Kevin Hamilton is the deputy chief of programs at the San Joaquin Valley’s Clinica Sierra Vista—the second-largest community health center in the country. Before participating in a panel on how Obamacare can succeed in Fresno, he talked about why his Sunday nights are special, growing up in small-town Ohio, and why he’s the ultimate tourist.
Where do you go to be alone?
I spend a lot of time alone in a car. I like to drive. So when I want to be alone, believe it or not, I drive more. I drive around the foothills or something and just look around, sightsee. I’m the ultimate tourist. It doesn’t take much to interest me when I’m sightseeing.
Where would you recommend a visitor sightsee in the Central Valley?
I think they should drive along the edge of the foothills. It’s pretty remarkable, especially in the evening, looking back toward the coast when the sun’s setting on the mountains in the coastal ranges. It’s remarkable. And you can drive that drive, and you see all these little towns, and they all have their own personality. Most of them, you don’t know they’re there. They’re not even on a map anymore. But they are, these little communities. You can drive a hundred miles and just be surprised.
What food won’t you eat?
Anything with eyes looking at me.
What are you keeping in your closet that you should have thrown out already?
Clothes that I’ll never wear again because I’m just never going to be that skinny.
What’s your favorite night of the week?
I want to say Sunday night. For years I’ve set Sunday aside as the day I’m not going to do anything. I don’t go to church or anything like that. I just feel there has to be one day a week, and because I had kids—they’re all adults now—there was just this one day I felt l had to be available to the people I care about in my family no matter what, so I always held that day. And in the evening that day is closing down, and there’s just a good feeling about that. I’ve spent some real time with real people.
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Food, period, probably. Fried food. I avoid it. Not a big sweets person, fortunately.
What’s your fondest childhood memory?
Playing in the woods. I grew up in Ohio, in a small town where the woods went on as far as you could walk. There were these old apple orchards there that everybody used to tell us were planted by Johnny Appleseed. Maybe they were. There was an old split rail fence. As kids we would just head back there and spend as many hours as we could.
Are you good at telling jokes?
I suck at telling jokes. If they’re unintentional, though, people tell me I can be very funny. But it kind of has to be spontaneous. Telling a constructed joke—I tend to laugh at my own jokes, and that’s always bad.
Whose talent would you like to have?
Fred Astaire. That tells you how old I am. I’d love to play music like many people I know—I really admire musicians. And I’d love to dance like Fred Astaire.
How would you describe yourself in five words or less?
Driven and single-minded.