I hope you are all a titter about our upcoming holiday. When you consider the trouble our founding fathers and mothers went to, you’d be an ass not to be grateful.
Unfortunately, the city of Chico isn’t planning any activities. What?
CARD is hosting a “community picnic” on Saturday July 1 at Community Park on 20th Street. A daytime affair, there will be no fireworks but there will be music and “entertainment”. Frankly, it’s just not the same for me if it’s not on the Fourth.
Private events listed for Tuesday the Fourth include parties at bars like the Tackle Box, as well as an outdoor drinking party hosted by the developers of Merriam Park. Both of those will take advantage of the annual fireworks demonstration at the nearby Silver Dollar Speedway. Of course if you want to get in to the races you have to pay for a ticket but the fireworks can be enjoyed just about anywhere in town.
Meanwhile, Biggs, a tiny town just south of Chico, has a pancake breakfast, a parade, a faire, and fireworks. And if you’ve never been to Butte Meadows, you might want to check it out next Tuesday –
Butte Meadows 4th of July Parade Tue Jul 04 2023 at 10:00 am UTC-07:00 Location Sierra Steel Harley-Davidson Chico, CA Advertisement Come ride in Butte Meadows annual 4th of July parade! Meet at Sierra Steel on the 4th of July at 10am and we will ride up to Butte Meadows to be in the parade! The theme for the parade is “Team USA”
According to other announcements, there will be judges convened at the Mercantile. The general requirement is patriotism and points will be awarded.
Fourth of July is a big holiday, as it should be. When my husband and I traveled up to Portland in the days before 4th of July 2021 – the height of COVID – we saw that towns all the way up Hwy 5 were planning their own celebrations. Banners touted fireworks, rodeos, parades and other events. One town was looking for entrants to a pie eating contest.
I remember Chico of the past, of course – here’s a past event you might remember – a repost of a repost from 2016 –
This event has not reappeared since 2016. Chico Running Club hosted that last pancake breakfast, I believe, at the suggestion of club member and former mayor/council member Randall Stone. That was the last year we had Bob’s Pancake wagon, celebrity pancake flippers, and a band on that forlorn bandstand at One Mile.
If you’re sitting in the lobster pot, it’s hard to know when you’re done. You have to take that fork, aim it right at your ass, and punch it in there, hard. Here’s a fork – you have just been stuck with a one cent sales tax increase, a sewer rate increase, and now you’re staring at a well tax for a well you don’t own… (more on that later) What does it take to get you out of that pot?
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Do you remember the pancake breakfast at the One Mile on 4th of July? As a kid growing up in Chico, we would walk over to the park as a family. The pancake trailer (Captain Bob?) was there, and for a couple of bucks you could get pancakes and sausage and orange juice.
I remember that the event was so well attended that it was difficult to find a place to sit down at the picnic tables but when a place opened up you ended up sitting next to your neighbors or new folks that you are about to meet for the first time.
I also remember what my parents used to refer to as the “Patriotic speeches”. It was typically local politicos giving their views of the day. And there was a pie eating contest which my son happened to win. That was about 18 years ago. I still have the picture and it’s a great memory.
My belief is that a strong social fabric, getting to know your neighbors, meeting in the public square, and having a shared set of values is a very positive thing and a good thing for building a community. I’m a big fan of the weekly farmers market for that reason. I’m even a fan of the Thursday night market in downtown Chico even though some of the booths and some of the folks aren’t my cup of tea. In much the same way that some of the political speeches at the One mile so many years ago probably weren’t my cup of tea either, but it’s overshadowed by getting people together for the public good.
I’ve got mixed feelings about the ice rink downtown for this reason. I’m also an avid skater and an former ice hockey player. My biggest complaint about the rink was the horrible, low quality orange plastic rental skates. I don’t think that anyone could actually enjoy the skating experience wearing such a poor piece of sporting equipment on their feet.
I believe that it is a proper use to use some public money for the public good. But after a couple of years of low attendance and losses at the ice rink I’m willing to admit that maybe that’s not the best use of public funding even though I’m an avid ice skater. For a fraction of that money you could certainly have put on the biggest One mile pancake breakfast in history along with cleanup, supervision, and live entertainment.
There is a huge gap between the friendly, family oriented, neighborly town of Chico that I grew up in and what we have today. Today’s society is much more insular, while people sit around in their living rooms on their telephones and rage about their specific particular ideology.
Finally I applaud you for running this blog. It’s part of the social fabric.
WARNING: I’m in a really bad mood today. Sorry if it sounds like I’m taking it out on you, I’m not. You just hit some nerves.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane – did you see the post I re-posted, pictures of folks lined up for Bob’s cakes, all the way out onto Woodland. That was 2016, the last July 4 pancake breakfast, hosted by Chico Running Club.
I don’t know what they decided on the ice rink, I couldn’t make the finance comm meeting the other day. Tuchinsky might have covered it, we’ll see what happens. Don’t put lipstick on a pig – it was a stupid idea – an outdoor ice rink in a town where it rains heavily in December and January? Ottoboni had the nerve to blame the weather – what did he expect?
That’s cool you learned to ice skate – where did you manage that? We had a roller hockey league, we had to go to Hamilton City to find an affordable location, and then we had to build it ourselves. I don’t know what it feels like to fall on ice – sport court will cut you, the kids called it “cheese grater”. You would have loved the senior league, those old bastards – Slap Shot on wheels! I think they may still play at Cal Skate, but the rink is small there and they don’t like the concrete walls. No boarding?!!!!
The problem in Chico is that Staff spends taxpayer money as though it’s coming out of their own pocket – you know, that magic pocket that just produces money – otherwise known as The General Fund. And then they admit again and again – it was just for the specific benefit of Downtown merchants, who paid only a tiny portion of the expenses of the damned thing.
Yeah, we both seem to have grown up in Mayberry RFD. Let me bend your ear. I grew up in Glenn County but Chico was our larder. My grandma did a lot of her shopping here – I still have a receipt from Richardsonl’s Furniture from about 1947 – a repair of the same typewriter she was using when I was a kid. I have chits from my grandpa selling black walnuts to Northern Star Mills. I have a birth certificate signed by Mrs. N.T. Enloe – I think she was the third wife, she was in charge of the maternity ward right up to 1964. My husband actually lived in town – did you know, there was a wooden roller skating rink located somewhere over on Esplanade? Or was it Park Ave, he can’t remember.
Sheesh, I’m still pissed about Pioneer Days. My grandfather’s barn wood went to some of the last “quads”.
but see, Chico has more than tripled in population since those days, thanks to our developer community. Sheesh, back in the 60’s, we kids almost hated coming to town – my grandma knew EVERYBODY. We couldn’t make it up the sidewalk without stopping 50 times (I know, that’s a child’s exaggeration..) but yeah, it was a small town, and she had been a school teacher for 50 years.
When I landed here to go to Chico state, it was still a small town. When my cousin took me to Joe’s bar for a beer,I sat next to a guy I’d known in elementary school – he recognized me right away because I am the spit and image of my uncle, who worked for the Enterprise Record for about 10 years. A lady who had my grandmother as a teacher and knew my mother signed me in to Chico State – she did extra favors for me because of the connection. When I went to the evaluations department a few years later to see if I could graduate I found a kid I picked prunes with – yeah, we had prune fights, he nailed me right in the head and my grandma took his ass off. So he was extra helpful. His mother was my frustrated piano teacher. Not that long ago, I took my kid to the dentist – lady next to me was a member of the family that sold my grandfather his farm.
Fast forward 30 years. Guess what. I can go anywhere in this town and see NOBODY I know. Many of my friends made over the last 30 years have left town, disgusted. But of course, for every one that left, 20 came rolling in. We are not a town of 35,000 anymore, we’re not even a town of 65,000 – we’re a meandering mess of over 100,000 lost souls from every part of the country. People don’t move here for community – they move here because houses are cheaper than Sackamatas or the Bay Area. There’s no “community” left here, it’s just another craptown on the freeway. I remember when city employees like Kim Seidler and Tom (can’t remember his name, it will come to me… ) warned us that we’d be sprawling within 10 years. That was 15 years ago.
If Valley’s Edge goes through, the traffic on the south side is going to come to a dead standstill. That’s what Tom what’s-his-name said – as we develop our traffic grade will go from ‘C’ to ‘F’. So, my husband and I already shop for just about everything on line, I told him, we need to start looking for another town to buy groceries. Maybe a once-a-week jaunt to Willows, where the checkers still remember my mom (pack of menthols and a bottle of TJ…). They have that cheese place on the south end of town – has an excellent store where you can get all of their fresh dairy products at reasonable prices. There’s a great produce stand in Dayton, they have really good eggs. I’d rather just drive to another town, with friendly people, than sit in traffic waiting to shop at a box store.
And thanks for coming by, sorry to be such a bitch. Thanks for the opportunity to just sit here and bitch about it.