms.

I was less than six weeks away from my seventh birthday the night the Beatles appeared on the Sullivan Show.  My memory of watching it has faded somewhat over the years.  I recall my Dad remarking how funny the girls in the audience appeared with their screaming.  I think my Mom commented on the long hair worn by Ringo, George, John, and Paul.  

I wasn’t moved in a musical sense by the Beatles on that night in February 1964.  It would take a couple more years before another foursome, the Monkees, came onto the scene.  I owe my introduction to rock-and-roll to Davy, Mickey, Peter, and Mike. 

As a kid growing up in the sixties and early seventies, it was hard to fathom how a city just six hours away from my hometown in upstate New York was the entertainment center of the world.  I got my first taste of the Big Apple while in high school when my cousin Ed took me to a Yankee game. 

We stayed with a cousin from the other side ofEd’s family who lived north of the City.  We arrived on a Saturday night.  Once that cousin found out I had never seen New York City, he insisted on taking us for a nighttime tour by car.  We saw Broadway, Times Square, and lots of lights in the City that never sleeps.  

The Yankees/Angels game the next day was also an adventure as Ed and I rode a bus to the subway station, and then took the subway to Yankee Stadium. 

I forgot who won the game, but I do remember buying a Mets cap for myself and an Oakland A’s cap for my brother.  Both teams would play in the 1973 World Series.  

From that Yankee game in the early seventies and onward, I had a fascination with the City.  There were three visits with friends during my college years that included tours of Radio City Music Hall and standing-room-only tickets to about a half-dozen Broadway shows including one called Beatlemania. 

In the eighties, my wife and I took the train from Utica to our honeymoon in New York City.  In the late nineties and into the new century, my friend John and I would meet there with me driving in from Rochester and John taking a train from Philadelphia for a day of fast paced walking tours followed by being in the audience for a taping of either Late Night with Conan O’Brienor The Late Show with David Letterman.

And that takes me back to the Ed Sullivan Theater.  It is the place where Letterman started his program on CBS in the summer of 1993.  During my visits to the theater, I recall seeing blown up photographs of the Fab Four’s Sullivan appearances hanging on the walls in the hallway leading to the audience seating area. 

As fascinated as I was to see the Letterman show and the behind-the-scenes mechanics of the production, I couldn’t help but think about what it must have been like that famous night in February 1964 when the Beatles had performed. 

The stage seemed much smaller than I imagined it would be.  I felt as though I could almost see Sullivan standing at the far left of the stage where he would introduce all his guests.  I could visualize the band making their music at center stage.  And I could only guess at how loud the audience’s screaming must have been.

Several years ago, I worked with a man who sat in that audience on that night in February 1964.  He confirmed to me how noisy the Ed Sullivan Theater was on that historic night.  I recall him saying to me something to the effect, “We really didn’t hear the band because the screaming was so loud.  But we didn’t care.  We were there.”

Thankfully, the microphones on stage captured the singing and the music coming from those instruments so that the rest of America experienced the Beatles in their glory.   That special moment when rock-and-roll music changed forever will live on for many of us baby boomers.

For all of us who saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in front of a television set in February 1964, we are part of a truly unique moment in history.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

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