It figures that Rob Defrees would bill the block party he's planning for Calaveras Street on Saturday as the largest "ever in Fresno" and build music into the event.
For the past year, he has been banging the drum loudly for his adopted neighborhood -- a once grand avenue just north of downtown that through the decades became the province of violent crime, drug dealers and slumlords.
Now the American-born world traveler with a British accent wants people to see what Calaveras has become: a cleaner, greener, safer road; far from perfect, but infused with a sense of what's possible when people pull together and stick up for what's theirs.
"I would like my neighbors to feel brilliant, if but for one day," says the 61-year-old Defrees. "And I would like all of Fresno to feel brilliant, if but for one day."
So he put together "Evening of Music -- Hands Across Fresno," a six-hour party between Voorman and McKenzie avenues beginning at 2 p.m.
Bands from Fresno and Sunnyside high schools will play, as will a mariachi group from Visalia. There'll be American flags, Marines, soldiers and sailors in uniform. At 7 p.m., Defrees will ask the assembled to join hands "on Calaveras and beyond to show support to rid our community of drug dealers, poison, gangs and neglect."
Says Defrees: "I want everyone to believe one person can start something. You get more and more people to buy into your dream, and it can get even bigger. The poison being sold is a big deal. It's killing us. It's certainly killing my neighborhood."
Defrees says that a near-death reaction to medication inspired him to take stock, move from San Diego and try to make a difference. Police say that if he was looking for a cause, Defrees found the place.
"He scarcely could've picked a block so challenged," says Capt. Dennis Bridges, the central police district commander. "He's right in the thick of it."
As manager of the El Capri apartments -- built in the style of a 1950s garden motel -- Defrees has spruced up the grounds and units there.
But he also goes house to house, introducing himself and encouraging residents to clean yards, water lawns and report crime "to the coppers." He tracks down apartment owners, badgers them to paint and repair -- telling them it's good for the neighborhood and the best way to rent empty units. He posts pictures of the good and bad along his stretch of Calaveras on his Web site, www.calaverasstreet.com.
Some people blow him off or complain that he's an overstepping busybody. But others respond to his relentless prodding, and police say that Calaveras has less street crime than it did a year ago.
Explains Bridges: "We've got several block captains around central Fresno, and Rob is the highest profile. He is the only one with his own blog and Web site, and he has the time and energy."
Question is, how long can Defrees sustain the energy?
He says he'll give it four more years, then move to London: "By that time, I hope what we've accomplished will be so powerfully strong, it never dies."
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