No Regrets

A Place for Everyone, and Everyone in Her Place

These are our final weeks in the hinterboonies, and you'd think that with the end clearly in sight I'd be able to suck it up and cope more gracefully with the frustrations attendant upon living in a place with a limited mix of services, goods, and overall awareness of how things get done in the Real World. I am trying, truly. But certain second-string personae—the Bleeding Heart Liberal, the Bourgeois Bohemian, the Memsahib in a Snit—keep muscling in from the wings to sabotage my end-act impersonation of a woman of good will; you know, one of the rural gang. I'm afraid that one or all of them will completely spoil the denouement by slapping a Tuolumean or two right upside the head, thus revealing how I, too, bear some strain of the smug intolerance that I deplore in my neighbors.
I'm the first to admit that the problem is not the rest of the community; it's me. The socio political identity of Tuolumne County was determined long ago, and it seems to suit most of its citizens just fine, even my fellow BoBos. It's conservative—the last Democrat to carry the county was Lyndon Johnson, in 1964—and strapped for cash, constrained by a puny tax base and voters who consistently reject initiatives that would fund services through property tax increases. The default source of information about the world is an am radio station that dispenses select sound bites during breaks from the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham shows. For late-breaking local developments there is mymotherlode.com, which posts stories on the fly. If you're wondering about that plume of choking smoke racing across yonder ridge, it's the go-to site to learn stuff like "Mexicans Cause Pot Plantation Wildfire."
That is precisely the sort of headline that prompts the Bleeding Heart Liberal (who in a previous incarnation was a media whore) to stop wringing her hands long enough to fire off, as it were, an email to the mymotherlode.com news director, noting that the Associated Press Style Guide dictates that a subject's ethnicity or country of origin not be referred to unless it's pertinent in the context of the story. And a response such as, "Well, it is called for in the context of the story," is exactly what gets the Memsahib to set aside her NPR mug of green tea, throw down the credentials card and inquire, "Would you post the headline, 'Native-born Americans Cause Yet Another Methamphetamine Lab Explosion?'" a tactic which may get the headline changed but doesn't win any hearts and minds. Or advance any learning curves: today's story about the man missing in Yosemite National Park is reported locally as "Yosemite Upgrades Search for Missing Honduran Hiker," while the San Francisco Chronicle writes, "Helicopters, Dogs Join Search for Missing Hiker." The lost man is a resident of Fresno, California. 

These are rather finicky distinctions to be coming from someone who just led off a post with a sentence containing the snarky made-up word "hinterboonies," which reveals a different set of prejudices—mine. Hey, I'm working on 'em. And I'm completely confident that I'm going to make astonishing progress, once I get back home.

Note 6/11/08 9:20 p.m.: Missing Yosemite hiker Esmin Garmendia-Barrios has been found. Mymotherlode.com scooped the SF Chron on this one....

Green Acres: You'll Never Get Your Clothes Cleaned in This Town Again

"Where are the Christian books—you know, for kids? Because I got him Harry Potter, and I got in trouble."
      —Inquiry overheard @ 12:30 p.m. 2/20/08 at the Mountain Thymes Bookstore in Sonora, CA
One of the auxiliary engines driving the imperative to get back to a community with a broader mix of services and amenities is the fact that I really, really need to get my clothes dry cleaned. It's the tag end of winter, and I'm running out of sweaters. There is a single dry-cleaning establishment in this neck of the woods, a place that would not last a month in a competitive environment—they don't do a very good job and the turnaround is a week minimum, sometimes longer. But they do have a monopoly, which means that anyone who needs shirts laundered or sweaters cleaned will eventually find herself standing in line at Kathy's Miracle Cleaners.
As the spouse of a man who has to wear a pressed shirt to work and a wearer of sweaters, I'd been one of Kathy's more dependable customers over the past two years. I'd grown accustomed to the visual noise taped up around the joint: that ubiquitous Sheriff's Department poster featuring a fresh-faced teenager who begins using methamphetamines yet obligingly poses for yearly portraits documenting her decade-long decline into toothless haghood (what, you think it's Photoshop'ed? Yeah, me too); those flyers about local 12-step groups for a staggering array of substance and behavioral abuses; the admonitions for patrons to get off their cell phones, empty their pockets and pick up their laundry on time. Then last December, I bellied up to the counter and saw something new:
URGENT! URGENT! MOVIE BOYCOT! TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!!!
The body of the text explained, in caps, what movie so urgently required everyone's boycot (sic), and why: The Golden Compass, New Line Cinema's star-laden holiday flop, was not only a stinker but a tool of the dark forces of secular humanism. Movies are produced in order to make money, right? Not this one. The Golden Compass was specifically "designed to  trick unsuspecting parents and innocent children into supporting the atheistic agenda" of the author of the trilogy of fantasy books from which the movie was derived: Phillip Pullman, a "proud English atheist." Some of the characters were "pagans!" It went on to invoke, in a thicket of exclamation points, the names of C.S .Lewis (Narnia=good!) and Harry Potter (=bad, but the Golden Compass was even worse!) . It warned that "they" wanted your cash, and that seeing the the movie would be the threshold leading to the purchase of Pullman's books, which are Evil. Reading the books would be supporting Pure Evil. Hollywood was once again flaunting its anti-moral values and shoving them down the throats of our children (as well as mixing its metaphors). On and on with a lot more stuff that I can't remember. But I do remember this exhortation at the bottom of the page: " Tell your friends and neighbors that all good Christian people must boycot this movie !!!!"
{Presumably Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans, Buddhists, Mormons, Ba'hai,  Taoists, New Agers, and practitioners of Santeria were free to decide on their own whether  or not to see the movie. Since, you know, they're all damned anyway.}
I will admit that this polemic gave me the creeps. OK, no one forced me to read it. But with copies posted on the door, the window, and the cash register, I had a hard time avoiding it.  And I will definitely cop to being peeved to find that the dry cleaner's counter had been converted to a bully pulpit. I also felt, perhaps erroneously, that my frequent-flyer status gave me a mandate  for feedback. My exchange with the proprietor went something like this:
Me: "Hi Kathy. Gee, it sure is getting cold! "
She: "Yep. Light starch?"
Me: "Uh-huh. Looks like you have some pretty strong feelings about this movie. Have you seen it?"
She:  "Nope. What's this stain?"
Me, apologetically: "Red wine. Uh, have you read the books?"
She, shocked: "No way!"
Me: "Well, then you might want to consider taking down the flyers. They're pretty divisive."
She: "They're informative. People want to know these things."
Me: "I'm bothered that it sounds like you're saying that the only good people are Christians who agree with you about this."
She: "You got it. Next Wednesday OK?"
At which point I had to cede the match. I gathered up Answerjack's shirts and my wine-stained sweaters and  walked out because, you know, I am a woman of High Principle. I cannot knowingly give my money in support of the forces of zealotry and irresponsibility. If she had actually previewed the movie and/or skimmed the books, I'd be writing this from inside a fresh sweater: at least it would've been her own, thoughtful opinion, and I'd have to respect that, despite the inappropriateness of her choice of venue for an op-ed piece and her callous disregard for spell checking. But something about the unthinking eagerness to monger an ill-willed, ill-informed rumor (the Catholic Counsel of Bishops and the Churches of England and Scotland all gave the movie a clean bill of  spiritual health), coupled with the assumption that everyone would be grateful for the misinformation—well, it just tripped my wire.

History has shown us—oh, so many times—that the conviction that the only good people are those who agree exactly with what we believe (or with what we  are told to believe) is a truly dark and destructive force, the source of so much pain and grief. Evil, if you will. I can't endorse it. Kinda like what the dry cleaner felt about the movie, only I've actually researched my assertion and am checking my spelling.
Here is what I think: it's just a dumb movie, and a box-office bomb to boot. Was it worth dissing one's neighbors, turning it into an acid test of morality vs. "anti-morality," saved vs. damned? Can a book really channel "pure evil?" Discuss amongst yourselves. As it turns out, we could've met on common ground: I, too, would not have been caught dead at a screening of The Golden Compass, not because I feared for my immortal soul but because I'd rather gnaw glass than watch the melanin-impaired, Madame Tussaud's-ready, injectable-substance-abusing  Nicole Kidman emoting with a bunch of CGI creatures, pagan or otherwise. It could have been a start. Or not.

She's coming for your young: the pale, preternaturally smooth Queen of the Unlined. Run!

Green Acres: Just the type to recycle

"Spheres" Cynthia Romanov 2007

One of the fondly held myths about life in the country is that it fosters a more virtuous and wholesome lifestyle, one that is closer to and more respectful of nature. After 2 years in rural Tuolumne County, California, I have not found this to be the case.

Listen people, living in the country is hard, and living "close to the land" turns out to be bad news for the land. Many aspects of rural/small town life have a profoundly negative impact on the immediate environment, with virtually no options to mitigate their ill effects.
Let's start with something easy and ubiquitous, like garbage, which we all generate and which most of us dutifully sort into trash and recyclables, an action we understand to be the very least that responsible citizens can do for planet Earth. Our local governments strike deals with waste management companies that we pay to haul away (and make a profit from) the stuff we've sorted. You don't have to think much about it. Unless you live in Tuolumne County and then you do have to think about it, more than you'd like to, because the local garbage franchise does not provide or allow recycling containers, will not accept much at all in the way of recyclables, charges an arm and a leg to take away your trash, and, by basing fixed rates on a receptacle size that no longer exists, derives steady profit from upcharges, which are determined by garbage collectors who photograph the contents of your trash can and "guesstimate" extra bags within. Each "extra" is $3.80; a full-to-the-brim standard receptacle can cost you an extra $12 a week on top of the $40/month you're already paying. Stuff like used Christmas trees or defunct appliances? They won't pick it up for any price. That's why rusting rubbish is so often a feature of the rural landscape.
So why would your trash can be so full? Because it's packed with stuff you should be recycling, like plastic and cardboard and catalogues and envelopes and magazines and paper. Attempting to recycle these materials will get you a written reprimand and an upcharge. You can probably tell I'm no stranger to incriminating photographs and extravagrant upcharges.
The only plastic you are allowed to leave out for recycling are beverage bottles, and the only permissable paper is newspaper, which must be placed in officially sanctioned flimsy blue plastic bags, obtainable sometimes at a local supermarket and consistently an outpost of the Sheriff's Department manned by officers who have aged out of active duty wrangling meth heads. When we first moved here, I sallied forth to the sheriff's and flashed a hey-howdy smile at the scowling altekaker behind the counter. "You're here for recycling bags, aren't you?" he glowered. I asked him how he knew. "You look like just the type," he said bitterly, plunking down the alloted ration of five bags and happily refusing my request for more.
That was two years ago, and the passage of time has not helped me come to terms with the clodhopper carbon footprint imposed by rural living. I'm just that type. And if you were to say jeeze, this woman is spending a lot of time fretting about garbage, I'd have to agree, before pointing out that a crummy recycling program is just the tiny tip of a massive iceberg of bad policies and lousy attitudes that contributes to the decimation of finite resources for which we all, country bumpkins and city slickers alike, must bear equal responsibility. But that's a topic for another post.

Locals Only

photo courtesy of John Trippe
Here we are in a rural fixer-upper. We're fixin' to leave.

I'll be up front: I'm a city person. I grew up in and around Chicago, lived briefly in Manhattan, and settled happily in San Francisco circa 1968. For the past two years I've lived in the Southern Mother Lode of California's Sierra  foothills, a place of astonishing natural beauty—Yosemite is nearby—with a deep rich history and some thorny social and economic problems. It's been an interesting experience.

The county has a small population—just under 55K in 2200 square miles—with the highest per-capita suicide rate in California. The collective is coy about this, and it's a social faux pas to suggest that perhaps something could be done to address the problem. Pharmacies keep cold medicines under lock and key, but you can get a gun with your six-pack at the tavern on the main street of the county's only incorporated townlet. You see a lot of deer and a lot of pickup trucks sporting faded Bush-Cheney bumper stickers, yellow-ribbon magnets and gun racks. When these two segments of the population collide on the road—it happens pretty regularly—the human survivors must be helicoptered out of the county to obtain critical care, and the deer get eaten.

The last Democrat to carry the county was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The largest local employer is a state prison. The arid blast-furnace summers and mild wet winters are ideal for viticulture, and wineries are thriving in neighboring counties. Here, local leadership put a lot of energy into wooing a discount chain  in the hopes the opening of a T.J. Maxx store would invigorate the county's torpid economy. There's a lot of stuff I just don't "get" about rural life and I'm leaving with more questions than answers, but I'm happy to have lived here—and even happier to be heading back to the SF Bay Area.