Opinion
As an unreconstructed cheesehead from Wisconsin, the Mississippi River has always been a special place to me. It's one of my personal permanent wonders of the world.
Never more so than tonight, when several thousand miles away as I was writing my daughter, who lives in St. Paul with her husband and their child, my first and only (so far) grandchild, I got one of those shocks we foolish mortals are prone to getting.
I was telling her about Jerry Day on this Sunday (Aug. 5) in San Francisco, where Melvin Seals of the Jerry Garcia Band, a wonderfully named Deadhead group called Workingman's Ed, and another – Jelly – are playing a free concert from noon to 7 p.m. (Check out JerryDay.org for info).
And I was listening to our 21st Century Edward R. Murrow, Keith Olbermann, whose editorials spoken into the camera directly to us and the Doofus in the White House I try to seldom miss. Then, there was a bulletin about a bridge collapse over the Mississippi near the University of Minnesota.
Like anyone who was here in 1989, I thought of Loma Prieta. A friend was running that day near a creek in Pescadero. She said the creek sort of gurgled up and shook all over kingdom come. God was willin' and the creek did rise. In Sonoma, where my family lived at the time, the intersection I was driving through changed directions – sort of – as our home shook, rattled and rolled. We had a foreign student from Austria at the time and she was there alone and ran screaming out into the street. They don't have a lot of earthquakes in "Wienna." She knew about Arnold already, of course, and arrived wearing a "Free James Brown!" T-Shirt. Everyone in Austria knew about Arnold. Now, it's our turn.
But what really stopped my heart and took the breath out of me was worry about how my daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, who looks like a 6-six-month old Dr. Evil in the photo I have of him on my dresser, were. He has a finger on his mouth. Can you say: "One million dollars?"
I called right away and got my son-in-law. Everyone was OK though they had driven across the bridge in question precisely, give or take a few hours, one day earlier. I was more than relieved, but have remained a wee bit shook up ever since.
I've seen my grandson once and I want to see him again in December when he and his parents come home to my son-in-law's hometown, Palo Alto, and stay with his magnificent family. He calls home "Shallow Alto" and went to New College as did my daughter. (Yes, people meet in jazz ensembles.) And he could have gone to Stanford for free since his father is a professor of surgery there. I didn't go to the main University of Wisconsin campus because I would have had to live at home. I went to the one in Milwaukee instead, so what else is new?
What else is new it that I'm eternally grateful to whoever I should be eternally grateful to for the safety of my children and their child and about as aware as we all need to get everyday about how much the people you love mean to you.
Hug somebody if you've got someone to hug.
I'm in my retirement apartment in Belmont unable to sleep. But I'm thinking of them and I'm thinking about the Mississippi.
We had to learn to spell it in school back there. I lived near it and was on it many times. I went to many sites from Mark Twain's Life On The Mississippi – the harbor in Dubuque, Nauvoo, the Mormon settlement that is now a living history museum; the Crescent City, the place where U.S. soldiers massacred the old and young of the Sauk-Fox tribe, and so on.
I love taking Amtrak to Chicago and finally crossing the Big Muddy at last. When I moved to Alaska my then 7-year-old son and I saw lots of eagles on the river crossing from Wisconsin to Minnesota. And, in Alaska at Haines, which has the largest eagle population in the world. Or, did. Now, you see them on The Colbert Report.
And once just before crossing the river Huck and Jim haunt, on the train again, an old farmer from Iowa woke up all the residents in the Sicko car (I had fallen down the steps of Old Main at my daughter's college during student orientation when I took her to Antioch by train and plane and was on crutches). The farmer insisted everyone in that train wake up and listen to the song he wanted us all to hear. It was 5 a.m.
He played Spike Jones on the radio and that is one moment I will never forget.
My children both can sing most of the Spike Jones songbook forced on them at a young age by me as my father had forced it on me. Something for which I remain most grateful.
Thanks, Dad, for Stan Freberg, too and for my grandson – your great-grandson – Orion Sage Sibley's intense blue eyes. He just turned 1 and this Christmas he's learning "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth."
Gary Peterson lives in Belmont.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
It occurred to me, that once we begin asking the right questions about where we're headed in the future, we should participate in a process of suggesting solutions: particularly as to policy and planning in the areas of development, expansion, and commitment to sustainable and self-sufficient infrastructure.
One of the common values I sense in Lake County residents is that of appreciation for all the open areas of land in the county. Obviously there is room for some growth left in most areas, but the decisions must come soon regarding what the limits are. Certainly the more pristine the county remains, the better, especially as long as the main industries are tourism and agriculture.
Lots of formerly rural counties have quickly grown into bedroom urban communities. They didn’t intend it that way. It just happened. No one wanted to be the ones to challenge the policy of progress – shop till you drop, develop until you run out of room, grow until you can't sustain the resources locally and then tie into a national economy – driven and controlled by outside forces.
Then, one day (it takes awhile), they looked around and discovered that they indeed had progress. It was all around them. It was so around them that the very qualities that had once given them peace of mind had disappeared, particularly the quality of open land and space. They no longer had public land, only fences and “no trespassing” signs.
In Lake County, we not only still have land we can share together, we have treasure in our soil. The treasures of arable land and water represent a fragile but potent and powerful resource for human beings living here. Fruit, nut, berry, herb, fish, acorn, vegetable, grass, hay, hemp, strawberries, organic beef, buffalo and wine. Even peaches and avocados grow in Lake County. The land and water is our primary treasure.
So, if we agree that limits on large-scale expansion of towns and commercial and residential development around the lake is the only way to insure that the qualities of environment we appreciate; the elements that give Lake County its special character and atmosphere are to be preserved – then we have to begin discussing those limits and their implementation.
This is, of course, a challenge to the traditional American commitment to “progress” as defined by a cycle of “endless, continual growth and commercial and residential development” (at least until every resource is strained and urbanization develops).
So, where can allowable growth occur? I have heard rumors of discussions that our communities should grow implosively – utilizing all available lands adjacent to already developed areas. More specifically it might demand the redevelopment and utilization of already developed properties, particularly empty or unused buildings and shopping centers. These prime properties are taking up space in areas that either need to be redeveloped and used as commercial property – or restored to their natural state.
County government needs to take seriously its role as steward of all the land in the county. If our land is indeed the treasure we have declared it to be, then commercially-held land that is developed and then abandoned should be forced into redevelopment or should revert to the public trust rather than simply providing a tax write-off.
This is a reasonable idea. If we assert that every inch of Lake County is valuable to us as individuals, and as communities; and if we take responsibility for determining that foremost among our policies will be the certainty that growth beyond certain boundaries is unacceptable until all property within existing developed areas be utilized or returned to a natural state – then a similar demand for projects of renovation, redevelopment and naturalization would likewise be reasonable.
These policies would continue to encourage continual demolition, construction and remodeling – with the added bonus that we could begin thinking ultimately of redesigning of our communities to function as self-sufficient infrastructures utilizing myriad forms of public transportation, alternate energy vehicles, and green technologies.
I know that I'm treading sacrosanct waters when I begin espousing the ideal of communal responsibility for the land and encourage dictating to owners what they can and can't do with private property, but this isn't the 19th century. The open land doesn't extend to the horizon. There aren't any more native peoples' lands to rip off. We're seeing the finite nature of resources and we need to begin planning for that finality.
Certain realities begin to thrust themselves into our consciousness.
Gasoline is no longer 19 cents a gallon. Roadways are expensive to build and maintain. Too many private vehicles on a road results in gridlock and tension headaches. A sizable number of our citizens cannot afford vehicles, insurance or gas. Many have substance abuse problems and shouldn't be driving anyway. Add all that together and we can see a demand for an innovative and comprehensive public transportation system. Solar electric ferries on the lake, maybe a high speed rail system, and certainly alternatively fueled buses and taxi schedules.
Right now, should the transportation system into Lake County be compromised for any reason, stocks on supermarket shelves would begin to significantly disappear within three days. Costs for food and necessities will only increase as transportation costs increase.
A sizable amount of our food supply is already genetically altered – a fact that is alarming to some portion of our citizenry. With major advances in genetic manipulation already accomplished, in only a few years a majority of the meat that is distributed nationally will come from cloned stock. There is no proof yet that this would be harmful, but wouldn't you rather have your grandchildren eating organically grown, pesticide and hormone free, genetically natural meats, fruits and vegetables? Isn't that a best case scenario for their health?
The recent announcement of long-term studies that prove organic farming can produce harvests that surpass commercial farms that depend on chemical and petroleum products supports our contention that organic agriculture is, as we thought it to be, a superior technology. The opportunity to utilize our local agricultural treasures to develop a significant independence with a 100-percent organic, locally controlled food supply seems not only prudent, but possible.
We should encourage the entrepreneurial family farm system, develop local packaging and sales through cooperatives and covet protectively all our agricultural lands and water.
Since green energy is no longer just a hippy dippy sideshow but a huge and burgeoning industry, Lake County needs to jump on the bandwagon early. Commit to solar and wind power, alternative electric generation and tourism based on those principles and marketed as our premier gift to the future.
Our hospitality and convention centers could appeal directly to the green global entrepreneurs and their product lines. Why couldn't they come here for their conventions, their new product shows and demonstrations? We have the hotels and entertainment to show them a good time. If we marketed our commitment to their industries with the same fervor we show the sport fishing community we could certainly be competitive.
We could attract the gamut of green industry representatives from wind, water, and solar electric energy and power systems, innovative vehicles and boats, biodiesel and bioagricultural fuels, sustainable organic agriculture, mitigating and cleaning pollutants in soils and water, etc. etc.
The sky is the limit – especially if we began to encourage the use of these technologies in the county and incorporate them into our planning and development strategies. Incredible discoveries are being made everyday in these fields – what if we were to become the primary hub, the central clearinghouse and information center to draw together all these new technologies and systems? Wouldn't that support our grandchildrens' future?
And the best thing about that type of industry is that when the meetings, demonstrations, seminars and conventions are over – the participants go home – leaving our county intact, not overpopulated and overdeveloped. And the technologies we learn about through those connections would undoubtedly provide us with a myriad of ideas and connections on what kind of new businesses could be developed locally around information and technology that would not require the urbanization of our county.
We could do it. It is a realizable goal. We just have to make commitments and brainstorm the strategies and solutions to implement them. Ideas are where it starts.
James BlueWolf lives in Nice.
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- Written by: James BlueWolf
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