August, 2005
August 22
Bike 2 Barn Motorcycling across North America, visiting small farms
Vickie and I had a fun surprise visit today from the folks at LocalHarvest.org which is a
website where people can enter their zip code and receive information on local small farms
so they can find their food in it's most local and freshest state possible.
Guillermo Payet is the founder of Local Harvest, and it was great
meeting him after the last couple of years that we have known each other through the
internet where we have had a listing on their site for the last couple of years.
He was born in Peru where he roamed the hills and terraces of the
ancient Incas. I see Guillermo as a fine example of a person emigrating from another
country and working with his whole being to meld into the American way of life and make a
place for himself in the largest way. It is due to the fresh exuberant energy of people
like him and the native talent and work abilities of the American people that we have the
fine way of life in this country that we enjoy now.
Mr. Payet was accompanied by a riding companion, named Megan who works
at a place called nextcourse.org.
She is an attractive woman who also is a fine person and proves that although nice looks
count, being nice counts even more, and people can be both at once!
Guillermo and Megan are chronicalling their experiences on their travel
blog at Bike 2 Barn Blog, I
think this wil be an interesting blog to visit this next week as they update their travles
as they go from farm to farm looking at some of the various places on their list of
affiliated farms.
Vickie and I do not receive many visitors, but when a special pair of
people like these two come along it is a pleasure to show them around some. It was sad
when after an hour or so they had to leave, but maybe they will make an annual trip of
this venture, and will come back again for a longer visit some other time.
August 21
Ray Charles, a musician touched with genius
“I was blessed with sight until the age of seven."~Ray
Charles
The movie Ray, told such a great story of Ray Charles brilliantly played by
Jamie Foxx. I love that old blues sound, his country tunes and the beach-type music that
was such great stuff in the late fifties and early sixties. He influenced a lot of people,
and the story of him fighting against his physical disability and triumphing is well told.
The further tale of him working through drug addiction and his philandering is sad due to
the human costs of such actions on the individual involved, as well as the entire group
around them.
The movie passes through the tumultuous times of desegregation. It is
hard to look back at the ‘Jim Crow’ era, the times that my father lived through
in rural Missouri. All I am left with is the old stories and tales. But thankfully I never
had to see that segregation practiced in any official sense growing up in California.
This movie is punctuated with a series of flashbacks where he is thrown
back into his hardscrabble youth where he relives the lessons taught to him by his mother.
One of the most poignant ones is when his mother was putting him on a bus to go to a
‘blind-school’ in another area. She looks at him holding his hands and very
forcefully tells him..
“Promise me you won’t let anyone turn you into no cripple,
that you’ll stand on your own two feet, and you won’t be no charity case”
He lived that way, he worked and went through life, and when he saw
he was becoming crippled he had the gumption to stop his crippling behavior.
Ray was big on collaborating
with many people; his duets with Willie Nelson, Elton John, Norah Jones, BB King, and many
others will be listened to by future generations.
Ray was phenomenal, and will be missed for his humor, when I think of
him I think of his role on “the
Blues Brothers” when he walked across the room to straighten a picture on the
wall, but being blind could not tell the picture was upside down. He must have been a fun
person to be around. Carry on brother, and I’m hoping they gave you a piano on that
cloud you ride now.
August 19
“I am an American fighting man.” I said as I
raised my right hand.
“I serve in the forces which guard my country and our way of
life.” I repeated in the dank, smelly, hot meeting room in a run-down Los Angeles
hotel in the seedy part of town.
“I am prepared to give my life in their defense.” As I
repeated this sentence I was filled with a huge feeling of responsibility. I took this
oath decades ago.
Now I listen to the radio discussing the case of Cindy Sheehan who for the last
week has been encamping near the Bush’s Ranch in Crawford Texas.
Her son took the same oath some time ago. I have a feeling it meant as much to him as
it did to me so long ago.
Now Cindy says that we entered Iraq to help Israel. Wow, this is big
news! But you know that is the same thing that David Duke says, and
when you are on the same page concerning the Jews as David Duke is, it is a safe bet that
you are wrong.
Cindy
is a sad woman, as any mother is who loses her son. But she does not want a discussion
with President Bush, she wants to be able to yell at him while the cameras roll, and the MoveOn.org types will be supporting her
in this way so that they an utilize this ‘useful idiot’ to
the fullest extent.
I support Cindy's right to have her opinion and to voice it in a
non-violent way. That is the beauty of this country, rather than blowing people up or
kidnapping them and killing them, we holler on the street corner. Holler, woman if you
must; but the press saying that she has a righteous cause to holler at the president in
the way she does makes no sense. If Roosevelt had felt compelled to be hollered at by each
mother of the thusands dead during the invasion of Normandy
would the war have continued? If we had stopped after the first day due to the
intervention of grieving mothers, when the beaches were seized, would that have honored
the thousands that lay in the sands and sea who only hours before had attempted a landing?
Would their ghosts feel proud that the battle had been disengaged at the sacrifice of
their lives? That now their lives were not only forfeit, but a vainglorious enterprise
halted before the sacrifice of more thousands due to come in the next months of slogging
through Europe?
What of the millions who were freed by the Allies in WWII? Would they be
better off under the Nazis than freed due to the sacrifice of those millions through the
course of the war? What about Mrs. Sheehan? Would she be in a privileged position now
under Nazi rule if they had not been instead killed during WWII? Or would she have been
determined to be an ‘untermensch’ and destined to a life of servitude in a death
camp if not for the sacrifice of those millions who died to defeat Fascism?
She is able to continue to have her right to free speech due to the
deaths of so many Americans and others of so many nations. I support her right to have her
say, but I think she is a willing dupe in the hands of duplicitous people who will use her
to achieve their own purposes.
God Bless her son for the sacrifice he made, and God Bless the grieving
Mother who bore him. But shame on the people who are using this woman in such a malicious
way.
August 18
A friend was talking to me the other day about investing. We
talked about how the power of compounding was the investor's greatest friend, and that the
best thing an investor can do is start saving early and save on a regular basis. The best
way to do this is to live beneath your income all your life. An older man told me decades
ago to 'live like a strawberry picker', meaning to always live frugally.
I found a couple of online tips on investing at Start on your first $1 million at age 16, this article details how one
can save one million dollars by working just four summers starting at age sixteen and
saving all the proceeds from that work.
It is the savings from that little bit of work, set aside for fifty
years that can compound into a million dollars by retirement. Our schools should be
emphasizing this fact and other rational economic theories to our children.
Another fine page details frugal living, Simple living yields simply millions in savings details how people can
save more money than they thought possible, and be able to retire in comfort. It comes
down to seven simple principles...
1. They live well below their means.
2. They allocate their time, energy and money efficiently, in ways
conducive to building wealth.
3. They believe that financial independence is more important than
displaying high social status.
4. Their parents did not provide economic outpatient care.
5. Their adult children are economically self-sufficient.
6. They are proficient in targeting market opportunities.
7. They chose the right occupations.
It basically comes down to the same things our grandparents who lived
through the Great Depression taught us: live simply, save what you can, don't worry about
displaying social status and wealth.
I used to know a fellow who's wife worked at a bank. He said that she
often remarked that the old farmers who came in with their old beat up cars and trucks,
their jeans and boots scuffed and worn out; looking like poor people often had much higher
balances in their accounts than the affluent-looking people with their fine cars and
expensive clothes. It's not what you drive and where you live that shows how well you are
doing, it's what is in your bank account, and how little you owe to other people.
But remember, never lose yourself in the money you try to put aside,
keep your composure and humanity, it's better to have riches in heaven than silver and
gold on earth.
August 16
The Tarantulas did not lie!
Last month I mentioned about seeing several tarantulas, and that local
legend says that when you see the first tarantulas of summer, you will be having rain in
the next six weeks. And it happened on schedule again this year as it did last year!
The date for the rainfall was 15 August at the latest, and yesterday, on
the fifteenth Paso Robles got .12 inches of rain, and the average for all of August is
.02. So they got six times the monthly average in one day!
Now, I must make clear that Paso Robles is some sixty miles north of
here, but that is local in regional terms. So, although the prognosis was not 100%
accurate in exact local, it was accurate as to the day, and who is not to say those
weren't Paso Robles tarantulas coming down here to get away from the rain they knew was
coming yesterday.
August 11
So, House and Home has put up a list of the Ten Best
Places to Live in the USA'. What is fun and interesting is that our local area is
listed twice.
Yes, the San Luis Obispo-Atascadero-Paso Robles area was listed as
number three, and the Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Lompoc area came in at number four. Only
only twenty miles separate Lompoc and Santa Maria. Now Paso Robles is about one hundred
miles from Santa Barbara, so the designated area take in the majority of what is known as
‘The Central Coast’. I have to say, this is a really nice place to live. But
I’m not trying to encourage people to move here, it’s nice because of how it is,
and if more people swarmed into here, it would lose it’s allure and become too
crowded. So, do come by and get a hotel room and pay bed tax, buy things and pay sales
taxes here, buy gas here when you pass through and pay the gas taxes. But don’t move
here, please.
Asheville, NC came in at number eight. My brother lives there, and that
is the area where my father’s family came from some two hundred years ago. I have to
agree it is a really fine place, and I mention it in a page from a couple
years ago with photos.
August 7
Lyrics by Merle Haggard
'I'll Never Swim Kern River Again'
I'll never swim Kern River again.
It was there that I met her.
It was there that I lost my best friend.
And now I live in the mountains.
I drifted up here with the wind.
And I may drown in still water,
But I'll never swim Kern River again.
I grew up in an oil town,
But my gusher never came in.
And the river was a boundary
Where my darlin' and I used to swim.
One night in the moonlight
The swiftness swept her life away.
And now I live on Lake Shasta and
Lake Shasta is where I will stay.
There's the South San Joaquin,
Where the seeds of the dust bowl are found.
And there's a place called Mount Whitney
From where the mighty Kern River comes down.
Well, it's not deep nor wide,
But it's a mean piece of water my friend.
And I may cross on the highway,
But I'll never swim Kern River again
The Kern River Takes a tenth victim this year
The Kern River is more treacherous than usual this year. We had a lot
of snow, and it is still melting; filling the river with fast moving currents and cold
water that will quickly sap your strength.
Now, the ‘River of Death’ has claimed it's tenth victim of
the year. Of the ten river drownings this year, only three have been recovered. It is such
a wild river, that there are seven unrecovered bodies out there somewhere.
This case is sad, but also illustrative of something; you cannot
outfight Mother Nature. This young man who drowned yesterday was eighteen years old, and
had been an athlete in his High School. He was on the school wrestling team for three
years, and the school surfing team and the football team for a year. So he was an athlete,
and a waterman who knew the feel of cold water and unpredictable currents.
When you are away from town, look at the environment around you, gauge
the risks, and don't underestimate the strength of the forces of nature that will sweep
you up and away as easily as it can a piece of straw.
The Agave plant The Daily Breeze's columnist John Bogert wrote an
amusing but very apt article about a couple of Agave plants at his house. He describes the
info I tried to pass on in our plant catalog page of agave. He
describes also the huge size they can attain, and the rash that can occur from contact
with the juice of the plant. Read and be warned!
August 7 What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? 1993 “Life is a terrible
thing to sleep through.”
Small towns, old trucks, and people in all their eccentricities are
what this movie is about. That and a host of other human qualities; the highs and lows of
human emotion are showcased in this nearly two-hour movie.
Gilbert Grape is a kid growing up on a small farmstead in a prairie
state where the sky rolls on forever. He is ‘saddled’ with a retarded younger
brother he helps care for and a depressed mother who ballooned to obesity after the
suicide of her husband. Two sisters round out this cast of ‘misfit’ family
members.
The casting and acting are superbly done, the array of acting skills
by the two principals in the film Johnny Depp playing Gilbert Grape and Leonardo DiCaprio
playing his younger brother Arnie Grape are so amazingly executed that I was a bit
transfixed at the performance.
It is a heartrending tearjerker, allow yourself some time to sit
through the whole two hours to enjoy and absorb it all in.
I suppose sometimes it is the way we can identify with characters in
a story that make us connect with the tale in a deeper way. There are many people in this
movie that the folks in a small town would see reflected in the daily life of their
community.
This is a good movie for the whole family to enjoy.
August 6 Lompoc California, 1969: Crossroads of the Drug Trade
Lompoc was at the crossroads of the drug trade. The psychedelics came
through from the Bay Area on their way to the California Southland. As if in exchange;
from the Southland came the Mexican marijuana and the South American cocaine. Amphetamines
were already being ‘cooked’ in houses near Lompoc. And out of the exotic orient
came small parcels of heroin, courtesy (it was alleged) of military members coming back
from Vietnam and Thailand.
It was that brief shining year when the country was preparing to
leave the sixties behind, and to step forward into the seventies. Into this volatile mix
of chemicals came a young woman, a girl really. No one knows where she came from, and no
one knows her name, because her life and all her hopes were savagely stolen by
'Person/Persons Unknown'.
Sue Grafton, a local writer wrote of this crime against humanity in
her book ‘Q is for Quarry’"
I got my copy on loan from the Santa Maria library. But I chose the
audio version so I could ‘read’ it while driving. Judy Kaye narrates it in a
very well done style. She shows very high ‘voice-control’ skills and manages the
many accents of the various characters quite well.
Sue writes in the style I would imagine Ellery Queen writes in. Now,
I have never read an Ellery Queen novel, so I might be wide of the mark in this statement.
I am not a huge fan of murder-mysteries, I only got the book because it takes some facts
from a local unsolved murder, and weaves a tapestry of real and imaginary scenes, some of
which I know, and some that I feel must be fictional. Note: the local County Seat and
County name are changed (is this to protect the innocent?)
The murder happened in 1969 outside Lompoc, and remains unsolved,
even to the point where we don’t even know who the girl was. And in all of these
years, no one has come forward to claim her as a long disappeared sister.
This crime so fascinated Ms. Grafton that she got the local officials
to look into this matter again. They disinterred the body, and had a forensic sculptor do
a probable recreation of the girls features and image.
One can see further info on the murder and the investigation by going
to Jane Doe Unsolved
Crime
The people at the library said that the book caused such a stir among
the local folk when first released, that it was always on the ‘waiting list’ of
books, and never really sat on the shelf until now.
Sue Grafton has written a great many highly acclaimed books. Anyone
interested in the genre would like he writing style. Personally, the local scenery that
unwove fascinated me while the story played out. It’s fun to live in a little tiny
place, and read about it in a novel, it’s just gloomy that it is a sad case that
brings the news.
August 3
From an e-mail I got:
This is a strictly mathematical viewpoint...it goes like this: What
Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who
say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants
you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life? Here's a
little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:
If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.
Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%
and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%
But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%
And,
B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%
AND, look how far a$$ kissing will take you.
A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%
So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that While Hard work
and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Bullshi+ and
A$$ kissing that will put you over the top
|
