Want to know if you’re a Sacramentan? I can clear the tule fog on that. Piece of Cake
I’ve lived in this town for 30 years, longer than any place I’ve ever lived and long enough for Sacramento to have permanently scrambled my sense of identity.
The effect has been permanent and irreversible.
When I return to my hometown of San Jose now, I’m a stranger in a strange place. I don’t know the San Jose landmarks anymore. I don’t feel at home there anymore. I don’t get the narrative there anymore beyond the abject poverty subsisting amid ridiculous Silicon Valley wealth.
They can have it. I’m a Sacramentan now and I know it every time I drive by one of our rivers and think: “Death trap.” If you say “river,” I think “Sacramento, American or atmospheric?”
Say you have moved here. How do you know you’ve become a Sacramentan?
You know you’re a Sacramentan when you visit Fair Oaks, see the downtown square crawling with roosters, and think nothing of it.
You know it when an out of town friend says they have fog where they live and you think, “its’ not tule.”
Who else is like this? We set off fireworks in a drought. And we’ve been known to rat out our neighbors for watering their sidewalks in a drought.
You know you’re a Sacramentan when you know what the Claw is.
You know you’re a Sacramentan when everything – food, bike lanes, public art – is political. And everyone, from public school parents to seasoned politcos, will passionately discuss these issues with me, but only if it’s “off the record.”
And speaking of politics, you know you’re a Sacramentan when you recognize that the epitome of unchecked elected arrogance is: Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones.
We just expect huge piles of leaves to disappear. We just naturally make jokes about Davis. We have a strong suspicion that West Sacramento is shipping homeless people in our direction, but we can’t prove it.
We’re proud that retired Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy is from here, but we quietly loathe him and much of what he stood for on the bench.
Kevin Johnson and Ward Connerly are from here, and we could never figure out either one of them.
Sacramento Kings and royal pain
I knew I was a Sacramentan 20 years ago while watching a Kings game. For years that never made sense to me but now it does: What other institution embodies love, pain, struggle, agony and hope more than the Sacramento Kings?
There I was at Arco Arena (you who have become Sacramentans also remember it as Sleep Train Arena and Power Balance Pavilion), identifying with the Bay Area but openly rooting for the Kings against the Golden State Warriors – team of my youth.
I hadn’t even realized it until a buddy sitting next to me pointed it out. At first I denied this new allegiance. But then I felt sad because I knew that the team my heart had adopted was star-crossed and talent-challenged. In the mid-1990s, when I first had my Sacramentan epiphany, the Kings had been nothing but bad and I dreaded what I was signing up for: Pain.
I felt it when I wore my newly minted Sacramento Kings sweatshirt during a trip to the Bay Area and was promptly mocked by two young women – store clerks – at a clothing store.
I thought: What have I done? I didn’t have an answer then, but I do now.
So much of being a Sacramentan can be revealed from being a Kings fan. You know you’re a Sacramentan if your heart is torn by hope and bitterness for the team you love, the team that has posted losing seasons in all but eight of its 34 seasons here.
You know you’re a Sacramentan if that tortured history becomes your history, even if you weren’t even living here when some of the most horrid chapters in that history were being written.
I wasn’t here when the Kings used the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft to select Joe Klein in 1985 instead of Karl Malone, who became maybe the greatest power forward of all time in Utah. I wasn’t here in 1987 when the Kings took Kenny Smith instead of native son KJ, who made a career out of torturing the Kings before he became mayor of the city and served eight turbulent years that many of us are still processing.
I wasn’t here in 1988 when Ricky Berry committed suicide after his rookie year.
But now it all fits with what I’ve seen since 1989: The nearly uninterrupted losing in my first 10 years, the bitter way we were deprived of the NBA title in 2002, Chris Webber’s knee exploding in 2003, the demise of our best team, more losing, the dysfunction of Ron Artest and his wife throwing a frying pan at his windshield. The Maloofs! Oh my god, the Maloofs!
The superstars we passed up when the Maloofs owned the team: Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Damian Lillard, Kawhi Leonard. And even now, with hope on the rise while our best players are injured, a once-in-a-generation talent – Luka Doncic – is playing in Dallas when he could have been here! Doncic is lighting it up every night, making national news by draining three-point shots from the parking lot while Kings shooters remain cold.
You know you’re a Sacramentan if you long for Doncic even while praying that the current Kings team will win anyway. You know you’re a Sacramentan if, while you’re praying, you openly fear that Doncic will haunt you as a player for the next decade and as a memory for the rest of your life.
Floods, Cake and Hamilton
It’s all part of living here, isn’t it? This town was built on a flood plain when it never should have been. It was ravaged by disease, fires. It was populated on the false hope of a Gold Rush that was a sham for so many working stiffs who came to Sacramento, found no gold and died.
You know you’re a Sacramentan when you are surprised to find that one of Alexander Hamilton’s sons – yes, that Alexander Hamilton – was one of those stiffs, died in Sacramento and is buried beneath an ornate headstone in the Sacramento Historic City Cemetery.
This is who we are. Some of us are born here and never leave. Some of us leave here and call it an escape and yet we stay connected. Some of us, like me, think this is the place they would never end up before falling in love.
With what? With all of it: The pain, the frustrations, the calamities, the contradictions, the hope. We accept it all, both and bad.
We want Golden 1 Center but we want to help our homeless. We’re excited about the construction cranes that signify new development but we don’t want to be San Francisco. We don’t want to price out young people from living here decently so they can invest, make dreams and connections.
You say “Gunther’s,” “Merlino’s,” “Taylors” and people nod.
You know where the W-X is.
You know Wayne Thiebaud paints cakes.
You recommend cakes from Freeport Bakery.
You know Cake was a Sacramento band.
And when you set your password, there is a good chance that it has the word “Ladybird” in it.
You know you’re a Sacramentan when you think we don’t care and realize that what we have in common is that we do care about this place.
