Living in Hollister for a year now, after growing up in
Wisconsin, I still often look around at the hilly landscape and
dried countryside, and deeply ponder: When will this 12-month
summer end? Where am I? And of course, I contemplate, how the
bleepin’ bleep did I get here?
Living in Hollister for a year now, after growing up in Wisconsin, I still often look around at the hilly landscape and dried countryside, and deeply ponder: When will this 12-month summer end? Where am I? And of course, I contemplate, how the bleepin’ bleep did I get here?
Then I always remember, I just got in my car and drove here. That’s it. I got in a newly purchased Dodge and drove 35 hours to Hollister – knowing almost nothing about the place, except that the local newspaper was willing to hire me as a reporter. And I knew it’s the birthplace of badass bikers and the capital of earthquakes, or something like that.
Somehow, fortunately, while I could have ended up just about anywhere, including Madera – thank you God – I found this nice, quiet place, where people are pleasant and farming still has a presence. Oh yeah, thank you Free Lance.
Thank you Free Lance for trusting a then 22-year-old recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin – recently rated the No. 1 school in the nation for beer consumption – to come all the way here and do an OK job.
I have, gradually, come to feel at home in San Benito County, aside from the unbearable water and San Francisco 49er fanaticism.
By the way, how ’bout all you folks start cheering for that team from Green Bay and maybe the local Fox station will consider showing the Packers games on Sundays instead? Yeah, I know, that won’t happen.
But you can be assured I’ll never cheer for the Niners, either. Never, ever – not even if I have a kid someday who turns out to be a star football player and makes the 49ers. I’ll still show up at his games wearing green and gold. And when he makes a tackle, I’ll boo.
Aside from the Packer frenzy – or more accurately, religion – being 2,500 miles away, I’m pretty much acclimated here.
I’m still amazed, every day, at the wonderful landscapes, the diversity of ethnicity, the often hilarious small-town politics, the relatively excessive price of eggs (where’s the closest chicken farm, Nebraska?), the area’s pleasant charm and the varying smells of agriculture. Back home, there’s one constant farm smell – an occasional waft of cow manure.
After I meet people here, and they mock my faint Yooper accent, they often ask: Do you miss Wiscooonsin?
“Absolutely,” I say, “aside from the cow poo.”
No, I’m kidding, I don’t really say that in conversation, only in a column to all the newspaper’s readers, or when I’m talking to my 6-year-old pal, Jeff Smith.
Seriously, I’d be callous if I didn’t miss home. My entire family is there, along with most of my friends. Also, I miss changing seasons, football in the snow, green grass, Mom’s cooking, Dad’s outdated jokes and sane driving habits, among other stuff.
Obviously, I don’t miss the episodic below-zero temperatures, or shoveling. When I fly back over the upcoming holidays and walk outside in the snow, my Californi-ated body will likely beg of me: “Please, please Kollin, go inside. You fool! It is not worth it to roll a few snowballs into a giant, idiotic snowman. Remember Hollister, where it just rains in December? Go there and jump in the puddles.”
The newspaper stories alone, so many of which have introduced me to wonderful people and places, others of which have induced immense sadness, have overwhelmingly been worth this once seemingly crazy move out west.
When I first came here, I expected a different attitude in the people. But a year later, I still haven’t found it. Anywhere, I guess, there will be those who are welcoming and others who just aren’t. There’ll be wealth and poverty, generosity and greed, passion and apathy.
Here, I’ve seen all those, along with a community charm and decency as comforting as any Midwestern town. I can’t complain. Plus, people have stopped asking me, where’s your cheesehead?
