Before Chips, Cherries

There's a good but sad article by Mike Cassidy in today's Mercury News, about Tyler's great grandmother's first cousin, Grace Nola, who passed away just after Christmas — "A way of life passes in valley." Her generation knew a San Jose that has all but passed into history:

In 1958, just as Robert Noyce and company were figuring out how to mass-produce the computer chip, there were nearly 3,300 acres of cherry orchards in the Santa Clara Valley.

In 2002, it was 853 acres.