Solano County urban legends? Here are three I've 'heard'

Nobody knows more about Solano County than Tony Wade. But in his recent column about an appearance on a TV show about local legends, Tony admitted that he was asked about local urban legends and had no answer.

What?

Tony – who can talk about everything from what stores were in downtown Fairfield in the 1960s and the history of the marching bands at Fairfield and Armijo high schools to Wonder World and Sambo's restaurant – didn't have any urban legends to share?

I do.

I know urban legends. I might make up urban legends.

I've previously written about the possibility of Kim Kardashian attending Vanden High School and Jimmy Carter owning land near Bird's Landing. I've shared the legend of John F. Kennedy water skiing in Suisun City and the possibility that the song "Hotel California" is about a Vacaville motel.

Those urban legends were shared in 2014 and 2017. Now it's 2020. A new decade, a new opportunity for urban legends.

I'm not saying the following stories are true. In fact, I'm saying they're probably not true – or at least impossible to prove. But let's spread the word and create urban legends so that the next time Tony is asked about urban legends on TV, he has an answer.

Here are three urban legends you may not know:

Suisun Slough Creature. There's (allegedly) a reason the Suisun Slough is dredged only every decade or so: A huge creature lives there.

I heard that a guy who saw it between downtown Suisun City and Grizzly Island a few years ago claims the creature is at least 80 feet long. The creature is shy (which is why so few people have seen it), but the Department of Fish and Game presumably know about it. They won't confirm it because it would create chaos in the slough.

Maybe it's true. Maybe not. But I'm not taking any chances.

"Harper Valley" is really Vacaville. "Harper Valley PTA," won the 1968 Grammy for Song of the Year by telling the story of a small-town parent-teacher association's criticism of a student's mother, followed by her harsh critique of their hypocrisy. Songwriter Tom T. Hall might deny it, but I've heard that similarities to a 1965 situation in Vacaville are too striking to ignore–including  the protagonist being "Mrs. Johnson."

A guy I used to play basketball with said his aunt is sure the song is about Vacaville. Might be true.

Amelia Earhart's airplane is at Travis Air Force Base. The famed aviation pioneer went missing in 1937 on a flight across the Pacific Ocean. Her body and her plane was never recovered. Allegedly.

A friend of a former co-worker had a civilian job at Travis and said that pilots discovered Earhart's Lockheed plane in the 1970s while doing practice flights from Honolulu to Australia. A top-secret mission recovered it and the plane was sent back to Travis, where it sits in an otherwise-vacant warehouse. It's not clear why the Air Force would keep the plane secret, but some people say it's due to a 100-year order issued a year after Earhart disappeared to keep the government's role secret.

I guess we'll find out in 2038. If it's true. Which it might be.

Solano County is an interesting place to live. But a giant water creature, a famed aviator's plane being stored here and a Grammy Award-winning song possibly being inspired by a local city?  Those legends would be legendary.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.