| Ethics & Values |
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 Mike McLellan
The Fourth of July festivities in Lincoln Park have become a standard for us. We are reminded of why Tracy is our town, our home, and will remain so. We will be at the park during the day and at the fireworks at Peter B. Kyne Field in the evening. Here is why.
As are 98 percent of the people of Tracy, we were from somewhere else. That somewhere was the Central Valley of California via several other California places and a brief visit to Central Oregon.
For a variety of reasons, we settled in Tracy — and liked it immediately.
My father, a newspaper man who had moved many times, suggested that when you arrive in a new town, you should stop by the newspaper office.
Doing just that, the first week here I met with the Tracy Press’ Sam Matthews and his brother, Tom. Within a few months, I was to know their wonderfully urbane mother, Laura. The affection for Tracy that these folks have immediately rubbed off.
My wife and I realized that we had moved to Tracy not just for new jobs, but to become part of a community. That community was inclusive, changing and caring.
Within months, it became our “home town,” not just another stop in life. Richard Hasty was mayor and Mike Locke was city manager. If you wanted something, you would give them a call or drop by their houses.
It seemed like Mayberry. And, if you want it to, it still does.
When you go to the Tracy Dry Bean Festival, the wine strolls or the hospital’s Run for the Ribbon, you see familiar faces. The percentage of people who are at the core of this city seems about the same as 20 years ago. It is just the number of people who sleep here and have not bonded that has grown. That is OK.
We lived in Long Beach for seven years, and it always seemed like just a large neighborhood of Los Angeles. We never made the Los Angeles basin our home.
Tracy is different. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.
I, personally, volunteer at six different organizations around town. It is a matter of trying to pay back all the nice people for the good things that have happened to us here. Yet, I get more back than I give. If I were of a different lineage, I’d say it was karma.
We all have something we complain about in our town. There is no doubting that there could be some improvement.
I’d put a 90-degree cap on the temperature, turn down the wind a notch and pass on the fog. But those are little things compared with being able to go into the drugstore or clothing store and be called by name.
“Yeahwhatdoyouwant?” was my name in Southern California.
Tracy has some warts, just like every other place on Earth. But when it is all added up, it really is a nice place. There are lots of kind and generous people.
There are some things we need as a city of nearly 90,000. We need a commercial radio station. We could use a Trader Joe’s. We can also live without them.
What we have is a city that is willing to be a critic of its own follies. We want to be better. We want to get along.
Many of us go to homecoming parades and downtown events. We are emotional about the flags along 11th Street and about the names on the War Memorial. We are passionate about local politics and care about our kids’ education.
Tracy is still a small town compared with others in the Bay Area, but it isn’t little. It has a big heart and pretty healthy values.
We are glad we came, happy for the welcome and even happier to welcome new folks who want to make Tracy their home.
So, as the fireworks light the skies, we salute all those who have gone before, are here now and are yet to come to our town — Tracy.
• Mike McLellan can be contacted by calling and leaving a message at 830-4201 or
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