Allyson Johnson

Pieces of my Mind

Archive for the category “Memoir”

20 Jun 2013
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Freeway Free in Spain: A Dream Deferred

The cookie factoryMy niece Jen teaches English in a small Pre-K through Adult School district in a small town (pop. 8000) in northern Spain. The town is most notable for its Romanesque church, its castle ruin, and its cookie factory, the largest in Europe.
Each morning Jen begins her day with a class of 3-5 year olds, held in the basement of the school. The classroom’s walls are covered with colorful posters and student artwork. The letters of the alphabet with pictures (A, Apple, B, Book) ring the tops of the bulletin boards. The classroom is divided by a long two-sided bookcase into two halves. On one side are several small round tables with chairs, on the other side are a playhouse, a large rug, and a smartboard. Except for the smartboard, it looks a lot like the kindergarten my children attended in California.
The children begin to arrive at 9AM. They exchange “good morning” with Jen, hang up their coats, and go to sit around the rug. T he five-year-olds wear purple gingham smocks with their names embroidered in purple along the front. The Pre-K group of 3 t0 4 –year-olds wear bright red smocks with yellow piping and a blue screen printed border, with their names embroidered in yellow.
Jen starts up the smartboard, which is a combination whiteboard, computer touch screen, and video player. A young man with a guitar appears on the screen to lead the children in a good morning song, while Jen helps the younger children settle in place and makes sure they are paying attention. One of the Pre-K students, Xavier, is Class Leader for the day. He leads the class through several phonics-based games using the touchscreen.
“The smartboard is great,” Jen whispers to me. “It’s like having another teacher in the room. Every class in the school has one.”
Next the students practice reciting a poem which they will present at the school’s Open House in a week. Afterward they break up into groups to color pictures for the presentation. Everything is done and said in English. The three-year-olds are still making mistakes; the four and five-year-olds are nearly flawless.
During her break, Jen takes me on a tour of the school. In the 6th grade class, each of the students is working with his own notebook computer. I am feeling a bit envious – this little town’s school seems as well equipped as those of Silicon Valley, and the 3-year-olds are already learning English. Here is a country that really puts value on education!
Later, while walking back to Jen’s house from the school, we meet one of her friends. He is an attractive young man of about thirty, who speaks excellent English and has an MBA from one of the best universities in Spain. He still lives with his parents. He has been looking for a job since getting his degree, but the best he has been able to manage in Spain’s economic meltdown is a part-time job on the night shift at the cookie factory.
What is the value of education, if it brings one no closer to one’s dreams?cookie factory 2

Posted in Memoir, Spain, Travel and tagged , ,
14 Jun 2013

Freeway Free in Spain: Don’t Forget to Bring…

Thngs to bring

Note plain dark pants; sensible shoes, hat, shirt jacket are the same

Note plain dark pants; sensible shoes, hat, shirt jacket are the same

Note: raffia had, fanny pack as purse, bulging pockets of cargo pants

Note: raffia hat, fanny pack as purse, bulging pockets of cargo pants

I found my packing list for the Spanish trip today.  Reviewing, these are the things which jumped out as having been most useful:

A fanny pack. Mine is a dark color that can double as a purse or shoulder bag. It has lots of zippers, easy-access compartments, an adjustable strap with a sturdy clasp, and room for a water bottle.

A flashlight in the fanny pack –  in Spanish toilets  sometimes the light is on a timer and goes out unexpectedly, sometimes the switch is on the outside and a well-meaning user turns the lights off on exiting, sometimes there is no window and you need a flashlight to find the light switch.

Bandaids and anti-biotic – you hope you won’t need these, but in my case , both came in handy when I bumped the mirror in our Caceras hotel room and then caught it one-handed as it bounced. It only sliced a bit of the web between two fingers, and the Band-Aids and ointment eased both pain and anxiety.

A shirt jacket with a pocket on the front big enough to carry your camera – easy to get to, but out of sight, so you don’t scream “Tourist!” to every passerby. A dark color looks dressier in an urban setting, and is practical; a light color is more comfortable in heat.

Sensible shoes  The best are shoes that can pass for urban wear, but stay comfortable on a hiking trail or after a day trekking in museums. I swear by SAS Freetime, the classic worn by nurses in white and little old ladies in beige and me at countless trade shows and on myriad business trips in black or navy.

there are layers of long underware, a turtleneck, shirt, T-shirt, lightweight hoodie, and windbreaker rounding me out and keeping me smiling!

Six layers of clothing are rounding me out and keeping me smiling in the snow!

Cargo pants These are great for wear in rural areas where you are hiking, biking, or scrambling over cobblestones. The extra pockets can carry what you need and leave hands free.

Dark Casual Pants.  These should have deep pockets for your wallet, but  look like ordinary daywear for the urban areas where you don’t want to advertise that you are a  tourist.

Kleenex packs – you cannot count on finding tissues in the hotel, or toilet paper in those bathrooms.

Compact tablet computer.  I filled mine with free books and read them on the plane and bus trips.  W loaded hers  with tour books.  In both cases, we saved space by not carrying the actual books which are heavy and bulky. And of course don’t forget to bring the charger.

International Transformer/Adapter American plugs don’t work in Spain, and American power requirements can cause a hotel blackout in rural areas.  In a larger hotel in Madrid you can borrow an adapter from the concierge, but not in the smaller towns.

Laundry Soap packets (they work better than the hotel shampoo and don’t leave your clothes smelling of citrus or jasmine or whatever.)

Lots of Layers of clothing!!!. Maybe it’s climate change, maybe it’s not, but we went from 80 degrees. F. to 30 degrees F. in one day more than once.  I packed:

Bottoms: regular underwear, silk long-johns, and lined pants

Tops: regular underwear, silk long-johns, a knit turtleneck, a long-sleeved collared cotton shirt, a long-sleeved knit crew-neck shirt, a fitted knit hoodie, and a water-proof hooded wind-breaker. I never had to use all 7 top layers, but I came close.

Map Even if you have a GPS in the car, even if you have Google Maps on your  iPhone, a real paper map is invaluable for giving an understanding of distance and direction.  You can see how the distance you plan to travel today compares to the distance you traveled yesterday.  You can see whether a suggested side trip is a reasonable distance.  If the map is a good one, it will also give you an idea of the topography, and tell you the names of those distant mountains.  The one I brought was folded and re-folded until it was falling apart at the seams.

Scarves/Buff – neck warmers are key to sealing in whatever warmth your poor body can generate when you are caught in a cold drizzle or snow flurry.  A Buff can double as a hat or earmuffs.

Sun Hat.  If you are traveling with a friend, make your hats distinctive so you can find each other in a crowd.   W and I had nearly identical raffia hats, which we grew adept at spotting a la “Where’s Waldo?”

Step 1 - 2 can pack as flat as 1

Collapsible Suitcase/Tote Bag Here’s a space-saving trick to provide extra carry power: Pack two large poly-fiber grocery bags (the kind you take to the market instead of getting paper or plastic).  They take up scarcely any space. One of these can serve as a handy carry-all for a day trip.  If you have purchased presents that overflow your suitcase for the return trip, you can pack the presents into one of the bags, put the second bag upside down over the first one, then invert the whole thing and you have a tidy package with handles which you can carry on as a personal item.

P1010392web P1010393web P1010394web

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05 Jun 2013

Freeway Free in Spain: Livin’ the High Life in Caceras

Bride #3 and littlest guestCaceras Bride #2Saturday is the best day for  touring the medieval lchurches in Caceres. In addition to the wonders of the Old Town, you are likely to spot a bevy of up-to-date brides – always a great insight into the local culture.

The Old Town is very old indeed, with Hapsburg castles built on Castilian palaces built on Moorish forts built on Roman walls.  We wandered through maybe a quarter of the
Old Town, taking in the Visitor Center (highly recommended)  in a 14th century lookout tower outside  the wall and the Church of Santa Maria with its carved reredos and 14th century
Christo Negro.   This area was the home of Pizarro and Cortez (more on them later) and the church museum is full of silver and gold reliquaries and croziers made from New World gold and silver.

Caceras Bride #1At the Plaza San Jorge we spotted our first bride of the day, dressed in a very modern white gown – above the knee in front and trailing to the ground in back  –  posing on the step with her family including a tiny ring-bearer who was doing his version of  Gangnam Style   in the front row.

The cathedral of St. Francis Xavier  has a three story gilded reredos studded with saints.  In case there was not enough gilt on view, this particular weekend also featured  a special exhibition of icons from around the world.  In this setting all that glitters is not gold, but might well be ruby, emerald, or mother-of-pearl.Altarpiece, Church of San Francisco Xavier

After being dazzled, we  squeezed our way up a two-story wrought iron spiral staircase (not for the vertiginous!) and then up the spiral stone steps of the two towers, from which one could peer across to say hello to storks guarding their nests at eye level.    A beautiful day  allowed us to look across the green valley to the peaks of the Greda range still well-covered with snow.Stork at home

Second church, second bride (see above leftf).  At the Plaza San Mateo we found a VERY upscale wedding, with the female guests wearing Jimmy Choos and fascinators a la Kate and William’s wedding, and the male guests wearing silk ties which coordinated with their wives’/girlfriends’ dresses.  When the bride and groom emerged the air was full of red and white rice-paper hearts which were carried everywhere and up by the wind.

Taxis whisked the most important guests to the reception, while the other female guests tottered off over the cobblestones in their 5 inch heels. Some had to be assisted on both sides to keep from falling, just like the Chinese ladies of old with their bound feet.  To each her own torture.These shoes ain't made for walkin'

We hit the Cultural Center (also recommended)  and the Artisan Coop (interesting local art, but pricey!)  and headed for our hotel in  time to catch the 3rd bride exiting from the church of San Juan just outside the old city –  more fascinators, more silk gowns.  I felt way under-dressed in my well-traveled raffia hat and cargo pants, but that didn’t stop my snapping pictures of the elegant display.  And no one preening in their finery seemed to object to becoming part of my travel story – no Mafia dons in Spain?

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03 Jun 2013

Freeway Free in Merida: Ramblin’ round the Roman Ruins

Roman theatre in MericaIf you OD on medieval ruins in Caceras, you have options.  How about Roman ruins instead?  Merida, another World Heritage Site, is only an hour’s train ride away.

Wow!  Those Romans were some engineers!  Stuff they built 2000 years ago is still being used  in Merida, such as a magical open air theatre where we happened upon a kind of rock n roll High School Musical version of “The Rape of Europa” (That giant white caterpillar with black antennae is supposed to be Jupiter as a white bull).

Temple of Diana - Merida

The Temple of Diana has a 15th Century villa built INSIDE.

Roman bridge - Merida

A graceful bridge across the Guardiana River is used now by pedestrians and bicycles as part of an extensive trail network.

Arc of Trajan - Merida

Cars still rumble under Trajan’s Arch.

Roman road leads to ongoing archaeology

In many places the original Roman roads form the substrata for current city streets.

I

Museo National de Arte Romano

And there is a great museum next to the theatre and amphitheater which makes sense of it all.

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14 Apr 2013

Freeway-Free in California – San Luis Obispo side streets

Moms&Kids fountainSan Luis Obispo is more than Higueroa Street and the Cal Poly Campus. Here are some of the highlights we discovered as we explored the side streets.

  • The San Luis mission – we visited  just as it opened. A mother with three toddlers in tow was inspecting the kid-friendly fountain in the plaza which shows a mother bear with two cubs and a little girl playing together. The mission is one of the more humble in the California String of Missions, but with lovingly painted interior decoration including fool-the-eye columns, and a dormant mission garden which must be lovely when the arbors and trellises are in bloom.Fremont theatre - day
  •  The flamboyant old Fremont theatre, an art-deco mashup that looks like it was assembled from carousel leftovers.  At night, the vintage neon lights up the whole street.Fremont Theatre - night
  • Phoenix Books – this labyrinth  of used books is organized eccentrically – e.g. the historical novels of Bernard Cornwell can be found in the Mystery section, snuggled  next to the crime novels written by Patricia Cornwelll. Why? “Because they are married, don’t you think they should be together?” explains the owner. Bernard’s wife is named Judy, but that  is beside the point – The oddities of categorization only encourage browsing for the perfect book to be reading by the fire in our cosy B&B.
  • The upscale pedestrian mall which is tucked unobtrusively in between Monterey and Higueroa Streets.  The architecture is designed to blend in unobtrusively with  the mission and all those 1890’s buildings, but it includes a movie multiplex,  Chico’s, California Pizza Kitchen, and of course a Peet’s coffee on one corner and a Starbuck’s on the other, if you’ve had enough of organic and artisan for awhile.
  • Tiny Bubble Gum Alley off Higueroa between Garden Street and Broad Street. Someone stuck a piece of chewed bubble gum on the wall of this narrow walkway – then others copied this action about one million times – and there it is.Crossing the tracks in SLO
  •  .Tthe  elaborate trusses of the pedestrian overcrossing at the Railway Station which allows you to hike from downtown to one of the friendly rounded hills over looking the town and the campus without having to dodge cars or trains.
  • Down at the foot of Higueroa Street at the other end from the mall, you will see a family waving at you from the balcony of a homely 50’s motel… but wait!  that’s a mural!the Two-D Motel

Feeling hungry?  We liked:

  • the Big Sky Café – wonderful local produce, seafood, dairy, in a large, informal, bustling, and friendly  space – we ate here twice and didn’t run out of items we wished we still had room to try.
  • Ciopinot :   Definitely not the college hangout – mostly graying couples like us, or groups of thirty-somethings celebrating.  Excellent sea food, including “No Work Cioppino”  (that means pre-shelled clams and crabs – no bibs required!)
  • Novo :  if weather permits, opt for dining outside next to meandering San Luis Obispo creek, under trees hung with lanterns,  and walls decked with bougainvillea in bloom.
  • House of Bread (on Marsh Street at the foot of downtown) – the perfect place to buy bread to go with that artisanal cheese you bought at the Farmer’s Market.

NOTE:  I will be setting off on another adventure next week, so there will be a hiatus.  Read some past posts and stand by for further freeway-free travel!

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09 Apr 2013
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Freeway-Free in California – San Luis Obispo’s Energy Source

On the move at Cal PolyWith its beautiful setting, historic mission, comfortable climate, and quaint downtown, what keeps San Luis Obispo from becoming just another haven for retirees?  The gods, in the form of the California State University regents, have gifted SLO with the Californial Polytechnical State University,  the queen campus of the State University system, affectionately known as Cal Poly.  An easy bike ride away from downtown, the campus radiates enough life force to keep the aterioscelerosis from building up behind those 100-year-old storefronts.

After walking Higueroa Street on both sides, plus several side excursions, we were beginning to be footsore, so we sought out Wally’s Bike Works at the far end of Higueroa street, and rented a couple of bikes ($30 for 24 hours, including helmets, a lock, and a bike route map. )Town cruisers from Wally's

The next morning we pedal through the craftsman shingle or stucco bungalows of SLO up  to the campus.   For those accustomed to the  pseudo-mission sandstone and tile roofs of Stanford, UC Berkeley, and San Jose  State, or the pseudo-Gothic granite of the Ivy League and Duke, Cal Poly is a  shock – all modern techno-architecture accented with corrugated siding and solar panels, suitable for the generation that buys  its efficient minimalist furniture from IKEA rather than from thrift stores.   We parked our bikes and began to explore.

We cross wiry  suspension bridges between the buildings, dodging construction sites, and  gradually move toward the campus center along with a stream of students  – it is nearly lunchtime. The dining commons features every student’s basic fare:  pizza, hamburgers, Chinese take-out, sandwiches, plus a salad bar for visiting parents.  The bookstore sells a wide variety of Mustang-logo’d apparel, and also sells postcards (for non-visiting parents?) There is a band playing in the plaza.  A housing fair is happening on the lawn.  A student spots us consulting our campus map and asks if she can help us find something.  It’s that kind of place.

Nutella crepe anyone?Even on a chilly February evening, the student energy helps light up the renowned Thursday night farmers market on Higueroa Street.  We pass bales of kale and columns of cauliflower, but stop  at the Cal Poly Dairy Science Department stall to sample and buy some student-crafted cheese for our train trip home.  We taste some local micro-brew, watch as another student chef crafts giant Nutella crepes for a drooling kiddie clientale, and ogle the ribs on what may be the state’s largest barbecue grill – a circle of smoldering charcoal carpeted with ribs and chicken parts, at least ten feet across (the grill, not the chicken.) Town and Gown – what a wonderful blend, when SLO-cooked!Grilling galore

Posted in California, Memoir, Travel and tagged , , ,
02 Apr 2013

Freeway-Free in CA – Exploring San Luis Obispo – Day 1-2

Candy and Comics - SLO San Luis Obispo is was too small to be able to afford “downtown redevelopment” back in the 60’s. That’s  when “forward –thinking” municipalities in California like Sunnyvale and Santa Clara ruthlessly razed their walkable, charming downtown streets and replaced them with jiffy-box shopping malls. Happy San Luis Obispo!  Not only is the downtown preserved in the 1920’s like a time warp, but the influence of nearby Cal Poly ensure that the quaint store fronts will be populated with quirky, one-of-a-kind businesses designed to appeal to the college crowd, and to their wealthy retiree parents who increasingly settle here. There is an upscale shopping mall, but it is cleverly designed to blend in with the stucco-clad, tile-roofed architecture of the older parts of the street, and includes a meandering path which invites lingering.

When we set off from our B&B to explore nearby Higueroa Street, the main drag of SLO, wea walked past the funky Candy and Comix shop pictured above.  Downton,  here are some of the shops whose open doors invited us in:

SLO Missian Mall

An old warehouse converted to a gallery/boutique center

Classic car restoration palace

Classic car restoration palace

Don’t you want to come and explore more?

A classic cigar store complete with wooden Indian

A classic cigar store complete with wooden Indian

Tapas bar with lantern glowing through waterfall wall

Tapas bar with lantern glowing through waterfall wall

An organic gift shop

An organic gift shop

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20 Mar 2013
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A Pop-Up Heritage Garden (Town Crier, March 2012)

narcissusIn mid-January on my street corner a carpet of green shoots transforms each year into hundreds of waving narcissus blooms – the maximum bloom cresting during the coldest days of winter.
Someone at least 30 years ago planted some narcissus bulbs in the orchard which formerly marked the end of the street. It may have been the original owner of the orchard. It may have been the first owner of the house built in the housing development which replaced the orchard, or the second green-thumbed owner who planted over a dozen different varieties of fruit trees in the place of the original apricots. It may even have been my father, who was a city kid who did his best to become a green-thumb gardener for over forty years after buying the house and land in the late 50’s.
Somehow the bulbs survived my father’s regular roto-tilling of the orchard, the bull-dozing of the fruit trees when our house was built next to my parents’ in the 80’s, the re-landscaping, covering with new soil, and planting of a rose garden after the new house was built.
One summer day as I was picking roses, I saw a bulb lying on the ground. Wondering where it had come from, I picked it up. Underneath it was another bulb. I picked that one up too. The hollow where it had been was lined with more bulbs. It was like the classic Dr. Seuss book The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins; each bulb I picked from the hollow revealed more bulbs beneath and around the first one. I had discovered a bulb mine!
Apparently the bulbs had been dividing and multiplying under the topsoil until they had run out of soil; then the bottom layers began pushing the others upward until the top-most one was simply lying on the surface. I fetched an old pair of panty hose and began loading bulbs into it. When I had taken all the bulbs that seemed loose in the bulb mine, I threw a couple of shovels-full of dirt into the hollow to encourage the bulbs that were left, and hung the bulb-filled stockings on a nail in the garage.
When the rains came to soften the dirt, I planted the bulbs in the bare space around the oak tree on the corner. I didn’t know I was supposed to imitate nature and scatter them randomly, so I set them out in orderly rows, counting as I planted. By the time the stockings were emptied, I had planted 250 bulbs.
The next year I spotted a bulb lying on the ground in a different place. The new bulb mine yielded about 150 bulbs, some of which I shared with my sister in Davis and my co-workers in San Jose or planted in pots as Christmas gifts. The leftovers went to another bare space beyond the oak tree, and along the parking space in front of the rose garden.
Over the next years as the bulb mines appeared and disappeared, I began offering bags of bulbs to my neighbors up and down the street. My Adopt-A-Bulb campaign has become almost an August tradition.
Last year I only harvested about 50 bulbs from the newest satellite mine, and I and my neighbors are running out of bare spaces in our gardens. But in January, when the narcissus are all blooming together, I think about the long-ago gardener who planted the first bulbs, hoping to make the world a little bit more lovely. Though it only lasts two weeks, it is a wonderful heritage.

Posted in Memoir, TOWN CRIER and tagged ,
19 Feb 2013

Canada: the Alien Next Door – Day 7-8 – Kamloops -> Vancouver

Continental Divide

Another early day, another gourmet breakfast aboard our luxury train, the Rocky Mountaineer.  We head into our final day of mountain scenery – the northern Cascade range.  As our black-and-gold bubble threads its way in and out of tunnels and alongside the westward-bound Fraser River, we catch one postcard view after another: glimpses of bald eagles perched on power poles, rafters shooting through rapids, and funicular cars trundling on cables overhead.  We pass the Continental Divide (actually a tri-vide, as from this point rivers flow into the Arctic as well as into the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico). We follow the Fraser River down the slope, and too soon we are rumbling along next to  tankers and flatcars as we enter the railyard under the bridges of Vancouver – end of the line.  Rafters on the Fraser River

The  Hotel  Vancouver is the last of the chain of hotels built by the railroads to encourage travelers to tour westward. (They ran out of track at the ocean)  It is a stately building, with the hallmark high ceilings and decorative interior pillars that mark the Gilded Age of its birth.  It has been  renovated a few too many time, though – it doesn’t have the rich patina of age that coats its sister hotels in  Banff Springs and Edmonton.  I spied no exuberant self-congratulatory murals showing the founders, nor was there any truly campy pseudo-oriental or pseudo-Spanish décor left to amaze and delight.  Just large rooms, tasteful colors, and a lot of gilt paint to evoke the luxury intended by the builders. [p1050068web – (Kamloops-Vancouver folder)] Maybe it was the cafeteria-style breakfast option which broke the illusion of bygone grandiosity – can you image Jane and Leland Stanford pushing their trays along at a cafeteria?Hotel Vancouver Lobby

The  Hotel Vancouver is located in a bustling area near the University of Vancouver and the Art Museum.  I took advantage of a bright morning to enjoy a walk around the neighborhoodand includes architecture ranging from the ultra-classic columns of the  Art Museum to the playful ramps of the University Library.  This section of Vancouver has a sprightly, humourous vibe –the public art display called “soft rocks” which conists of giant beanbags ideal for sprawling in the sun, the pretty young fashionistas striding to work in their ridiculously impractical platform shoes, the bright banners on the buildings.  I would like to explore more but… Soft Rocks - Vancouver

We had planned an extra day or two in Vancouver, but family issues called us home a bit sooner.  I saw and heard so much that was new to me on this visit to the north  – places, politics and people surprised me at every turn.  I  only took baby steps in exploring this alien land.  Knowing that it IS alien, not just a colder clone of the US, still feels like a breakthrough. In this lifetime I hope to learn more. Vancouver Central (Hotel, Concert Hall, Art Museum)

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12 Feb 2013
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Canada: The Alien Next Door – Day 6 (continued) – Kamloops

Lights of KamloopsIf you are traveling from Edmonton to Vancouver, you go through mountains.  If you are on the Rocky Mountaineer, the luxury tourist train, you are promised that you will the mountains in daylight.  The first day you see the Canadian Rockies.  The second day you see the northern Cascades.  And in between  you have to stop somewhere.  That would be  Kamloops.Kamloops Casino

After the historical majesty of Banff Springs, Kamloops is barebones, down-to-earth, and offers everything you need for a one-night stay.  There are at least two hotels with serviceable accommodations (we stayed at the Thompson).  There is a downtown, which features a brightly lit library and an even more brightly lit casino run by the Indian tribe whose reservation is across the river.  It is summer, and there is a college in Kamloops, so there is a lot of life on the streets even though it is mid-week.

Flood MarkerRiverside Park just over the railroad bridge sits at the confluence of the north and south branches of the Thompson River. Historically and pre-historically, the river has been even larger:  a marker at the edge shows the height of the river during several 20th century floods (Ankle, knee, and waist- high lines), during prehistoric times (head-high) and during the epochal flooding of 1894 (about twenty feet up there).

The park features lots of rolling lawn, graceful trees, a sandy beach, and a bandshell where free music concerts are given every night of the summer season (Heavy on the country-western genre.) Thanks to the balmy temperatures and the slow-moving river, it also features economy size mosquitoes, which limited our attention span for the concert.

RiversideBandshellWe strolled back from the park past a pizza parlor overflowing with families, an ice cream shop overflowing with children (including one practicing with a hula hoop). From the turn of the century opulence of the Banff Springs Hotel we had time traveled all the way to the 1950’s., We settled for dinner at The Noble Pig brewhouse, where the modest cuisine was considerably enhanced by the friendly service and outdoor dining.   I expected to see Ozzie and Harriet at the next table, with young David and Ricky fighting over the last piece of pizza.

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