Letters
I was visiting my son in Arlington, Va., a suburb of the nation’s capital. Almost every day I walked for a few hours through the crowded streets.
One day it rained and the rain had cleansed the accumulated residue of industrialization from the air, and the temperature was mild, and the humidity was low. In short, it was a good day to walk; in fact, it was a good day to be alive.
Then I realized that the ubiquitous cell phone conversations were disturbing my peace of mind.
Had these conversations been about cabals, or had even a wisp of concupiscence, I would have been a happy listener; I love gossip and even playing the voyeur, if so cast.
However, these cell phone conversations were utterly banal, and hence, invasive without having any redeeming value to me.
I was annoyed. I could not think of any way of defending myself against the megaphones of mediocrity.
And then it came to me. I could be annoying as well. In fact, my mother and several ex-girlfriends had even commented that I was good it, maybe a natural.
I have committed to memory a few famous Shakespearian soliloquies, a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti from his book “A Coney Island of the mind,” Robert Burns “To a Mousie,” and tidbits of several other poems from Keats, T.S. Elliot, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I paused for a moment and considered my intent. I am a little long in the tooth (70) for such mischievous behavior. On the other hand, I have never completely grown up either, so, what the hell!
I did not have to wait long to strike. A young woman was walking just ahead of me on the street. I had to make sure she really had a cell phone and was not just a crazy person talking to herself, because I am opposed to making fun of the disabled.
Then I saw it. She definitely had a cell phone, and, she was talking loudly and animatedly, about nothing of interest. I thought of the line “… full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
So, imagining myself as Sir Lawrence Olivier, and using my diaphragm so that the folks in the back row of Albert Hall could hear me, I began “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, each day creeps on in its petty pace …”
It worked! I could tell that she was having trouble hearing because she hunched her body, cocked her head like the RCA dog, and cupped both hands around the phone.
And no, I would not be “a poor player that struts and frets his time upon the stage to be heard no more.”
I did come back again and again. But, alas, as the little boy said to Alan Ladd in the movies when he was about to tussle with a barroom full of bad guys, “Shane, there’s too many.”
Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.
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- Written by: Nelson Strasser
We have been vacationing in Lake County for nearly 50 years beginning when we were children. We store our boat there, and our times there has become a family tradition, with three generations coming together for what has always been a 10 day vacation.
This year we didn't even put the boat in the water, told our daughter and grandkids not to come up and went home after five days. We have friends who have joined us for many years and they went home after just two days.
So let's see, just counting our family and them, it cost the Skylark more than $2,000, not to mention the restaurants, bait shops, golf courses, wineries and other places we frequent that all lost money due to the condition of the lake.
If you multiply that by a couple of 100 more people, you're talking about A LOT of money.
Downtown we saw stores boarded up, and except for some bass boats, we saw virtually no boats on the lake.
We saw very few of the old familiar family type boats like ours, pulling skiers, tubes, wake boards, etc. The ones we did see were constantly stopping to clear their props from entangled weeds. We know people who live there who don't put their boats in the water anymore.
We went to TNT's to eat on the deck and had to go inside to eat, due to the stench of algae and bloated, dead carp on the shoreline.
What has happened to our beautiful lake? I know the drought hasn't helped, but the weed problem has been there for the last seven or eight years.
We used to avoid a lot of it by coming up in early June, but I guess now the weeds start showing in May. Families can't really come up anymore to enjoy the lake after school lets out.
How could the people of Lake County vote down a measure to clean up the lake? Don't they realize that without the lake, Lakeport and Lake County are more like Madera and Fresno County? I'm not sure those are exactly places families and tourists flock to for vacations.
I feel very sad and had to share my frustrations with you.
Lake County has so much to offer, but let's face it, Clear Lake itself is the most valuable commodity. The old lake deserves better treatment and care.
Marty Redman lives in San Jose, Calif.
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- Written by: Marty Redman
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