Railroad Square

Several people commented on yesterday's old church saying that it didn't strike them as old...perhaps because they were used to churches built of stone. It reminded me of my niece's father-in-law, Oreste, who is Italian and lives in a converted 16th century villa. He is a very serious fellow who takes his family and business responsibilities very seriously. (He reminds me of Eeyore...a bit glum but very well meaning). He came to visit us once and commented that he was very concerned about all our buildings because they were made of wood..."they won't last". Our house at the time was solid old growth redwood, built in 1907, which seemed quite old to us, but that was before we visited him in Italy....

I have photographed this building before because it is close to my heart for several reasons. First and foremost it houses Flying Goat Coffee, which produces the wonderful Aztec Mocha. I have cut my visits from almost every day to once a week or so, mainly because the richness and calorie count of more than one Aztek Mocha a week could be dangerous, and also because it is just about as far from our house as one can get right next to the railroad tracks and the new platform station.

I also like the history of the building which was built around the turn of the century by Italian stonemasons out of local basalt rock. There were a lot of Italian immigrants then and Italian surnames are still very common in Sonoma County...many of the oldest wineries in the state bear names like Martinelli, Foppiano and Ferrari Carrano.  The big white cross beams that can be seen through the front windows of the Flying Goat are  earthquake  reinforcements. They may withstand fire and the forces of time and weather better than wood, but, as we explained to Oreste,  unreinforced stone and brick buildings fall like a house of cards in an earthquake.

In the town of Sonoma, just to the east of us, many of the oldest buildings date back to when California was Mexican territory and are built of adobe bricks. Here in General Vallejo's servants' quarters is a good example of adobe construction. The Mexican history in California goes back even farther than the Italian and it is not exactly surprising that California values and respects its Mexican immigrants and has no interest in deporting them. It must be my background in anthropology and archaeology that inform my fascination with historical buildings and their building materials. They say so much about the places where they are found...the people, the climate, the geology and the culture.