Joyful Racket on BART

Your Boulevardier walked to the Castro Valley BART station this morning to catch a train to the large technology trade show in San Francisco. As the station was approached, the sound of truck horns honking on the freeway grew louder and more frequent; one suspected that there was a late lane-changer or some other obstructeur on the freeway.

But within the station, another noise cut through the din: laughing children. It turns out that a gaggle of young students -- perhaps twenty of them, perhaps seven or eight years of age -- from Marshall School were on the BART platform, waiting for a train to take them on a field trip. Since the station is in the middle of the freeway, and since traffic was typically slow, the children were signaling to the passing truckers to honk their horns. (And, remarkably, using the old string-pulling gesture to make their request.) The truckers happily complied, to squeals of delight from the youngsters. One does not know how the other motorists felt about the call-and-response.

Other BART patrons in the station looked on with amusement, but when the train arrived we all chose to ride in a different car than the energetic students.

More Regarding the Gemignanis' Coming Diner

Your Boulevardier has acquired a bit more information about the new diner to be opened by the Gemignani Brothers at the corner of Castro Valley Boulevard and Yeandle Avenue.

Its name is to be "Deluxe Diner," though currently a version of the Route 66 shield also appears in its logotype.

The logo (and not much more information) can be found here: Castro Valley Deluxe Diner.

The siding has begun to go up on the building, and Your Boulevardier is relieved that it's not stucco. Instead, it is an exciting, shiny corrugated metal.

Gambling comes to Castro Valley

Madame Boulevardier is traveling, and whenever she does, the rhythms of the day become, shall we say, adjusted.

Such was the case today. Your Boulevardier worked around the hosue and finally decided to take a break for lunch around 3:00 p.m., going to the Chipotle restaurant on Castro Valley Boulevard for tacos. Four young men, assumed to be Castro Valley High students, were engaged in a quiet but active poker game at one table.

Initially, Your Boulevardier was disturbed by this activity; gambling generally does not strike one as a good use of time or money. But on further consideration, it can be seen as a positive. These young men were engaging in their recreational activity in public, rather than in some darkened basement. They were using their minds; certainly, you can't win at poker (or count your losings) without using some math skills. They weren't staring at flickering screen, and they weren't by themselves. All of these are positives.

Your Boulevardier congratulates these young men and encourages them in their fun.

The Capers Caper

This morning Your Boulevardier visited Rudy's Donut Shop, as he is too often wont to do. But this time he arrived by car, having driven Madame Boulevardier to the airport for an early flight to visit her sisters in Florida.

Rudy's is a much more difficult approach by car than on foot. Its parking lots are crowded and rutted. Driving there now is especially difficult due to backhoes and excavation. If you have driven near Rudy's lately, you know that its cross street -- the unpronounceable Yeandle Avenue -- is torn up. The road work is suspected to be related to construction at the former Capers Restaurant.

Capers, the reader probably already knows, has relocated to Castro Village, where it replaced a seafood restaurant (its name escapes Your Boulevardier). Meanwhile, the former Capers building on Yeandle is, reportedly, being remodeled into a 50s-style diner. The Gemignani Brothers -- champion pizza-tosser Tony and his brother Frank -- are behind the venture.

The building itself has taken on an interesting angular shape on the end toward Castro Valley Boulevard. One hopes that an interesting choice of siding -- that is, not stucco -- will accompany this daring design.

Your Boulevardier does not yet know if the restaurant will offer car service, but the fact that the historic Capers awning-cum-sun shade has been retained is a good sign. (Roller-skating carhops would be a bonus, albeit an unlikely one.) And if the Gemignani Brothers' track record at Pyzano's is any indication, the food should be very good. (Now one can only hope that the restrooms will be maintained to a higher standard than those at Pyzano's, which are often a disaster.)

Painting the Town

Your Boulevardier, on a brief mission to Trader Joe's on Friday (October 6), arrived as an artist was preparing to decorate the windows of the store with an autumnal theme. The back of her vehicle itself provided an impressive display of fall color in Castro Valley.



The dominant color on Friday proved to be Kelly Green, however, in acknowledgement of the Oakland Athletics' game. Although Your Boulevardier was there before the game had even commenced, the discussion at Rudy's Donut Shop on Friday was already about what opponent the A's should face in the next round of the playoffs, with the prevailing wisdom being that we'd rather it not be the Yankees. Time will tell.

Reckless Abandon

Your Boulevardier only spent a bit of time on the Boulevard today, but he noticed two things which caused him a bit of dismay.

First was a bicycle frame leaning on a pole near the corner of Castro Valley Boulevard at Lake Chabot Road. Strangely, the frame lacked a back wheel and seat; the front wheel and handlebars seemed intact. If it was the leave-behinds of a crime, it seems like the thief made a complicated, and mechanically difficult, choice. Your Boulevardier only hopes that the remaining pieces of the bicycle don't find their way into the nearby creek.

Second, a massage table was seen on the sidewalk near the corner of Nunes Avenue. Your Boulevardier does not assume, the day after the first rain of the season, that a masseuse or masseur was offering her or his services al fresco. Instead, one would guess that one of the therapists in the nearby spa had grown tired of the table and simply set it outside, in hopes that it would disappear. As of mid-day today, it hadn't.

Whenever items are abandoned on our streets, whether by intention or inattention, it reflects poorly on all of us.

On a happier note, and speaking (as Your Boulevardier was earlier) about the first rain of the season: the gauge at Chez Boulevardier read 38/100 of an inch for our overnight storm. A perfectly respectable and welcome bit of precipitation and, it is hoped, a harbinger of a pleasantly wet winter. Now that the eaves around Chez Boulevardier are painted and the shrubbery is trimmed fom the rain gutters, we happily say: let the rains come.