While I generally intend to write about writing- and content-related topics, I’d like to share the story of my new venture's name, Green Hills Communications.
Obviously, launching a business requires filling out some forms. Which requires a business name—turns out the government frowns on "TBD." From the earliest days of thinking about starting my own gig, I wanted to choose a personally meaningful name with some family connection. My parents have been self-employed for most of their adulthoods—my dad founded Buena Vista Realty (which offices I'm lucky enough to use today) with a partner in the late-1970s. So Buena Vista was a natural consideration. But "buena vista" (good view) is a much more intuitive name for a real estate business than a writing and content strategy business.
So I asked my dad what my grandfather’s business had been called. My grandfather was born in 1915 in the Siskiyous in Northern California—a little town called Callahan. Grandpa, Pop as he was affectionately called, went to Cal—the first of a proud string of Williams family Cal grads—and majored in forestry.
After graduating in 1939, he served in World War II on a B-24 in the China, Burma, and India theater. He was a trained pilot, but the Army Air Corps deemed him too old to fly, so he served as a navigator. He flew 50 missions and received two Distinguished Flying Crosses and an Air Medal. He never talked much about the war, but after our childhood tonsillectomies, my brother and I did hear the story of how Pop’s tonsils were removed in a barber chair in India, sans anesthesia, during the war—it admittedly made the mashed potatoes and pancakes go down a bit easier.
After the war, Pop, Grandma, and my dad settled in Burlingame, Calif., and Pop ultimately opened Green Hills Garden and Pet Supply. My dad helped him run it as a young man. Growing up, I loved hearing the story of the pet parrot, Admiral (with the mouth apparently of, yes, a sailor), who swooped through the store, roosting on the lawn mower handles. Pop always got a laugh at the expense of irritated customers who would grab a lawn mower handle for a test push.
Green Hills Garden and Pet Supply closed many years ago, and though Green Hills is inarguably a better name for a garden and pet supply store, I thought it was a perfect fit for my own venture. Pop was the grandparent who thought I hung the moon. You know the one—we all hopefully get at least one—who thinks we’re just perfect. Then, too, entrepreneurship is in my blood. As are, naturally, the Golden Bears. I owe much of who I am to our favorite Old Blue, who passed away during my junior year of high school—before I got a chance to tell him I’d gotten into Cal. Before he got to see me stand on the field after the Big Game, proudly holding the Axe. But I know he knows all that. And I know he knows I've launched Green Hills Communications.
Pop is buried at the foot of his beloved Mt. Tamalpais—photos of which feature prominently across my website. Here’s to you, Pop! Keep hiking those green hills until we all meet again. Go Bears.
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