MCT: Wednesday, April 17, 2019

• Warming
• Jennifer Wolfman
• Ed Notes
• High Fivers
• Trek's Replacement
• Lynda Support
• Yardwork
• Boontling Classic
• Winning Photo
• Previous Catches
• French Bread
• Crow Indians
• CNN Drops
• Real Criminal
• BS Exhausting
• Rock v Jazz
• Tweetpeachment
• Bad Things
• History Lessons
• Spanish Food
• Foxy Sanders
• Healthy Economy
• B Funds
• True Freedom
• Fire Meditation

DRY AND WARMER weather is expected today and Thursday. A weak trough will bring a slight chance of showers Friday through Saturday. (National Weather Service)

JENNIFER MARTHA (KORNMANN) WOLFMAN

Jennifer Martha Wolfman passed away peacefully on March 15, 2019, at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital with her loved ones by her side as a result of unexpected complications from colon surgery.

Jennifer was born on Nov. 6, 1938, in Vancouver, Washington, the eldest of seven children of Henry and Jessie (Moe) Kornmann. After graduating from high school, Jennifer attended Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, where she met her future husband, Elias Wolfman, who was an optometry student there. After Jennifer and Elias married, they settled in the San Pedro district of Los Angeles. Seeking a less crowded and stressful place to live and raise their family, they moved to Fort Bragg with their three children in 1975. Dr. Wolfman operated an optometry practice on Laurel Street.

Jennifer owned and operated The Bookstore on Redwood Avenue for 30 years until 2010 when she retired. She was an avid reader, supporter of the arts and a community activitist, having served on the boards of both Art Explorers, an art program for developmentally disabled adults, and Friends of the Fort Bragg Library. She was a hardworking gardener, naturalist and a world class cook. More importantly, she was a loving mother and spouse, and a compassionate and steadfast friend to all who knew her.

Jennifer is survived by her children, Aaron Wolfman, Melinda Posner, Sonia Wolfman; and her granddaughters, Adrienne and Jackie Posner, of Olympia, Washington. She is also survived by her life partner, Tom Quinn; her brothers, Richard and Jim Kornmann; and sisters, Frances Fickes, Mary Overmeyer and Lianne Engle. Her brother, John Kornmann, predeceased her.

A celebration of her life is planned for later this spring. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Art Explorers or Friends of the Fort Bragg Library.

ED NOTES

I ALWAYS stopped in at The Book Store in Fort Bragg whenever I was in town, by far the all-round most coherent and interesting place in Mendocino County with Covelo running a close second. I was startled, then saddened, to learn that Jennifer had died. A book reader herself of the serious type, Jennifer always had an interesting, varied selection nicely organized in her Redwood Avenue store. Best of all, The Book Store was a used book store. Nothing against new books other than they're ugly, badly made and radically over-priced, and walking into a new books bookstore is like stepping into a jelly bean factory. All those garish, un-artful covers, not to mention the mostly dross between the covers. And Jennifer, a droll observer of the Mendo scene, always had interesting observations she shared with the simpatico, of which I felt privileged to be one. She retired from the store about ten years ago, and according to her obituary, died unexpectedly following a surgery. Fort Bragg seems a poorer place without Jennifer and her wonderful little store

---

MARCO HERE. Jennifer Wolfman moved her store all over Fort Bragg. In the early 1980s it was where KOZT is now, across Franklin from Down Home Foods. Lots of people used it as a place to read and wait and maybe buy a little bag of books while our clothes went around in the laundromat in that little strip of shops the other way from Down Home Foods.

I've known a few Thomas Quinns, a couple of Tommy Quinns, but I'm not sure I met the one mentioned above as being Jennifer's life partner. Tom, if you read this, if you ever feel like talking about Jennifer and books and whatever on the radio, let me know.

I'm just now finishing up reading the Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny for like the I-don't-know-how-many'th time through (I love them, especially the first four), this time on the phone screen because it's the future now. I bought the later ones of those and hundreds of other science fiction and fantasy paperback books from Jennifer over the years.

One time I found a book of probably poetry, by [Something] Berutti, who had been my anthropology teacher in junior college, who spent a lot of time in class (1970s) comico-tragically bitching about how colleges were all going to hell, becoming regimented vocational certification centers or country clubs, one or the other, and how this would be his last year in the education racket, and he was planning to move to Oregon or Canada and write poetry. So I found this book and wasn't sure whether I'd need all my quarters to finish drying the clothes, so I put it back on the shelf, went and finished the laundry, and when I got back to buy the book someone else had snapped it up. What was inside? Tch.

---

HERE'S THE LEDE (newspaper code for lead) in today's Washington Post: "The far left's frustration with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the rise, as liberal advocates and lawmakers fume that she hasn't done enough to defend freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from attacks by President Donald Trump and other Republicans and has undermined their policies and leaders, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

THE FAR LEFT? As in going, going, gone? "Far left" is code for any politician to the left of the turgid Biden-Pelosi Axis. Cortez and Omar are indeed to the left of the Democratic Party's geriatric mainstream, but remain to the right of Roosevelt's New Deal, which was reform not revolutionary. The "far left," can't be precisely defined because it can mean anything from Lenin's Bolsheviks to the IWW which, by the way, hated communists who they viewed as bureaucratic and conservative. The Wobblies were the most radical political organization of any size ever produced in this country. The communists, as a friend always says, "were the ultimate liberals." (And there's like six of them left in the country, five since Mike Sweeney left for New Zealand.) But "far left" as applied to Cortez, Omar, Bernie, and Liz means nothing other than code for "These people scare our rich owners and oligarchical padrones because they will tax our surplus millions to pay for programs that help large numbers of Americans."

---

SO MANY areas of San Francisco are fouled by free range defecators, the city that used to know how has hired a five-person poop patrol, each paid $184,00 salary and perks, working out to almost $32 per turd, to do nothing but stool removal, according to the Chron. "And that’s not including the costs in trucks, fuel, and equipment such as the steam cleaning unit." And despite annual expenditures approaching $340 annual millions aimed at beating back homelessness in The City, there are more people living on the streets than ever.

SHALL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN?!

TREK II REPLACEMENT IN NOYO HARBOR

After the tragic loss of the beloved charter boat "Trek II" at the end of February after it snapped its mooring lines and drifted onto the rocks at the mouth of the Noyo River, a new vessel has taken its place in Noyo Harbor.

We’ve had a tough winter with the loss of the Trek II. It’s been in my family for a long time and meant so much to my family. I learned a lot on that boat and made lifetime memories. I am thankful for everything it has provided my family and will always be grateful for that. With that being said I look forward to making new memories and new friends on our new boat the Kraken!

Rockfish season opens May 1st. 707-964-4550

YARDWORK

Speaking of getting a kid to work for you:

I did a lot of yardwork for people when I was a boy. You do dangerous, miserable work literally all day long in summer heat, sweating, sneezing and sneezing, your nose running like a hose and your eyes itching and half-swollen closed (that was the worst part), getting your arms and legs and face scratched up, loading yard waste on a pile and burning it with gasoline, push-mowing, edging, cleaning and organizing their hot garage, emptying rat traps and carrying trash, scrubbing their pool and changing the chemicals, all while they sit inside in their picture window in their shorts drinking and watching teevee, and at the end they give you $4 (not $4 an hour but just $4) and shut the door, and you still have to take two trips to carry and push all the tools home, where there's also yard chores to do.

There was one woman who was nice. She paid better than the others, more like $10, once $20, and she'd make a pitcher of iced lemonade/tea and leave it out on the porch table. And she was really pretty, so of course I remember her name: Mary Lou Pavlick. But that's a rare exception.

I'm just suggesting for general consumption: if you ever hire somebody to do something because you don't feel like doing it yourself, pay them as much as you would require to get up off your ass and do that awful job.

Marco McClean

memo@mcn.org

https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

FLYNN CREEK CIRCUS

Editor,

This newspaper clipping is from the Calistoga Tribune April 12 2019.

A Friend, Point Arena

CATCH OF THE DAY, April 15-16, 2019

BRIAN AMMERMAN, Fort Bragg. Stolen vehicle, probation revocation.

SHANNON ARNOLD, Fort Bragg. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, probation revocation.

TAMARA BABCOCK, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol.

SHANKARA CASEY, Redwood Valley. Stolen vehicle, controlled substance, offenses while on bail, probation revocation.

HEATHER DEWOLF, Fort Bragg. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

KENNETH DOCKINS SR., Ukiah. Domestic abuse.

CLEMENTINA GUERRERO, Boonville. DUI.

BRANDON HITE, Willits. Grand theft, parole violation.

BRANDON HOLIBAUGH, Ukiah. False ID.

ELIZABETH HOLM, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

JEREMY KENYON, Fort Bragg. Resisting, probation revocation.

GERARDO MAGDALENO, Boonville. Open container of marijuana in vehicle, probation revocation.

DENA MORRIS, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol, parole violation. (Frequent flyer.)

DAVID PASHIA, Willits. Selling tabacco to minor, disorderly conduct-alcohol.

REBECCA RULKA, Clearlake/Ukah. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

PEDRO SALGADO, Santa Rosa/Redwood Valley. Burglary

PATRICK SCHUETZ, Ukiah. Community supervision violation.

KC LEE STILLWELL, Covelo. Grand theft of vehicle parts.

WILLIAM WILLIAMS JR., Willits. Probation revocation.

THE FRENCH (BREAD) CONNECTION IN A BOURGEOIS CALIFORNIA TOWN

by Jonah Raskin

Bread has a bad rap these days and rightly so. Not all of it, but way too much of it tastes like cardboard and has little if any nutritional value. That’s true in the U.S. and also in France, the birthplace of the boulangerie, where real bread is now largely a thing of the past. The French also over eat and suffer from diabetes, just like Americans, and like people all over the world who are poisoning themselves to death with chemicals and junk food that’s manufactured by giant corporations such as Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Tyson. Activists are pushing back and so are small health-conscious entrepreneurs.

A loaf of white bread costs the equivalent of about $2 in Paris, Marseille and Bordeaux, and doesn’t taste remotely like bread. No wonder the French are indignant, engagée and protesting in the streets, as they’ve done for the past year or so. Giving them cake to eat won’t solve social problems and food issues.

A baguette costs a bit more than $2 in Sonoma County, California where no one lives by bread alone—not even the homeless—but where it’s still possible to purchase a real baguette that tastes the way a baguette is supposed to taste. Real baguettes and fougasse, which is similar to Italian focaccia, are available at Goguette, where elegance marries practicality. The boulangerie, which is near downtown, is owned and operated by Najine Shariat and Nas Salamati, who explains that, “The best breads in France today are in the villages, not in the big cities.”

Nas adds that the one exception to that rule is Poilâne, a bakery in the Sixth arrondissement in Paris that makes bread the old fashioned way and ships it around the world, though not to Santa Rosa, where he and Najine have cornered the quality pain market and serve as ambassadors for French culture in more than one way. They also wear the traditional outfits favored by French bakers, and look like they’ve just stepped off a boat from Le Havre.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re close to Santa Rosa or far away. This isn’t a review of a bakery, but rather a snapshot of a cultural phenomenon in a northern California town, which can seem awfully provincial and rather bourgeois, too. You can enjoy a taste of Goguette without actually going there, though an in-person visit is recommended.

It’s curious, but often true, that the further one travels from Paris, the closer one gets to French traditions. Quebec City is an example of that. So is Santa Rosa, California which is home to Goguette and to a handful of French-style cafés and restaurants, like Chloe’s and La Gare that appeal to Francophiles.

Goguette is the real French connection for bread.

Najine Shariat and Nas Salamati are unusual bread makers, as their names suggest. Their boulangerie sits rather anonymously in a small commercial zone next to Zaftig Eatery. Najine was a clinical nutritionist in France and a fan of the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir before coming to the U.S. Her husband, Nas Salamati, worked as an electrical engineer, then fell in love with bread and learned from some of the masters of the craft in France.

At Goguette, the bread is made from local, organic ingredients. It tastes like real bread and it has real nutritional value. That’s a combination hard to beat. Nas and Najine use traditional recipes, along with live, rather than commercial, yeast. Their not-so-secret-secret is “Levain,” a natural starter and a living organism similar to sourdough. Bakers all around the world have used it for centuries. “Levain” is French for wild yeast.

Decades ago, Nas and Najine brought their Levain to California from the French Alps. Now, it has some of the aromas and properties unique to Sonoma County. Nas explains that Levain-based breads slow down the release of sugars in the blood stream and lower the glycemic index. He adds that while they are not perfect for people who are overweight and have diabetes, they come close.

Author and UC Berkeley professor, Michael Pollan, who knows food from the inside and the outside, tells his many fans and followers that mass produced commodities that pass for bread and which are sold in supermarkets today have been so radically transformed by the industrial manufacturing process that they’re no longer easy for humans to digest.

Nas and Najine don’t have assembly line production and don’t do anything fast. They’ve adopted the long, slow fermentation method that Pollan and others endorse, which allows bacteria to breakdown carbohydrates and glutens, release nutrients and make bread digestible.

Aside from the health factor, there’s another good reason to shop at Goguette. Najine takes time to explain to customers what kind of bread they should buy and eat with what kind of foods.

She says, “Selling bread at the front counter of our bakery is like working in nutrition.” Her philosophy is: “Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what bread to have.” To most of her customers paring a particular bread with an appetizer or an entrée, is a totally new concept.

Pain de ville goes with chicken and potatoes, she says. Pain de campagne pairs well with coq au vin (chicken cooked in red wine). Rye bread (and butter) is near perfect with salmon, or with oysters and bubbly. One shopper explained he was having pasta with red sauce for dinner. Najine suggested he buy a pain de champagne and take it home. He did. He also couldn’t resist the brioche provençal, which is rounded and has sugar on top.

If Najine and Nas have their say, they’ll alter the way Sonoma County eats bread, in much the same way that vintners and chefs have transformed wine and food parings. While they speak French fluently and are infused with French culture and tradition, Nas and Najine were both born in Iran before the 1979 revolution that toppled the monarchy and created an Islamic Republic.

When they were still kids, they left Iran for France, taking with them some of their Persian heritage. One thing that especially impressed them soon after they arrived in the land of liberty, equality and fraternity, was that schools provided gourmet meals for students at lunchtime.

“They were educating the young in the ways of French culture,” Najine says.

She and Nas learned to appreciate French food and wine. They still eat and drink in traditional French ways, though they’re not foodies in the California sense of the word, where food can become a thing in and of itself, almost apart from daily life. “A foodie appreciates everyday food that can have simple ingredients,” Najine says.

Recently, an elderly gentleman wearing a beret ambled into Goguette and faced Najine. He had lamb and rabbit that he was going to cook. All he need was bread. Najine offered him a slice of pain de champagne. He took a bite, chewed, swallowed and broke into tears. When Najine asked why he was crying, he explained (in French of course), “It tastes the way the bread my mother made in the village where we lived.” Ah, the French, they are so sentimental and so Proustian! A mere taste can bring back a flood of memories from childhood.

So far, mostly locals shop at Goguette, but French tourists would be advised to take a detour from Wine Country, try the pain at Nas and Najine’s shop and reconnect with their heritage. Californians on the road might find their way to the tiny boulangerie, where the line for bread goes out the front door and along the sidewalk, though it moves quickly.

When you walk inside, close your eyes and breath. You might think you’re in the France of old. On a Wednesday afternoon, a middle aged Santa Rosa man named Peter bought enough bread to feed his whole family for a week, three meals a day. He also practiced his French and explained that the students, k-6, from the nearby French-American Charter School came to the bakery to parlez français. Nas and Najine founded the school, where French and English are both spoken. It’s the only public school of its kind in the U.S. to have a seal of approval from the French Ministry of Education. Now that’s something to cluck about, especially with a slice of bread and butter.

Hey, do yourself a favor. Stop buying and eating crappy mass-produced bread. Liberate yourself. Find a bakery that does what Goguette does, or close to it and treat yourself to bread that tastes good and that’s also healthy.

(Jonah Raskin is the author of For The Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman and American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and the Making of the Beat Generation.)

EDWARD WOLF LIES DOWN, Leo Bad Horse, Bird Far Away. Crow Indians, Date/photographer not known

Air tanker drops are often useless for fighting wildfires, but politicians order them because they make good TV

WHO'S THE REAL CRIMINAL?

I FEEL LIKE we've been standing in front of a giant fire hose that's just pounding us with massive amounts of bullshit. There's so much crime and corruption coming at us every day that it's hard to keep up. I mean, he does something so outrageous that our jaws hang open. But before we can do anything about it we get hit with 20 new outrageous things. Just the sheer volume of bullshit is overwhelming.

I think it's meant to be that way. That's the strategy. It's meant to wear us down. And it's just exhausting.

— Mindy Fisher

PRESIDENT TWEET

Editor:

Can a president be impeached on the substance of tweets alone? A tweet is a very powerful public statement when it comes from the president of the United States. President Donald Trump should be totally accountable for every outrageous tweet he has made since his inauguration in January 2017.

His recent tweets essentially encouraging the assassination of Rep. Ilhan Omar and his tweets about John McCain, degrading a recently deceased war hero and longtime public servant, have by themselves risen to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Anyone who isn’t outraged by just these two barrages of morally corrupt public statements is letting politics get in the way of justice and human decency. Anything less than impeachment is a moral outrage and further embarrassment to the United States in the watching eyes of the world and our own decent citizens.

Tom Meyskens

Sebastopol

ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

Look at how we’ve lived our lives. How many lies are we fed as if they’re the unalterable truth? How many of these lies don’t even pass a cursory logic-test or eyeball-test, yet, to get and keep gainful employment and societal acceptance, you have to talk and act as if you believe, as if what you’re told and what everyone else seems to believe is actually real.

It’s not just people living in western societies that are required to imbibe and swallow and smile. The USSR and its eastern bloc allies fell under the weight of their own bullshit, the yawning chasm between official lies and the day-to-day reality of life a joke, the only item never in short supply being vodka, staying drunk the only way to cope with the necessary double-think. Come night-time, in the privacy of their own abode, away from nonsense-spewing commissars and the ever present threat of informants, guys drank until they fell off their chair.

Well, that’s history and we’re not good at taking the lessons of history, least of all the parasitic ruling class, who, without fail, think that they’re special, that history is dull and doesn’t apply to them. Well, history is about people and how they behave, and as far as I can see, human nature hasn’t changed all that much in ten thousand years, at least since folks settled down and started cultivating and raising pigs and chickens.

If they don’t take the lessons of history, that’s more their problem than ours, because they might learn and forestall what’s happened to every regime now covered under a mound of desert sand.

BERNIE SANDERS DRAWS ENTHUSIASTIC CHEERS IN SURPRISING FOX NEWS TOWN HALL

The setup looked potentially hostile but became a free, hourlong commercial for the Sanders candidacy, broadcast to Fox viewers

by Tom McCarthy

At every turn they clapped and cheered, enamored with the candidate’s prescriptions for universal healthcare, a humane attitude toward immigrants and the rejection of climate change denialism.

Bernie Sanders was the candidate, and the people clapping and cheering were audience members who turned out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for a televised town hall on Monday night sponsored by none other than Fox News.

Sanders’ decision to participate in the event had been the object of some skepticism and even criticism by Fox News detractors, who argued that in the Donald Trump era the cable channel has completed its transformation into a state news propaganda organ.

But if undercutting Sanders, an early frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and avowed democratic socialist, was the idea for Fox, somebody badly miscalculated.

The event at the SteelStacks auditorium in Bethlehem, with the extinct blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel as a backdrop, drew a large crowd of Sanders supporters, who stood in line for hours to gain admission.

Onstage, the setup looked potentially hostile for Sanders, with Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum asking the questions and trying to call the shots.

But Sanders, with the help of the sympathetic audience, flipped the script, turning whatever the Fox News executives might have intended to air into what at times seemed an hourlong commercial for the Sanders candidacy, broadcast free to potentially millions of Fox viewers.

In perhaps the night’s biggest backfire, host Baier asked for “a show of hands of how many people get their insurance from work, private insurance, right now?”

Baier continued: “Now of those, how many are willing to transition to what the senator says, a government-run system?”

Nearly every hand went up, along with a hearty cheer.

More applause lines landed one after the next, each followed by at times raucous support:

“I believe that healthcare is a human right, not a privilege. OK?”

“We don’t need to demonize immigrants.”

“We have got as a nation to reject Trump’s idea that climate change is a hoax.”

One of the most striking moments, perhaps, came when Sanders spoke out in support of Representative Ilhan Omar, the target of a racist attack by Trump that has gone on for nearly a week over a passing characterization she made last month of the September 11 attacks.

“I support a Muslim member of Congress not to be attacked every single day in outrageous racist remarks,” Sanders said, again to cheers. He went on to defend Omar for her criticism of Israel policy, saying: “It is not antisemitic to be critical of a rightwing government in Israel.”

Many in the audience cheered and clapped.

WHY MENDOCINO COUNTY SHOULD SPEND MEASURE B FUNDS ON A BOARD AND CARE FACILITY

JAMES MARMON NOTES:

Most of Mendocino's out of county placements are in board and cares, primarily at Davis Guest House, and Ortner's Willow Glen. Mendo pays out 1.8 million dollars a year for those placements. Beds are disappearing and prices are going up.

California’s overlooked mental health ‘catastrophe’—vanishing care options

As board-and-care-homes disappear, it leaves leave residents with few choices

(Today, April 15, 2019)

“If legislators don’t get onto this, we’re in big trouble,” said Lisa Kodmur, who is contracting with Los Angeles County on the issue. “We will see more homelessness, more incarceration, more institutionalization, more people living on the streets.”

California’s overlooked mental health ‘catastrophe’—vanishing care options

James Marmon MSW

Former Mental Health Specialist

Sacramento, Placer, and Lake County.

Behavioral Health System Gap Analysis & Recommendations (page 34)

The rate of growth in Mendocino County’s utilization of inpatient psychiatric care between FY 2016-17 and FY 2017-18 should alarm public officials and the public.

This high level of utilization and its associated costs are not in line with the BHRS Mental Health Department’s mission to deliver services “in the least restrictive, most accessible environment within a coordinated system of care that is respectful of a person's family, language, heritage and culture.” Further, the costs associated with this level of care are not sustainable over time.

These data reveal a serious weakness in the overall composition of the County’s mental health services continuum – there are no meaningful alternatives to inpatient psychiatric care, and there are insufficient front-end services that support persons with mental illness and reduce the incidence of crisis conditions.

-Lee Kemper

https://www.mendocinocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=23234

James Marmon MSW

Former Mental Health Specialist

Sacramento, Placer, and Lake Counties

“TRUE INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

MAYBE IT'S THE YOGURT

It might be the Greek yogurt I've just eaten, but since I read this morning's news of the fire which has consumed the rear of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, my eyes have been teary. Much of the roof has fallen in. Its walls are quarried from stone. It took 300 years to build. Twenty generations.

The cathedral is the most visited place in Paris. 12,500,000 people a year, from all over the world. It is the most visited attraction in Paris. Immediately north of it is the holocaust museum. Across the Seine is Shakespeare and Company, the place that gave birth to James Joyce. An X is cemented in the sidewalk outside marking the geographical center of the world. I have been to all of these places. Probably, so have you. It is the stone equivalent of Crater Lake or the Oregon Coast. And I am neither Catholic not Christian.

In ways, today's new has been like a surprise never dreamed of. It is a gut punch from God. Even writing this brings tears to my eyes again. I took a walk in the rain today. I spent some time meditating, in an echo of what I called my fire meditation. Except that one eventually brought me here.

We will remember today for the rest of our lives. It is a marker. It is also a romantic symphony. A Puccini aria. It is also a wake-up call from God.

---

MY GRANDKIDS, MY GOD

As the world watched the Notre Dame fire yesterday -- as the Middle Ages burned in front of our eyes, I thought of my grandkids. I thought of the ways they can access all of human knowledge right there with those ubiquitous digital machines while they are texting three different friends around the world, playing video games and wondering how they will ever get laid. These kids (our future) speak a different language than we do. They are surfing the digital world. But most of them wouldn't know how to plant a carrot, or where. They wouldn't know how they might respond to a flirt.

They think their water comes from the ocean until they try to drink it. Would be at sea, so to speak, if they were forced to find more. They don't know where north is. One can easily picture them wandering lost. Slowly starving and freezing. Or maybe dehydrated. They will probably die with their phones in their hand. In the end, they know nothing.

But, of course, neither do you. And neither do I. I am writing this on my Kindle. I watched Paris burning on my Kindle, stay in touch with friends on my Kindle. But I nearly joined the Peace Corps to introduce the starving in Africa to drip irrigation. I drink the best water there is and know where it comes from. I know where my garbage goes. And I have danced to Jerry Garcia. Marched shoulder beside Caesar Chavez. I guess it's time to redefine having a good time. Seriously, all the best to you. And good luck.

---

DESTINY?

Visiting with a Mendo friend a while ago, I wondered what might I have become if I hadn't settled on becoming a high school teacher five minutes into my first class in junior college, the ink not yet dry on my diploma. JFK had just been assassinated.

The English masters, still wet too, was a perfectly suitable aid to a pre-med. I thought of heading to medical school, probably at Berkeley. But if I could do it now, I'd probably do climatology. Maybe meteorology. Real science, not head for TV. But definitely at Oregon State. I would specialize in climatolgy. A research vessel. Cascadia's fault.

I always thought I would make a good baseball announcer, especially on radio. High school to the majors. I would develop a unique homerun call. A set dresser. A Foley desk. Special effects. Directing movies. I almost went for being a Unitarian minister [!] It's a big world out there. There are many things. Be one with a vengeance.

(Bruce Brady)