Greetings Friends,
First things first. Happy Anniversary to my amazing wife Becky as we celebrate 33 years!
Modesto USA is really something special during Graffiti Summer. The sounds of the street rods, the Music in the Plaza, MoBand in the park, the shiny chrome, people filling the patios of restaurants, the cars lined up at the drive-ins, the burgers glilling, and everyone seems to be having a great time. We have just come off of Porchfest where we got to hang out with friends and musicians all over town. You have to really try hard not to have fun.
This is who we are. Modesto means so many things to many different people and different people have what they like and don’t like, but when you back up May and June in Modesto, we really get at some of the cool parts of our history that make us different than any other city in the world. It is cool to be unique, special and have an interesting past. Even if you never plan on owning or driving a classic car, it says something about us, and our place in history and at the very least, you can look at the chrome and candy apple red paint as art, something hand made, crafted like a hipster cocktail or a hand made repurposed pallet wall in your house, stand up bass, or steel-framed bicycle with Campy parts. Things are not always as they seem and we need to see the bigger picture.
One of the things that people like about Modesto is that it has the small town feeling, but with the bigger city amenities. This in a nutshell makes our retro Graffiti classic culture so spot on. We love our walkable downtown, farmers market, hanging out with friends on the patios, the twinkle lights in our plazas and over our streets, music in the air and coffee at the cafes with people writing computer code or poetry. This is the feeling that makes us Modesto USA, A Classic American City. It all goes together and there is a piece of it for everyone, young or old. It is relevant for our modern living as well as our sense of place We all want to feel like we are part of something and have a connection to the things we eat and do. So friends, being the home of George Lucas, American Graffiti, Star Wars and Rockabilly connects us to so much more and makes us real. Authentic and creative cities are the inners, and when we all come together to celebrate, we all win. We win by using our history to build our future. While other cities have to fabricate their story, we have a great one.
We celebrate our graduates who are writing their next chapters and it is up to all of us to build on to our city and create a place where this next generation will want to come back. This is very important every year when our kids go off to college, or they graduate from college as we hope they will find a great home here. That is our goal and why civic pride is so important.
June is time to reach out to our local businesses, take a staycation, enjoy picnics in the park for MoBand and the best ways to do this are to pick up a togo dinner at your favorite restaurant and then take it to MoBand to share or take on your bike ride on the Virginia Corridor or Mensinger trail. Ride to brunch on a Sunday morning. We are grateful to the local businesses that advertise in ModestoView so that we can put this magazine in your hands free of charge. Our mission from day one is to “Serve Civic Pride Daily” and you are part of this. Thank you for reading and thanks for being our friends.
See you out and about in Modesto USA.
Chris Murphy
Publisher & Founder – ModestoView
chrism@modestoview.com<mailto:chrism@modestoview.com>
Congratulations Abigail on your double major graduation with Phi Beta Kappa honors from UC Berkeley. Our family is so very proud of you.
