High bid for the gift of Joe
HUNDREDS paid respects to bigger-than-life Joe Gates Sunday in a memorial celebration on a sunwashed Yolo County ranch. Fond memories, tributes, prayers all flowed. More attended by livestream. Too young, too soon, Joe Gates was taken by COVID-19. Condolences and comfort to his wife Vanean and daughter Jody. Spiritual eulogies, music and soul food led to a climactic event that defined Joe: A live auction. No one knows how many nonprofits are surviving because of Joe’s beguiling performances of extraction. He could charm the greenbacks out of your wallet. Four of Joe’s NorCal auctioneer friends took the stage to re-enact his gift for a benefit that he and Vanean participated in: Aslan Child Rescue Ministries, in West Africa. A nephew, Joseph, took a turn at the mic. One auction item was a selection of beef cuts from Gates Ranch Meat Co., the custom processing service that Joe and Richard Diaz operated on the English Hills ranch. Diaz will continue, Vanean said. The beef pack went for $5,000. The auction raised $20,000-plus. Everybody knows Joe, as near as the 4-H auction at Dixon May Fair, as far away as Niger. Wherever he is, know Joe is home.
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IN 1931, Omer E. Alley was named Vacaville police chief. And fire chief. And traffic officer. And health officer. All at the same time. For the stretch leading up to The Great Depression, Chief Alley was Vacaville’s public safety department of one. The town’s council paid him $175 a month, then reduced it to $150. O.E. still agreed to equip and maintain his own patrol car. The city couldn’t afford one. The Depression consolidated services and dramatically cut city salaries. Before establishing the police chief position, in 1924 the town council reacted to rising auto violations by naming C.C. Griffith to traffic officer. He was paid a percentage of fines. That motivated him to issue lots of tickets, to the point that the California Auto Assn. filed charges against Vacaville for being a speed trap. Griffith was fired. That’s how Alley got the job, until 1947.
Vaca law enforcement goes back to 1885, when Joe Stadtfeld came upon a horse and buggy with two young women stuck in a mudhole. Joe waded in, flexed his muscles and pulled them all out. He was dubbed “Samson of Vacaville.” He ran for town constable, and won easily. Joe was a giant willow of a man, 6 ft., 5 in. tall, with formidable mustache under a black western hat worn over his black, calf-length duster. It billowed when he walked, like the arched wings of a hawk poised for attack. Joe had been a boxer, said to be a sparring partner for heavyweight champ Gentleman Jim Corbett. That served Joe well in rough times. One was a fruit-tree pruners’ strike and riots over pay in the 1930s. Pruners claimed Frank Buck pledged a raise, from $1.25 a day to $2.50, if they voted for him. Buck denied the pledge. Riots broke out in the country, and town. Stadtfeld waded in to maintain order. Threats and bricks flew. One hit Joe in the ear. He nearly lost it.
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WE should be back in the Red Tier any minute now. But we’ve learned the hard way that it ain’t over ’til it’s over. Dimmed house lights are coming back up, but it’s still about masks, shots and smarts. So far this year I got my second shingles shot, a flu shot, and on Feb. 10, my age group got its second coronavirus shot. For once, it pays to get older. Pres. Biden pledged vaccine for all America by end of May. Now to find a safe formula for reopening our schools. After getting a COVID shot, they ask you to sit in a chair for 15 minutes for any sign of reactions. I mused about the miracle of science, and how it has risen to smite disease. I fantasized: one day we may line up for vaccines against social ills that shape us. Like, say, Integrity injections, A shot for Honesty, Virtue and Courage. A needle for Racial and Gender Equality. A Political Principles pill. One shot that builds Truth and dissolves Hate. One for Civility, with six-month boosters, as required. There are meds and there are miracles. Sometimes the twain doth meet. What we all need now is a pandemic of joy.