Greetings friends,
Do you hear that sound?
It is the sound of our community opening up. As the door swings open, we hear the sound of bands, the guitars, the vocals, the leap of a ballerina, the tenor from an opera, the drums from a music garden and the beautiful rhythm of a gentle bossa nova where you’ll be dancing with ‘em too until the night is ovah*. Happy again.
Could it be happening? *
*Well maybe. That’s why we put the asterisk on our cover and throughout this magazine. All signs are saying yes, but there is always a chance that we will blow it since Stanislaus County has one of the lower percentages of vaccinated people at 30-40% Friends, we need to get this going. Trust the experts, the vaccine is safe, effective and when you are fully vaccinated, you can enjoy a mask free existence and hug other vaccinated people and get back to a new normal. See how easy this can be? Let’s not make our re-opening an asterisk event and let’s do this right. Vaccines are available nearly everywhere with no lines. I did it, all my family did it and you can do it too. June 15 is the moment of truth and I hope we can do this. We wrote this entire issue with the hope that this happens and everything has an * by it, just in case.
Speaking of fully vaccinated living. I am ready to travel and get back into the groove. For my 60th birthday, we had a cool retro fun weekend in Frank Sinatra’s former home and the whole family went full rat pack and vintage cocktails for the weekend and even Jamie enjoyed the ghost of Sinatra. It’s good to be on the move again, it is good to be playing music for real people, it is good to be enjoying dinners and fun times with my vaxxed friends and like Frank says, “the best is yet to come”. 60 Plus! Let’s do this. Thank you all for my wonderful birthday greetings and let’s get together soon.
So it’s June, and normally this is Graffiti Summer. I’m like a lost kid right now as we should be planning the Legends of the Cruise, the Walk of Fame, the American Graffiti Festival Cruise parade, but that will all have to wait until August. Have no fear, Graffiti Summer will be bigger than ever this August. So this month we are diving head first into our fresh local food and our newly emerging arts scene. The fall arts seasons are being announced and the Farmer’s Market is as fresh as can be. One of my favorite stories is the connection between the Rodin Family and the Gallasso (Shelton) families about how they have connected for decades and reunited at 10th and J. Read about it in Food/Drink view and it will make you smile.
Local businesses. Hat’s off to you. It looks like you made it. We made more adjustments, had more plan B’s than can be imagined and ModestoView has been here through the whole pandemic, cheering you all along the way. I hope we have helped you make it through and you know that ModestoView works hard to champion the great local things.
Thank you all for reading and for your local cheerleading too.
With Gratitude,
Chris Murphy
Founder and Publisher, ModestoView
(*yes, those words are from the song Downtown. You get an A for noticing)
