The North Bay—we know where it is but not necessarily what it is.
Is it a particular vibe? A state of mind? A swelling real estate bubble about to burst?
Yes, yes, and you can afford real estate?
Unlike its geographic sibs, the North Bay has long endured something of an identity crisis. The South and East Bays are both major cultural hubs that boast world-class universities and have made a global impact on arts and technology.
Our local university just gutted a dozen programs, so don’t expect any impactful art or tech. But there’s enough wine and weed here to show you a better time than any on-campus amateur anyway.
What we need is our own set of “You know you’re in the North Bay when … ” jokes. Humor has a way of getting to the heart of the matter. For example, you know you’re in the North Bay when your glass of wine costs more than your entree.
Remember when Sonoma County identified as the “Redwood Empire?” Trees. You’re going to base your brand on trees, SoCo? “Wine Country” has certainly been an upgrade, though nobody checked in with Napa about sharing the moniker. When finally asked, Napa replied, “Sonoma who?”
To this day, Marin County operates under the specter of being, as writer Duncan Campell wrote in the UK’s Guardian, “ … A home for superannuated hippies, lying around in hot tubs listening to Grateful Dead tapes with a joint in one hand and a glass of Chardonnay in the other.”
For reasons I have yet to understand, there’s a “We don’t talk about Solano” vibe regarding that particular county, which crowd-sourced info hubs like Wikipedia claim is in the North Bay, whereas frenemy combatants on Reddit argue it’s not.
Whatever it is, there’s still room for another North Bay county, right? Here’s my radical secession plan: Novato and West Petaluma, which border each other on at least two sides of the compass—and share an outsider ethos to their respective counties—could secede and form a new county. We’ll call it Olompali (for the state park they also co-border, which likely means “Southern Village” in the Coast Miwok language). There, I fixed it.
But speaking to the totality of The Great N.B., it’s not that we need to define what’s within our tri-county borders; we just need to define ourselves. As Thor said after his planet was destroyed in the movie Ragnarok, “Asgard is not a place; it’s a people.”
Ditto for the North Bay. We’re a people. And a lot of dogs. But mostly a people. And I’m happy to be a people with you.
Daedalus Howell is the editor of the Pacific Sun and North Bay Bohemian. He makes media and movies at dhowell.com. Reprinted from the spring edition of North Bay Magazine, a Weeklys publication.
