The Michels, my great-great-grandparents
While I’m hardly a genealogy nut, I do consider myself the keeper of the keys when it comes to family history, and I try to keep opening old doors whenever I get the chance. One research trip that’s been on my list for way too long is a trip down to the New Almaden Mining Museum south of San Jose. According to my mom, her great-grandfather Pascal Michel worked there in the 1850s as a mining engineer, and I’ve always wanted to check the payroll records and get the full story. A few years back I phoned the museum and they confirmed that they had tons of records dating back to the early days, but they told me I’d have to come down and do the research myself – and only on a Saturday or Sunday.
Weekends are tough for me, since I usually work – but finally the planets lined up and I had the time, so I hit the road for the 90-minute drive down to the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. On the way down, munching a chorizo burrito and blasting Los Cenzontles to get me in the mood, I reflected on what I knew about Pascal Michel. A French Mexican, he was either born in or emigrated to Sonora, where he married Petra Murillo, an eductated girl from a good family in Hermosillo. Mining was the family business, and he plied the trade in Sonora for some time before heading north. According to the stories, he and Petra started a family together down in Mexico, but all the kids from that first batch were wiped out in an epidemic, which had a lot to do with their decision to start over in Alta California.
Main Street, New Almaden
Unike the majority of 49ers, Pascal was a mining professional, and as far as I know never tried his hand up in the Mother Lode with the amateurs. The Nueva Almaden was a hard-rock cinnabar mine, producing all the mercury that was used to refine all the gold that was pulled down out of the Sierra, and then some - it didn’t shut down until the 1940s. Unlike the typical 49er, Pascal brought his wife with him, and settled down in the Bay Area – still a frontier zone but considerably more civilized than Gold Country. They had four children who lived to adulthood: three sons and my great-grandmother, Loreto Michel Taber, who was baptised at Benicia in 1859 and schooled by the sisters at Holy Names in Oakland. Pascal never got rich, but the salary must have been pretty good – in the 1860s he bought some property down in Lemoore, where he lived out the rest of his days as a gentleman ranchero.
Of course my Google directions were a bit off, and I was briefly sidetracked by a wrong turn in Willow Glen, but before long I was winding my way south through the Almaden suburbs and up into the hills. It was a clear, breezy day and the poppies were still in bloom, with green grass on the hills and the jacaranda trees covered with purple flowers. Finally the two-lane road became the main street of an old town, lined on both sides with 19th century buildings, and on my left, a large construction project with a sign on the chain link fence reading: MINING MUSEUM CLOSED FOR REMODELING.
Oh, imagine my surprise. And yes, I did check the Interwebs before I embarked, but somehow failed to notice any mention of a closure. Oh well. I guess the family research will have to wait until next summer. But the trip was not a complete waste of time. I had a nice hike in the hills, through the old grounds of what was once a vast, sprawling operation, now mostly overgrown but still studded with old buildings and mining infrastructure. It turned into a contemplative day in the hills, marked by reflections on the elusiveness of history and the uneasy value judgments it sometimes invokes. I couldn’t help but remember reading that nearly all of the mercury contamination in San Francisco Bay was a direct result of the New Almaden operation, which despite its park-like environs is still a Superfund site. Mercury poisoning remains an all-too-common occurrence for people who fish from the bay and either can’t read the warning signs or are too hungry to care. Knowing that my great-great-grandfather may have been a gross polluter had a similar effect on me as when I learned that another ancestor had been a slave-owner,and that most of the people who share my surname in this country are descendants of African slaves. On the one hand, it’s hard not feel a little shame when you uncover such things. But on the other hand, it’s futile and arguably ridiculous to judge the past by today’s ethical standards.
America's most beautiful Superfund site?
Those men were what they were, and did what they did, and like it or not I wouldn’t be here today if thy hadn’t. I hope that my own descendants will someday be able to look back on me with the same moral relativism, and not judge me too harshly for anything I may have done – or not done – in my years on Earth.
I’m looking forward to going back to New Almaden next year, and combing through those old payroll records. The exact year of the Michels’ arrival from Mexico is still unknown, along with Pascal’s actual role (if any) at the mine. I also owe the sisters at Holy Names a visit, to see if I can find out more about my mama-grande Loreto’s school years. California’s early history was so chaotic, and so many records have been destroyed by fires and earthquakes, that I can’t hope to ever know all the details. But I can keep digging, even when the search leads to a Superfund site, and try to leave my grandchildren a more complete story than the one I grew up with.
Posted by Stu-Bob 
It’s not easy being a bullfight fan in California. Sure, bloodless corridas are legal, but the Portuguese societies that sponsor them wisely choose to fly under the PETA radar, making them both hard to reach and hard to hear about unless you’re part of the community. Most of the venues are out in the dustiest corners of the Valley, in little farming towns that are hours from the cities. Most of the fights are on weeknights, conducted in Portuguese, and only written up in Portuguese newspapers. There’s a fan 
Posted by Stu-Bob 
Posted by Stu-Bob 
I’m probably going to Hell for this, or maybe I’ll just get sucked into a massive black hole, but I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what one of those dorky Penthouse letters would sound like if it was read by Professor Stephen Hawking.
You know how the car radio occasionally scans up a station that sounds like standard indie rock, with big guitar riffs and some guy singing about getting high, kicking ass, and falling in love? But then you listen for a minute and you realize he’s getting high on God, kicking Satan’s ass, and falling in love with Jesus? 
A friend texted me this morning: “All of us are going to the Bistro for the double IPA fest today.” I got all worked up for about 90 seconds, until I realized he was off by a week, and it’s not until next Saturday. Which is a workday for me. Damn.
I know, it sounds like an oxymoron. Or the name of an indie band. But it’s a real product, available at a hippie grocery store near you. Vegan jerkey – now doesn’t that just sound temptalicious? Of all the mixed-up fake-meat products in the world, and there are plenty of them, from not-dogs to gardenburgers to smartbacon, this is perhaps the ultimate in faux-flesh merchandising for vegetarians who hate vegetables and secretly lust for meat. Or in other words, most of them.
I can’t believe I’m the first one to think of this, but don’t these two American icons go together like pie and cheese? Like baseball and steroids? Like a bacon veggie-burger and a tall glass of Kool-Aid? If guns become hip, will only hippies have guns? Does the right to arm bears extend to dancing bears? 
