ASSIGNMENT #9 ~ Conclusion

The old adage, “parting is such sweet sorrow” is more than appropriate in this venue because I have enjoyed this course more than any other I have taken in my entire academic journey – which by the way ends after six consecutive years of schooling as I graduate from graduate school in two weeks on June 12, 2010. Yeah baby! I must reiterate how incredibly awesome the experience of becoming a full-fledged historian has been for me. I honestly feel as though I have been given the golden opportunity by Professor Linda Ivey to live and breath as would a historian over the last 10 weeks, and I’m filled with gratitude. Thank you.

I will utilize this venue as an opportunity to add information and sum up my story - The Only Written History of Bay Farm Island. The final impressions that I want to leave the reader with is that this journey has brought to the completion the Phase I of a long litany of phases that I will travel through as I complete the full and comprehensive telling of the story of Bay Farm Island from the 1800’s into the new millennia. Within Phase I of this story, the creative hook I found lies within the story of landfill. Challenged with the task of building a narrative and tying together what my research about BFI has uncovered, I discovered that I encountered at every turn the subject of landfill. The story of landfill is how BFI began and it is how it has become the Island paradise that it is today. As I set out to collect information and collected, collected, and collected some more, all the information unearthed spoke of landfill. The real diamond I discovered is the Woody Minor Collection at the Alameda Free Library. This priceless collection chronicles the first settlement on the island by Italian farmers, the first efforts to develop the land for residential use with the essential task of reclaiming land to prevent flooding of roads and residences, and the eventual sophisticated, organized efforts to collectively reclaim major portions of land in the area for large scale residential development. A brief visit to the area today explains why such effort was expended as it is abundant in natural beauty despite the planned setting. The once fertile sought after agricultural marshland slowly began to be viewed prime real estate and became one of many reclaiming projects that were commonplace within during the era in California’s Central Valley. However, for BFI the project to reclaim land was unique because it was for residential purposes. The historical context behind this effort is a topic that is of much interest to me and will be further explored in Phase II of the multi-phased project. I suspect that the land reclaiming project and the dredging of the waterway between the Main Island of Alameda are linked to the Cold War, and I will explore that in detail in subsequent phases of this project. There are numerous topics to be researched in the following phases of this project that I, as a self proclaimed historian, still need to uncover. I must admit that I am thrilled about what I may unearth! In conclusion, what I want you to walk away thinking about is, “where you can purchase my books that cover phases II, III, IV, & V of The Only Written History of Bay Farm Island.