Olson celebrates Apricot Days at Orchard Heritage Park

Charles Olson, 88, hauls a heavy tray loaded with Sunnyvale dried apricots ready for the final steps before packaging.

Charles Olson of Sunnyvale is out in the bright August sunshine doing what he loves best. Although long past the age when most people retire, he’s wearing overalls, driving a forklift, hauling apricot trays and supervising the work on a contraption he calls his “cot washing machine,” which runs newly dried apricots through a water bath to clean and hydrate them. The word “cot,” by the way, is a Santa Clara Valley colloquialism for apricot, understood by longtime residents but perhaps not so well-known today.

“My father bought that machine in 1940,” beams Olson, with the pride of a man who has personally kept the thing operational.

Olson, now 88, was 5 years old when the machine was new. Today, he’s still working full time as an orchardist, the business he learned from his father and grandfather in the Santa Clara Valley. He did take a brief detour as a young man to play professional football, but eventually returned to Sunnyvale and the family business.

These days, the work goes on at the apricot orchard property he once leased from the city of Sunnyvale for one of his many operations. The acreage is now back in city hands and named Orchard Heritage Park, a tribute to the enormous agricultural business that once dominated the economy of the valley.

This has not been a great season for apricots, the rare and delicate Mediterranean fruit for which the region became known a century ago. The heavy rains, high winds and cold nights this winter blew through just in time to damage the apricot blossoms of February.

“We won’t have many apricots this year,” said Olson this spring when I asked him how his trees had survived the storms. “Sad to say, most of them are gone with the wind.”

Yet the apricots he was able to nurture to harvest are gorgeous. Juicy Blenheims, large as billiard balls, cut into halves by Olson’s loyal cadre, the

apricots are dried in the sun and as orange as a Buster Posey San Francisco Giants jersey. The crew, including Olson’s office assistant Elisabeth Maurer, will be completing the work over the next several days before this year’s dried crop will be packaged and ready to sell. The proceeds go to help offset the cost of operations.

There are very few commercial orchards remaining in the Santa Clara Valley, most in the southern end of the valley. Saratoga has a heritage orchard and so does Los Altos. The Los Altos orchard is in dire need of restoration, set to begin soon. And though the Los Altos orchard is only about half the size of the one in Sunnyvale, the Sunnyvale operation could provide a template for the orchard’s future in Los Altos.

Meanwhile, in Sunnyvale, where you now find the offices of Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Google and Amazon, among many other Silicon Valley giants, you can also spot Olson working in the sunshine. His personal portfolio is such that he doesn’t need to work. Yet in a world of offices, he likes staying in shape producing a product people love. The fresh fruit sells quickly, but the dried fruit is sold all year – until supplies run out – next to the Sunnyvale Community Center, at the Orchard Heritage Barn, which also contains Olson’s classically cluttered office.

Apricots must be really good for you. Say hello to Charles when you drop in to buy some and see if you don’t spot the evidence in his smile.

The Orchard Heritage Barn is located at 560 E. Remington Drive, Sunnyvale. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

Robin Chapman is a journalist, author and Los Altos native.

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