A little essay on commuting:

With a brief exception, since 1999 I have commuted five days per week the 90 miles from Modesto, Cailfornia, to my job in San Francisco. Every day of my trip I pass a certain spot at least once. It is along the 5 interstate, in a town called Lathrop, just where the 205 and 120 highways intersect, and about a quarter of a mile west of the San Joaquin river (the largest of the central valley rivers that begin as Sierra snow and end up in the San Francisco Bay). This spot is probably ten square acres. It is technically part of the SF Bay “Delta,” and just a couple miles north things get wetter and wetter and marshier and marshier as all the big and little rivers come together in Stockton.

When I first started my commute this spot was nondescript except for some cornfields and a seasonal produce stand. One fall several years ago the produce stand began selling pumpkins and advertised it with huge signs. Over the next several years the pumpkin selling and advertising got bigger and bigger. One year they added a corn maze and tractor rides. As the years passed, the entire enterprises just grew and grew: corn maze, petting zoo, hayrides, a haunted house, pumpkin carving, anything to do with Fall and Halloween.

About three years ago they expanded the operation into Christmas and winter by adding an artificial ski ramp for skiing and sledding, Christmas tree sales, etc. During the height of the season last year, when I would pass it in the dark on the way home around 6:30 or 7 p.m. -- the entire area would be brightly lit up and teaming with families.

I’ve never been to this place – it’s just something I’ve seen (baring sickness and vacation) out the window of a car, bus, or van, five days a week twice a day for 12 years. I see it when it is all closed down and empty, I see it as it gets geared up, I see it in full swing, and I see it get slowly dismantled.

I imagine that during the empty times, the spring and summer, there isn’t much human activity in a given day, while during peak season money changes hands, pumpkins are carried, Christmas trees are tied down to cars, hayrides are enjoyed, there are tears and laughter in the corn maze, the skiers and sledders get thrilled and maybe injured on the “slope,” people go on dates and kiss and fall in love, affairs get started or ended, marriages endure crisis, and crimes are committed.

Now, in early October, as it gets darker earlier and earlier and the lights and activity gets brighter and livelier in this seasonal attraction, I gaze out my window at the spot as we go by at 60 miles per hour. I like watching the place change so completely and so steadily from a mostly empty spot to the peak of activity and then back again. Often I wonder when it will all go away completely – no more pumpkins, no more corn, no more hayrides and trees and fun, no Halloween, no Christmas, no produce stand, no people, no freeways, no river, no San Francisco Bay.