We’re in the town of Visalia for the night as we end our Oregon and Northern California roadtrip. I haven’t been in Visalia since 1981 other than to pass through on one motorcycle trip I took a dozen years ago. We are staying overnight here in Visalia because it was too damn far to drive from Nevada City to home, especially since we have to drop off Gary & Oswaldo in West Hollywood on our way south. The stop in West Hollywood is about as much on the path home as it could be and other than the relatively low late morning risk of getting caught in local Hollywood traffic, it shouldn’t add much to the ride home. The big issue of going north or south in California for us is simply that there is no way to avoid the L.A. Basin unless you want to go through Death Valley and the Mojave, which is a ridiculously long route. Californians have pretty much taken up all the space between the desert and the ocean in that L.A. lower midsection of the state, so there is just no way to avoid it or, from my experience, to outthink it from the standpoint of traffic. The truth is that L.A. sprawls in so many directions with stuff going on all over the place that there are just various times of day when you just can’t avoid traffic since it goes in every direction imaginable. And on top of that, I’m not sure this city follows a 9 to 5 workday schedule, so I would say that any time from 5am to 10pm you can find yourself in traffic, About the best you can do is use Apple Maps and Google Maps to their maximum benefit and duck and weave accordingly.
We are staying at a hotel I found on booking.com and it seems like I may have found the best spot in Visalia to stay. This is The Darling Hotel and its right in the middle of town and is the historic city hall building from 1935. It is an art deco building that someone bought from what had devolved into the local welfare office, so I imagine they picked it up for a song and a guarantee to renovate the historic structure into something attractive, which is exactly what they have done. The outer facade is white white with black trim. They have fenced in the back parking area so as to keep it safe and secure for guests. The floors are all 15’ ceilings with tall windows. They have installed an outdoor pool (which we do not plan to use this trip) and put the restaurant on the top floor (the 4th) with an outdoor terrace from which you can see across the metropolis of this farming town.
When I visited Visalia in 1981 it was as the guest of my father, who had become a big deal local developer by virtue of partnering with an old Polish farmer who owned countless acres that he was willing to contribute into the home building partnership my father formed. In those days, the San Joaquin Valley was changing from a seasonal truck farming agribusiness locale into a place where food processing plants were being built. That meant that the migrant farm workers could find year-round labor for the first time and thereby settle down. People who are settling down need inexpensive homes and my father was in the business of cranking out 400 such homes at a time. In a mere year since he had gone bankrupt due to an ill-timed heart attack, he parlayed a $3 million commission earned by sourcing an oil tanker for his Saudi cardiac roommate (don’t ask…I have no idea how the hell he pulled that off) into this thriving development business in Visalia. He had done so well that he bought the signage rights on this very building as the tallest building in town at the time (It’s still close to being the tallest building). So there it was when I first came into town back then….MARIN ENTERPRISES…declared for all to see around the top floor of the building on all four sides. Impressive for a one year old business that probably hadn’t finished a single house at that time.
My father had bought a large home just outside of town. It had a gated entry and an apiary behind the house (he loved the show of wealth and birds). On our arrival he had arranged to have an employee of his come over with his pet grown tiger in his pickup…no joke. Needless to say, my father was into making a show of his success and there was no one he seemed to want to impress more than his oldest son (I had thought I was his only son, but have since learned otherwise). It was hard not to be impressed, less by the menagerie or the physical things, but more by the speed with which he had pulled this all off. He took me to breakfast at a local diner he frequented so I could meet all his important local friends, which included the mayor, the big car dealer, the Polish farmer and even a local judge. He had made himself a big fish in a small pond and was playing it to the max. He and his buddies decided that what Visalia needed was its own bank and he showed me his plans to charter a national bank with the endorsement of all his new local pals. It turns out he wanted me to meet them all because he wanted to impress them with my NYC banking credentials. At that point I was a five year banker with a Vice President title from one of the big New York banks. That seemed to impress the diner gang. He made sure I brought enough business cards to leave one with each of them. he also asked me after breakfast to give him another 20 cards. Luckily I only had five more with me, but who knows where those ended up.
I was somewhat surprised when he told me later that day that he wanted me to move out here and assume the position as the President of his new bank. Of course, he would be the Chairman. He offered to double my salary and give me one of his new homes if I wanted it. So you see, Visalia holds some special meaning to me even though I politely turned him down and explained that consumer and small commercial banking was really not my thing. I honestly think he was disappointed. To prove to me that he was serious, it was not long after that that my oldest sister, Kathy and her husband Bennett, took up his offer to move out to Visalia to be the house architects for his development company. The Visalia chapter of their lives is not a subject they like to discuss because it all ended badly, as I suspect mine would have had I come out here. Actually, since the Marin Enterprises house of cards tumbled due to bank fraud by the guy he hired to be President of the bank (my father was actually indicted for the fraud, but ultimately acquitted), w `ho knows, maybe I could have kept all that from happening…or maybe I would have just been another victim.
I don’t think about that short chapter of my life much, but this visit to Visalia has brought it all to mind. Just think, I could have been he darling of Visalia had I made it work…but instead I’m staying at The Darling Hotel instead.