Day 20 from sunny and smoky California, where the hills are alive with the sounds of fire fighting helicopters in the rain-starved mountains north of Los Angeles. If you saw how hard these people work to prevent a potential disaster and then get caught in a five-mile long traffic jam on the San Diego Freeway, you can only imagine how hard it would be to get Los Angelinos to leave this city.
The ground is SO dry (despite living on the ocean) that a casually cigarette, tossed carelessly out of a moving car, could bring unmentionable tragedy. It was distressing to see people smoking in the open air at Yosemite National Park, which listed its fire danger as “extremely high.” I guess huffin’ and puffin’ is a hard addiction to kick, even at the expense of such beauty and other people’s lives.
It’s THAT kind of situation.
The straight up on “Sideways” Country
As we drove northward through Northern California less than a week ago, and down from Oakhurst, through the San Joaquin Valley, all we saw were vineyards (and fruit trees and strawberry and lettuce patches and you name it). It was definitely “Sideways” Country, made popular by last year’s Academy Award-winning movie about two men touring and tasting their way through the Sonoma and Napa Valleys.
There are two things I know absolutely nothing about – the stock market and wine. One keeps you poor. The other makes you an outcast. Apparently.
I had no interest in doing any kind of wine tasting; being a diabetic and a heart-surgery patient, I must avoid the alcohol and sugar content of vino. Besides, to be honest, I never enjoyed the taste. My knowledge of wines is three-fold (based on actual usage from college). Back in the day, I either drank Ripple, Annie Greensprings or Boone’s Farm. Each of which cost around a buck. Hey, a poor college student couldn’t afford much more and it usually did the job.
If I wanted to go high-tone, it was Mateus (mainly to get an empty bottle to melt candles on it for some sort of hippie ambience). But most of the time, we wanted a vintage of at least two months and smelling the twist top was out of the question.
I was raised on two brands – Mogen David and Manischewitz kosher Concord grape wines. And to me, ALL wines smelled like Manischewitz (and still do) and I never knew the difference between a Pinot Noir and film noir. So watching “Sideways” meant concentrating on the comedy and personal relationships, although the “wine” humor escaped me.
Which, these days, makes me something of a fossil. I always made it a point to ask for a fine vintage of Diet Coke when ordering at fancy restaurants and one brought my beverage in a wine goblet. Yes, it was a fine crop of carbonation. Tuesday, I believe.
My wife, Jodie, thinks California wines are over-populating the market and making what was once a special item now run-of-the-mill. But we could have our choice of hundreds of wineries in almost every region of California. Mountainsides are laden with thousands of acres of hanging vines – neatly arranged in perfectly linear rows.
Fruit and veggie basket to the world
We have driven nearly the entire length of California (more than 850 miles) and have seen each of its various regions, from the High Desert to the Coastal Redwoods to San Francisco to San Diego to San Bernardino and all points (including some incredibly small ones) in between.
Aside from the incredible scenery (mountains everywhere and stunning mountain lakes abounding), you are struck by the amount of land dedicated to growing food. While I prefer the taste of Texas sweet onions, Ruby Red grapefruit and Fredericksburg peaches, their output pales in comparison with California. If you look at your grocery store’s produce shelves, most of it comes from California – lettuce, fruit, greens, onions, etc. Vast sections of the Golden State are dedicated and sustained by farmers and you begin to realize how important it is (and they are) to the entire nation.
There is more to California than bikinis (didn’t see enough of those), beaches (lots of them, too) and weirdoes (lots of them, too).
Odd Sightings of the Trip
So far, it’s a tie between the field mouse that literally jumped onto the axle of a Honda Accord in front of us on the San Diego Freeway in Los Angeles, and the picture of a motorcycle, parked at the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite … with a handicap placard hanging from the handlebars.
I am still trying to figure out what handicapped person would travel 5,000 feet into the thin air on a motorcycle. Any thoughts?
It’s a Small World …You can travel to the ends of the earth but remnants of your hometown will always follow you.
First, as we exited Yosemite National Park, we had to stop at the Rangers post for “questioning,” I guess. The Ranger in the tiny booth wished us a good night and asked us what part of Texas we were from, having seen our out-of-state plates.
“Dallas” is our standard answer because Plano is far too specific or unknown … so we thought.
“I’m here from Richardson on a four-month stay,” he said.
“This is a lot different from the George Bush (Turnpike),” I casually mentioned and Mister Ranger agreed.
The next morning, we had breakfast at the Ol’ Kettle in Oakhurst, Calif., and upon checkout, the owner asked us where we were from.
“I could lie and say we were from Houston and came to Yosemite to get high enough from the water, but we’re from Dallas,” I answered.
“Oh yeah?” she said, with her voice suddenly perked up. “My son lives in Plano.”
Funny, so do we, I noted.
“He works for Texas Instruments as does his wife,” the lady added.
Funny, so does my wife, I noted.
“They live on Round Rock Trail,” she added.
Funny, that’s two miles from our house, I noted.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Getting away from Plano,” I noted. “And after being here, I’m not sure we can go back.”
Funny, neither does my family, she noted.
As I said, it’s a small world.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Day 19 - Can't be naughty with nature
Day 19 of the Never-Ending Story (without all the kids’ stuff) from sunny Oakhurst, Calif., at the edge of America’s national park, Yosemite. Yes, Yellowstone was the first official national park to be commissioned, followed by Sequoia National Park, just down the state here in California.
But, as my lovely wife noted, Yosemite is the seminal American national park, and judging from the thousands in the park, many Americans (and Europeans) agree. Traffic was as jammed as anything in Los Angeles and it often resembled a Saturday shopping mall crowd. People were parking single-file on the edge of two-lane roads, which, believe me, had no shoulders. Run off these roads and you take a 4,000-foot fall. Driving these twisting, winding strips of asphalt can make you as queasy as being in FEMA (or helped by FEMA).
What can one say about such magnificence? You’ve got millions of acres of sequoias (the same tree family as coastal redwoods but which cannot be grown below 5,000 feet and in need of ample sunlight), pine trees (reaching so high they almost blot out the sun), huge mountains that invite climbers with more adventure and courage than sense to scale, waterfalls, rock formations and the true smell of pine freshness at every turn. Where else can you sit in the parking lot outside the visitors center and see a flock of does just walk past people in the daylight? Or hear a bag of fresh potato chips explode because of the falling air pressure as you ascend into the high mountains?
We drove (slowly mind you) to the spectacular Glacier Point and view mountain ranges in the Sierra Nevadas formed millions of years ago by glaciers. The view is unbelievable; this wordsmith cannot do justice and despite snapping off scores of photos, no picture captures the natural beauty.
To anyone wishing to visit Yosemite, know this: can’t be seen in one day. Or two or three or four days. Can’t be done, sorry. First, it takes 87 miles to make most of the traffic loop and you average less than 30 miles per hour. It takes a long time to go by car.
Second, like most national parks, Yosemite is a hiker’s paradise. You need to see many of the best sights on foot. And that takes time.
Third, there are many other things to see in the region – award-winning wineries, old-time logger railroad trains, excellent inns and bed-and-breakfasts, a golf course at historic Wawoma constructed in 1917, and many affordable hotels (including this Best Western which resembles a lodge).
So I asked Jodie this classic “what if?” question. If gasoline in the United States went to $5 per gallon, and there was a shortage declared among oil producers, AND suddenly geologists within the confines of Yosemite National Park discovered the largest pool of crude oil, would you permit drilling in this vestige of perfect nature?
She, being the wonderful liberal that I adore, said, “Hell, no! Drive a better car.”
Bless her! I kinda agree. But the answer clearly would define a person’s politics and views of life, nature and lifestyle. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh would choose drilling. Rush once said, “When I see a tree, I see furniture or a baseball bat.” What a pity that SO many people would agree with that point of view – sacrificing natural resources for an expendable fuel.
If we destroy what Mother Nature creates, it can never come back. When a species of animal is made extinct, that’s a hole we create in the natural order of things. I don’t care what you call it – evolution, intelligent design (excuse me but how intelligent is a mosquito?) or abracadabra. Humans have no right to arbitrarily decide what species lives or dies.
And the same goes for other natural creations, like Yosemite or Saguaro National Park or the Grand Tetons or any place you can name in this country. I wish there was a perfect method of horizontal drilling to go to Fresno and work a pipe into a park so Jed Clampett can shoot at some food and out of the ground would come some bubblin’ crude. But it doesn’t work that way. If it did, we would have sucked the Saudis dry and made them worry about the price of gas instead of us.
No, we cannot have set aside enough national park land. We need to preserve as much perfection in terms of beauty for our children, their children and their children’s children’s children (thank to the Moody Blues for that one).
Meanwhile, I think I’ll go out on my Best Western balcony and look at the stars in a moonlit night, with temperatures at 55 degrees.
Eat your hearts out. I’m enjoying it while I can until I return home to the sweatbox known as North Texas.
But, as my lovely wife noted, Yosemite is the seminal American national park, and judging from the thousands in the park, many Americans (and Europeans) agree. Traffic was as jammed as anything in Los Angeles and it often resembled a Saturday shopping mall crowd. People were parking single-file on the edge of two-lane roads, which, believe me, had no shoulders. Run off these roads and you take a 4,000-foot fall. Driving these twisting, winding strips of asphalt can make you as queasy as being in FEMA (or helped by FEMA).
What can one say about such magnificence? You’ve got millions of acres of sequoias (the same tree family as coastal redwoods but which cannot be grown below 5,000 feet and in need of ample sunlight), pine trees (reaching so high they almost blot out the sun), huge mountains that invite climbers with more adventure and courage than sense to scale, waterfalls, rock formations and the true smell of pine freshness at every turn. Where else can you sit in the parking lot outside the visitors center and see a flock of does just walk past people in the daylight? Or hear a bag of fresh potato chips explode because of the falling air pressure as you ascend into the high mountains?
We drove (slowly mind you) to the spectacular Glacier Point and view mountain ranges in the Sierra Nevadas formed millions of years ago by glaciers. The view is unbelievable; this wordsmith cannot do justice and despite snapping off scores of photos, no picture captures the natural beauty.
To anyone wishing to visit Yosemite, know this: can’t be seen in one day. Or two or three or four days. Can’t be done, sorry. First, it takes 87 miles to make most of the traffic loop and you average less than 30 miles per hour. It takes a long time to go by car.
Second, like most national parks, Yosemite is a hiker’s paradise. You need to see many of the best sights on foot. And that takes time.
Third, there are many other things to see in the region – award-winning wineries, old-time logger railroad trains, excellent inns and bed-and-breakfasts, a golf course at historic Wawoma constructed in 1917, and many affordable hotels (including this Best Western which resembles a lodge).
So I asked Jodie this classic “what if?” question. If gasoline in the United States went to $5 per gallon, and there was a shortage declared among oil producers, AND suddenly geologists within the confines of Yosemite National Park discovered the largest pool of crude oil, would you permit drilling in this vestige of perfect nature?
She, being the wonderful liberal that I adore, said, “Hell, no! Drive a better car.”
Bless her! I kinda agree. But the answer clearly would define a person’s politics and views of life, nature and lifestyle. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh would choose drilling. Rush once said, “When I see a tree, I see furniture or a baseball bat.” What a pity that SO many people would agree with that point of view – sacrificing natural resources for an expendable fuel.
If we destroy what Mother Nature creates, it can never come back. When a species of animal is made extinct, that’s a hole we create in the natural order of things. I don’t care what you call it – evolution, intelligent design (excuse me but how intelligent is a mosquito?) or abracadabra. Humans have no right to arbitrarily decide what species lives or dies.
And the same goes for other natural creations, like Yosemite or Saguaro National Park or the Grand Tetons or any place you can name in this country. I wish there was a perfect method of horizontal drilling to go to Fresno and work a pipe into a park so Jed Clampett can shoot at some food and out of the ground would come some bubblin’ crude. But it doesn’t work that way. If it did, we would have sucked the Saudis dry and made them worry about the price of gas instead of us.
No, we cannot have set aside enough national park land. We need to preserve as much perfection in terms of beauty for our children, their children and their children’s children’s children (thank to the Moody Blues for that one).
Meanwhile, I think I’ll go out on my Best Western balcony and look at the stars in a moonlit night, with temperatures at 55 degrees.
Eat your hearts out. I’m enjoying it while I can until I return home to the sweatbox known as North Texas.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Special Day 18 edition - Riders from the storm
A Day 18 special from warm Northern California, where, in a few days, $2.97 for a gallon of gas might begin to look like it was sold at Dollar General. Lord only knows how much the oil companies will stiff the American public next week after Hurricane Rita blows through the Texas Gulf Coast. Hurricanes that shut down refineries cause mega-jumps in retail gas prices. But fires and explosions at BP refineries in Texas City and Deer Park, that ALSO halt production, don’t cause a ripple. How come?
Instead of going down the main roads of NoCal, we have been taking the backroads of California, through the mountains and lava beds that decorate this part of the country. We stopped for lunch in a quaint tiny mountain town of Adin and instantly, the Norman Rockwell characters (the men looked like 49er miners with long, flowing bears) sitting in front of the general store spotted our Texas license plate,
”Are you fleeing from Rita?” they wanted to know. Nope, we said, we’re from Dallas. We just see tornadoes, crickets and bad politics. We were then told that bad politics was also a problem in the Golden State.
The same question was asked at the hotel registration desk, even thought eh reservation had been made two months in advance. After Hurricane Katrina scattered evacuees from New Orleans from coast to coast, anything would be possible.
Sleeping last night was not easy and not accomplished. My children are in the path of Rita and my unborn granddaughter needs to be safe. My son and daughter-in-law crawled up U.S. 59 toward Livingston and then cut across the unknown routes to escape before finding refuge in Center, with her parents. The entire trip, normally a two-hour jaunt, took 10 hours.
My ex-wife and my two other daughters have moved from their trailer home to her uncle’s house in Willis, north of Conroe. It isn’t much further away from the storm, but it is a better structure than the mobile home they occupy. She is disabled and awaits a second hip replacement. She has neither the money nor means to go any place else – one of many families with similar stories in the fourth largest city in America. The storms have peeled away the economic under belly of major urban centers in the South to reveal this large disparity in economic status. Those who can, leave; those who can’t, pray a lot.
If you have lived in Houston for any time, you know the danger is not from wind; it’s from flooding. That’s because most of the city is below the flood plain and thousands of homes were built in that kind of land without owner knowledge (quite a scandal back in the time). Tropical storms, particularly in 1994, have caused massive damage to homes, which are still sitting idle more than a decade later. The city has never really addressed this issue and flood control remains a constant threat and problem. Unless we want to uproot entire cities to rebuild, we will have to live with our progress and weather the storms yet to come.
No one on any blog, or on any TV news report (which I finally got to see in depth last night in Redding, Calif.) is getting to the truth of the matter. And here it is: No plan, no advance planning and no amount of warning can adequately evacuate a major American city prior to a major catastrophe.
Now it’s been said. Houston and the Galveston area was prepared to depart but the infrastructure cannot support more than a million people trying to go in the same direction at once. Can’t be done, folks. You have thousands of cars stranded by the side of Interstate-45 (not a particularly good straight of highway to start because of multiple construction projects and just plain bad road) and thousands more out of gas and stuck in the middle (with you, sorry Gerry Rafferty).
At best, traffic moved at less than a snail’s pace at 2 miles per hour and that won’t get you from Cedar Lake City to Spring in a day’s time. And what will five extra gallons of gas from the government do for stalled cars in an immobile parking lot with stations emptying quicker than a Cowboys’ crowd after a loss?
Houston is massive; it is the largest city by acreage in the U.S. Between the Reliant Center on south Loop 610 and Galveston, there are half million residents. Add another million in the city of Houston proper and you see the problem. People cannot be moved THAT fast on any route out of town.
And where are they going to go? Huntsville? Madisonville? Centerville? Fairfield? Corsicana? Ennis? I’ve just named you the cities along I-45 from Houston to Dallas. In between are miles and miles of empty Texas (sorry Asleep at the Wheel) and no place to stop. One thing Gov. Rick Perry could have done was to open all state parks with shelters free of charge for 2-3 days to house evacuees. That would help a little.
President Bush, concerned about Texas a lot sooner than he appeared in New Orleans, can still impose a price freeze on retail gasoline to keep the negative impact from wounding the economy further.
In New Orleans, people either couldn’t or wouldn’t leave; in Houston, they ALL tried to escape and no government was ready for either contingency. In fact, news reports have Houston’s evacuation plans taking a higher percentage of “no goes” into consideration than actually chose to stay. And the re-entry will be just as nasty and messy and the same provisions – re-routing traffic on the interstate and U.S. 59 must be done to allow for some sort of orderly flow.
Officials need to ask themselves if any Texas city can be properly evacuated. Corpus Christi has one north-south route (I-37), Brownsville hardly has one and Beaumont doesn’t really have that direction to travel. Take it one step further: no American city can empty in time to avoid such a disaster. These two storms need to be valuable lessons to the folks in Washington who wring their hands over a terrorist attack.
By the way, where has the Homeland Security Secretary – Michael Cherthoff – been over the last three days? He’s been the Invisible Man in the Bush Administration.
There was nothing I could do for my children since driving south was not an option. I can only pray for their safety and those of thousands, if not millions, of others. But in the end, Mother Nature wins out and there’s precious little we can do about it – be it in Houston or New Orleans or Florida or anywhere.
Instead of going down the main roads of NoCal, we have been taking the backroads of California, through the mountains and lava beds that decorate this part of the country. We stopped for lunch in a quaint tiny mountain town of Adin and instantly, the Norman Rockwell characters (the men looked like 49er miners with long, flowing bears) sitting in front of the general store spotted our Texas license plate,
”Are you fleeing from Rita?” they wanted to know. Nope, we said, we’re from Dallas. We just see tornadoes, crickets and bad politics. We were then told that bad politics was also a problem in the Golden State.
The same question was asked at the hotel registration desk, even thought eh reservation had been made two months in advance. After Hurricane Katrina scattered evacuees from New Orleans from coast to coast, anything would be possible.
Sleeping last night was not easy and not accomplished. My children are in the path of Rita and my unborn granddaughter needs to be safe. My son and daughter-in-law crawled up U.S. 59 toward Livingston and then cut across the unknown routes to escape before finding refuge in Center, with her parents. The entire trip, normally a two-hour jaunt, took 10 hours.
My ex-wife and my two other daughters have moved from their trailer home to her uncle’s house in Willis, north of Conroe. It isn’t much further away from the storm, but it is a better structure than the mobile home they occupy. She is disabled and awaits a second hip replacement. She has neither the money nor means to go any place else – one of many families with similar stories in the fourth largest city in America. The storms have peeled away the economic under belly of major urban centers in the South to reveal this large disparity in economic status. Those who can, leave; those who can’t, pray a lot.
If you have lived in Houston for any time, you know the danger is not from wind; it’s from flooding. That’s because most of the city is below the flood plain and thousands of homes were built in that kind of land without owner knowledge (quite a scandal back in the time). Tropical storms, particularly in 1994, have caused massive damage to homes, which are still sitting idle more than a decade later. The city has never really addressed this issue and flood control remains a constant threat and problem. Unless we want to uproot entire cities to rebuild, we will have to live with our progress and weather the storms yet to come.
No one on any blog, or on any TV news report (which I finally got to see in depth last night in Redding, Calif.) is getting to the truth of the matter. And here it is: No plan, no advance planning and no amount of warning can adequately evacuate a major American city prior to a major catastrophe.
Now it’s been said. Houston and the Galveston area was prepared to depart but the infrastructure cannot support more than a million people trying to go in the same direction at once. Can’t be done, folks. You have thousands of cars stranded by the side of Interstate-45 (not a particularly good straight of highway to start because of multiple construction projects and just plain bad road) and thousands more out of gas and stuck in the middle (with you, sorry Gerry Rafferty).
At best, traffic moved at less than a snail’s pace at 2 miles per hour and that won’t get you from Cedar Lake City to Spring in a day’s time. And what will five extra gallons of gas from the government do for stalled cars in an immobile parking lot with stations emptying quicker than a Cowboys’ crowd after a loss?
Houston is massive; it is the largest city by acreage in the U.S. Between the Reliant Center on south Loop 610 and Galveston, there are half million residents. Add another million in the city of Houston proper and you see the problem. People cannot be moved THAT fast on any route out of town.
And where are they going to go? Huntsville? Madisonville? Centerville? Fairfield? Corsicana? Ennis? I’ve just named you the cities along I-45 from Houston to Dallas. In between are miles and miles of empty Texas (sorry Asleep at the Wheel) and no place to stop. One thing Gov. Rick Perry could have done was to open all state parks with shelters free of charge for 2-3 days to house evacuees. That would help a little.
President Bush, concerned about Texas a lot sooner than he appeared in New Orleans, can still impose a price freeze on retail gasoline to keep the negative impact from wounding the economy further.
In New Orleans, people either couldn’t or wouldn’t leave; in Houston, they ALL tried to escape and no government was ready for either contingency. In fact, news reports have Houston’s evacuation plans taking a higher percentage of “no goes” into consideration than actually chose to stay. And the re-entry will be just as nasty and messy and the same provisions – re-routing traffic on the interstate and U.S. 59 must be done to allow for some sort of orderly flow.
Officials need to ask themselves if any Texas city can be properly evacuated. Corpus Christi has one north-south route (I-37), Brownsville hardly has one and Beaumont doesn’t really have that direction to travel. Take it one step further: no American city can empty in time to avoid such a disaster. These two storms need to be valuable lessons to the folks in Washington who wring their hands over a terrorist attack.
By the way, where has the Homeland Security Secretary – Michael Cherthoff – been over the last three days? He’s been the Invisible Man in the Bush Administration.
There was nothing I could do for my children since driving south was not an option. I can only pray for their safety and those of thousands, if not millions, of others. But in the end, Mother Nature wins out and there’s precious little we can do about it – be it in Houston or New Orleans or Florida or anywhere.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Day 17 - I'm bad; I'm nationwide ... literally
Day 17 from beautiful Medford, Oregon, home of the world famous Harry and David, where one’s wife, who shall remain nameless (but who co-habitats with me) can easily spend $125 at the company’s Country Store on all sorts of fresh fruits, canned and jarred jellies and other items.
Medford is the heart of pear country, not just for Oregon, but also for the United States. The smell of fresh pears permeates the air at this juncture, changing from Bartletts to Boscs picking and processing.
Seventy miles to the east of Medford is one of nature’s most perfect sights – Crater Lake – a stunning combination of true blue water surrounded by 33 miles of rim canyon and mountains. Since no one can go into the lake, it is undisturbed except for rain and wind. Photos taken by even ordinary cameras possess postcard quality.
And you never know what you’ll see en route. Our vehicle was forced to stop for a pair of mother cows nursing their calves – in the middle of the highway. Believe me, neither mom was going to move … so we waited. The three-year-old daughter of our friend, Jennifer, had never seen such a sight and was fixated at this vision.
It is a delightful region – the Rogue River Valley – with forests and mountains ranges as far as the eye can see (Cascades on one side and the Siskiyous on the other). And Tuesday night was a picture-perfect time to head to the Lithia Motors Amphitheater to see one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2005 inductees perform – that little old band from Texas, ZZ Top.
The group has not changed personnel since 1970 – Dusty Hill on bass, Frank Beard on drums and Billy Gibbons on guitar. “It’s the same three guys playing the same three chords,” Gibbons told the sold-out crowd.
Gibbons and Hill still possess those MTV long beards but the grey is now real. Billy tried his best, but the voice was much weaker than when “Legs” and “Jesus Left for Chicago” were first recorded. But, oh my, he can still play guitar. In the late 1960s, Dick Cavett was interviewing Jimi Hendrix and told the soon-to-be legend that he was considered already to be the greatest guitarist of all time. “That might be,” Hendrix answered. “But I just heard Billy Gibbons.”
When I worked for the University of Michigan’s sports information department, I remember having to run an errand one December Thursday morning, on the final day of classes. I stepped outside of the SID offices and was standing on the corner when a pickup, hauling a trailer, stopped in front of me.
“’Scuse me, but can you tell me where the basketball arena is?” the driver asked. I gave them directions but they seemed confused.
“We’re playing there tonight,” he said, and I knew it was not for Michigan hoops. It turned out to be ZZ Top on their first national tour, in support of “Tres Hombres,” opening for Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” tour.
The Texas band, already having a growing fan base in Ann Arbor, was warmly received. Of course, everyone was toked up and stoned up to see one of rock’s master showmen in Cooper.
I sat in a section among many Michigan football players and, sorry to say, the odor of marijuana was strong from this part of Crisler Arena. One player in particular went through two full baggies on stash and, years later, while surfing a Fort Worth cable network, I stumbled across that same player in a new role – evangelical TV minister seeking funds for his mission. Which was NOT to enjoy more Alice Cooper.
ZZ Top hasn’t had a hit album in 15 years; their latest, “Mescalero,” was released three years ago. Their last hit was “Viva Las Vegas,” and they were last heard on the closing credits of “From Dusk ‘til Dawn.” In the mid-80s, the Texas trio filled the Cotton Bowl and every major arena in America. Today, they play at small state and county fairs, cities the size of Medford (63,000) and Indian casinos.
But it didn’t matter to the crowd here – totally consisting of late 30-somethings, 40 and 50-somethings and enough AARP members to have earned discounts. Once Billy and Dusty hit the stage in their lime green sequin jackets, and when they switched to their fuzz-covered guitars, and when they kicked into the back-to-back renditions of “Give Me All Your Lovin’” and “Sharp-Dressed Man,” people were dancing in the aisles.
Of course, some of them should refrain from such public display – especially women approaching their AARP years. Here’s a good rule to live by: if you are 28-34, and still have the shape and suppleness to display your figure in a provocative way, please do so! I am happy to report that our friend, Jennifer (despite having a 3-year-old) and her friend, Tonya, both qualify.
But we all saw too many older women trying to emulate that look and it was a disaster. I won’t even draw comparisons to that mother milking her calf. Add too much local wine and perhaps a little too much herbal smoke, and you cannot decide whether or not to laugh or cringe like you’ve got cramps.
To top it off, while we waited for the crowd to slowly escape the parking lot, a drunk woman emerging out of a stretch limousine, actually went into a small clump of bushes near the theater entrance and … relieved herself!
Oh well, to quote the Top, “She’s bad; she’s nationwide.”
Medford is the heart of pear country, not just for Oregon, but also for the United States. The smell of fresh pears permeates the air at this juncture, changing from Bartletts to Boscs picking and processing.
Seventy miles to the east of Medford is one of nature’s most perfect sights – Crater Lake – a stunning combination of true blue water surrounded by 33 miles of rim canyon and mountains. Since no one can go into the lake, it is undisturbed except for rain and wind. Photos taken by even ordinary cameras possess postcard quality.
And you never know what you’ll see en route. Our vehicle was forced to stop for a pair of mother cows nursing their calves – in the middle of the highway. Believe me, neither mom was going to move … so we waited. The three-year-old daughter of our friend, Jennifer, had never seen such a sight and was fixated at this vision.
It is a delightful region – the Rogue River Valley – with forests and mountains ranges as far as the eye can see (Cascades on one side and the Siskiyous on the other). And Tuesday night was a picture-perfect time to head to the Lithia Motors Amphitheater to see one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2005 inductees perform – that little old band from Texas, ZZ Top.
The group has not changed personnel since 1970 – Dusty Hill on bass, Frank Beard on drums and Billy Gibbons on guitar. “It’s the same three guys playing the same three chords,” Gibbons told the sold-out crowd.
Gibbons and Hill still possess those MTV long beards but the grey is now real. Billy tried his best, but the voice was much weaker than when “Legs” and “Jesus Left for Chicago” were first recorded. But, oh my, he can still play guitar. In the late 1960s, Dick Cavett was interviewing Jimi Hendrix and told the soon-to-be legend that he was considered already to be the greatest guitarist of all time. “That might be,” Hendrix answered. “But I just heard Billy Gibbons.”
When I worked for the University of Michigan’s sports information department, I remember having to run an errand one December Thursday morning, on the final day of classes. I stepped outside of the SID offices and was standing on the corner when a pickup, hauling a trailer, stopped in front of me.
“’Scuse me, but can you tell me where the basketball arena is?” the driver asked. I gave them directions but they seemed confused.
“We’re playing there tonight,” he said, and I knew it was not for Michigan hoops. It turned out to be ZZ Top on their first national tour, in support of “Tres Hombres,” opening for Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” tour.
The Texas band, already having a growing fan base in Ann Arbor, was warmly received. Of course, everyone was toked up and stoned up to see one of rock’s master showmen in Cooper.
I sat in a section among many Michigan football players and, sorry to say, the odor of marijuana was strong from this part of Crisler Arena. One player in particular went through two full baggies on stash and, years later, while surfing a Fort Worth cable network, I stumbled across that same player in a new role – evangelical TV minister seeking funds for his mission. Which was NOT to enjoy more Alice Cooper.
ZZ Top hasn’t had a hit album in 15 years; their latest, “Mescalero,” was released three years ago. Their last hit was “Viva Las Vegas,” and they were last heard on the closing credits of “From Dusk ‘til Dawn.” In the mid-80s, the Texas trio filled the Cotton Bowl and every major arena in America. Today, they play at small state and county fairs, cities the size of Medford (63,000) and Indian casinos.
But it didn’t matter to the crowd here – totally consisting of late 30-somethings, 40 and 50-somethings and enough AARP members to have earned discounts. Once Billy and Dusty hit the stage in their lime green sequin jackets, and when they switched to their fuzz-covered guitars, and when they kicked into the back-to-back renditions of “Give Me All Your Lovin’” and “Sharp-Dressed Man,” people were dancing in the aisles.
Of course, some of them should refrain from such public display – especially women approaching their AARP years. Here’s a good rule to live by: if you are 28-34, and still have the shape and suppleness to display your figure in a provocative way, please do so! I am happy to report that our friend, Jennifer (despite having a 3-year-old) and her friend, Tonya, both qualify.
But we all saw too many older women trying to emulate that look and it was a disaster. I won’t even draw comparisons to that mother milking her calf. Add too much local wine and perhaps a little too much herbal smoke, and you cannot decide whether or not to laugh or cringe like you’ve got cramps.
To top it off, while we waited for the crowd to slowly escape the parking lot, a drunk woman emerging out of a stretch limousine, actually went into a small clump of bushes near the theater entrance and … relieved herself!
Oh well, to quote the Top, “She’s bad; she’s nationwide.”
Days 15-16 - Is this heaven? No, it's just Oregon
Days 15-16 from a hidden jewel of America – Ashland, Oregon, just a few miles north of the California border and home of the world-famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a renowned summertime production that draws thousands to this burgh.
Oregon is unlike other states as I quickly discovered. Taxes are quite different and laws are different. Mostly, in this part of Oregon, people are much different, described as an enclave (actually holdout) of 1960s hippiedom. Many residents still dress (or undress) the part, with many women thinking that tube tops, sarongs and far too many inches around their waists are actually attractive. Many guys look like Tommy Chong (then and now) and hiking boots, not Nikes, are the footwear of choice.
My gas report tells you that the precious fuel stands at $2.97 per gallon in most southern Oregon stations. BUT … you, the driver, are not permitted to pump your own gas. Oh no, that is against state law. Instead an attendant MUST go to the pump of your choice and personally insert pump into tank and you get to announce those famous words, “Fill ‘er up!” Additionally, the attendant goes old school – checks the oil and washes the window.
Consequently, more people are employed at full service stations, which are plentiful. These stations will change oil, fix flats and do minor repairs – just like the good old days. Those convenience stations with gas offer “mini serve,” which offers pump but no wipe.
And guess what? There is no state gas tax in Oregon. In fact, there is no state sales tax, period. “The cost of what you buy is the actual cost,” our attendant told us while informing the obvious out-of-towners to stay away from the pumps.
Then at $2.97, gas would seem to be overpriced, compared to other states. That’s what the Oregon governor thinks as well, and he is asking the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, for an investigation into price gouging. The guv thinks it should sit at $2.50 a gallon in his state. I can second that emotion.
It is refreshing NOT to have to pay sales tax. Oregon draws many people from northern California and southern Washington to shop and save … BIG! It is a lesson that should be delivered to the Texas legislature who think public education funding should be shouldered by the sales tax instead of business and other taxes.
Oregon has property taxes that are high (although property values are much, MUCH higher than in Texas) and a personal income tax. But a trade-off between sales for income taxes might be more attractive with the promise of a complete elimination of one for the other, which is NOT as regressive and damaging to businesses as expensive lobbyists whisper into the ears of pliable lawmakers.
Another law of interest? You cannot be a public school teacher in Oregon without a master’s degree. Earn that and you earn a far greater wage than Texas teachers and are better qualified. Of course, most garbagemen earn more than Texas teachers.
In Ashland (pop. 19,500), motorists MUST stop for pedestrians crossing the street, regardless of when, where and how. Walkers rule in this city where Thursday (Sept. 22) was a “no drive, no car” day in town. Organizers wanted the hippies, old and new, to turn Ashland into old-time Beijing (nothing but bicycles). There was going to be a bicycle drive-in movie but I could not figure out how back seat smooching was going to happen.
Because of the influx of tourists for the Shakespeare, there are countless curio shops, great restaurants, scores of bed-and-breakfast spots, and plenty of sights to see at Lithia Park, a 100-acre facility with a Japanese garden and a headless statue of Abe Lincoln. I wisely suggested to my friend, Jennifer (a native who returned home to help care for her mother), that they rededicate the statue to Washington Irving.
Nestled in the heart of the Rogue River Valley, between two mountain ranges, it is a great place to live. It has an exotic charm to it and is quite intoxicating. Imagine driving home and see a full family of deer (buck, doe and baby) meandering through town … without fear of becoming a mantle piece. Or being able to leave your home unlocked when you go to work without fear of losing your flat screen.
But every city has it warts and in Ashland, it comes from the incredible amount of street/homeless people that seem to be everywhere. Many appear to drink from the public fountains in the park, with water enriched with lithium, a natural anti-depressant. The warm springs water throughout Jackson County, where Ashland is located, is known for such properties. The Lithia River is named for the substance. Many people come to Ashland to get their buzz.
They do nothing but beg for money and mere loose change doesn’t work. They ask for bills – the bigger the better. Even for this old-school liberal, it is disgusting. With the population of Ashland what it is, no one seems interested in thinning that herd and each person who supports these … bums (almost exclusively men) only allows the problem to linger. Then again, apparently few people believe it to be a problem.
I guess walking panhandlers truly rule the road in Ashland. It must be the law.
Oregon is unlike other states as I quickly discovered. Taxes are quite different and laws are different. Mostly, in this part of Oregon, people are much different, described as an enclave (actually holdout) of 1960s hippiedom. Many residents still dress (or undress) the part, with many women thinking that tube tops, sarongs and far too many inches around their waists are actually attractive. Many guys look like Tommy Chong (then and now) and hiking boots, not Nikes, are the footwear of choice.
My gas report tells you that the precious fuel stands at $2.97 per gallon in most southern Oregon stations. BUT … you, the driver, are not permitted to pump your own gas. Oh no, that is against state law. Instead an attendant MUST go to the pump of your choice and personally insert pump into tank and you get to announce those famous words, “Fill ‘er up!” Additionally, the attendant goes old school – checks the oil and washes the window.
Consequently, more people are employed at full service stations, which are plentiful. These stations will change oil, fix flats and do minor repairs – just like the good old days. Those convenience stations with gas offer “mini serve,” which offers pump but no wipe.
And guess what? There is no state gas tax in Oregon. In fact, there is no state sales tax, period. “The cost of what you buy is the actual cost,” our attendant told us while informing the obvious out-of-towners to stay away from the pumps.
Then at $2.97, gas would seem to be overpriced, compared to other states. That’s what the Oregon governor thinks as well, and he is asking the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, for an investigation into price gouging. The guv thinks it should sit at $2.50 a gallon in his state. I can second that emotion.
It is refreshing NOT to have to pay sales tax. Oregon draws many people from northern California and southern Washington to shop and save … BIG! It is a lesson that should be delivered to the Texas legislature who think public education funding should be shouldered by the sales tax instead of business and other taxes.
Oregon has property taxes that are high (although property values are much, MUCH higher than in Texas) and a personal income tax. But a trade-off between sales for income taxes might be more attractive with the promise of a complete elimination of one for the other, which is NOT as regressive and damaging to businesses as expensive lobbyists whisper into the ears of pliable lawmakers.
Another law of interest? You cannot be a public school teacher in Oregon without a master’s degree. Earn that and you earn a far greater wage than Texas teachers and are better qualified. Of course, most garbagemen earn more than Texas teachers.
In Ashland (pop. 19,500), motorists MUST stop for pedestrians crossing the street, regardless of when, where and how. Walkers rule in this city where Thursday (Sept. 22) was a “no drive, no car” day in town. Organizers wanted the hippies, old and new, to turn Ashland into old-time Beijing (nothing but bicycles). There was going to be a bicycle drive-in movie but I could not figure out how back seat smooching was going to happen.
Because of the influx of tourists for the Shakespeare, there are countless curio shops, great restaurants, scores of bed-and-breakfast spots, and plenty of sights to see at Lithia Park, a 100-acre facility with a Japanese garden and a headless statue of Abe Lincoln. I wisely suggested to my friend, Jennifer (a native who returned home to help care for her mother), that they rededicate the statue to Washington Irving.
Nestled in the heart of the Rogue River Valley, between two mountain ranges, it is a great place to live. It has an exotic charm to it and is quite intoxicating. Imagine driving home and see a full family of deer (buck, doe and baby) meandering through town … without fear of becoming a mantle piece. Or being able to leave your home unlocked when you go to work without fear of losing your flat screen.
But every city has it warts and in Ashland, it comes from the incredible amount of street/homeless people that seem to be everywhere. Many appear to drink from the public fountains in the park, with water enriched with lithium, a natural anti-depressant. The warm springs water throughout Jackson County, where Ashland is located, is known for such properties. The Lithia River is named for the substance. Many people come to Ashland to get their buzz.
They do nothing but beg for money and mere loose change doesn’t work. They ask for bills – the bigger the better. Even for this old-school liberal, it is disgusting. With the population of Ashland what it is, no one seems interested in thinning that herd and each person who supports these … bums (almost exclusively men) only allows the problem to linger. Then again, apparently few people believe it to be a problem.
I guess walking panhandlers truly rule the road in Ashland. It must be the law.
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Day 14 - America's most unique cities
Day 14 and we’re leaving San Francisco, where one of those flash memories we will both remember will be the sight and sound of an African-American streetcar driver speaking fluent Chinese to a woman at one of his Market Street stops.
Just one of many. Thus far, it has been a wonderful trip, filled with cherished moments and some of the most beautiful scenery known to mankind. There are neither enough words nor photos to capture what we have seen – from the Point Reyes National Seashore to the mountains of the Chiricahua National Monument to hearing sea lions in the San Diego bay. We’ve experienced foods we’ve never tried before – Cuban roasted chicken (heavy on the onions, senor) and San Francisco clam (and crab) chowder so thick it almost needed a fork. We had Dungeness crab SO fresh and broiled so perfectly at the Crab House at Pier 39 (at Fisherman’s Wharf) that it cracked in our hands. (I did manage to drag my carcass there and it was worth every painful step).
And there is more to come – Crater Lake in southern Oregon, Route 66 and all its history, the Petrified National Forest, Lava Beds National Park and, the crème de la crème, Yosemite National Park. The vastness of the United States is never more appreciated than when you actually leave the confines of your home region.
As we exit San Francisco, it can honestly be said that we have visited America’s three most culturally diverse and truly unique cities – Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco. People might want to include Miami, but it falls short of what these places offer. I do not include the U.S. Big Three – New York, Chicago and Los Angeles – because their size literally offers too much. There is either too much politics, too much commerce, too much glamour, too much gossip or too much pollution, traffic and people to compare to the feel of New Orleans (the way it was and hopefully will be) or Boston or San Francisco.
Oddly (or perhaps not), each has the sea as a major component to its culture; such an ingredient seems to enrich and embellish the history. It certainly enhances the food and the atmosphere. These cities have identical influences in that area – heavily Italian in certain parts, as well as a hybrid of other people. In New Orleans, the Cajun and Creole cultures cannot be found elsewhere and I doubt, even in Los Angeles with its Chinese and Korean influences (both with their own media), that Asian culture is as prominent as it is in San Francisco. When most people speak of Chinatown, it is about San Francisco. When Bostonians speak, you almost need an interpreter; also that’s the case in New Orleans with accents as thick and slow as molasses and just as sweet.
Some of our most creative literary characters hail from these cities and their authors, such as Dashiell Hammett, Anne Rice and Robert Parker, are just as colorful. The music generated from these cities is exceptional, from the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies to the jazz out of the French Quarter to the psychedelic rock cornered at Haight and Ashbury near Golden Gate Park.
Each city is a nightmare to be a motorist because they were built first for people, then traffic. Bridges connect San Francisco and New Orleans to the outside world while tunnels are key in Boston.
With the disaster that struck New Orleans still fresh in people’s minds, another connection exists with these three cities – each is vulnerable during a natural disaster. Of the three, Boston is less so. However, storms have funny ways of routing themselves and should a hurricane scurry up the East Coast and strike New England, it could be devastating. People in Boston would find it tough to evacuate in a timely manner.
San Francisco experienced a cataclysmic earthquake in 1900 and the Bay Area suffered a major quake in 1989, during the Bay Area World Series (Giants vs. A’s), killing hundreds and destroying millions of dollars in property. Driving over the Bay Bridge, one can see note the “newer” sections of the double-decker bridge that collapsed in 1989.
Anything I might add about what happened in New Orleans and the governmental response since would be redundant. Frankly, I get a headache hearing it being plowed over and over again on the cable news.
But, just a few points to be made. New Orleans must be rebuilt and its residents must be encouraged to return, even if it means providing the financial means to do so. Call it a Marshall Plan, call it a new WPA project, call it what you wish. No American city should have to be sacrificed because too many government agencies and officials froze when direct action was needed.
We need to quit having lawyers run action agencies, like Homeland Security (which demonstrate how un-secure our homeland really is), and STOP having political lackies, who got their jobs because of their fund-raising abilities in the past, heading important agencies.
We need to stop spending money to build other nations when it is needed at home. We need to stop tax cuts for major corporations and sweetheart, non-competitive contracts to the usual suspects, making the rich richer off other people’s misery.
And we need to stop turning relief and rebuilding into a political football – on both sides. While there is nothing wrong with telling the truth (which too many ideologues stupidly repeat as “the blame game” like a bunch of parrots), the object should be rebuilding New Orleans with proper safety measures and with as many of its people as inhabitants.
Blogging for the next few days might be delayed, depending on two things – Internet access and laundry. Not enough of one and way TOO much of the other. I envision lots of Tide (not from the ocean) in my future.
Just one of many. Thus far, it has been a wonderful trip, filled with cherished moments and some of the most beautiful scenery known to mankind. There are neither enough words nor photos to capture what we have seen – from the Point Reyes National Seashore to the mountains of the Chiricahua National Monument to hearing sea lions in the San Diego bay. We’ve experienced foods we’ve never tried before – Cuban roasted chicken (heavy on the onions, senor) and San Francisco clam (and crab) chowder so thick it almost needed a fork. We had Dungeness crab SO fresh and broiled so perfectly at the Crab House at Pier 39 (at Fisherman’s Wharf) that it cracked in our hands. (I did manage to drag my carcass there and it was worth every painful step).
And there is more to come – Crater Lake in southern Oregon, Route 66 and all its history, the Petrified National Forest, Lava Beds National Park and, the crème de la crème, Yosemite National Park. The vastness of the United States is never more appreciated than when you actually leave the confines of your home region.
As we exit San Francisco, it can honestly be said that we have visited America’s three most culturally diverse and truly unique cities – Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco. People might want to include Miami, but it falls short of what these places offer. I do not include the U.S. Big Three – New York, Chicago and Los Angeles – because their size literally offers too much. There is either too much politics, too much commerce, too much glamour, too much gossip or too much pollution, traffic and people to compare to the feel of New Orleans (the way it was and hopefully will be) or Boston or San Francisco.
Oddly (or perhaps not), each has the sea as a major component to its culture; such an ingredient seems to enrich and embellish the history. It certainly enhances the food and the atmosphere. These cities have identical influences in that area – heavily Italian in certain parts, as well as a hybrid of other people. In New Orleans, the Cajun and Creole cultures cannot be found elsewhere and I doubt, even in Los Angeles with its Chinese and Korean influences (both with their own media), that Asian culture is as prominent as it is in San Francisco. When most people speak of Chinatown, it is about San Francisco. When Bostonians speak, you almost need an interpreter; also that’s the case in New Orleans with accents as thick and slow as molasses and just as sweet.
Some of our most creative literary characters hail from these cities and their authors, such as Dashiell Hammett, Anne Rice and Robert Parker, are just as colorful. The music generated from these cities is exceptional, from the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies to the jazz out of the French Quarter to the psychedelic rock cornered at Haight and Ashbury near Golden Gate Park.
Each city is a nightmare to be a motorist because they were built first for people, then traffic. Bridges connect San Francisco and New Orleans to the outside world while tunnels are key in Boston.
With the disaster that struck New Orleans still fresh in people’s minds, another connection exists with these three cities – each is vulnerable during a natural disaster. Of the three, Boston is less so. However, storms have funny ways of routing themselves and should a hurricane scurry up the East Coast and strike New England, it could be devastating. People in Boston would find it tough to evacuate in a timely manner.
San Francisco experienced a cataclysmic earthquake in 1900 and the Bay Area suffered a major quake in 1989, during the Bay Area World Series (Giants vs. A’s), killing hundreds and destroying millions of dollars in property. Driving over the Bay Bridge, one can see note the “newer” sections of the double-decker bridge that collapsed in 1989.
Anything I might add about what happened in New Orleans and the governmental response since would be redundant. Frankly, I get a headache hearing it being plowed over and over again on the cable news.
But, just a few points to be made. New Orleans must be rebuilt and its residents must be encouraged to return, even if it means providing the financial means to do so. Call it a Marshall Plan, call it a new WPA project, call it what you wish. No American city should have to be sacrificed because too many government agencies and officials froze when direct action was needed.
We need to quit having lawyers run action agencies, like Homeland Security (which demonstrate how un-secure our homeland really is), and STOP having political lackies, who got their jobs because of their fund-raising abilities in the past, heading important agencies.
We need to stop spending money to build other nations when it is needed at home. We need to stop tax cuts for major corporations and sweetheart, non-competitive contracts to the usual suspects, making the rich richer off other people’s misery.
And we need to stop turning relief and rebuilding into a political football – on both sides. While there is nothing wrong with telling the truth (which too many ideologues stupidly repeat as “the blame game” like a bunch of parrots), the object should be rebuilding New Orleans with proper safety measures and with as many of its people as inhabitants.
Blogging for the next few days might be delayed, depending on two things – Internet access and laundry. Not enough of one and way TOO much of the other. I envision lots of Tide (not from the ocean) in my future.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Day 13 - 'Sign' me up please
Day 13 from San Francisco where the wife is headed to Fisherman’s Wharf to see the Aquarium of the Bay and where I sit in the room, resting my tortured back muscles (an old, OLD football injury some 38 years ago). Outside on the Michael Douglas-less Streets of San Francisco, a major motorcycle ride has just passed the hotel and it has suddenly gotten quiet enough to hear the seagulls.
For such a major tourist destination, San Francisco is not THAT visitor-friendly to those driving into the city. It is bad enough to navigate the many streets in places like Chinatown, North Beach, Castro District, Twin Peaks, Union Square and others. But there is a distinct lack of signage to help one know where in the hell he is going.
Signage depletion is a universal problem; not just in San Francisco. If you try to find a national monument or park, those signs are usually brown – but not always and they don’t always exist. Nothing is worse than trying to “follow the signs to …” and being unable to … follow. It tends to make the cranky driver crankier and make the passenger even bitchier.
But that’s a whole other problem, thank you.
Jodie and I have seen plenty of San Francisco neighborhoods as we either search for the hotel or try to make a left turn. Coming from the Presidio area, we avoided going on the Golden Gate Bridge (we planned that for the next day) and turned onto Southbound California Highway 1 (also known as the Pacific Coast Highway in other parts) to go through Golden Gate Park (which is different from Golden Gate National Recreation Area – home to Alcatraz, Fort Point, Fort Mason and the Presidio, now home to George Lucas’ film/studio operations).
However, the traffic flow did not permit left turns for five miles, well past where we knew where we were going. Eventually, a few calmer nerves and the ability to decipher the hotel map landed us safe and sound in the $25 per night parking lot.
Just to be safe, Jodie took the F-line to Fisherman’s Wharf. The next time we use the Escape will be to escape to Southern Oregon.
Traffic lights in California offer a mixed bag. In Los Angeles, we liked the second traffic signal for left turns, located right by your left elbow – almost at eye level. In San Francisco, the lights are difficult to see, located at the sides of intersections and often blinded by sunlight.
Plus, I’ve never seen such poorly time stoplights in my life in San Francisco. It caused humungous traffic jams without benefit of accidents, merely because cars could only inch forward while waiting for the next light to turn green. One block at a time does not accentuate the positive.
And lack of signage has got us $35 for illegally parking on a 12 percent incline without our wheels turned. Who knew? No out-of-towner, that’s for sure.
We were at Ghirardelli Square, looking for a quick parking space. One was sighted at the corner on Larkin Street and we turned into a driveway and stopped in front of the café for a little (or a lot for Jodie) chocolate buying. After a rest room stop, we returned to the car (not more than 15 minutes having elapsed) to find this ticket - parking violation, pay $35 and do not pass “go” or pass the streetcars.
The law makes sense but where we parked, there are no visible signs. Aha! Grounds for a challenge! I think a vehicle from out-of-state with a handicap placard hanging in the windshield might earn one a slight break from such a cold response.
A letter, when I return, to the Department of Traffic and Parking, plus a copy to Mayor Gavin Newsom, will be forthcoming when I return to Texas. I will offer my thoughts and my observations and make the man an offer. I’ll chip in $35 to his favorite charity but I think the ticket is unfair because of the lack of local knowledge and the lack of signage within clear view of our parking spot.
We’ll see if I can leave only my heart, and not my wallet, in San Francisco.
For such a major tourist destination, San Francisco is not THAT visitor-friendly to those driving into the city. It is bad enough to navigate the many streets in places like Chinatown, North Beach, Castro District, Twin Peaks, Union Square and others. But there is a distinct lack of signage to help one know where in the hell he is going.
Signage depletion is a universal problem; not just in San Francisco. If you try to find a national monument or park, those signs are usually brown – but not always and they don’t always exist. Nothing is worse than trying to “follow the signs to …” and being unable to … follow. It tends to make the cranky driver crankier and make the passenger even bitchier.
But that’s a whole other problem, thank you.
Jodie and I have seen plenty of San Francisco neighborhoods as we either search for the hotel or try to make a left turn. Coming from the Presidio area, we avoided going on the Golden Gate Bridge (we planned that for the next day) and turned onto Southbound California Highway 1 (also known as the Pacific Coast Highway in other parts) to go through Golden Gate Park (which is different from Golden Gate National Recreation Area – home to Alcatraz, Fort Point, Fort Mason and the Presidio, now home to George Lucas’ film/studio operations).
However, the traffic flow did not permit left turns for five miles, well past where we knew where we were going. Eventually, a few calmer nerves and the ability to decipher the hotel map landed us safe and sound in the $25 per night parking lot.
Just to be safe, Jodie took the F-line to Fisherman’s Wharf. The next time we use the Escape will be to escape to Southern Oregon.
Traffic lights in California offer a mixed bag. In Los Angeles, we liked the second traffic signal for left turns, located right by your left elbow – almost at eye level. In San Francisco, the lights are difficult to see, located at the sides of intersections and often blinded by sunlight.
Plus, I’ve never seen such poorly time stoplights in my life in San Francisco. It caused humungous traffic jams without benefit of accidents, merely because cars could only inch forward while waiting for the next light to turn green. One block at a time does not accentuate the positive.
And lack of signage has got us $35 for illegally parking on a 12 percent incline without our wheels turned. Who knew? No out-of-towner, that’s for sure.
We were at Ghirardelli Square, looking for a quick parking space. One was sighted at the corner on Larkin Street and we turned into a driveway and stopped in front of the café for a little (or a lot for Jodie) chocolate buying. After a rest room stop, we returned to the car (not more than 15 minutes having elapsed) to find this ticket - parking violation, pay $35 and do not pass “go” or pass the streetcars.
The law makes sense but where we parked, there are no visible signs. Aha! Grounds for a challenge! I think a vehicle from out-of-state with a handicap placard hanging in the windshield might earn one a slight break from such a cold response.
A letter, when I return, to the Department of Traffic and Parking, plus a copy to Mayor Gavin Newsom, will be forthcoming when I return to Texas. I will offer my thoughts and my observations and make the man an offer. I’ll chip in $35 to his favorite charity but I think the ticket is unfair because of the lack of local knowledge and the lack of signage within clear view of our parking spot.
We’ll see if I can leave only my heart, and not my wallet, in San Francisco.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Day 12 - the stuff that meals and dreams are made of
Greetings from San Francisco, where there might be more homeless people per capita than any other place in the U.S. They come in all shapes, colors, gender, in wheelchairs, missing arms and legs and, sadly, too many brain cells.
They seem to be everywhere, on every street corner, in front of every business and next to you waiting for the same bus. And they all seem to be begging for money. Some sit there with signs and pets – both looking real pathetic – and some are brazen enough to confront you face-to-face. You don’t know where they’ve been or what they’ve been drinking or injecting, and, frankly, it can be a little scary.
I cannot denounce Dallas’ effort to get the homeless people off the streets. If you are trying to build up any kind of tourist base, all that solicitation is a big negative – except, of course, in San Francisco. My rule is this: you cannot be in legitimate need, if you are asking for change while sipping on a $2.49 bottle of Smoothie.
Just a few of the characters you meet in The City. Others you get to read about and … visit. Like Nick and Nora Charles and Sam Spade – the creations of Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), considered one of the masters of 20th century noir detective writing. He turned San Francisco’s foggy streets and mysterious atmosphere into perfect backgrounds for his unique vision, what one writer called “dame-and-gumshoe imagination.”
He is considered one of the giants in this field, but he only wrote five novels - the most famous being “The Thin Man” and “The Maltese Falcon.” Hammett worked as a private eye for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the Flood Building on Market Street. His novels are replete with the scenery and flavor of San Francisco.
The 1941 movie version of “The Maltese Falcon” had Humphrey Bogart shedding his convict roles and providing the perfect “hard-boiled” persona for Sam Spade. This role, plus “Casablanca,” turned Bogart into a super-SUPER-star.
However, several of the San Francisco scenes were not included in the movie, as is often the case when going from print to film. One of the scenes in the book included Hammett’s favorite restaurant at 63 Ellis Street, also in the area called the Tenderloin.
“(Sam Spade) went to John’s Grill, asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes, ate hurriedly, and was smoking a cigarette with his coffee when a thick-set youngish man with a plaid cap set aside above pale eyes and a tough cheery face came into the Grill and to his table,” Hammett wrote. And guess what? John’s Grill is still there, still serving those chops (the Sam Spade special) and oozes with the kind of San Franciscan tradition that leapt off the pages of Hammett’s writings.
The restaurant prides itself on its food (steaks, seafood, those lamb chops, oysters and a thing called the Jack LaLanne Salad), its clientele (the walls are smothered with celebrity photos) and its appearance (dark oak paneled walls, small tables, lines going out the door). John’s Grill was chosen as one of the 10 best by Esquire and featured in Gourmet.
Upstairs, in a case, surrounded by Hammett’s books, is that dang falcon – the one used in the movie.
Hammett is as interesting as any of his characters. A dropout at 13, he worked as a freight clerk, railroad laborer, messenger boy and stevedore before the Pinkerton job. That last stop led him to write his detective mysteries with his first work getting published in 1922. He contracted tuberculosis in World War I while serving as a sergeant in the motor ambulance corps, forcing him to give up his private eye position. He then concentrated on writing.
In 1930, Hammett created Sam Spade, a rough and solitary man who worked outside of the law, and “The Maltese Falcon” went into seven printings its first year. His last novel, 1934’s “The Thin Man,” was a raving success and sparked a series of successful movies. But Hammett would publish no more. He moved to Hollywood, rewriting other people’s scripts and penning radio scripts.
Hammett joined a new circle of friends, including writers Ernest Hemingway and Lillian Hellman, who tried to reform Hammett’s habits of excessive drinking and womanizing. However, they continued their affair for 30 years (see the movie “Julia” for more on this).
After Hollywood, he immersed himself in left-wing politics and worked as a defender of civil liberties. He actually spent time in prison for refusing to name the sources of bail money for a group of communists who jumped bail that Hammett had posted. The IRS went after him for $100,000 in back taxes and he would be haunted by the government for the rest of his life.
Hammett spent the last 10 years of his life in a small rural cottage in Katonah, N.Y., where he continued to drink heavily. He suffered a heart attack in 1955 and died of failing health in 1961. But his real hometown never forgot him.
Although Texas has its long list of literary giants, no city is so connected as in San Francisco. And you can hardly name any place in Texas, save for the bar in the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, where Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Roughriders, with such longevity. Hell, a restaurant that has been around since 1998 is considered ancient in this market.
The meal Jodie and I enjoyed was superb – perfect for our anniversary. As Spade said, and Hammett wrote, “It was the stuff that dreams are made of.”
They seem to be everywhere, on every street corner, in front of every business and next to you waiting for the same bus. And they all seem to be begging for money. Some sit there with signs and pets – both looking real pathetic – and some are brazen enough to confront you face-to-face. You don’t know where they’ve been or what they’ve been drinking or injecting, and, frankly, it can be a little scary.
I cannot denounce Dallas’ effort to get the homeless people off the streets. If you are trying to build up any kind of tourist base, all that solicitation is a big negative – except, of course, in San Francisco. My rule is this: you cannot be in legitimate need, if you are asking for change while sipping on a $2.49 bottle of Smoothie.
Just a few of the characters you meet in The City. Others you get to read about and … visit. Like Nick and Nora Charles and Sam Spade – the creations of Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961), considered one of the masters of 20th century noir detective writing. He turned San Francisco’s foggy streets and mysterious atmosphere into perfect backgrounds for his unique vision, what one writer called “dame-and-gumshoe imagination.”
He is considered one of the giants in this field, but he only wrote five novels - the most famous being “The Thin Man” and “The Maltese Falcon.” Hammett worked as a private eye for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the Flood Building on Market Street. His novels are replete with the scenery and flavor of San Francisco.
The 1941 movie version of “The Maltese Falcon” had Humphrey Bogart shedding his convict roles and providing the perfect “hard-boiled” persona for Sam Spade. This role, plus “Casablanca,” turned Bogart into a super-SUPER-star.
However, several of the San Francisco scenes were not included in the movie, as is often the case when going from print to film. One of the scenes in the book included Hammett’s favorite restaurant at 63 Ellis Street, also in the area called the Tenderloin.
“(Sam Spade) went to John’s Grill, asked the waiter to hurry his order of chops, baked potato, and sliced tomatoes, ate hurriedly, and was smoking a cigarette with his coffee when a thick-set youngish man with a plaid cap set aside above pale eyes and a tough cheery face came into the Grill and to his table,” Hammett wrote. And guess what? John’s Grill is still there, still serving those chops (the Sam Spade special) and oozes with the kind of San Franciscan tradition that leapt off the pages of Hammett’s writings.
The restaurant prides itself on its food (steaks, seafood, those lamb chops, oysters and a thing called the Jack LaLanne Salad), its clientele (the walls are smothered with celebrity photos) and its appearance (dark oak paneled walls, small tables, lines going out the door). John’s Grill was chosen as one of the 10 best by Esquire and featured in Gourmet.
Upstairs, in a case, surrounded by Hammett’s books, is that dang falcon – the one used in the movie.
Hammett is as interesting as any of his characters. A dropout at 13, he worked as a freight clerk, railroad laborer, messenger boy and stevedore before the Pinkerton job. That last stop led him to write his detective mysteries with his first work getting published in 1922. He contracted tuberculosis in World War I while serving as a sergeant in the motor ambulance corps, forcing him to give up his private eye position. He then concentrated on writing.
In 1930, Hammett created Sam Spade, a rough and solitary man who worked outside of the law, and “The Maltese Falcon” went into seven printings its first year. His last novel, 1934’s “The Thin Man,” was a raving success and sparked a series of successful movies. But Hammett would publish no more. He moved to Hollywood, rewriting other people’s scripts and penning radio scripts.
Hammett joined a new circle of friends, including writers Ernest Hemingway and Lillian Hellman, who tried to reform Hammett’s habits of excessive drinking and womanizing. However, they continued their affair for 30 years (see the movie “Julia” for more on this).
After Hollywood, he immersed himself in left-wing politics and worked as a defender of civil liberties. He actually spent time in prison for refusing to name the sources of bail money for a group of communists who jumped bail that Hammett had posted. The IRS went after him for $100,000 in back taxes and he would be haunted by the government for the rest of his life.
Hammett spent the last 10 years of his life in a small rural cottage in Katonah, N.Y., where he continued to drink heavily. He suffered a heart attack in 1955 and died of failing health in 1961. But his real hometown never forgot him.
Although Texas has its long list of literary giants, no city is so connected as in San Francisco. And you can hardly name any place in Texas, save for the bar in the Menger Hotel in San Antonio, where Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Roughriders, with such longevity. Hell, a restaurant that has been around since 1998 is considered ancient in this market.
The meal Jodie and I enjoyed was superb – perfect for our anniversary. As Spade said, and Hammett wrote, “It was the stuff that dreams are made of.”
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Day 11 - The accidental tourist (part 1)
Day 11 from the road in San Francisco where we discovered two things. First, Mark Twain was absolutely correct when he wrote, “The coldest winter I ever experienced was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” The calendar might think it’s still summer, but outside by the bay, it’s fall going onto winter. Lows were in the 40s this AM, the fog hung low and long over the Golden Gate Bridge, covering up the sun and people were wearing all methods of heavier coats except for those out-of-town idiots who didn’t pack enough of that kind of apparel.
Like us.
Second, a lot of people walk in this city and talk the numerous means of public transportation. We discovered this because driving is a pain in the ass. As we discovered trying to reach our Day 11 destinations. We got an eyeful of all sorts of neighborhoods, drove down part of Lombard Street and imagined Steve McQueen flying in his Shelby Cobra like he did in “Bullitt.”
On Saturday, it will be strictly street and cable cars to Fisherman’s Wharf. No fooling around with Mother Nature.
The following theme - being an accidental tourist (different from the book and movie) – will be repeated during this trip. It will refer to getting lost while looking for one thing and finding something just as neat and wonderful.
Example: While trying to find the Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, we accidentally ended up in Coronado, getting to see the famous Hotel del Coronado (made famous in “Some Like It Hot”).
Here are a few accidental places we found to eat that proved to be superb.
Along Harbor Drive in San Diego, we literally stumbled upon Anthony’s Fish Grotto and had perhaps the best bowl of New England clam chowder ever, including the kind served in Boston. Part of this Southern California town for 59 years, it was opened in 1946 by “Mama” Ghio, her two sons and son-in-law. Mama brought those unique old-world recipes that only she knew and developed some new ones as the years went past.
It’s one of those places where you could die from overeating because so much of the menu sounds so good. Most of the items are based on her recipes although it was sad to learn that no cookbook featuring the top recipes has ever been published. If it does, put me down on the amazon.com wish list.
There are scores of fast food places in California but since 1948, the yellow arrow has been special. The In and Out is simply the best fast food hamburger we’ve ever eaten. Here’s the menu - hamburger, cheeseburger, double-double (burger), fries, milk shakes, drinks, that’s all. No salads, no chicken sandwiches, no club sandwiches or egg rolls. Just plain fresh-made food and in your hand fast!
Each burger is made from fresh meat, not frozen and the French fries are cut daily on the premises. Believe me, you can taste the difference. And the milk shakes use REAL ice cream, not that frozen ice milk junk for others.
The first In-N-Out Burger was founded by Harry and Esther Snyder in Baldwin Park, Calif. Snyder’s concept of a drive-through hamburger stand had customers ordering via a two-way speaker box - deemed quite unique at the time. “In that era, it was common to see carhops serving those who wanted to order food from their car. Harry’s idea caught on and California’s first drive-thru hamburger stand was born,” according to the website.
The business grew slowly to 18 locations when Harry died in 1976 and his sons took control. By 1993, there were 93 In and Outs in California and eventually the business expanded beyond the Golden State’s borders; hundreds exist in California, Arizona and the Northwest.
Well worth the stop along the road.
In Oceanside (which served Camp Pendleton and Miramar AFB), lies the famous 101 Café – open since 1928 at 631 South Coast Highway. It’s probably been the same since that date - just a 20-table diner with great breakfasts (served all day), good lunches and dinners. It is named for the classic strip of California road, which is akin to Route 66 for America.
Highway 101 was the main access from Los Angeles to San Diego until 1953 when Highway 101 was relocated to the present location after the construction of Interstate 5.
It has adapted with the changes in the restaurant business, probably because it hasn’t changed. The waitresses know the regulars because those are the everyday people in this beach town.
And you can’t beat the corned beef hash or sourdough toast.
Finally, as he drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco, our midway point for a rest stop found us in San Luis Obispo. In the distance, I could see this large structure and it looked like a good place to stop.
No, make it a great place to stop. It was the Madonna Inn, built out of rocks from the mountains that overlooked the property.
It’s been operated by the Madonna family for 45 years (are you sensing a pattern here?) and doesn’t do things in a plastic way. Coffee is served in fine china. Tables in the Copper Café are made of real copper. The chairs all have hearts on them and if the fresh cakes and pies don’t kill you, the rock candy swizzle sticks for the ice tea just might do the trick.
There is a marble banister next to the Gold Rush Steak House that used to belong in Hearst Castle, in nearby San Simeon.
There is a wine tasting room for the vintages made just for the Inn and a classic gourmet shop. There’s even a men’s clothing store – in the middle of nowhere!
You can find these treasures throughout America if you look, listen (to your tummy and heart) and stop.
Next, I will tell you of a San Francisco legend and the stuff that dreams are made of.
Like us.
Second, a lot of people walk in this city and talk the numerous means of public transportation. We discovered this because driving is a pain in the ass. As we discovered trying to reach our Day 11 destinations. We got an eyeful of all sorts of neighborhoods, drove down part of Lombard Street and imagined Steve McQueen flying in his Shelby Cobra like he did in “Bullitt.”
On Saturday, it will be strictly street and cable cars to Fisherman’s Wharf. No fooling around with Mother Nature.
The following theme - being an accidental tourist (different from the book and movie) – will be repeated during this trip. It will refer to getting lost while looking for one thing and finding something just as neat and wonderful.
Example: While trying to find the Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, we accidentally ended up in Coronado, getting to see the famous Hotel del Coronado (made famous in “Some Like It Hot”).
Here are a few accidental places we found to eat that proved to be superb.
Along Harbor Drive in San Diego, we literally stumbled upon Anthony’s Fish Grotto and had perhaps the best bowl of New England clam chowder ever, including the kind served in Boston. Part of this Southern California town for 59 years, it was opened in 1946 by “Mama” Ghio, her two sons and son-in-law. Mama brought those unique old-world recipes that only she knew and developed some new ones as the years went past.
It’s one of those places where you could die from overeating because so much of the menu sounds so good. Most of the items are based on her recipes although it was sad to learn that no cookbook featuring the top recipes has ever been published. If it does, put me down on the amazon.com wish list.
There are scores of fast food places in California but since 1948, the yellow arrow has been special. The In and Out is simply the best fast food hamburger we’ve ever eaten. Here’s the menu - hamburger, cheeseburger, double-double (burger), fries, milk shakes, drinks, that’s all. No salads, no chicken sandwiches, no club sandwiches or egg rolls. Just plain fresh-made food and in your hand fast!
Each burger is made from fresh meat, not frozen and the French fries are cut daily on the premises. Believe me, you can taste the difference. And the milk shakes use REAL ice cream, not that frozen ice milk junk for others.
The first In-N-Out Burger was founded by Harry and Esther Snyder in Baldwin Park, Calif. Snyder’s concept of a drive-through hamburger stand had customers ordering via a two-way speaker box - deemed quite unique at the time. “In that era, it was common to see carhops serving those who wanted to order food from their car. Harry’s idea caught on and California’s first drive-thru hamburger stand was born,” according to the website.
The business grew slowly to 18 locations when Harry died in 1976 and his sons took control. By 1993, there were 93 In and Outs in California and eventually the business expanded beyond the Golden State’s borders; hundreds exist in California, Arizona and the Northwest.
Well worth the stop along the road.
In Oceanside (which served Camp Pendleton and Miramar AFB), lies the famous 101 Café – open since 1928 at 631 South Coast Highway. It’s probably been the same since that date - just a 20-table diner with great breakfasts (served all day), good lunches and dinners. It is named for the classic strip of California road, which is akin to Route 66 for America.
Highway 101 was the main access from Los Angeles to San Diego until 1953 when Highway 101 was relocated to the present location after the construction of Interstate 5.
It has adapted with the changes in the restaurant business, probably because it hasn’t changed. The waitresses know the regulars because those are the everyday people in this beach town.
And you can’t beat the corned beef hash or sourdough toast.
Finally, as he drove from Los Angeles to San Francisco, our midway point for a rest stop found us in San Luis Obispo. In the distance, I could see this large structure and it looked like a good place to stop.
No, make it a great place to stop. It was the Madonna Inn, built out of rocks from the mountains that overlooked the property.
It’s been operated by the Madonna family for 45 years (are you sensing a pattern here?) and doesn’t do things in a plastic way. Coffee is served in fine china. Tables in the Copper Café are made of real copper. The chairs all have hearts on them and if the fresh cakes and pies don’t kill you, the rock candy swizzle sticks for the ice tea just might do the trick.
There is a marble banister next to the Gold Rush Steak House that used to belong in Hearst Castle, in nearby San Simeon.
There is a wine tasting room for the vintages made just for the Inn and a classic gourmet shop. There’s even a men’s clothing store – in the middle of nowhere!
You can find these treasures throughout America if you look, listen (to your tummy and heart) and stop.
Next, I will tell you of a San Francisco legend and the stuff that dreams are made of.
Day 9 - Happy anniversary, baby; got you on my mind!
Day 9 from the road in THE City, San Francisco, Calif., one of the spectacular venues in America. We filled up the Escape in Soledad, Calif., after visiting the Pinnacles National Monument at $3.13 per gallon, the highest rate thus far.
Soledad is in the famous Salinas Valley, the heart of this nation’s vegetable producers, and the community’s occupants appear to be among those you see harvesting the various items (lettuce, broccoli, peppers, cabbage, you name it) – meaning they stoop in the fields to make sure all that leafy stuff and much of the country’s fruit hit the shelves at Kroger. It would be sensible to think that such labor doesn’t exactly pay well. However, it is odd to see such high gas prices, - 14 cents a gallon more than in big, bad Los Angeles or its outlying cities.
Makes you wonder.
Tomorrow is my fourth anniversary as the proud husband of one, Jodie Ann Zoeller. We were married on the Saturday following Sept. 11, 2001, and it was one wild weekend. Jodie’s sister was barely able to fly out of San Antonio and my son got arrested in Corsicana for an unknown speeding ticket at 2 a.m., leaving his fiancé and two sisters in a waiting room while he spent time in the click with some guy named “Tiny.” All the while, I waited … and waited … and waited … until they arrived at 6 a.m.
We then had to buy him a suit since his other one was stolen at a collegiate laundromat. I think you get the picture.
Then again, it’s been a fairly wild four years. We’ve enjoyed wonderful days and nights of spectacular travel – from Hawaii to upstate New York and the Catskills to Mackinac Island to New Orleans to Chicago to our current excursion.
There have been some tough times. I underwent triple bypass open-heart surgery three months after exchanging vows, I lost one job and gave up another when the travel time (three hours) was killing me and we gave up our privacy and our home to try to improve the lot of Jodie’s sister and daughter for three years. It caused a lot of friction and might have caused permanent cracks in other people’s relationships.
But we survived because, based on prior experiences, we seem to be survivors. Each of us has gone through divorce and we’ve been alone for long periods of time. Neither of us like the latter and are determined that this will be a lasting relationship.
That’s good. It makes our backs a little more like that of a duck. Some things just need to roll off without causing problems. That permits quality time to be dedicated to serious issues. It is what I would tell anyone in a marriage. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is a truism. Concentrate on the meaningful issues, involve each other in the decision and stay with what you’ve concurrently decided … unless circumstances dictate otherwise.
I am not the easiest person to live with and I have my moments of spontaneous combustion. It takes a special person to accept that and try to nurture me despite it all. That’s what Jodie does and she earns any and every marital award in the world.
I wish I could shower her in chocolate, flowers, books and a TV with a VCR AND DVD player in one.
But for now, my unwavering love and long hugs and kisses will have to suffice. Somehow, while we enjoy a special dinner in San Francisco at a legendary eatery (John’s Grill, home of the real Maltese Falcon), I will toast my good fortune of having her in my life for the rest of my life.
God willing that will be a long, LONG time.
Soledad is in the famous Salinas Valley, the heart of this nation’s vegetable producers, and the community’s occupants appear to be among those you see harvesting the various items (lettuce, broccoli, peppers, cabbage, you name it) – meaning they stoop in the fields to make sure all that leafy stuff and much of the country’s fruit hit the shelves at Kroger. It would be sensible to think that such labor doesn’t exactly pay well. However, it is odd to see such high gas prices, - 14 cents a gallon more than in big, bad Los Angeles or its outlying cities.
Makes you wonder.
Tomorrow is my fourth anniversary as the proud husband of one, Jodie Ann Zoeller. We were married on the Saturday following Sept. 11, 2001, and it was one wild weekend. Jodie’s sister was barely able to fly out of San Antonio and my son got arrested in Corsicana for an unknown speeding ticket at 2 a.m., leaving his fiancé and two sisters in a waiting room while he spent time in the click with some guy named “Tiny.” All the while, I waited … and waited … and waited … until they arrived at 6 a.m.
We then had to buy him a suit since his other one was stolen at a collegiate laundromat. I think you get the picture.
Then again, it’s been a fairly wild four years. We’ve enjoyed wonderful days and nights of spectacular travel – from Hawaii to upstate New York and the Catskills to Mackinac Island to New Orleans to Chicago to our current excursion.
There have been some tough times. I underwent triple bypass open-heart surgery three months after exchanging vows, I lost one job and gave up another when the travel time (three hours) was killing me and we gave up our privacy and our home to try to improve the lot of Jodie’s sister and daughter for three years. It caused a lot of friction and might have caused permanent cracks in other people’s relationships.
But we survived because, based on prior experiences, we seem to be survivors. Each of us has gone through divorce and we’ve been alone for long periods of time. Neither of us like the latter and are determined that this will be a lasting relationship.
That’s good. It makes our backs a little more like that of a duck. Some things just need to roll off without causing problems. That permits quality time to be dedicated to serious issues. It is what I would tell anyone in a marriage. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is a truism. Concentrate on the meaningful issues, involve each other in the decision and stay with what you’ve concurrently decided … unless circumstances dictate otherwise.
I am not the easiest person to live with and I have my moments of spontaneous combustion. It takes a special person to accept that and try to nurture me despite it all. That’s what Jodie does and she earns any and every marital award in the world.
I wish I could shower her in chocolate, flowers, books and a TV with a VCR AND DVD player in one.
But for now, my unwavering love and long hugs and kisses will have to suffice. Somehow, while we enjoy a special dinner in San Francisco at a legendary eatery (John’s Grill, home of the real Maltese Falcon), I will toast my good fortune of having her in my life for the rest of my life.
God willing that will be a long, LONG time.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Day 8 - Out of mind and into my car
Greetings from Day 8 on the road in Los Angeles, where half the cable television stations in our hotel speak a language unfamiliar to my ears. For the first time, I have seen a Chinese network delivering the news, complete with that CNN-type scrawl along the bottom of the screen. Quite the sight!
You can easily drive across the country and never know what is happening in your hometown, your home state, the state you are in (literally and figuratively) or anywhere else in the world. Significant portions of the nation area simply too remote to receive normal radio signals and often those stations within range give the news as little attention as possible – prioritizing it behind the local minister’s mid-afternoon evangelizing or the wheat and cattle prices.
Unless you are within the immediate circulation region of a major metropolitan daily paper, the edition received in the nether region has old news. Of course, it’s not old if you are totally unaware that it has taken place.
News delivery is not a problem in Los Angeles. Every network and radio syndicate is on the air. If you make it here, you make it everywhere. I confess that I have yet to hear the sex advice call-in shows (if they, in fact, exist) and the adjustment to certain shows (live here means far earlier than otherwise the norm) is not easy. Watching new national network news at 6:30 p.m. LA time meant ABC was not among them, since Monday Night Football was already underway. It must be a kick to enjoy baseball or football with breakfast tacos.
Monday’s big LA news story was a massive blackout in midday, caused by a careless public works employee and a bad countermove. Never has so much been made about a blackout than turned out to be so benign. The ABC radio station was broadcasting its sister TV stations telecast live on the radio, which doesn’t work when the anchorman goes, “Wow, look at that picture!” Bad radio.
The big news connection had this action as a possible terrorist attack because some kid from the O.C., who gave up on girls and turned to Al-Qaeda (couldn’t have been because the clothes are hipper?), threatened Los Angeles and Melbourne in a tape. No one is taking this guy seriously, which could be a mistake, but the man’s history and background suggests low-level lackey. Besides, terrorists probably shouldn’t call us “infidel dudes.”
Still, as a news junkie, I am a newspaperman and I love collecting newspapers from most of the communities I visit. My floorboard will be stuffed with half-read editions from Phoenix, El Paso, San Diego, Los Angeles and (future to come) San Francisco, Albuquerque, Amarillo and all points in between.
But to the totally oblivious to the world around you, just play your CDs. All the time. Music erases the realities of life on the road. And you can literally orchestrate many of your experiences – pre-program your background music.
While at the Grand Canyon, play Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite.” (I will.) In the Joshua Tree National Park, play anything off U2’s album, “The Joshua Tree.” (I did.)
Beach Boys music while driving up the Pacific Coast Highway? You betcha. Tony Bennett in his city by the bay? Of course. Crank up Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” while flying down the Santa Monica Freeway? What do you think?
The Cowboys’ score? Who cares? I’ve got the Who playing. Flood? What flood? I’ve got the newest Sheryl Crow CD.
When you are driving and taking photos and seeing the beautiful sights of this great land, it is easy to lose track of time and events. You don’t need a trunk full of CDs to do it.
Just before departure, we picked up one of Jodie’s co-workers at DFW Airport and we were telling her of the big news, involving Hurricane Katrina and the sad fate of New Orleans. The woman was only faintly aware of the circumstances and not the details.
“I haven’t seen the news in a week,” she said. “All I’ve been doing is playing with my grandchildren. You tend not to focus on anything else; least of all the news.”
Oy vay! In a few months, I might be totally out of it.
Ask me then if I care.
You can easily drive across the country and never know what is happening in your hometown, your home state, the state you are in (literally and figuratively) or anywhere else in the world. Significant portions of the nation area simply too remote to receive normal radio signals and often those stations within range give the news as little attention as possible – prioritizing it behind the local minister’s mid-afternoon evangelizing or the wheat and cattle prices.
Unless you are within the immediate circulation region of a major metropolitan daily paper, the edition received in the nether region has old news. Of course, it’s not old if you are totally unaware that it has taken place.
News delivery is not a problem in Los Angeles. Every network and radio syndicate is on the air. If you make it here, you make it everywhere. I confess that I have yet to hear the sex advice call-in shows (if they, in fact, exist) and the adjustment to certain shows (live here means far earlier than otherwise the norm) is not easy. Watching new national network news at 6:30 p.m. LA time meant ABC was not among them, since Monday Night Football was already underway. It must be a kick to enjoy baseball or football with breakfast tacos.
Monday’s big LA news story was a massive blackout in midday, caused by a careless public works employee and a bad countermove. Never has so much been made about a blackout than turned out to be so benign. The ABC radio station was broadcasting its sister TV stations telecast live on the radio, which doesn’t work when the anchorman goes, “Wow, look at that picture!” Bad radio.
The big news connection had this action as a possible terrorist attack because some kid from the O.C., who gave up on girls and turned to Al-Qaeda (couldn’t have been because the clothes are hipper?), threatened Los Angeles and Melbourne in a tape. No one is taking this guy seriously, which could be a mistake, but the man’s history and background suggests low-level lackey. Besides, terrorists probably shouldn’t call us “infidel dudes.”
Still, as a news junkie, I am a newspaperman and I love collecting newspapers from most of the communities I visit. My floorboard will be stuffed with half-read editions from Phoenix, El Paso, San Diego, Los Angeles and (future to come) San Francisco, Albuquerque, Amarillo and all points in between.
But to the totally oblivious to the world around you, just play your CDs. All the time. Music erases the realities of life on the road. And you can literally orchestrate many of your experiences – pre-program your background music.
While at the Grand Canyon, play Grofe’s “Grand Canyon Suite.” (I will.) In the Joshua Tree National Park, play anything off U2’s album, “The Joshua Tree.” (I did.)
Beach Boys music while driving up the Pacific Coast Highway? You betcha. Tony Bennett in his city by the bay? Of course. Crank up Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” while flying down the Santa Monica Freeway? What do you think?
The Cowboys’ score? Who cares? I’ve got the Who playing. Flood? What flood? I’ve got the newest Sheryl Crow CD.
When you are driving and taking photos and seeing the beautiful sights of this great land, it is easy to lose track of time and events. You don’t need a trunk full of CDs to do it.
Just before departure, we picked up one of Jodie’s co-workers at DFW Airport and we were telling her of the big news, involving Hurricane Katrina and the sad fate of New Orleans. The woman was only faintly aware of the circumstances and not the details.
“I haven’t seen the news in a week,” she said. “All I’ve been doing is playing with my grandchildren. You tend not to focus on anything else; least of all the news.”
Oy vay! In a few months, I might be totally out of it.
Ask me then if I care.
Days 7-8 - Believe me, not your lying eyes!
Greetings on Days 7-8 from Los Angeles, Calif., where apparently some yahoo utility worker with a $3.99 pair of wire cutters can put a million people in the dark. Gas is at $2.85 a gallon in the OC to $3.13 near the OJ. But the nagging question remains, “If oil prices are falling, why haven’t pump prices reflected that?” Oh, well, why would the consumer actually get a break these days?
Having just visited San Diego, one of the places we drove through was the Gaslamp Historic District in downtown San Diego. Once again, it is everything that downtown Dallas is NOT – vibrant, crowded and active. And much of the activity centers around the new baseball stadium built in that zone – Petco Park, home the National League Padres.
For several square blocks, this section of San Diego is thick as thieves with restaurants of every conceivable genre (including more Irish pubs than perhaps Boston or the Emerald Isle itself), shops, art galleries, apparel stores and other kind of businesses. One of the best known restaurants is Croce’s, owned and operated by the widow of the late singer Jim Croce (“Operator,” “Bad Bad Leroy Brown”) and serves as a tribute to his memory. There is a quality restaurant and a live music venue featuring the likes of son AJ Croce, Rita Coolidge and other top-flight entertainers. Down the street is the House of Blues.
The world-famous San Diego Zoo is located in Balboa Park, one of America’s great central gathering sites. Most of the city’s museums and located there plus the stunning Casa de Balboa, which has to be seen to be believed. Whatever Dallas thinks it can create along the Trinity River can never, EVER be what already can be found at Balboa Park, Grant Park, Central Park and countless other proven urban plans.
Observers of social science and economics can pontificate all they wish about the pros and cons of stadium funding. Obviously, it would be better of such facilities were built with private dollars than any kind of taxpayer help. But the benefits seem overwhelming in favor of the kind of redevelopment and energizing these things brings to the tourist-entertainment table.
It is not unlike the old burlesque joke about the wife coming into the bedroom and catching her husband in bed with a naked woman.
“What is that woman doing in my bed?” the wife screams.
“What woman; there’s no one here,” the husband says in the most monotone voice.
“THAT WOMAN! Right there!” the wife shouts, pointing an accusatory finger at the naked blonde trying to covert up with the sheets.
“There’s no one here I tell you,” he says calm as a cucumber. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
In her most shrill voice, as her face contorts, with veins sticking out like licorice sticks, the wife shouts, “I know what I see. That woman right there!”
The husband sits upright and look his wife straight in the eye and answers, “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?”
Figures might state one case but as a traveler, my eyes show me another reality. Cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, Houston, Atlanta, Oklahoma City … and San Diego have active center city/downtown business and entertainment regions, centered around the construction and attendance at a baseball stadium. If you multiply 82 days (and nights) times 30,000 fans, then you begin to understand the potential of such a people magnet.
It will never happen for Dallas. Twice, the opportunity slipped from the fingers of city leaders – in 1972 when the Washington Senators moved and the late 1980s when Rangers ownership wanted a new stadium. In both instances, downtown Dallas was never the answer even though it was the remedy.
San Antonio, because of its transient military basis, is the largest American city without either a major league baseball or NFL franchise (let’s NOT move the New Orleans Saints there on a permanent basis; it isn’t fair to that ravaged city). The Alamo City, which has pushed past Dallas in population, has never gained national respect as a sports town. However, Dallas has neither a major league nor an NFL franchise within ITS borders (soon to be an Arlington address for the Rangers AND Cowboys).
Meanwhile, the West End and Deep Ellum are dwindling in terms of attendance. Something needs to have been done but it’s too late now. There are as many reasons NOT to visit downtown Dallas as there are to visit any part of San Diego. And they, my friends, are numerous.
Having just visited San Diego, one of the places we drove through was the Gaslamp Historic District in downtown San Diego. Once again, it is everything that downtown Dallas is NOT – vibrant, crowded and active. And much of the activity centers around the new baseball stadium built in that zone – Petco Park, home the National League Padres.
For several square blocks, this section of San Diego is thick as thieves with restaurants of every conceivable genre (including more Irish pubs than perhaps Boston or the Emerald Isle itself), shops, art galleries, apparel stores and other kind of businesses. One of the best known restaurants is Croce’s, owned and operated by the widow of the late singer Jim Croce (“Operator,” “Bad Bad Leroy Brown”) and serves as a tribute to his memory. There is a quality restaurant and a live music venue featuring the likes of son AJ Croce, Rita Coolidge and other top-flight entertainers. Down the street is the House of Blues.
The world-famous San Diego Zoo is located in Balboa Park, one of America’s great central gathering sites. Most of the city’s museums and located there plus the stunning Casa de Balboa, which has to be seen to be believed. Whatever Dallas thinks it can create along the Trinity River can never, EVER be what already can be found at Balboa Park, Grant Park, Central Park and countless other proven urban plans.
Observers of social science and economics can pontificate all they wish about the pros and cons of stadium funding. Obviously, it would be better of such facilities were built with private dollars than any kind of taxpayer help. But the benefits seem overwhelming in favor of the kind of redevelopment and energizing these things brings to the tourist-entertainment table.
It is not unlike the old burlesque joke about the wife coming into the bedroom and catching her husband in bed with a naked woman.
“What is that woman doing in my bed?” the wife screams.
“What woman; there’s no one here,” the husband says in the most monotone voice.
“THAT WOMAN! Right there!” the wife shouts, pointing an accusatory finger at the naked blonde trying to covert up with the sheets.
“There’s no one here I tell you,” he says calm as a cucumber. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
In her most shrill voice, as her face contorts, with veins sticking out like licorice sticks, the wife shouts, “I know what I see. That woman right there!”
The husband sits upright and look his wife straight in the eye and answers, “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?”
Figures might state one case but as a traveler, my eyes show me another reality. Cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, Houston, Atlanta, Oklahoma City … and San Diego have active center city/downtown business and entertainment regions, centered around the construction and attendance at a baseball stadium. If you multiply 82 days (and nights) times 30,000 fans, then you begin to understand the potential of such a people magnet.
It will never happen for Dallas. Twice, the opportunity slipped from the fingers of city leaders – in 1972 when the Washington Senators moved and the late 1980s when Rangers ownership wanted a new stadium. In both instances, downtown Dallas was never the answer even though it was the remedy.
San Antonio, because of its transient military basis, is the largest American city without either a major league baseball or NFL franchise (let’s NOT move the New Orleans Saints there on a permanent basis; it isn’t fair to that ravaged city). The Alamo City, which has pushed past Dallas in population, has never gained national respect as a sports town. However, Dallas has neither a major league nor an NFL franchise within ITS borders (soon to be an Arlington address for the Rangers AND Cowboys).
Meanwhile, the West End and Deep Ellum are dwindling in terms of attendance. Something needs to have been done but it’s too late now. There are as many reasons NOT to visit downtown Dallas as there are to visit any part of San Diego. And they, my friends, are numerous.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Days 5-6 - San Diego (Beauty by the Bay)
Greetings on Days 5-6 from San Diego, California, one of America’s truly beautiful places to visit or live, where gas is frozen, it seems, at $2.99 a gallon. But enough on that; we aren’t worried about a fill-up until Monday.
This is a wonderful city – clean, gorgeous visually, perfect weather-wise. It passes the vacationers test. If you can answer the following question affirmatively, “Do you need a week to see most of the city’s attractions?” then it is a city worthy of visiting.
Two weeks is probably a more accurate response for San Diego. Aside from the well-known attractions like the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld (the original is still the best) and Six Flags, the incredible golf courses (Torrey Pines, LaCosta), the beaches, the resorts and the world famous hotels (Hotel del Coronado), there are hidden treasures to be found. Legoland might be the nation’s most unusual amusement park where real life structures are recreated in 1/20th size with Lego pieces. A great national park – Cabrillo National Monument – has a lighthouse you can climb into and a spectacular view of San Diego Bay and the hundreds upon hundreds of sailboats and ships scurrying about. If you’re lucky, you can hear and see seals darting about.
And museums by the score. I’ve never seen so many diverse museums in one city - from antique gas and steam engines to making music to photography to surfing to model railroads to real railroads. The USS Midway now serves as an aircraft carrier museum and two tall ships (the Star of India being one of them) anchors the Maritime Museum along the lovely Harbor Drive.
Not to mention places like the Gaslamp Quarter Historic District, Old Town San Diego, Balboa Park … oops, Tijuana is just a couple of miles down the road.
See what I mean? A few days just doesn’t justice to such an area. Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo to see pandas, primates, polar bears and sea lions.
* * *
The San Diego traffic has been quite manageable. Of course, traffic is traffic and it all depends on your perspective.
I speculate that the volume of traffic in Los Angeles directly correlates to the overwhelming number of freeway miles. There are SO many numbers to remember it is mind-boggling. Take 10 to the 710 to the 101 to the 405 and miss the 215. The lotto drawing doesn’t have that many numbers.
I was warned about the thickness and slowness of the Los Angeles commute, but we made it from LAX to San Diego (at 5 p.m. on a Friday) in two hours - even with an unexpected detour through the beautiful little community of Oceanside, which serves Camp Pendleton’s Marines and Miramar’s top gun navy fliers (you remember “Top Gun” right?).
What has been most bizarre (to me) is the use of the carpool lane, also known in other lands as the high occupancy vehicle lane (HOV). Not only has its principle been violated far more often than obeyed (despite a visible $341 fine to be assessed) but every individual motorcyclist uses its narrow paths (it seems) at a higher rate of speed than the rest of us. I’d like some Californian to explain how a motorcycle qualifies when the laws requires two or more occupants in a vehicle to use that faster lane.
I am sure that traffic will become an issue on the way back to Los Angeles, but weather was to have been an issue and a cold front has kept it very, very mild. The highs this week in SoCal will only reach the low 70s and the lows will be in the low 60s. Who could ask for anything more after sweating the oldies in Arizona and having to live in the heat and humidity of North Texas?
This is a wonderful city – clean, gorgeous visually, perfect weather-wise. It passes the vacationers test. If you can answer the following question affirmatively, “Do you need a week to see most of the city’s attractions?” then it is a city worthy of visiting.
Two weeks is probably a more accurate response for San Diego. Aside from the well-known attractions like the San Diego Zoo, SeaWorld (the original is still the best) and Six Flags, the incredible golf courses (Torrey Pines, LaCosta), the beaches, the resorts and the world famous hotels (Hotel del Coronado), there are hidden treasures to be found. Legoland might be the nation’s most unusual amusement park where real life structures are recreated in 1/20th size with Lego pieces. A great national park – Cabrillo National Monument – has a lighthouse you can climb into and a spectacular view of San Diego Bay and the hundreds upon hundreds of sailboats and ships scurrying about. If you’re lucky, you can hear and see seals darting about.
And museums by the score. I’ve never seen so many diverse museums in one city - from antique gas and steam engines to making music to photography to surfing to model railroads to real railroads. The USS Midway now serves as an aircraft carrier museum and two tall ships (the Star of India being one of them) anchors the Maritime Museum along the lovely Harbor Drive.
Not to mention places like the Gaslamp Quarter Historic District, Old Town San Diego, Balboa Park … oops, Tijuana is just a couple of miles down the road.
See what I mean? A few days just doesn’t justice to such an area. Tomorrow is a trip to the zoo to see pandas, primates, polar bears and sea lions.
* * *
The San Diego traffic has been quite manageable. Of course, traffic is traffic and it all depends on your perspective.
I speculate that the volume of traffic in Los Angeles directly correlates to the overwhelming number of freeway miles. There are SO many numbers to remember it is mind-boggling. Take 10 to the 710 to the 101 to the 405 and miss the 215. The lotto drawing doesn’t have that many numbers.
I was warned about the thickness and slowness of the Los Angeles commute, but we made it from LAX to San Diego (at 5 p.m. on a Friday) in two hours - even with an unexpected detour through the beautiful little community of Oceanside, which serves Camp Pendleton’s Marines and Miramar’s top gun navy fliers (you remember “Top Gun” right?).
What has been most bizarre (to me) is the use of the carpool lane, also known in other lands as the high occupancy vehicle lane (HOV). Not only has its principle been violated far more often than obeyed (despite a visible $341 fine to be assessed) but every individual motorcyclist uses its narrow paths (it seems) at a higher rate of speed than the rest of us. I’d like some Californian to explain how a motorcycle qualifies when the laws requires two or more occupants in a vehicle to use that faster lane.
I am sure that traffic will become an issue on the way back to Los Angeles, but weather was to have been an issue and a cold front has kept it very, very mild. The highs this week in SoCal will only reach the low 70s and the lows will be in the low 60s. Who could ask for anything more after sweating the oldies in Arizona and having to live in the heat and humidity of North Texas?
Friday, September 09, 2005
Day 4 - How I loathe the motel
Day 4 on the road in the low end of the High Desert of California (Riverside) where gas is $2.99 and holding. Oddly enough, I hear stories about oil prices falling and gas prices falling in DFW, but it isn’t reflected in other parts of the country.
I know it’s Day 5 but I could not execute the blog or e-mail on Day 4 because of the not-so-helpful folks at the Comfort Inn. The free Internet service in the room didn’t work and no one was terribly interested in fixing the problem. Of course, the reasoning was ridiculous.
“Some other guest had the same problem,” said the night desk kid.
“Don’t you think you should contact someone?” I asked.
“Naw, for two out of 60 rooms?” he answered.
“One incident is isolated; two is a problem,” I said.
No one was contacted and nothing was done. So I went into the lobby, which is wireless to do my work. And the management will eventually know how lousy the customer service was.
Being in the motel business must be pretty good. There are scores upon scores of different chain names, although many of them are clustered under a few corporations (Accor, Choice, etc.). The Mom and Pop entities might be disappearing but the sterilized, sameness of a Motel 6/Best Western/Comfort Inn are dotting the landscape in increasing numbers.
That, however, doesn’t mean improvement. Far from it.
How do I loathe the motel? Let me count the ways.
The showers are too short while the towels are too small and too hard (a little Downy please?). The soap always seems to crack in your hands as you wash. I should note that one Best Western in Boerne, Texas, had hand dispensers in the shower for soap, shampoo and gel (a wise investment to avoid waste).
The beds are too hard, the blankets are too thin and the sheets rip off the mattress if you just touch them. The air conditioning unit is too loud and is only operates under ice cold or broiling hot. And I could write “War and Peace” about the many foibles.
All too often, the prices - for what you eventually get - are too high. Unless you want to spend more for a little luxury (usually associated with the multi-story hotels), economy is a prime consideration when traveling.
Once I heard a car dealer give a perfect explanation about his business, “All Fords are the same; the difference is in the service.” All motels are basically the same; the difference is how the traveler is treated. On this night, this traveler was not treated as well as he should have been.
Now it’s on to LAX to meet the espousa and headed to San Diego for a weekend of wild animals, zoos and heavy traffic. And that will just be the hotel check-in.
I know it’s Day 5 but I could not execute the blog or e-mail on Day 4 because of the not-so-helpful folks at the Comfort Inn. The free Internet service in the room didn’t work and no one was terribly interested in fixing the problem. Of course, the reasoning was ridiculous.
“Some other guest had the same problem,” said the night desk kid.
“Don’t you think you should contact someone?” I asked.
“Naw, for two out of 60 rooms?” he answered.
“One incident is isolated; two is a problem,” I said.
No one was contacted and nothing was done. So I went into the lobby, which is wireless to do my work. And the management will eventually know how lousy the customer service was.
Being in the motel business must be pretty good. There are scores upon scores of different chain names, although many of them are clustered under a few corporations (Accor, Choice, etc.). The Mom and Pop entities might be disappearing but the sterilized, sameness of a Motel 6/Best Western/Comfort Inn are dotting the landscape in increasing numbers.
That, however, doesn’t mean improvement. Far from it.
How do I loathe the motel? Let me count the ways.
The showers are too short while the towels are too small and too hard (a little Downy please?). The soap always seems to crack in your hands as you wash. I should note that one Best Western in Boerne, Texas, had hand dispensers in the shower for soap, shampoo and gel (a wise investment to avoid waste).
The beds are too hard, the blankets are too thin and the sheets rip off the mattress if you just touch them. The air conditioning unit is too loud and is only operates under ice cold or broiling hot. And I could write “War and Peace” about the many foibles.
All too often, the prices - for what you eventually get - are too high. Unless you want to spend more for a little luxury (usually associated with the multi-story hotels), economy is a prime consideration when traveling.
Once I heard a car dealer give a perfect explanation about his business, “All Fords are the same; the difference is in the service.” All motels are basically the same; the difference is how the traveler is treated. On this night, this traveler was not treated as well as he should have been.
Now it’s on to LAX to meet the espousa and headed to San Diego for a weekend of wild animals, zoos and heavy traffic. And that will just be the hotel check-in.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Day 3 on the road from the Arizona oven
Day 3 from the road in oven-hot Phoenix (108 degrees by some roadside signs) where the price of gas is consistently $3.09 despite news reports of falling oil prices. There is no evidence that the consumer is seeing it at the pump. Finding gas for $2.99 in Tucson was like finding gold because it was as high as $3.17 at many stations.
Today was about meeting old friends. Dinner was spent with John Fearing, executive director of the Arizona Press Association and a former Texas publisher when he owned by Eagle Lake Headlight. I knew John back in the early 1980s when he worked for the paper in Lockhart and I printed my Nixon News and Stockdale Star at that press.
It had been almost 25 years since I last saw John and only became aware of his location after a story about the passing of his former wife. Personal reconnections are often strange in their inception.
Stories flew back and forth like chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant and we discovered that our experiences (marriage, children, health) were quite similar. How bizarre!
Lunch was held with a former Lancaster resident, Forrest Cheuvront, at his retirement community in Sun Lakes, Arizona. After each of us detailed and updated our lives following our mutual departures from Lancaster, we discussed a bit of history that each of us shared more than a decade ago.
Forrest was a city councilman when the tornadoes devastated Lancaster in April 1994. He had to work with local officials, local public safety personnel and … FEMA. As he has watched the latest news, he sees the events through the eyes of someone who had been there, done that.
“We lost all our communications with our fire and police,” he said. “No one knew who was doing what for the first few hours. We only knew when the TV cameras went into some of the Town Square (downtown Lancaster) businesses. The first hours were total chaos.”
Many agencies responded before FEMA arrived and it was hard for Forrest to watch as bulldozers crushed the remnants of what once constituted the center city homes.
“People were told they had no choice and no time to react,” Forrest remembered. “It was just done and that was that!”
Lancaster has rebounded after years of malaise, but it has never fully recovered and it will never be what it once was. The tornadoes struck Town Square 30 days after it was designated as a Texas Main Street. It never recovered.
That’s what old friends do – they remember.
And finally, I am amused but often disgusted with the talk/cable reaction to what happened in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast days after Hurricane Katrina struck. White conservative males seem to “hate hearing about the blame game” yet seem insistent on talking about it – constantly! Talk yakker Michael Savage, a particularly heinous bigot who is syndicated in far too many markets, even had the chutzpah to call the evacuees “bums” and labeled New Orleans as a “degenerate” city. This is a man who needs to have his tongue suddenly stricken in order to silence him.
But you see the TV reporters going to various homes seeking survivors, but a few of them have gotten personally involved by “rescuing” people (if you call filming them going into a boat as that).
I have rescued someone from raging floodwaters in my life and it ain’t like you think. While I lived in small-town rural Texas, torrential rains swamped the local creeks and stranded many people from safety. Back in the day, before Hummers ruled the road, most vehicles could not traverse high water. So it was the human element that had to effect rescues.
In my younger days, when I was in slightly better shape, I served as a volunteer fireman; actually just an excuse to go on the fire trucks with a camera in my hand. On this day, the call came for a high water rescue of an Hispanic family trying to cross the flooded creek.
The truck could not afford to be stuck and most of the men weren’t as big as me. So I was “volunteered” to walk through waist high water to help lead these people to safety. With a rope around my waist, I walked on a roadway through the increasing torrent of moving water toward these people.
All I wondered was what life forms were swimming past my body and what they would do in the case of a collision. Still, I made it successfully and help bring those people to safe arms. And nothing bit me, although the stench from the water stayed in my clothes for weeks, even after repeated washings (imagine how New Orleans and Mississippi will SMELL like in the coming months).
I felt good to have done something to help others. It wasn’t anything heroic because it needed to be done. I was just the one chosen to do it – which describes what a volunteer fireman does. It wasn’t done for the headlines; that’s the most important thing.
Tomorrow is a reunion with my sister in California and her adopted daughter. Uncle Buck shows up! Should be … interesting.
Today was about meeting old friends. Dinner was spent with John Fearing, executive director of the Arizona Press Association and a former Texas publisher when he owned by Eagle Lake Headlight. I knew John back in the early 1980s when he worked for the paper in Lockhart and I printed my Nixon News and Stockdale Star at that press.
It had been almost 25 years since I last saw John and only became aware of his location after a story about the passing of his former wife. Personal reconnections are often strange in their inception.
Stories flew back and forth like chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant and we discovered that our experiences (marriage, children, health) were quite similar. How bizarre!
Lunch was held with a former Lancaster resident, Forrest Cheuvront, at his retirement community in Sun Lakes, Arizona. After each of us detailed and updated our lives following our mutual departures from Lancaster, we discussed a bit of history that each of us shared more than a decade ago.
Forrest was a city councilman when the tornadoes devastated Lancaster in April 1994. He had to work with local officials, local public safety personnel and … FEMA. As he has watched the latest news, he sees the events through the eyes of someone who had been there, done that.
“We lost all our communications with our fire and police,” he said. “No one knew who was doing what for the first few hours. We only knew when the TV cameras went into some of the Town Square (downtown Lancaster) businesses. The first hours were total chaos.”
Many agencies responded before FEMA arrived and it was hard for Forrest to watch as bulldozers crushed the remnants of what once constituted the center city homes.
“People were told they had no choice and no time to react,” Forrest remembered. “It was just done and that was that!”
Lancaster has rebounded after years of malaise, but it has never fully recovered and it will never be what it once was. The tornadoes struck Town Square 30 days after it was designated as a Texas Main Street. It never recovered.
That’s what old friends do – they remember.
And finally, I am amused but often disgusted with the talk/cable reaction to what happened in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast days after Hurricane Katrina struck. White conservative males seem to “hate hearing about the blame game” yet seem insistent on talking about it – constantly! Talk yakker Michael Savage, a particularly heinous bigot who is syndicated in far too many markets, even had the chutzpah to call the evacuees “bums” and labeled New Orleans as a “degenerate” city. This is a man who needs to have his tongue suddenly stricken in order to silence him.
But you see the TV reporters going to various homes seeking survivors, but a few of them have gotten personally involved by “rescuing” people (if you call filming them going into a boat as that).
I have rescued someone from raging floodwaters in my life and it ain’t like you think. While I lived in small-town rural Texas, torrential rains swamped the local creeks and stranded many people from safety. Back in the day, before Hummers ruled the road, most vehicles could not traverse high water. So it was the human element that had to effect rescues.
In my younger days, when I was in slightly better shape, I served as a volunteer fireman; actually just an excuse to go on the fire trucks with a camera in my hand. On this day, the call came for a high water rescue of an Hispanic family trying to cross the flooded creek.
The truck could not afford to be stuck and most of the men weren’t as big as me. So I was “volunteered” to walk through waist high water to help lead these people to safety. With a rope around my waist, I walked on a roadway through the increasing torrent of moving water toward these people.
All I wondered was what life forms were swimming past my body and what they would do in the case of a collision. Still, I made it successfully and help bring those people to safe arms. And nothing bit me, although the stench from the water stayed in my clothes for weeks, even after repeated washings (imagine how New Orleans and Mississippi will SMELL like in the coming months).
I felt good to have done something to help others. It wasn’t anything heroic because it needed to be done. I was just the one chosen to do it – which describes what a volunteer fireman does. It wasn’t done for the headlines; that’s the most important thing.
Tomorrow is a reunion with my sister in California and her adopted daughter. Uncle Buck shows up! Should be … interesting.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Day 2 on the road again - the rain, the parks and other things
Day 2 from the road with gas selling for $3.09 in Tucson, Arizona. This is one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen and looks like you could eat off the highways when compared to much of Texas’ trash-strewn roadways.
The best way to see the USA is in a Chevrolet, or in my case, a Ford Escape. Flying thousands of miles way up in the cloud-covered air is no method of appreciate the native beauty of this land. It must be done face-to-face, in person, up close and personal and other standard clichés.
I am a major fan of the National Parks Service and the nationwide system of national parks, monuments, memorials, recreation areas and other lands under that agency’s auspices. I made a wise investment in a National Parks Pass which, for $50, gains me access to any park charging an admission fee. Today alone I saved $15.
Whether it was the Chamizal National Monument in El Paso or the unbelievably beautiful Saguaro National Park in Tucson, it is a program that is worthy of everyone’s attention, including a bigger piece of the federal budget. We underfund our parks system woefully; we think it’s a luxury when the truth is that this is our heritage and our history. It is educational, it is inspiring (to see a valley filled with those giant cacti is awesome) and it is America.
No complaint? (You knew there would be one). Not enough national park land in Texas and none in North Texas. Why? Not enough history to preserve? Bunk! The Eisenhower Home in Denison should be under the guise of the National Park Service. Dealey Plaza should be a national memorial. And don’t get me started on the second most recognized symbol of liberty in this nation – the Alamo. It should be a national park.
I’ll be totally anal and continue my quest to fill up my Passport (a fun way to investigate park service properties through stamps and imprints) and tomorrow promises Casa Grande Ruins and Tonto National Park. I should add more than 20 visits on this trip and still won’t make a dent into the final total.
But I want to try until I die.
Finally I want to delve into time and continue to ask the question, “Why can’t all our watches just get along?”
As I woke up this morning in Van Horn, Texas, the room phone delivered my wake-up call promptly at 7 a.m. And it was pitch black outside. How could that be?
Easy. Van Horn is the last outpost of civilization in Texas within the Central Time Zone. As soon as I crossed the Hudspeth County line, it gained (or was it lost?) an hour.
I watched the sunrise over Main Street as I departed the hotel …at 7:45 a.m., which in Dallas is like spotlight bright. It was weird but when I queried the front desk clerk about it, she shrugged her shoulders to say, “No biggie! We’re used to it.”
Once I crossed into Arizona, I gained (or lost) another hour. Not because Arizona is in the Pacific zone, but it refuses to recognize Daylight Savings Time. So it was 11 a.m., now 10 a.m. when it used to be 12 noon when it was … AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGG!
When will the government stop fooling around with the clocks? The answer is never since a part of the Transportation Bill will “extend” daylight savings time for two additional months. “Standard” time will no longer be the “standard.”
It’s so silly, unless you’ve been driving for 11 hours and you want dinner but the clock reads 4:30 p.m. Your tummy says “Let’s eat now,” but your brain asks you to wait.
The best way to see the USA is in a Chevrolet, or in my case, a Ford Escape. Flying thousands of miles way up in the cloud-covered air is no method of appreciate the native beauty of this land. It must be done face-to-face, in person, up close and personal and other standard clichés.
I am a major fan of the National Parks Service and the nationwide system of national parks, monuments, memorials, recreation areas and other lands under that agency’s auspices. I made a wise investment in a National Parks Pass which, for $50, gains me access to any park charging an admission fee. Today alone I saved $15.
Whether it was the Chamizal National Monument in El Paso or the unbelievably beautiful Saguaro National Park in Tucson, it is a program that is worthy of everyone’s attention, including a bigger piece of the federal budget. We underfund our parks system woefully; we think it’s a luxury when the truth is that this is our heritage and our history. It is educational, it is inspiring (to see a valley filled with those giant cacti is awesome) and it is America.
No complaint? (You knew there would be one). Not enough national park land in Texas and none in North Texas. Why? Not enough history to preserve? Bunk! The Eisenhower Home in Denison should be under the guise of the National Park Service. Dealey Plaza should be a national memorial. And don’t get me started on the second most recognized symbol of liberty in this nation – the Alamo. It should be a national park.
I’ll be totally anal and continue my quest to fill up my Passport (a fun way to investigate park service properties through stamps and imprints) and tomorrow promises Casa Grande Ruins and Tonto National Park. I should add more than 20 visits on this trip and still won’t make a dent into the final total.
But I want to try until I die.
Finally I want to delve into time and continue to ask the question, “Why can’t all our watches just get along?”
As I woke up this morning in Van Horn, Texas, the room phone delivered my wake-up call promptly at 7 a.m. And it was pitch black outside. How could that be?
Easy. Van Horn is the last outpost of civilization in Texas within the Central Time Zone. As soon as I crossed the Hudspeth County line, it gained (or was it lost?) an hour.
I watched the sunrise over Main Street as I departed the hotel …at 7:45 a.m., which in Dallas is like spotlight bright. It was weird but when I queried the front desk clerk about it, she shrugged her shoulders to say, “No biggie! We’re used to it.”
Once I crossed into Arizona, I gained (or lost) another hour. Not because Arizona is in the Pacific zone, but it refuses to recognize Daylight Savings Time. So it was 11 a.m., now 10 a.m. when it used to be 12 noon when it was … AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGG!
When will the government stop fooling around with the clocks? The answer is never since a part of the Transportation Bill will “extend” daylight savings time for two additional months. “Standard” time will no longer be the “standard.”
It’s so silly, unless you’ve been driving for 11 hours and you want dinner but the clock reads 4:30 p.m. Your tummy says “Let’s eat now,” but your brain asks you to wait.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Day 1 - On the road again
Greetings from the wet road in Van Horn, Texas (thunderstorms appear to sweep across scores of miles of landscape and probably do) where gasoline prices are pretty much stabilized between $2.99 and $3.09 per gallon.
Having gone more than 500 miles from Dallas, it offers a long opportunity to analyze the interstate system within the Lone Star State. And frankly, it sucks, and it’s ugly. In fact, they ought to recast the Texas state quarter and replace the map of Texas with its new endearing symbol – the orange and white highway cone (they’re everywhere and they make driving a chore!).
Texas is a special state because it encompasses all the major national topographies within its borders. There are hundreds of miles of coastline with Corpus Christi and South Padre Island considered being unique. East Texas contains the forests and swamps of the South, South Texas has rolling brush country, North Texas mirrors the flat plains of central U.S. and the Hill Country of Central Texas is the gateway to the mountains in deep West Texas.
So why doesn’t its highways reflect such diversity and beauty? Five major routes exist and nary one of them is worthy of long, languid drives. There is nothing uglier than going from Dallas to Galveston on I-45, only followed by the I-35 trek from Dallas to San Antonio and long sections of I-20 east of Abilene past Odessa.
The roadways, which once reflected much of Texas’ precious open space, now contains such eyesores as dilapidated homes and businesses, pre-fab housing sale lots, triple-x bookstores and so many empty, decaying billboards it’s painful to see.
The medians find weeds unattended for what appears to be months, if at all. Wildflowers might grace certain parts of Texas in the spring but weeds are hideous.
When such sights greet newcomers, what does it say to them about Texas? Frankly, the state should be using all the money, appropriated to erect greeting signs to promote its White House occupant native son, to clean up as many miles of highway as possible. It wouldn’t be the world’s worst thing to initiate a government-work program to have ongoing cleanup efforts on the interstates. After all, if the government is going to support people, why not do some good with it?
Imagine hiring evacuees from Katrina as a new workforce? It would solve several problems at once. Creative thinking often is what is needed for the betterment of all.
It’s dinnertime and Van Horn, frankly, offers little. The choice is between Chuy’s Mexican Kitchen or the Dairy Queen. What do you think?
But Van Horn is in Central Time while El Paso is in Mountain Time, which makes watching the hotel television weird. One of many adjustments to make manana.
Adios until then.
Having gone more than 500 miles from Dallas, it offers a long opportunity to analyze the interstate system within the Lone Star State. And frankly, it sucks, and it’s ugly. In fact, they ought to recast the Texas state quarter and replace the map of Texas with its new endearing symbol – the orange and white highway cone (they’re everywhere and they make driving a chore!).
Texas is a special state because it encompasses all the major national topographies within its borders. There are hundreds of miles of coastline with Corpus Christi and South Padre Island considered being unique. East Texas contains the forests and swamps of the South, South Texas has rolling brush country, North Texas mirrors the flat plains of central U.S. and the Hill Country of Central Texas is the gateway to the mountains in deep West Texas.
So why doesn’t its highways reflect such diversity and beauty? Five major routes exist and nary one of them is worthy of long, languid drives. There is nothing uglier than going from Dallas to Galveston on I-45, only followed by the I-35 trek from Dallas to San Antonio and long sections of I-20 east of Abilene past Odessa.
The roadways, which once reflected much of Texas’ precious open space, now contains such eyesores as dilapidated homes and businesses, pre-fab housing sale lots, triple-x bookstores and so many empty, decaying billboards it’s painful to see.
The medians find weeds unattended for what appears to be months, if at all. Wildflowers might grace certain parts of Texas in the spring but weeds are hideous.
When such sights greet newcomers, what does it say to them about Texas? Frankly, the state should be using all the money, appropriated to erect greeting signs to promote its White House occupant native son, to clean up as many miles of highway as possible. It wouldn’t be the world’s worst thing to initiate a government-work program to have ongoing cleanup efforts on the interstates. After all, if the government is going to support people, why not do some good with it?
Imagine hiring evacuees from Katrina as a new workforce? It would solve several problems at once. Creative thinking often is what is needed for the betterment of all.
It’s dinnertime and Van Horn, frankly, offers little. The choice is between Chuy’s Mexican Kitchen or the Dairy Queen. What do you think?
But Van Horn is in Central Time while El Paso is in Mountain Time, which makes watching the hotel television weird. One of many adjustments to make manana.
Adios until then.
Friday, September 02, 2005
R.I.P. Wilmer-Hutchins students
The end has come for a troubled school district .... officially. It was an exercise in inner corruption and malfeasance condoned by the adults who lived there and perpetuated and tolerated by the very state officials that pulled the switch to put it out of its misery.
Troubled school district to be permanently closed
By the Associated Press
AUSTIN — The Texas Education Agency plans to permanently dissolve the troubled Wilmer-Hutchins school district and send its students to Dallas schools, Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley said today.
The move would be effective July 1, pending clearance by the U.S. Justice Department, Neeley said in a statement.
State law allows the Texas Education Agency to close a school district that, like Wilmer-Hutchins, has been rated academically unacceptable for two consecutive years.
Wilmer-Hutchins' roughly 2,700 students began attending Dallas schools last month after a state-appointed board of managers decided to shutter the impoverished district for a year to make sweeping changes.
"The districts problems have escalated from bad to worse over decades," Neeley said. "These students have spent their school years in a district racked by scandal and mismanagement.
"I cannot in good conscience allow any child to be educated in this inadequate system."
Rest in peace, Wilmer-Hutchins.
Troubled school district to be permanently closed
By the Associated Press
AUSTIN — The Texas Education Agency plans to permanently dissolve the troubled Wilmer-Hutchins school district and send its students to Dallas schools, Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley said today.
The move would be effective July 1, pending clearance by the U.S. Justice Department, Neeley said in a statement.
State law allows the Texas Education Agency to close a school district that, like Wilmer-Hutchins, has been rated academically unacceptable for two consecutive years.
Wilmer-Hutchins' roughly 2,700 students began attending Dallas schools last month after a state-appointed board of managers decided to shutter the impoverished district for a year to make sweeping changes.
"The districts problems have escalated from bad to worse over decades," Neeley said. "These students have spent their school years in a district racked by scandal and mismanagement.
"I cannot in good conscience allow any child to be educated in this inadequate system."
Rest in peace, Wilmer-Hutchins.
Katrina recovery thoughts
The U.S. government response, from local to federal, has been weak in trying to help victims in New Orleans of Hurricane Katrina. When results are inadequate, as clearly noted by President Bush today, then the execution is inadequate – pure and simple.
Part of the problem is also clear. FEMA, the agency created during the Carter Administration, to deal with natural disasters, is now part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is NOT a natural fit. The same cabinet-level agency that coordinate intelligence on terrorists should not be the one to respond to hurricane.
And the proof is on TV for all to see.
No one could have picked out Michael Cherthoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, if he were standing alone. He has been THAT invisible.
And where has the dear old Vice President been? We’ve seen the President, First Lady, all appropriate senators and governors. But Dick Cheney has been strangely incognito. Again, one of the problems has been the lack of a spokesperson for this crisis. When Al Haig yelled, “I’m in charge here” during Reagan’s assassination attempt in 1981, he MEANT it (although he technically should not have been in charge). Yet, he WAS the one stepping up and out front. No one did that in Washington or on the Gulf Coast.
They should have put the Superdome evacuees on large tankers and navy ships. and moved them up the Mississippi River and through the Gulf of Mexico to Houston or wherever. How many buses are needed to move 30,000 people at 100 people per bus? A convoy of 300 buses? From where and with what fuel???? How would they get to the Dome? At least the people could have walked to the riverfront and board those large ships.
If you want to make movie analogies, it could be "28 Days" crossed with "Mad Max." No one from Hollywood could make this stuff up. But New Orleans quickly became the vision from a different movie - "Escape from New York."
And to quote Clint Eastwood from "Heartbreak Ridge," "it's been one giant cluster fuck."
Sadly, amen to that.
Part of the problem is also clear. FEMA, the agency created during the Carter Administration, to deal with natural disasters, is now part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is NOT a natural fit. The same cabinet-level agency that coordinate intelligence on terrorists should not be the one to respond to hurricane.
And the proof is on TV for all to see.
No one could have picked out Michael Cherthoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, if he were standing alone. He has been THAT invisible.
And where has the dear old Vice President been? We’ve seen the President, First Lady, all appropriate senators and governors. But Dick Cheney has been strangely incognito. Again, one of the problems has been the lack of a spokesperson for this crisis. When Al Haig yelled, “I’m in charge here” during Reagan’s assassination attempt in 1981, he MEANT it (although he technically should not have been in charge). Yet, he WAS the one stepping up and out front. No one did that in Washington or on the Gulf Coast.
They should have put the Superdome evacuees on large tankers and navy ships. and moved them up the Mississippi River and through the Gulf of Mexico to Houston or wherever. How many buses are needed to move 30,000 people at 100 people per bus? A convoy of 300 buses? From where and with what fuel???? How would they get to the Dome? At least the people could have walked to the riverfront and board those large ships.
If you want to make movie analogies, it could be "28 Days" crossed with "Mad Max." No one from Hollywood could make this stuff up. But New Orleans quickly became the vision from a different movie - "Escape from New York."
And to quote Clint Eastwood from "Heartbreak Ridge," "it's been one giant cluster fuck."
Sadly, amen to that.
Open up your homes and your hearts
A personal story if you please. When I lived in a small town in South Texas as a newspaper owner, I would often pen effusive editorials about the problems and possible solutions, to certain city happenings. But other wise, usually older, men would tell me, “It don’t matter what you say, it’s what you do that counts. You want things to change? You have to get directly involved.”
I took that advice, ran and won a seat on the city council and spent two years trying (mostly unsuccessful) to implement my ideas into concrete policies. I tried because it was useless to speak in platitudes; one needed to take action.
I draw this analogy because it is time for people to become more involved in what’s happened (and still happening) along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It is a chance to do more than give (cash) money to relief agencies; it is an opportunity to get more personal about one’s ability to be charitable.
Open up your homes to needy families, not just your wallets. Find online networks or go through churches and social agencies to see if a family need a place to stay for an extended period of time. And then, open the door, extend a hand in friendship and say, “Mi casa es su casa.”
My wife and I are doing just that. We met this very nice family who barely left the city in time to avoid being stuck and swamped by Katrina. Well-educated, they were like many folks who had ridden out prior storms and just
“It was the final blunt warning from the mayor (Ray Nagin) and just how emphatic it was that convinced us we had to leave,” the father said. “I tossed my son a phone book and we began to call hotels out of town as we drove away.”
They slowly made it to Little Rock, Ark., and then to Dallas, where he has several clients in his consulting business. Being here will allow him the luxury of continuing to work while waiting for New Orleans to re-open for personal assessment.
It has been overwhelming for he, his wife, their two teenage children and family dog.
“It seems like yesterday when we left and it’s Thursday already,” he said sheepishly. “You just don’t imagine where the time goes. It’s all a kind of blur.”
Usually happens when you’re on the run.
I’ve personally seen this kind of uprooting devastation before, albeit on a smaller scale. The 1994 tornadoes that struck Lancaster destroyed hundreds upon hundreds of home and an equal amount of lives (as well as causing three fatalities). People whom just the afternoon before led normal, quiet, productive lives were left wandering and wondering what would happen next … and where they would go.
Help from across the region, state and country arrived; it was gratefully received and appreciated. But not everyone recovered. Lancaster lost much of its population base as people had to start over from nothing with nothing. While a recent housing boom has existed in that community, you can still drive through section where concrete slabs stand as unintentional memorials to that horrid Monday night – untouched, undeveloped and not remembered. The city’s Town Square never returned to its Main Street designation, received just 30 days before it was blown away.
Still, homes were opened to displaced families – in neighboring cities in south Dallas County and throughout the Metroplex. It was done because it was the right thing to do and no official – local, state or federal - had to tell these people to do that.
The recovery in New Orleans will take months to complete, if not years. Until simple things are handled, such as massive sanitation and cleanup of debris and disease causing materials, no one will be able to safely enter that city, let alone think about re-establishing residence. Families will need new homes for a while and most of them won’t the immediate financial and employment needs to accomplish that.
So this is where you step in! Show your complete compassion and heart by housing as many families as you can. Give them back a little sense of normalcy that exists inside a living home instead of a hotel room.
On the Dallas Morning News’ editorial group blog, their esteemed Louisiana native (Rod Dreher) suggested that people visit local hotels and inquire if there are any New Orleans evacuees registered. He asks people to pay for a night’s stay or two, as the evacuees’ resources will begin to run low.
I say to take it a step further. Invite them to stay in a home instead of a sterile hotel room. If you have room, or know of a situation (apartment/rent house) that is vacant, allow these families to stop suffering – emotionally and financially.
If you have a home, have a heart.
I took that advice, ran and won a seat on the city council and spent two years trying (mostly unsuccessful) to implement my ideas into concrete policies. I tried because it was useless to speak in platitudes; one needed to take action.
I draw this analogy because it is time for people to become more involved in what’s happened (and still happening) along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It is a chance to do more than give (cash) money to relief agencies; it is an opportunity to get more personal about one’s ability to be charitable.
Open up your homes to needy families, not just your wallets. Find online networks or go through churches and social agencies to see if a family need a place to stay for an extended period of time. And then, open the door, extend a hand in friendship and say, “Mi casa es su casa.”
My wife and I are doing just that. We met this very nice family who barely left the city in time to avoid being stuck and swamped by Katrina. Well-educated, they were like many folks who had ridden out prior storms and just
“It was the final blunt warning from the mayor (Ray Nagin) and just how emphatic it was that convinced us we had to leave,” the father said. “I tossed my son a phone book and we began to call hotels out of town as we drove away.”
They slowly made it to Little Rock, Ark., and then to Dallas, where he has several clients in his consulting business. Being here will allow him the luxury of continuing to work while waiting for New Orleans to re-open for personal assessment.
It has been overwhelming for he, his wife, their two teenage children and family dog.
“It seems like yesterday when we left and it’s Thursday already,” he said sheepishly. “You just don’t imagine where the time goes. It’s all a kind of blur.”
Usually happens when you’re on the run.
I’ve personally seen this kind of uprooting devastation before, albeit on a smaller scale. The 1994 tornadoes that struck Lancaster destroyed hundreds upon hundreds of home and an equal amount of lives (as well as causing three fatalities). People whom just the afternoon before led normal, quiet, productive lives were left wandering and wondering what would happen next … and where they would go.
Help from across the region, state and country arrived; it was gratefully received and appreciated. But not everyone recovered. Lancaster lost much of its population base as people had to start over from nothing with nothing. While a recent housing boom has existed in that community, you can still drive through section where concrete slabs stand as unintentional memorials to that horrid Monday night – untouched, undeveloped and not remembered. The city’s Town Square never returned to its Main Street designation, received just 30 days before it was blown away.
Still, homes were opened to displaced families – in neighboring cities in south Dallas County and throughout the Metroplex. It was done because it was the right thing to do and no official – local, state or federal - had to tell these people to do that.
The recovery in New Orleans will take months to complete, if not years. Until simple things are handled, such as massive sanitation and cleanup of debris and disease causing materials, no one will be able to safely enter that city, let alone think about re-establishing residence. Families will need new homes for a while and most of them won’t the immediate financial and employment needs to accomplish that.
So this is where you step in! Show your complete compassion and heart by housing as many families as you can. Give them back a little sense of normalcy that exists inside a living home instead of a hotel room.
On the Dallas Morning News’ editorial group blog, their esteemed Louisiana native (Rod Dreher) suggested that people visit local hotels and inquire if there are any New Orleans evacuees registered. He asks people to pay for a night’s stay or two, as the evacuees’ resources will begin to run low.
I say to take it a step further. Invite them to stay in a home instead of a sterile hotel room. If you have room, or know of a situation (apartment/rent house) that is vacant, allow these families to stop suffering – emotionally and financially.
If you have a home, have a heart.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Where is George W. Bush? Not at the site of the disaster, that's for sure!
Where is the President of the United States when his peopleneed him the most? Why wasn't he in a chopper Tuesday surveying the scene along the U.S. Gulf Coast?
Why is he in California comparing himself to FDR? What idiot advisor thought this would show him to be "Presidential?"
Shame on President Bush for giving the appearance that Iraq is more important than New Orleans, Gulfport or Biloxi. You'd think Daddy would have called to explain what happens when you are a no show to disaster.
It is a disgrace and there is no way around it but to call out the President on this. Sorry that his precious little vacation got cut short, but he should have told the folks in Coronado, "Sorry, gotta be where I'm needed." And that wasn't at some photo op political rally for some damn war. Hey, Mr. President, Mother Nature dropped a bomb on the Gulf Coast and it looks worse than Baghdad.
In truth, what's really more important? And who is really more important? It sure looks like he doesn't give a shit for these people ... because they ain't got no oil.
I must say it was pretty cheeky on the part of the President to compare his military action to World War II in his speech and his vision to that of FDR. That's awfully high cotton to be standing in.
Sadly, President Bush didn't quite study history enough. From his speech as reported by the AP, "He portrayed Roosevelt's vision as similar to his own - a commitment to spreading freedom even when U.S. allies were not convinced it was the best course."
Oops, history reveals that the U.S. was the last nation to enter the war in 1941, even after European allies begged us to get involved to stave off the Nazi assault across that continent.
And in 1941, we knew exactly which country comprised the enemy - Germany, Japan, Italy. You'd be hard-pressed to ID participating terrorist nations because, potentially, there are SO many. We attacked the one that contributed the LEAST to the 9/11 attack. Otherwsie, we'd be stomping all over ... Saudi Arabia and that ain't a happening thing.
All this chest-thumping at a time of real national tragedy in the Gulf states is quite unbecoming the office. And certainly it's NOT Presidential.
Yes, a caring President would have cancel the trip for one that demonstrates that he gives a damn. (Right, Mr. Rove? Bill Clinton would have been on the scene the next day).
And I guarantee you President Bush won't be at any memorial ceremony for the victims. No political points to be gained.
Only flag-waving, chest-thumping Fox News took time away from the only story America cares about right now to prop up the President and then spend two segments verbally whacking Jesse Jackson for meeting with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Hey, can't you guys give it a rest for one goddamn day?!?! (Nope, edict no. 4 at Fox - never pass a chance to bash a liberal ... even when scores of people are drowning under torrents of flood water).
A pox on the Fox house.
Again, God spare New Orleans from further harm. It's just too wonderful of a city to be obliterated like a modern-day Pompeii.
Why is he in California comparing himself to FDR? What idiot advisor thought this would show him to be "Presidential?"
Shame on President Bush for giving the appearance that Iraq is more important than New Orleans, Gulfport or Biloxi. You'd think Daddy would have called to explain what happens when you are a no show to disaster.
It is a disgrace and there is no way around it but to call out the President on this. Sorry that his precious little vacation got cut short, but he should have told the folks in Coronado, "Sorry, gotta be where I'm needed." And that wasn't at some photo op political rally for some damn war. Hey, Mr. President, Mother Nature dropped a bomb on the Gulf Coast and it looks worse than Baghdad.
In truth, what's really more important? And who is really more important? It sure looks like he doesn't give a shit for these people ... because they ain't got no oil.
I must say it was pretty cheeky on the part of the President to compare his military action to World War II in his speech and his vision to that of FDR. That's awfully high cotton to be standing in.
Sadly, President Bush didn't quite study history enough. From his speech as reported by the AP, "He portrayed Roosevelt's vision as similar to his own - a commitment to spreading freedom even when U.S. allies were not convinced it was the best course."
Oops, history reveals that the U.S. was the last nation to enter the war in 1941, even after European allies begged us to get involved to stave off the Nazi assault across that continent.
And in 1941, we knew exactly which country comprised the enemy - Germany, Japan, Italy. You'd be hard-pressed to ID participating terrorist nations because, potentially, there are SO many. We attacked the one that contributed the LEAST to the 9/11 attack. Otherwsie, we'd be stomping all over ... Saudi Arabia and that ain't a happening thing.
All this chest-thumping at a time of real national tragedy in the Gulf states is quite unbecoming the office. And certainly it's NOT Presidential.
Yes, a caring President would have cancel the trip for one that demonstrates that he gives a damn. (Right, Mr. Rove? Bill Clinton would have been on the scene the next day).
And I guarantee you President Bush won't be at any memorial ceremony for the victims. No political points to be gained.
Only flag-waving, chest-thumping Fox News took time away from the only story America cares about right now to prop up the President and then spend two segments verbally whacking Jesse Jackson for meeting with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Hey, can't you guys give it a rest for one goddamn day?!?! (Nope, edict no. 4 at Fox - never pass a chance to bash a liberal ... even when scores of people are drowning under torrents of flood water).
A pox on the Fox house.
Again, God spare New Orleans from further harm. It's just too wonderful of a city to be obliterated like a modern-day Pompeii.
God watch over the people on the Gulf Coast
Even for a news junkie like myself (and most of y'all), I just cannot watch anymore reports on CNN, MSNBC or Fox where cameras continue to show miles and miles of utter devastation along the Gulf Coast. It's just too much hardship to absorb and there's nothing new being reported.
I must say that I was totally moved last night watching CNN's "Newsnight" and the exchange between anchor Aaron Brown (one of the few smart enough to stay put in NYC) and reporter Jeanne Meserve. She broke down while talking with Brown and it was too genuine for even the most jaded of watchers. You felt her heartache for what she saw.
Which brings me to my main point - how many TV idiots are running around saying how New Orleans was "spared." I ask, "Compared to what???" Eighty percent of the city is under way, the levees have brown from Ponchartrain and are flooding the poorest of neighborhoods and no one knows how many deaths there have been because no one can reach these people.
If that is being "spared," I don't want it. However, the need for instant analysis cause such snap judgments to be made and it is a detriment to the rescuers, the victims and the survivors to hear such crap.
God watch over that area of the country. Those people surely need something good to happen.
I must say that I was totally moved last night watching CNN's "Newsnight" and the exchange between anchor Aaron Brown (one of the few smart enough to stay put in NYC) and reporter Jeanne Meserve. She broke down while talking with Brown and it was too genuine for even the most jaded of watchers. You felt her heartache for what she saw.
Which brings me to my main point - how many TV idiots are running around saying how New Orleans was "spared." I ask, "Compared to what???" Eighty percent of the city is under way, the levees have brown from Ponchartrain and are flooding the poorest of neighborhoods and no one knows how many deaths there have been because no one can reach these people.
If that is being "spared," I don't want it. However, the need for instant analysis cause such snap judgments to be made and it is a detriment to the rescuers, the victims and the survivors to hear such crap.
God watch over that area of the country. Those people surely need something good to happen.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Stop blaming the messengers when you actually hate the message
As a former publisher, newspaper owner and editor, I find that the general public has no clue about how a newspaper ends up on their front lawn every single day ... nor, all too often, do they care.
They complain about:
· not enough space for ALL the stories that each individual wants to read, or cares about (which would make the DMN the same size as War and Peace);
· too many ads for them to skip (although it represents 80 percent of a newspapers revenue source - 1 of 3 ways [subscription/single copy sales, advertising, classified and retail]. I always told people that ads were "paid news.");
· the amount of time it takes to actually process an event into a printed newspage (despite technological advances, it STILL takes time to get it done).
· limitations of staff (you can't be everywhere and cover EVERYTHING at once).
And to explain it all would mean a full journalism course that isn't taught anymore at schools like Texas A&M. It's too bad because if people knew more about the product they read, they would understand the difficulty and reason to publish a permanent record of history on a daily basis.
So I guess if everyone is complaining, then most newspapers are either doing something wrong or something right (the latter meaning people care enough to voice complaints). It is when they go silent from NOT caring that you HAVE to start to worry).
Still, why does everyone blame the press for what it reads (or hears) when most of the time, the media reports what people want to see or read. Emphasis on stories reflect the public’s interest. Most of the people would rather hear about celebrities, or focus on a single mother in Crawford than spend time on issues that would hurt one’s head through stimulated thought process. After all, if the President doesn’t go in depth, why should anyone else?
Reporting isn’ the problem; retention and attention are the problems. We remember little and have the focus ability of a dead cactus.
Just watch in 2006. All the incumbents will be re-elected; no Democrat will run in GOP-dominated areas and the same bunch of fools will be returned to Austin and DC. You can book it like seeing the sun rise each morning (through the pollution, of course).
They complain about:
· not enough space for ALL the stories that each individual wants to read, or cares about (which would make the DMN the same size as War and Peace);
· too many ads for them to skip (although it represents 80 percent of a newspapers revenue source - 1 of 3 ways [subscription/single copy sales, advertising, classified and retail]. I always told people that ads were "paid news.");
· the amount of time it takes to actually process an event into a printed newspage (despite technological advances, it STILL takes time to get it done).
· limitations of staff (you can't be everywhere and cover EVERYTHING at once).
And to explain it all would mean a full journalism course that isn't taught anymore at schools like Texas A&M. It's too bad because if people knew more about the product they read, they would understand the difficulty and reason to publish a permanent record of history on a daily basis.
So I guess if everyone is complaining, then most newspapers are either doing something wrong or something right (the latter meaning people care enough to voice complaints). It is when they go silent from NOT caring that you HAVE to start to worry).
Still, why does everyone blame the press for what it reads (or hears) when most of the time, the media reports what people want to see or read. Emphasis on stories reflect the public’s interest. Most of the people would rather hear about celebrities, or focus on a single mother in Crawford than spend time on issues that would hurt one’s head through stimulated thought process. After all, if the President doesn’t go in depth, why should anyone else?
Reporting isn’ the problem; retention and attention are the problems. We remember little and have the focus ability of a dead cactus.
Just watch in 2006. All the incumbents will be re-elected; no Democrat will run in GOP-dominated areas and the same bunch of fools will be returned to Austin and DC. You can book it like seeing the sun rise each morning (through the pollution, of course).
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Identity theft made far too easy
One of the worst feelings you can have is to suspect that someone – a stranger or even a family member – is screwing with you and has stolen YOUR identity in order to ruin your life. It's a silent attacker because you could be kept in the dark for days (or weeks) before unearthing something that's a crime being committed against you.
This type of theft can (and DOES) happen in dozens of ways – by stealing credit card information you openly provide, by stealing banking and credit files that should be better guarded by agencies and companies and by using many surreptitious methods that get publicized by the news media almost daily. A little vigilance on your part can stop many (but not all) efforts to have strangers take advantage of you.
It should not, however, happen with the full assistance of the federal government and one of its largest, and most public but fucked up, entities – the United States Postal Service. But that’s exactly what happened to my family and others need to be warned.
After three years of living in our home, my wife’s sister moved out to another community (thank God!). In doing so, she sent a change of address card to the local U.S. Postal Service center (Plano’s Coit Station for our zip code). The woman uses a hyphenated last name, employing her maiden name and married moniker; something apparently more prevalent these days than in the past.
On the change of address form, she mistakenly marked “Family Forward” instead of “Individual,” meaning, in postal terms, ANYONE with EITHER of those last names would have their mail forwarded to a new address effective at the prescribed date. Upon closer examination of the form, the boxes are printed in barely readable skin tones. It seems to be a far too easy of a mistake to make for something so important. If your son or daughter is headed, say, to Texas Tech and makes the same mistake, all your mail is going to go to Lubbock. Chew on THAT cud for a moment!
You can send this document to the postal service without benefit of identification or any legal documentation (driver’s license, etc.) stating you are who you say you are. A total stranger can forge any kind of signature and then have that person’s – or family’s – mail sent to a new (and undisclosed) location.
Our suspicion was only alerted when we failed to receive any kind of mail (first class, packages, junk) at our home for two consecutive days. When I first contacted USPS-Coit Station, I was told that there was nothing to indicate any interruption of service. It was just an anomaly and the supervisor would check with the carrier. The next day, mail arrived and we thought nothing of it.
Until we took a closer look. The mail was only addressed in my name; nothing was delivered to my wife, who still employs her family name – the same name that is included in the hyphenated name used by her sister. A second call to Coit Station offered the ugly truth – all mail with that name, regardless of who is was for – was being re-directed to a new address. It didn’t matter that it was wrong; the form for “Family Forward” had been submitted and accepted.
My wife was forced to complete a second form (Form 3546) that stops the forwarding process, but she was told it would be a week or so until the ship was righted. Until that time, she would not know which credit card bill, which package of prescription medication or which correspondence was floating aimlessly in the postal system, waiting for proper clearance to land. Oddly enough, no one at the Coit Station in Plano asked for her identification and she never signed that Form 3546 because none was required.
And that hasn’t solved the problem. Apparently Form 3546 never made it into the fucking USPS computer system and the incorrect status quo remains. Seems as if the form …. got lost in the mail. What assholes!
Can someone explain how this can happen to people? How can any schmuck off the street send a card – without proper identification – and steal your mail, fuck up your credit and your very life and yet it has the full blessing of the U.S. government and postal service?
The USPS can lamely apologize all its wants and make empty claims about long-standing regulations, but something needs to be done to prevent what happened to us from reoccurring again. No one - NO ONE - should be able to anonymously seek forwarding of mail without first producing legal identification – in person – to a postal official (sorry, your Sam’s Club card won’t do, putzhead). You can’t change your address of your driver’s license by mail; the same standard should apply for your mail.
And second, any forwarding of mail should be for individuals ONLY. Sorry for the inconvenience, but if you get mail for four or 40 family members, you need to send an individual change for each individual member. Simply permitting a blanket movement of mail by last name only fails to allow for the very situation I described.
It’s tough enough to fight all the dickheads out there doing their dead level best to scam you and I out of our hard-earned life.
We shouldn’t have to worry about the post office, too. Damn!
Chuck Bloom can be reached at chuckbloom@hotmail.com.
This type of theft can (and DOES) happen in dozens of ways – by stealing credit card information you openly provide, by stealing banking and credit files that should be better guarded by agencies and companies and by using many surreptitious methods that get publicized by the news media almost daily. A little vigilance on your part can stop many (but not all) efforts to have strangers take advantage of you.
It should not, however, happen with the full assistance of the federal government and one of its largest, and most public but fucked up, entities – the United States Postal Service. But that’s exactly what happened to my family and others need to be warned.
After three years of living in our home, my wife’s sister moved out to another community (thank God!). In doing so, she sent a change of address card to the local U.S. Postal Service center (Plano’s Coit Station for our zip code). The woman uses a hyphenated last name, employing her maiden name and married moniker; something apparently more prevalent these days than in the past.
On the change of address form, she mistakenly marked “Family Forward” instead of “Individual,” meaning, in postal terms, ANYONE with EITHER of those last names would have their mail forwarded to a new address effective at the prescribed date. Upon closer examination of the form, the boxes are printed in barely readable skin tones. It seems to be a far too easy of a mistake to make for something so important. If your son or daughter is headed, say, to Texas Tech and makes the same mistake, all your mail is going to go to Lubbock. Chew on THAT cud for a moment!
You can send this document to the postal service without benefit of identification or any legal documentation (driver’s license, etc.) stating you are who you say you are. A total stranger can forge any kind of signature and then have that person’s – or family’s – mail sent to a new (and undisclosed) location.
Our suspicion was only alerted when we failed to receive any kind of mail (first class, packages, junk) at our home for two consecutive days. When I first contacted USPS-Coit Station, I was told that there was nothing to indicate any interruption of service. It was just an anomaly and the supervisor would check with the carrier. The next day, mail arrived and we thought nothing of it.
Until we took a closer look. The mail was only addressed in my name; nothing was delivered to my wife, who still employs her family name – the same name that is included in the hyphenated name used by her sister. A second call to Coit Station offered the ugly truth – all mail with that name, regardless of who is was for – was being re-directed to a new address. It didn’t matter that it was wrong; the form for “Family Forward” had been submitted and accepted.
My wife was forced to complete a second form (Form 3546) that stops the forwarding process, but she was told it would be a week or so until the ship was righted. Until that time, she would not know which credit card bill, which package of prescription medication or which correspondence was floating aimlessly in the postal system, waiting for proper clearance to land. Oddly enough, no one at the Coit Station in Plano asked for her identification and she never signed that Form 3546 because none was required.
And that hasn’t solved the problem. Apparently Form 3546 never made it into the fucking USPS computer system and the incorrect status quo remains. Seems as if the form …. got lost in the mail. What assholes!
Can someone explain how this can happen to people? How can any schmuck off the street send a card – without proper identification – and steal your mail, fuck up your credit and your very life and yet it has the full blessing of the U.S. government and postal service?
The USPS can lamely apologize all its wants and make empty claims about long-standing regulations, but something needs to be done to prevent what happened to us from reoccurring again. No one - NO ONE - should be able to anonymously seek forwarding of mail without first producing legal identification – in person – to a postal official (sorry, your Sam’s Club card won’t do, putzhead). You can’t change your address of your driver’s license by mail; the same standard should apply for your mail.
And second, any forwarding of mail should be for individuals ONLY. Sorry for the inconvenience, but if you get mail for four or 40 family members, you need to send an individual change for each individual member. Simply permitting a blanket movement of mail by last name only fails to allow for the very situation I described.
It’s tough enough to fight all the dickheads out there doing their dead level best to scam you and I out of our hard-earned life.
We shouldn’t have to worry about the post office, too. Damn!
Chuck Bloom can be reached at chuckbloom@hotmail.com.
Sad sight in Gaza because Hamas still wants to kill
vAlthough I am no fan of continuing Jewish settlements in Gaza, and understand (better than this administration) that the Israelis and Palestinians need to live together in respectful and nonviolent fashion, I am greatly disturbed by the reaction of Hamas to the forced withdrawal from Gaza by the Israeli army.
These ... yahoos ... proclaim that violence on their part have driven the Jews out of Gaza and that Hamas will continue to employ the same strategy to keep up the fight until all Jews are gone from the Middle East. This is SO old-timey Gamal Nasser and does not portend well for the future of the region.
When an Israeli settler goes berserk and kills three Palestinians, it is a tragedy according to everyone. When a Palestinian suicide bomber blows him/her self up and kills scores of innocent Israelis, it is yet another "chapter" in the unending circle of violence.
I see NO action from the Bush Administration to halt the powderkeg that is this direct conflict. It has SO lowered expectations in this region (Iraq, Iran, Saudis included) as to become nothing more than spectators and a yet-to-be determined interest level.I agree with trading land for peace, but I don't see, and haven't heard, a single Palestinian official condemn what Hamas has said. It is for damn sure they won't do anything to stop them physically or militarily.
And, sadly, neither will be former Big Dog on the street because,as demonstrated in Iraq, the Big Dog doesn't have the same bark or bite as was once believed. And that's the dog's fault.
These ... yahoos ... proclaim that violence on their part have driven the Jews out of Gaza and that Hamas will continue to employ the same strategy to keep up the fight until all Jews are gone from the Middle East. This is SO old-timey Gamal Nasser and does not portend well for the future of the region.
When an Israeli settler goes berserk and kills three Palestinians, it is a tragedy according to everyone. When a Palestinian suicide bomber blows him/her self up and kills scores of innocent Israelis, it is yet another "chapter" in the unending circle of violence.
I see NO action from the Bush Administration to halt the powderkeg that is this direct conflict. It has SO lowered expectations in this region (Iraq, Iran, Saudis included) as to become nothing more than spectators and a yet-to-be determined interest level.I agree with trading land for peace, but I don't see, and haven't heard, a single Palestinian official condemn what Hamas has said. It is for damn sure they won't do anything to stop them physically or militarily.
And, sadly, neither will be former Big Dog on the street because,as demonstrated in Iraq, the Big Dog doesn't have the same bark or bite as was once believed. And that's the dog's fault.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
When the majority ain't the majority no mo'
So whites are no longer a majority in Texas, but they are STILL the super plurality. And, folks, white people are still in control of almost all major governmental offices and machinery.
Besides, aren't WHITE trash neighbors just as bad as Hispanic trash neighbors? Trash is trash, regardless of the background. What's worse? The drunken conjunto party or the freaked-out rock and roll meth lab in the bathroom?
When I lived in South Texas, populated by MORE than a few real-life Mexicans (pronounced MEZZ-i-kans), they separated themselves by WHERE they originated from. The ones from the urbans areas acted quite differently (and more civilized) than the rural Mexicans (which were called Indios because they were of Indian or Aztec descent). Those people were far more rough in attitude and deed, drinking excessively and showing a greater tendency toward criminal activity.
The two groups only shared a mutual country - and that was it.
The disclosure of the changing face of Texas will disturb some, but they have been disturbed for a long time. They feel the same about Vietnamese, African-Americans, Jewish-Americans and any other "furr-iners" they could name (well, the French don't count, do they?).
To quote David Crosby: "It's been a long time comin'; got to be a long time gone."
Actually we can solve the immigration problem in a non-militaristic manner:
Simply line up all the soldiers and civilians you want, arm to arm and lock hands, and yell "Red Rover! Red Rover! Let's (fill in the name Juan or Juanita) cover over!"
Then a candidate for immigration runs across the Rio Grande and into the American guard line. If he/she breaks through, they stay. If not, they go back and star in their own Right Guard deodorant commercial.
Alas, American ingenuity at work! Earn your way across!
Makes the same funny sense as Kinky Friedman's five Mexican generals proposal, which is logical in its owne twisted way. If this sounds stupid, compare it with current policy or proposed legislation.
You'll think twice.
Besides, aren't WHITE trash neighbors just as bad as Hispanic trash neighbors? Trash is trash, regardless of the background. What's worse? The drunken conjunto party or the freaked-out rock and roll meth lab in the bathroom?
When I lived in South Texas, populated by MORE than a few real-life Mexicans (pronounced MEZZ-i-kans), they separated themselves by WHERE they originated from. The ones from the urbans areas acted quite differently (and more civilized) than the rural Mexicans (which were called Indios because they were of Indian or Aztec descent). Those people were far more rough in attitude and deed, drinking excessively and showing a greater tendency toward criminal activity.
The two groups only shared a mutual country - and that was it.
The disclosure of the changing face of Texas will disturb some, but they have been disturbed for a long time. They feel the same about Vietnamese, African-Americans, Jewish-Americans and any other "furr-iners" they could name (well, the French don't count, do they?).
To quote David Crosby: "It's been a long time comin'; got to be a long time gone."
Actually we can solve the immigration problem in a non-militaristic manner:
Simply line up all the soldiers and civilians you want, arm to arm and lock hands, and yell "Red Rover! Red Rover! Let's (fill in the name Juan or Juanita) cover over!"
Then a candidate for immigration runs across the Rio Grande and into the American guard line. If he/she breaks through, they stay. If not, they go back and star in their own Right Guard deodorant commercial.
Alas, American ingenuity at work! Earn your way across!
Makes the same funny sense as Kinky Friedman's five Mexican generals proposal, which is logical in its owne twisted way. If this sounds stupid, compare it with current policy or proposed legislation.
You'll think twice.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
A 'point' about Raffy
Baseball's Rafael Palmeiro, known to his fans as "Raffy" (as opposed to Israeli children's songster Raffi), sat in front of the TV cameras, Congress, and the world, pointed to those cynics in the room and flatly exclaimed that he did not then, before or ever use steroids as a player.
"Ever. Period." He emphasized his innocence with a pointed finger and all but challenged anyone to the Gary Hart test - catch me if you can.
Oops, Donna Rice has shown up in Raffy's life. She is the he that administers the drug tests in Major League Baseball. And the net has snared Palmeiro, with the announcement of the 10-game suspension immediately following Raffy's personal career achievement of 3,000 hits to go with more than 560 home runs.
Even now, Palmeiro states sheepishly that he has never "knowingly" use steroids and doesn't know how in the world the substance got into his body and those test tubes. Even a fan like George W. Bush believes that bit of fantasy (he publically stated that he believes Palmeiro's non-explanation) but we could go on about weapons of mass destruction and other tales of fantasies that the White House holds to be gospel.
Here's the problem. Palmeiro COULD be correct. He might NOT have knowingly taken a steroid but still ingested something that had ingredients with steroid-like qualities. This is making assumptions not yet in evidence. One of the major problems with "nutritional supplements" these days is the amount of non-disclosed additives that have steroid-like effects on the body. Almost all these ingredients are kept secret from the person using the product. Hence, you might THINK you are OK when in fact, it isn't.
The public and press keep thinking that steroids can only be injected. Not true anymore. When Jose Canseco, in his book, claimed to be shooting up half his teammates with the magic juice, that was in 1992, and this is 13 years later - a world of technological difference. It can now be ground into a powder, drank as a milk shake and marketed as a power builder to maintain strength.
Does this make you dumb? No. Does this make you feel stupid? Of course. Do this make you out to be a cheater? No. But do you have to pay a penalty? Yes.
Canseco is gaining credibility by the day and for a person who was fairly rotten to his coure, as selfish a player as ever donned a uniform, it would be a shame for him to come out as some sort of hero.
Of all those accused in that text, Palmeiro seemed the least likely because he didn't look like he was a user. No huge muscles, nothing special about him physically. Just a quality player with 20 years in MLB. His home runs weren't like those of Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa - moonshots that traveled half the distance to the sun. His were just home runs, over the fence because his swing (which steroids can do nothing about) got better over time.
The home run swing can be achieved by brute force and muscle or by speed, timing and perfect contact - much like seeing a 5-6 man outdrive a 6-4 player. Palmeiro refined his swing and changed it into more of an uppercut finish to add loft. Then, if you play long enough against lousy pitching in ballparks built for HR hitting, you can get to 500 for a lifetime.
It's been a strange year for baseball. This is just one more chapter. Stay tuned.
"Ever. Period." He emphasized his innocence with a pointed finger and all but challenged anyone to the Gary Hart test - catch me if you can.
Oops, Donna Rice has shown up in Raffy's life. She is the he that administers the drug tests in Major League Baseball. And the net has snared Palmeiro, with the announcement of the 10-game suspension immediately following Raffy's personal career achievement of 3,000 hits to go with more than 560 home runs.
Even now, Palmeiro states sheepishly that he has never "knowingly" use steroids and doesn't know how in the world the substance got into his body and those test tubes. Even a fan like George W. Bush believes that bit of fantasy (he publically stated that he believes Palmeiro's non-explanation) but we could go on about weapons of mass destruction and other tales of fantasies that the White House holds to be gospel.
Here's the problem. Palmeiro COULD be correct. He might NOT have knowingly taken a steroid but still ingested something that had ingredients with steroid-like qualities. This is making assumptions not yet in evidence. One of the major problems with "nutritional supplements" these days is the amount of non-disclosed additives that have steroid-like effects on the body. Almost all these ingredients are kept secret from the person using the product. Hence, you might THINK you are OK when in fact, it isn't.
The public and press keep thinking that steroids can only be injected. Not true anymore. When Jose Canseco, in his book, claimed to be shooting up half his teammates with the magic juice, that was in 1992, and this is 13 years later - a world of technological difference. It can now be ground into a powder, drank as a milk shake and marketed as a power builder to maintain strength.
Does this make you dumb? No. Does this make you feel stupid? Of course. Do this make you out to be a cheater? No. But do you have to pay a penalty? Yes.
Canseco is gaining credibility by the day and for a person who was fairly rotten to his coure, as selfish a player as ever donned a uniform, it would be a shame for him to come out as some sort of hero.
Of all those accused in that text, Palmeiro seemed the least likely because he didn't look like he was a user. No huge muscles, nothing special about him physically. Just a quality player with 20 years in MLB. His home runs weren't like those of Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa - moonshots that traveled half the distance to the sun. His were just home runs, over the fence because his swing (which steroids can do nothing about) got better over time.
The home run swing can be achieved by brute force and muscle or by speed, timing and perfect contact - much like seeing a 5-6 man outdrive a 6-4 player. Palmeiro refined his swing and changed it into more of an uppercut finish to add loft. Then, if you play long enough against lousy pitching in ballparks built for HR hitting, you can get to 500 for a lifetime.
It's been a strange year for baseball. This is just one more chapter. Stay tuned.
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