Recently I started a new commute – out of my neighborhood, right on Livorna Road, down the hill and left onto Danville Boulevard. It’s a gorgeous drive, exactly five miles, through Alamo, past San Ramon Valley High School, and then left at Diablo Road. A few blocks east and the new office is on the right, at 315 Diablo Road, near the Danville Oak Tree. It’s a peaceful drive, a calming ride, surrounded by greenery that borders on being lush. The best part is that I end up at my new office: The Danville Weekly.
I remember when my family moved to the area in 1981. We were relocating from San Jose, where both my husband Jim and I were raised. His transfer with Castle & Cooke from San Jose to San Francisco sent us looking for a community with better commuting options for him. We searched the Peninsula. We looked in Lafayette and Orinda. We checked out houses down Ygnacio Valley Road in Walnut Creek. But the house that proved irresistible was the one with the commanding view of Mount Diablo out the living room window, in the neighborhood surrounding Alamo Elementary School.
Our son Pepe, 10, was soon enrolled in the fifth grade with teacher Sally Schultz. I joined a neighborhood babysitting co-op with my 2-year-old daughte, Zoe, where I met women who are still my good friends today. I remember how exciting it was to be living in this beautiful area. Our first night we went to Primo’s Pizza for dinner.
What a great place to raise our children! We went camping at Mount Diablo with other families, where we enjoyed hiking in Rock City with the little ones and roasting marshmallows over the campfire at night. The Fourth of July was special with the Danville parade in the morning and the San Ramon fireworks at night. Blackhawk was a fledgling development at the time. And Alamo had a motel, located next to a great old family-style restaurant called the Elegant bib, where Alamo Commons is now.
Pepe went on to Stone Valley Middle School; when Zoe started kindergarten at Alamo school, I joined the PTA and, armed with my degree in journalism from San Jose State, I began to edit the newsletter. My first experience with a school board meeting was when the trustees were considering closing Alamo School because enrollment was down.
When the kids were 15 and 7 we moved for six years to the only place exotic enough to lure us away – Bangkok – returning each summer to renew acquaintances and our love affair with the San Ramon Valley. In 1992 we returned to the same house, our daughter now at Stone Valley. I continued the newspaper and writing career I had begun abroad, commuting north to Concord, where I was city editor for five weekly newspapers. Next I traveled south to Pleasanton, where I was managing editor for the Pleasanton Weekly. Weekends were my time to walk my dog on the Iron Horse Trail, frequent our shops and restaurants – and enjoy my view of Mount Diablo.
Now I have arrived “home” to work, to be editor of the Danville Weekly, right in my own back yard. With this job I can get to know my community even better, and I can spend my days here as well as my weekends. And my new commute only takes me 10 minutes.
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