Who's Who in Pinole: Paul Grushkin

Name: Paul Grushkin

How long have you lived in Pinole? I've lived here 16 years.

What is your occupation? I've spent the last 30-plus years as a vice-president of sales and marketing of rock and roll merchandise. I am also an author and considered to be one of the top rock and roll historians in America. I have seven books to date. Many of the books are considered standard works all over the country. I am most famous for The Art of Rock:  Posters from Presley to Punk.

What do you like about Pinole? It is quiet and close to everything that I love in life — San Fransisco, Berkeley, the Bay, the ocean and good old rock and roll. I do think that Pinole is a beautiful small town. I love the close relationships that we can make here.

What would you change about Pinole? I would like to see better pay for teachers. It's a sad time in our country's history when we are not sustaining enough for things that we want. There is despair over having too large of class sizes for our students and losing our fire station in the Valley.

What are your favorite places in Pinole? I like Happy Sashimi in the Pinole Valley Shopping Center. It's a wonderful place. I enjoy the roads leading out the back roads of Pinole with the cattle and fields. I also like the hills on the top of Crown Ridge where you can see raptors, blue jays and catch an occasional snake.  It's a beautiful small town that's perfect for someone who sits down and writes history books like the new one coming out that will be called Dead Letters. It's all about the thousands of letters written to the Grateful Dead by their fans who illustrated the outside of the letter's envelopes in hopes of scoring tickets to shows.  The book depicts the "best of the best" of those.