You gotta break some eggs

If your schooling included Chaucer's Canterbury Tales then you recognize the name of my street.  Over half a century ago this neighborhood was one of the largest chicken ranching areas in the state.  The local historians tell stories explaining how chickens and the very deep lots around here are related.  Our residence is one of many which was built in the back yard, the chicken yard, behind an earlier house along the street.

Along the street there are still some large vacant lots, the biggest of which has long been owned by the county with the intent of creating a park.  Recently there has been some progress toward that goal.  Last year the county demolished a former childcare center and two houses of inferior quality.  This month they demolished the penultimate set of tiny residences formerly inhabited by the farm hands.  All of these had been rented out by the county for years.  But one moderate-sized residence of obvious quality remains on the site.

It was always evident that the elementary school attended by the girls was named for a young man who died too  young.  Neither of the girls was told that story in the school.  It became clear by combining two things.  First, the county outlined the plans for the park.  The house remaining on the park site will become part of the park -- it was the house owned by the parents of the boy who died.  I found the second part at the school fundraiser.  I asked the retired principal, who had started teaching there before I started school.  She pointed out that the current board chair and music teacher was the son of the dead boy's sister, the grandson of the house owners.

What about the eggs?  With a few exceptions all the chicken ranches moved to the central valley.  As a result of Proposition 2 in the election this month those chicken ranches are in today's news.  Soon we get to vote with our dollars.  Cage free eggs from California?  Or cheap, large-scale eggs trucked in from elsewhere?