Bishop's Bread

by Dennis Goza

Most folks have to go out of their way to end up in Bishop, California. We think it's worth the effort.

One of the picturesque little towns spaced out along Highway 395 between Reno, NV. And Mojave, CA., Bishop offers several excuses for the traveler to stop for a spell. There's the colorful panorama of snow-capped mountains, where in the winter, skiing is available just a few miles away. Bishop might be called the Gateway to Yosemite, since 395 accesses a couple of roads that provide a shortcut through the mountains to that fabulous national park---although we've never driven by, even in warm weather, when those passes actually were open. If you have a mind to pay back a bit of what was taken from the Indians, you could drop in at Paiute Palace Casino. And there are a number of festivals and events throughout the year that celebrate the community's rich heritage.

But for us, it's all about the bread. Bishop is the home of Erick Schat's Bakkery (yes, that's how it's spelled), which was opened in 1938 by a Swiss immigrant whose family already had been baking bread for many years. It's a conspicuous establishment right on Main Street (395), announced by an easily spotted sign featuring a cartoonish baker.

We like to arrive early in the morning, when there's a good selection of day-old products at half price. But even if we have to pay the full price, we consider it a bargain. Our favorites are the original Sheepherder's Bread ™ or Mule Bread for sandwiches, Garlic Cheeze bread for snacks, and for our sweet tooth, the heavily cinnamoned Pullaways with walnuts or pecans. All prepared with unbleached flour, artesian spring water, pure butter, a great deal of art, and absolutely no chemicals. These and many more varieties are displayed in abundance on dozens of racks that you can walk between and gawk at as you try to make your selection---and I almost guarantee that you'll end up selecting more than one. Bread this good probably will be outlawed someday.

If you've a mind to, you can purchase a cup of coffee or tea in the store's café section and dig into your newly acquired oven treasure on the spot. But if you just take your goodies along, you'll find them just as tasty whenever you're ready for them.

Okay, maybe it's cruel to tell you about all this when chances are you'll never pass through Bishop yourself. But guess what---you actually can order these products by mail or even online. For details, go to www.erickschatsbakery.com. It's not the same as the whole experience of going there in person, but at least you don't have to go through life without ever having sampled Erick Schat's legacy at all.

Manzanar

A few miles down the road from Bishop, between the towns of Lone Pine and Independence, is another noteworthy attraction, but this one's very easy to miss if you're not looking for it. It's the site of Manzanar, the World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, more than 11,000 of these citizens---men, women and children lugging what they could pack into two suitcases---were rounded up and shipped here to be imprisoned for the crime of having ancestors.

They were kept against their will inside the 500-acre compound, but inside its fences, life went on as normally as it could under the circumstances. The internal economy was nearly self-sufficient, with internees raising much of their own food, and further supporting themselves by manufacturing camouflage netting for the military. There were baseball fields, basketball and tennis courts and other sporting activities, plus dances, weddings, and high school graduations. The community had its own hospital, fire department and police department, and even published its own newspaper---called the Manzanar Free Press, of all things. It even had at least one riot that ended in the deaths of two people, after a number of residents gathered at the police station to protest an arrest.

Today, virtually nothing is left of the complex; all the buildings have been razed or transported elsewhere, leaving only a foundation or concrete block here and there. That's why it's so easy to zoom by the attraction without scrutiny. Cruising on 395, all you see is the entrance gate and a commemorative marker, and one might assume that's all there is. Fortunately, we stopped to investigate, and discovered that you can take a driving tour of the grounds, guided by a map that describes the buildings that once stood where there are only numbered markers now. It's especially interesting to learn that the compound was built with the assistance of about 100 Japanese-American volunteers.

One of the few landmarks still extant is the obelisk in the cemetery with inscriptions in Japanese. We tried to translate (Kimberly and Zephyr have been studying Japanese and I've been studying Chinese, which uses many of the same characters) but we fell far short. (They say "soul consoling tower", "August 1943" and "erected by the Manzanar Japanese".) Some 143 residents died during the approximately 3-year period that Manzanar was in operation. But the remains of most were shipped to their hometowns for burial; only 15 actually were buried in this plot of ground, and most of those later were exhumed and transferred elsewhere. Nonetheless, these gravesites are visible---though just barely so--- and folks have left pennies, flowers, and other tributes on these sites, as well as on the base of the obelisk itself. In fact, quite a variety of items have been placed in the latter location, some rather curious. I can see what significance a pair of sandals might have, but why on earth did someone leave an algebra book? (No, it did not appear to have an author of Japanese extraction.) I suppose that whoever deposited it felt compelled to contribute something, and considered a math textbook the most readily dispensable gift. Another individual had apparently nothing to leave except an inscription in pencil: "Sorry---we love you."

Well, I felt inspired to offer something myself. After a bit of scrounging, it occurred to me that perhaps the perfect item would be the miniature lantern attached to my keychain. It just seemed appropriate somehow.

There were also quite a number of origami cranes (the traditional Japanese symbol of peace) strung up around the monument. Since Zephyr recently had acquired a book on origami, along with some suitably attractive paper, we decided to try our hand at constructing one each to add to the collection. Thus, while the May sun baked us, we patiently folded paper as Kimberly read the directions step by step. Since I was relying on verbal description and not looking at the diagrams, I made a couple of folds in the wrong direction. One of them I caught and corrected; the other I didn't. Consequently, my crane ended up looking as if it soon would be visited by the stork. Still, it wasn't too bad for my first attempt, and so we increased the Manzanar paper crane population by three.

Surprisingly, the grounds of Manzanar didn't even open to the public until 1992, about 40 years after being occupied. It supposedly attracts dozens of visitors a day, but in the period of more than an hour that we spent there, we saw only 2 or 3 besides ourselves. But attendance should increase quite a bit next year. We witnessed the construction-in-progress of the brand new interpretive center, a facility that has been needed from the beginning. It's scheduled to open in November of 2003, so the next time we visit, we should be able to report on it. Additionally, certain structures formerly standing here are slated to be restored, reconstructed and/or returned in the near future.