Greetings friends,
It is amazing how fast this summer went by and how August has now become a workhorse month. When I was growing up, August was filled with summer play days, and vacations as we counted down to Labor Day. Now, it is back to school, days of preparing backpacks and school lunches and those famous first-day-of-school pictures. It also puts a lot of pressure on the first two weeks to squeeze out any last bit of summer vacations; so in this issue we will give you some last minute fun tips. Most importantly in August, gotta wish my amazing wife Becky a very Happy Birthday.
There is a new era in local music beginning. It has been hard over the last few years since Fat Cat closed to get a lot of the touring bands here in Modesto. Sadly, we have lost the Portal operated by Lonny Davis that had a nice capacity and we are still looking for that 200-400 person live music venue. The Gallo Center has been working hard to fill the void while the State Theatre has focused mainly on movies. Our local restaurants like Barking Dog, Rivets, P Wex, Grand Cru, Udder Place, the Bistro, Nino’s, Moon & Sixpence and Ralston’s Goat have been filling in as much as possible. But this August marks a new era with the FruitYard Amphitheater that can host up to 3,500 people and puts us on the map with Wente, the casinos and some of the other larger regional places that can attract top-flight star quality. We will learn a lot more about this in our interview with Joe Traina.
Finally, I want to thank all of our ViewCrew and the team at Sierra Pacific Warehouse Group that worked so hard during July while Abigail and I travelled to Mongolia and China to fit and distribute wheelchairs to those in need in 5 cities across Mongolia from Ulaanbaatar to the Russian border. It was an incredibly enriching experience for us and changed our lives. The realization that we can have such an amazing impact on those in need is unreal. I have created a journal of our trip at www.modestoview.com . I am grateful to all that supported us, Lonny Davis and the Hope Haven West team that performs this mission all over Central and South America and now in Asia.
We also close and open a new chapter this month as our All-Ages Editor Leia Johnson pens her last column for us as she heads off to Chico State as a journalism major. Very cool. Just as my daughter Abbey took over from her sister Madison, our very first All Ages editor, we now welcome Leia’s younger sister Sofia Johnson to the ViewCrew team. I love the youth point of view here in Modesto.
We are an amazing family and community here in the greater Modesto area and it is a wonderful place to live and work, thanks to all the great people that really reach out to support each other, in friendships, in business and in volunteerism. Thanks for being part of the ModestoView family and let’s continue on our own mission to “Serve Civic Pride Daily”.
Thanks and gratitude,
Chris Murphy
Publisher & Founder ModestoView
chrism@modestoview.com<mailto:chrism@modestoview.com>
