My husband is a really good guy who is always willing to go along with my harebrained schemes. I have the idea, make a few suggestions, and he’s ready to go, no matter how crazy it seems, or turns out to be. Yesterday evening found us in downtown Fresno, attempting to find some arches that I could put into a short film I am working on. I’ve been collecting bits and pieces all week, and one last thing I wanted was some footage of these arches. I know they are downtown, I just don’t know exact locations, or from what angle I want to film.
These are the kinds of arches you see at the entry to a city, declaring the city’s name, and maybe even a slogan. Fresno has some newer ones, but there is a really old one that is somewhere off the old highway that long ago ran right into town. The new freeway, where cars travel at speeds exceeding that of light, is far to the west and any cars traveling there would not be able to read the caption on the arch.
When I find the first arch, a newer one, we have to go around a corner, park, and walk back to get the right angle. I make my husband stay in the car as I see no need for both of us wandering around. I pass a woman heading to the bus stop and I smile and say hello. She seems a little startled. It’s quite a walk to get to where I want to shoot my few seconds (you can’t say footage because it’s no longer film, my husband is always pointing this out to me) and it takes awhile, my husband gets out of the car and walks to the intersection to see where I have gone. The woman I had passed is now in between, waiting for the bus. Although there is quite a bit of car traffic, there are NO PEOPLE on the sidewalks except my husband at the intersection, me heading down the sidewalk with a camera, and this woman who just wants the bus to come. She doesn’t make eye contact this time as I head back to the car.
We proceed further into downtown, looking for a way to get to the far south entrance of town. Fresno is not laid out on a normal grid that runs east/west but is rather skewed. On a map, it looks like someone took the grid and turned it counter clockwise. Downtown has fallen on bad times, empty stores, overgrown lots that have been abandoned to the homeless population. We drive by two homeless shelters where the dinner crowds have begun to gather, their tent cities close by.
Finally, there in the distance, on the left, we see the outline of the arch I really want. It’s in an industrial part of town, all the buildings shuttered for the weekend, the workers long gone to their homes in the northern part of the city. Crossing railroad tracks, taking a narrow road that leads by the old Master Winery, turning and twisting on roads that have seen better days, we drive under the arch. My husband pulls over, onto a street that turns out to be the driveway into another warehouse that has a big sign declaring it private property, all trespassers will be prosecuted. I tell him to sit there, keep the engine running, door open. I run quickly, shoot my video piece, and run back. I jump in the car and off we go. But just down the road I realize I can’t find the bag for the camera. I must have dropped it when I got out of the car. Because there is NO traffic of any kind, my husband makes a U-turn in the middle of the road and back we go to the no trespassing sign. Sure enough, I see the black bag on the gravel, by some weeds. Making like a stunt man, I open the door as we drive by and scoop it up.
“Let’s go have dinner at Red Robin.” We take one of the freeways that gets you quickly out of downtown, and just like all the workers who left their jobs at 5, we too are soon on the north side of town. We have dinner, look at the video clips, and laugh at another harebrained adventure.
