Starting to repay an overdue debt

Last night I walked into Warby Parker and ordered up some nice frames. Rowan, if you are curious. In “graphite fog” which we know really isn’t a color, but we get the idea, right?

So I’ve got one clerk helping me, and as I’m narrowing choices I’m asking another two clerks opinions, and we are chatting, and they are trying to figure how where I am on the old fogey / boring / interesting / brash / conservative / whatever spectrum, and I’ve chosen and they are putting in the order, and one guy, seemingly in charge, says he taught for a while, too.

“Where?” I ask. “An after school program.” “Where?” I ask. “California.” “Northern? or Southern?” “Central, actually.”

Now I find that surprising. Central California? I only know one guy from Central California.

“I only know one guy from Central California – back when I used to blog” (I don’t think I am actually back. We will see) “about math, among other things, there was this professor in one of the lesser known colleges in the UC system, Portuguese, off a dairy farm in Central California” “I’m Portuguese off a dairy farm” “Well, actually, I think this guy was Azorean” “Me too! My grandparents!” “And he wrote a funny book about growing up on the farm, family rivalries, old country stuff. It was a lot of fun. Land of Milk and Money I think it was called”

And the other clerk is checking me out, and this guy asks – “is he –” and he says I name that I think is right. “Oh man, these are my people, I need to get this book”

And I hope he does.

I need to do, should have done long ago, a plug for Land of Milk and Money. Zeno Ferox is the pseudonym of a math professor in the UC system, blogging at Halfway There (yes, for my mathy friends, the pseudo+blog are a joke).

The book is about an immigrant family, from the Azores, finding success in the Central Valley of California as dairy farmers. Funny stories and bits of family history are woven into an arc, where the success of the first generation leads to bickering amongst the second and the third – a tale familiar to some other immigrant groups in the US as well. In fact, I have a few stories… but I’m no writer.

Anyhow, Land of Milk and Money is an easy read, well-written, thoroughly enjoyable. I encourage you to find a copy.