Sweet Spot
Oroville is a sweet spot for me. In my Real Estate career, my main focus has been the Chico area, but my life has been enriched by the fine people and places of Oroville.
My first trip through Oroville was back in 1971, illegally riding inside the open boxcar of a freight train. A couple of buddies and I from Feather River Junior College hopped the train in Quincy, rode it down the Feather River Canyon along the Feather River, hopped off in Oroville, got chased around by a railroad guard with a bullhorn, and hopped a return freight back to Quincy. On the return hop, we clung to the outside catwalk grid on top of a tanker car, so we took the full face-load of diesel exhaust from the forward engines of that train the whole 80mile ride back up the Canyon. The tunnels, and there are some long tunnels, really drove that smoke into our pores and follicles. I’m still picking that black grit out of my teeth and hair, and my skin is still a shade darker. My next trip through Oroville was fifteen years later, my first year in Real Estate, with a buyer client, a retiring professor from the Bay Area. “Chico’s too hoity-toity,” said my client, Ron. He knew Oroville from visiting family there as a kid and told great stories of fishing, hiking and camping around Feather Falls, Table Mountain, Berry Creek, Brush Creek, Forbestown, and up into La Porte. He took me to a family-owned tavern in downtown Oroville. He swapped stories with the locals. “This is a sweet spot right here,” said Ron, “but there’s gold in them thar hills!”
Ron and I covered a lot of territory over a couple of weeks until he found his sweet spot in the hills of Berry Creek, off the grid. “I can always find the bright lights of town, but I don’t have to live with ‘em,” said Ron.
Some ten years later, I was on jury duty for a trial at the County Courthouse in Oroville. On a break I went to Houser’s Music on
Bird Street in downtown Oroville. My old friend Trudi had told me about this guy Dave Houser, owner of Houser’s Music, who gave her guitar lessons and plays music around town.
“He likes the same kind of good ol’ music you do,” said Trudi. Houser’s Music had, and still does have, racks of fine guitars, music rentals, sound equipment galore, all things music, in a down-home vintage brick building on a nice stretch of downtown. I met Dave, we wound up playing guitars in the music room, found we were musical soulmates, and he drafted me to play with him at Shakey’s Pizza on Friday nights with his band.
Since that meeting twenty-five years ago, my playing music with Dave Houser and friends in and around Oroville, has clued me into the sweet spot Oroville is. Oroville has more events and festivities than any town around, and the community feels like a community. Now, with The Union restaurant on Montgomery Street totally revamped with excellent dining inside and out, with a great music venue, along with Mugshots Café across the street, the Coyote Cantina soon to open across the side street, The Purple Line Winery and Vibe Grill and Pub nearby on Safford Street, the restored State Theater, downtown Oroville on a given evening feels like Nevada City, already established as a destination gold rush town.
In the Real Estate world, Oroville is now more like an extension of Chico rather than the estranged version of days gone by. Buyers are moving in, both for residential homes and commercial property, and the town is bustling. The surrounding lakes, streams, rivers, and open space leave lots of room for getting out of town, so whether you’re looking for the bright lights of town or some gold in them hills, Oroville is a sweet spot.
DougLove is SalesManagerat Century 21 in Chico and would love to hear from you. Call or text 530-680-0817. Email dougwlove@ gmail.com. See more columns at lovesrealstories.com.