Purple Dyna

I didn’t have to ponder for a microsecond where this descanso was erected, when I came upon this series of photos in my stored archive. My home ground is as recognizable to me as the back of my hand, perhaps more so these days with my hands looking a little worse for wear, what with all the decades they’ve weathered at this point.

The rolling hills, the grazing pastures, and the gnarled oak trees of the Santa Ynez Valley are as much a part of me as anything else, and being the SoCal pseudo-shaman I pretend to be, I’m no stranger to the sacredness of place and how it’s inextricable from soul. Where we grow up, will always be holy to us, even if we had a shitty childhood. You can’t part from the place in which you come of age. It’s impossible. You can leave it, and sure, some people can never go home again, but its imprint is a lifetime deal no matter what.

As such, I presume the memorial’s honoree, one Nichole Grantham, aka “Purple Dyna,” as rendered on the lovely plaque affixed to her purple cross above, may also have been a valley resident like myself. This honorarium was constructed alongside Highway 101, on the northwestern edge of the ‘SYV,’ as we local term it. We will speak at length about the 101 in this column. It’s California’s most prominent coastal byway leading up and down the state, starting in Los Angeles and ending in Washington over 1,600 miles, matched in traffic numbers only by Interstate 5 running a parallel track farther inland between the Mexican border in San Diego all the way to the Canadian border in Washington.

This lovely, lavender descanso was well appointed by the folks who loved ‘Purple Dyna,’ where they included railroad ties, painted the cross her favorite color. There were a couple of mini-bottles of liquor left there, presumably used to ‘pour one out’ for her, and there was a rosary necklace, and a secondary cross made of crystal. I am unsure what the white cloth was; it appears to be a Catholic veil or runner of a sort, but I can’t readily identify it in the photo. I think when I saw it on the fly, I first thought it was a bra, but figured her father or spouse type person wouldn’t appreciate that.

We’ll come to back to 101 soon enough.

Nichole, I hope you’ve found yourself a breadth of purple mountain’s majesty, on your current stretch of your eternal walk through the stars.