John Muir began his trek by walking from Indiana to Florida and then hopping a steamer to Cuba with the intention of continuing to South America, reaching the headwaters of the Amazon and rafting its full distance to the Pacific Ocean. However, short of funds and recovering from fever picked up in Florida, Muir changed his plans and decided to spend a year or two in California and visit the fabled Yosemite Valley.

On the hill above church and just inside the gate to Garin Park are remnants of a rusty old tractor, its iconic yellow paint long gone, sitting in dry weeds among a collection of crumbling antique farm implements. It’s highly likely that my dad assembled or machined parts for its diesel engine early in his 47 year career at Caterpillar’s San Leandro factory and where I spent several summers in the 1950’s earning college tuition.

My grandfather lived near the corner of Lake Chabot Road and Seven Hills Road in Castro Valley from the 1930’s into the 1950’s where he operated a chicken ranch. Raising chickens in the valley began early in the century by Portuguese and Italian families and became a thriving business with dozens of ranches covering the rural countryside.

Nearly every Sunday we enjoy gorgeous flowers from Betty’s garden planted by Betty and Harley more than 50 years ago. It’s no surprise that the original careful planning, years of loving care, Hayward’s temperate climate and the rich alluvial soil of our western side of the California coastal range produces such a huge diverse variety of splendid year-round color.

If you listen very carefully about mid-way through worship on Sunday mornings you can hear the faint blast of the diesel horn from the Capital Corridor train as rail travelers make their way between San Jose to Sacramento just as they have for 150 years.  -Bill