Resolutions of the 1995 Meeting of the APCG Sonoma, California

RESOLUTIONS OF THE 1995 MEETING OF THE APCG SONOMA, CALIFORNIA W h e r e a s Crowley and Crew bravely stepped up to the plate to take Mother Nature’s best pitch, which turned out to be Flood, in the wake of the Berkeley Fire and the Northridge Quake; and W h e r e a s Sonoma State University has successfully hosted the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geogra­ phers (based on the revisionist numbering begun by UCLA so that they could claim to have hosted the 50th Annual Meeting in 1985, which was followed by the 49th Annual Meeting at Eugene in 1986 as duly reported in the Yearbook of this association); and W h e r e a s the Geography Department at Sonoma State is even smaller than CSU-Sacramento, and like them lacks a graduate pro­ gram, thereby eliminating key excuses I might wish to make next year; and W h e r e a s the number of papers presented at these meetings has increased 23 percent from last year’s total, despite (or perhaps be­ cause of) the daringly late submission deadline and lack of a published program prior to Wednesday; and W h e r e a s our local arrangements chair Bill Crowley, who has humiliated past APCG hosts with stinging resolutions, so far has managed not to disgrace himself in any notable way, and even was heard to admit Thursday night that Oelwein, Iowa, is the pits; and W h e r e a s we were warned to expect cool weather but instead it has rained the entire time we have been here— it didn’t rain in Eu­ gene in ’86, nor in Fairbanks in ’89 (but in fairness it did snow a bit), nor in Bellingham in ’92, and it only sprinkled lightly in Eureka in ’83. Had he the power, Crowley would have waved this weather away with a magic wand, but then again, by his own admission, he doesn’t know what a wand is; 200 Resolutions 201 W h e r e a s those lucky 4 0 or so who stayed in the dorms (also known as Motel 5 and-a-half), and their guests, were provided amuse­ ments such as the chance to see novel bath rooms, variously called “long lots” or “shotguns” (borrowing Fred Kniffen’s settlement no­ menclature), and to witness Super Fund dollars at work as a severely fouled mattress was carted off to a toxic dump site; and W h e r e a s Chair Crowley has cited as a positive movement the trend away from prune juice to wine and has arranged for us free drinks two nights out of three; and W h e r e a s 49 percent of the papers presented at these meetings were by people from outside California, suggesting that the Golden State still has its magic allure and that Paul Starrs is full of baloney; and W h e r e a s at least one attendant, in search of an ATM within min­ utes of his arrival in Rohnert Park, was panhandled by a man with a poodle in a wheelchair (the man occupying the wheel chair), show­ ing that some of Berkeley spills over to the North Bay region; and W h e r e a s we surreptitiously have been provided the gratifying good news that not even Big League prima donnas receive $250 hono­ raria to speak at these meetings; and W h e r e a s at least one member of the organization missed the meeting, thinking that a place called “Sonoma State” should, by all rights, be in Sonoma (perhaps the school should be renamed Rohnert Park U. or maybe Cotati College); and W h e r e a s those seeking food on campus were faced with paying $5.50 up front (before seeing an actual menu) for “ALL THE DORM FOOD” you can eat; and Whereas the pace of the meeting was so relaxed that after the intellectually intense opening season we were given a full day off from listening to papers; and 202 APCG...