Disaster Movie

        We've executed the drive from Burbank, Ca. to Chester, Ca (nearly 600 miles) at least 40 times over the last 40 years. One has to psych-up for the escape from the West's most populous regions to the least...from the San Fernando Valley out through the desert suburbs of Palmdale and Lancaster to the relatively safe roads beyond Mohave. This last Sunday we found it a very different experience...we shared the eight lane fwys of I-5 and I-14 with only a handful of trucks. It was daylight (7 to 8am) and there were stretches of freeway with absolutely no cars in sight. Soooo...was this a set-up for another SoCal disaster movie?
         Beyond Mohave...nothing moving. A group of nearly 100 passenger jets were parked south of the highway for dry storage where we usually see a only two dozen. I treat my Honda like I want it to last for a couple of decades so,  I try to keep the speed down near sixty miles per hour. When there are no other cars in sight 62 miles per hour feels very slow. The few cars I did see passed me like I was standing still (maybe 90 mph)...have I seen this movie? A Mad Max movie? I was wishing I had a weapon...more than just an oversized pedal wrench. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) has convincingly changed the motoring mentality of the majority of Californians.
        Sure it was Sunday but, suburban Californians race to malls and 'big box' stores on Sundays. By 8am everyone is filling the football field-sized parking lots, jockeying for the best slots...on this day, the parking lots were empty. The boulevards that underpass the freeways were empty...really, there was no one in sight. We'll never see this again, I told my wife in the passenger's seat. I must say, I prefer a little more activity than this...how are the gas stations going to stay open?

He Is A Liar, A Con Man And A Cheat

       When I was growing up in the fifties, such accusations (He’s a liar, a con man and a cheat) would only apply to a mob boss, Mafia Don or a huckster (that my step-father didn’t approve of) probably from some Eastern European country. My step-father, to his credit, taught Honesty (with a capital H) to all of us little people who were nourished by and benefitted from his hard work and strong principals. Not in so many words, he explained, to me and my siblings, that our personal integrity and reputations (and therefore our future) depended upon how we dealt daily with the issue of honesty.    
        I’m not incredibly intelligent, I’ll never measure up to the ideal of material wealth by American standards but, I did take to heart the teachings of my surrogate father and I continue to operate under the idiom that ‘Honesty is the best policy’.
        Of course, in his world, politicians and community leaders were not beyond reproach...in fact, they were roundly admonished and criticized for their progressive ideas (ie. Eisenhauer, Martin Luther King, Kennedy and Johnson). None of these were tagged by their personal lawyers (for a decade) as “A liar, a con man and a cheat.”

Feeling Kind Of Insane...Six Weeks And No Rain

        February and March are normally our wettest months...if not in the shape of snow, definitely in the form of rain. It has been six weeks without either. This is truly insane...the new normal and, we worry about the flames. The first week of March has already squeaked by and now we are not trusting the weatherman's eye. I am thinking we always need something to worry about. Why do we worry when there's nothing we can do to change the politics or the weather?
        Now, we have Covid 19 a new bug in the air and plenty of talk about it, to give us a scare. I'm really not worried, I'm not flying anywhere... this month or next. So, I really don't care.   ( I'm stuck in a Dr. Seuss loop here.) What I really mean to say, is that we really shouldn't worry, we should just go out and play.
        Oh brother...it's what my sisters always say. Is this what it's like when your mind goes astray? Ok, I'm looking forward to Spring, maybe it'll be wet. But, if you were a thinker like me ...you wouldn't take that bet. Give me a wrench, ball bearings and grease...aren't we all glad I didn't become a priest.