You Don't Get To Live Here

By Fred Owens

You Don't Get To Live Here

I have heard lamentations from young people that the rent on the West Coast is sky high. They are priced out of Seattle, Portland, the Bay area, and any housing in LA near the beach. You know what that means? You don't get to live here.

Call me when you have a real problem. If you have a toothache and need a ride to the dentist, I'm you're man. If you lost your job and need another one, maybe I can help. If you have a sick child needing medical attention, that is a serious problem that trumps any difficulty of mine. Those are real problems.

But if you want to live in this cool urban environment and you can't afford it, that's not a priority for me. Look for neighborhoods that aren't cool. The rent is often cheaper in those places. Think Nebraska. Go there and make it cool.

I talked with a friend in Venice last month. Adam is a moderately successful screenwriter, age 49, with spouse and child. "I could never buy a home in Venice," he said, "but I visited Bellingham earlier this year. I might be able to buy property there."

Yes, but Adam better act fast. Housing prices in all these coastal markets are rapidly rising.

Better to think long term, think about climate change -- maybe moving inland to higher ground is a good bet in the long run. Go there and make it cool.....Fresno and San Bernardino in California, any place in Kansas  -- the people in those communities would be so glad that you considered living there. Columbus, Ohio is a great town. Go inland, forget the coast.

Election Forecast. I spoke with fellow Democrat Stuart Welch. He is the former owner of the Rexville Store in LaConner and widely considered to be an expert on almost everything. "I'm sticking with my prediction," Stuart said. "It's going to be a close race right to the finish, but Hillary will pull ahead at the last minute and ride to victory. A lot of people like Trump for his shenanigans, but when the people vote they will get serious and they will vote for Hillary."

Stuart remains steadfast and calm, but Jimmy Schermerhorn is getting nervous. Jimmy lives next door to Stuart's woodworking shop. He is an auto mechanic by occupation and a very sensitive man. He worries that Trump might pull it off. I share that same nervousness.

What consoles me is this -- I don't like either candidate, but in a way, it doesn't matter who occupies the White House. This nation is good and great because of the whole-hearted efforts that all the people make, all 300 million of us. No one man, and no one woman, can ruin it. I believe in you, and I ask you to believe in me, and together we can make it better........

 I guess that sounds a bit tooty-fruity. Of course it matters who wins the election and I am voting for Hillary Clinton.

Jim Smith Dies. Practically my best friend ever, Jim Smith died in his sleep in the early hours of Friday, September 16. He was 76. His wife Janet said he went peacefully. Jim's health had been somewhat poorly in recent years and he seemed a little fuzzy the last time I spoke with him on the phone about one month ago. But there was no indication of any serious trouble. He just had a huge heart attack at 3 a.m. and bought the ranch.

The coincidence is that three weeks ago, without any premonition, Laurie and I had bought plane tickets to Seattle, primarily to visit my daughter Eva and see the new home she bought with her wife Lara. We planned to spend the weekend with Eva and make a day trip up to LaConner to see Jim and Janet and some other friends.

Turns out we will be seeing them, at Jim's memorial service, Sunday, October 2, at the LaConner Methodist church.  A lot a Jim's friends, who are mainly my friends as well, will be there.

Janet lost her husband and we must be of great sympathy to her. He was such a good man. But many people do not know that Jim had a twin sister Joan who lives in Seattle. Jim and Joan were as close as brother and sister can be, being twins, and this is a big loss for Joan.

Frog Hospital keeps selling subscriptions. I've been getting checks in the mail from faithful supporters. I received a $50 check from Ted,  a realtor in Boston, a man who has been on the Frog Hospital mailing list since the beginning of this newsletter in 1999. I will send him a thank you note by email.

You would think, after 17 years of this newsletter, that I would want to coast into the sunset. Nope. I have big plans -- to increase income and increase readership. I am meeting with a marketing specialist for this reason. A hopeful growth is coming to this little Internet rag.

Driving Miss Mabel. Mabel lives across the street from us. When she got to be 95 she stopped driving her car, so now I take her to the grocery store once a week. When we got to the produce section, she asked me to pick out a good cantelope. Assuming the wisdom of her advanced age, I said to her, "Which one looks ripe?" She said "How would I know?"

Working for Nice People. I worked for Italian lady this morning, putting organic spray on all the roses and fruit trees. She is a very kind woman. She said, "Just act like this is your own garden and do whatever you like." That sure puts me at ease. There is nothing better than working for nice people.  

Subscriptions. Frog Hospital is free and hundreds of readers have enjoyed reading 25 issues every year since 1999. but if you really insist on paying for a subscription, then you will be remembered in the editor's bedtime prayers.

To subscribe, you must go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button with your contribution of $25 or $50. Or mail a check for $25 or $50 to

Fred Owens

1105 Veronica Springs RD

Santa Barbara, CA 93105

thank you very much,

Fred

--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

Old Men Talking

​
Old Men Talking ..... a poem

She wants to be President, says it's her turn.
They all say that. It's our turn.

Our turn for what?

To run the country.

They want to run the country? Why?

They want to run the country because they think they can do a better job.

Do you mean Hillary Clinton or old women in general?

I mean both -- they think they can do a better job.

Maybe they can.

Yeah, maybe better or maybe worse.

But they're saying it's their turn.....

So let 'em.

If they run the country, what will we do?

Good question.

Got time for a game of cribbage?

Got all day.

Election Forecast. Okay, I'm not much of a poet but it's short. The words above are my version of old men endorsing the Democratic candidate. She is the likely winner at this point, but the race is tightening and I predict it will go down to the last day.

In today's newsletter I am being entirely supportive and kindly toward Hillary Clinton. I felt a warmth in my heart for her when she had that coughing fit. That was normal. She might have had a touch of flu -- that happens to everybody.

Our housemate Julia said that it's awfully tough for Hillary to run a campaign. Tough? My brother teaches high school in Los Angeles. Imagine facing a room full of teenagers! That's tough..... so we all do those tough things and we all get those coughing fits or whatever. It's normal. Hillary Clinton has been sheltered by her immense wealth and 24-hour Secret Service protection. It is time for her to have the courage to walk among the people.

Olive Oil in Ojai

Doug Off produces olive oil from his orchard in Ojai, California..... He calls the place Topa Mountain Ranch..... You want to go to his website just to see the photo of Topa Mountain -- such a beautiful place. Ojai is a bit of a magic place. It is a somewhat famous town for attracting Hollywood luminaries who wish to indulge in expensive spa treatments and play at having a ranch. Doug Off himself is not of this ilk, being retired from the petroleum business -- He made kind of a cool transition -- from oil wells to olive oil trees.

Olive trees, grown for oil, have a great future in California. They don't need nearly as much water as the other tree crops like almonds and apricots.

The best crops for a drier climate are olives, grapes and figs..... 

Weather. They got a ton of rain in Arizona, downpours and flash floods. We got nary a drop in Santa Barbara. But the grapes are doing well. My Laurie has a grape vine about forty feet along and it was planted forty years ago. Stout vines, roots down deep and never gets watered. This year she is harvesting nearly 200 pounds of Concord table grapes. Sweet and pretty.........But it's too dry out there. Eucalyptus trees across the way are leafless and surely dead. I work for the Swiss lady every two weeks and she said there are a lot of critters that come to her bird bath for a drink -- where else can they go?  Lake Cachuma, the principle source of water for Santa Barbara is effectively closed and empty -- the reservoir is down to the dregs, the undrinkable portion known as the Black Pool.

But the weather has been great this summer, meaning delightfully cool evenings and the days have not been too hot. You get used to good weather if you live in Santa Barbara, you start losing that edge you carried all your life, and folks might think you've gone soft because you have.

What We Are Watching on TV. Nurse Jackie on Netflix. We're on Season 6. We watch four half-hour episodes per evening, a mini-binge. I worked five years at Skagit Valley Hospital and Nurse Jackie reminds me of women I worked with. I keep looking at the ER in the show and thinking I was there. I used to do that  -- that silent assistant in the background, that was me.

Subscriptions. Frog Hospital is free and hundreds of readers have enjoyed reading 25 issues every year since 1998. but if you really insist on paying for a subscription, then you will be remembered in the editor's bedtime prayers.

To subscribe, you must go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button with your contribution of $25 or $50. Or mail a check for $25 or $50 to

Fred Owens

1105 Veronica Springs RD

Santa Barbara, CA 93105

thank you very much

--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

on the shelf

Trump is an ogre of mythic proportions. His name will be remembered for centuries. He is on a par with Ivan the Terrible and Ghengis Kahn. He is a master of drama.....the writer in me loves him...he is so very, very, very baaaaaaaaad!

They will write novels and make films and create operas about Trump. He is larger than life.  I saw him Thursday night on three channels simultaneously -- CNN, MSNBC and Fox News -- all broadcasting his immigration speech live. The cameras love Trump................Compare Trump to Hillary. She is dull. Even her scandals are dull -- like email. Tell me the cinematic qualities of email -- how do you film a story about email? Hillary has no story, no movie, no opera, no myth........I'm trying to support Hillary Clinton but she is near to invisible. I never hear from her. She runs a tightly controlled machine. How could a person like me be on her campaign staff?  She requires obedience and blind loyalty, as she grinds it out on her path to the White House.

So many people feel she deserves it. She's waited so long. She spent eight years helping her husband do his job, being a loyal wife. Should she get a turn now? For all the women who waited tables to get their husbands through law school  -- is it her turn now?

But I don't hear from her or from her staff. They want people who will stay on message. They have their calculations and media buys. They don't need my support.  I am frustrated and disappointed, because I wanted to play a part in the big show, but I'm on the shelf. It's not my turn.

Except I am part of a very large group -- voters in the millions who can barely stand her but still prefer her to Trump. Can she win without us?

Refusing to Stand. San Francisco Quarterback Colin Kaepernick refuses to stand for the national anthem in protest of black oppression. He got my attention, so here's what I think about his stand:

Why do black parents let their sons and daughters play ball? Professional sports are a huge payoff for a tiny minority of black youth -- a thousand losers and one winner. Keep your children out of the NFL and the NBA. don't let them play basketball or football. There is no future in it. Focus on real careers, let your children be architects and pharmacists, dentists, farmers, electricians, doctors and nurses. These people are the heroes of black America. Stay away from sports. My prayer for black America is that sports hero Mohammed Ali is the last of his kind.

It's All About Frog Hospital. Boy, I need to get out of my own head. This could be a good day for the beach. Did you know that spending more time on the beach can solve almost any problem?

Frog Hospital comes to life. I am determined to add more names to the Frog Hospital mailing list. Right now we are at 350 people and our goal is 500. This week I added two names, Danny Jensen in LaConner and Ron Newman in New England. Normally I don't reveal subscriber names, but just this once I do this, as an example. I have known both of these gentlemen for many years and the interesting thing is how little they have in common..... except they both like to read Frog Hospital. That is the nature of this publication -- that we cover the territory and don't take sides. Okay, I'm a Democrat, but not combative.

That is why you should pitch in and buy a subscription. True, you can stay on the mailing list for free and forever and I will still be grateful, but it is a simple matter of time and money. I am through with gardening work and I have spent too many years with a shovel and trowel, toiling like a peasant. I only do it because I need the money. So Frog Hospital income means a healthful change for me.

Think about it. Trump doesn't need the money. Hillary doesn't need the money. I do need the money.

Go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button for $25. Or make a check for $25, make it out to Fred Owens and mail it to:

Fred Owens

1105 Veronica Springs RD

Santa Barbara, CA 93105

thanks a lot,

Fred

--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

Three Reasons Why I am a Democrat.

Three Reasons Why I am a Democrat.

1. I believe we should extend the franchise to felons and fools. If you have served your sentence, then you get to vote. You may be an uninformed incompetent lazy good-for-nothing, but your vote is as good as mine. I believe it should be difficult NOT to be registered to vote. I oppose all voter identification laws. That makes me a Democrat.

2. I believe in the forgiveness debts. I heard that someplace in a prayer -- to forgive and ask to be forgiven. That applies to financial errors as well as other matters. There's a lot of bad debt out there -- especially student loans that will never be made whole, not in a million years. It takes two fools to make a bad loan. If either the debtor or the creditor had said no it wouldn't have happened. Forgive the bad debts and start the game over again. That makes me a Democrat.
3. And I don't just believe, I know, that Harry Truman was a better president than Dwight Eisenhower. They both came from humble roots in farm country in the Midwest. Eisenhower rose to lofty heights, but Truman never forgot where he came from. And that makes me a Democrat.
Family Planning
"Family planning" is quite a contradiction. Not to say that plans are wrong, no, plans are very good. But children are much more important than any plan. How many and when you have them are subject to a certain amount of planning and that's good -- but there is ample evidence of children showing up unbidden and children longed for but not appearing. And that's just the start. Once you have them, despite all the work you do, and more planning of course, you don't have much control over how your children turn out. A family is, in essence, not a plan.

Too Funny.....25 analogies from actual high school essays. I really thought this was funny, but you might not laugh at all.

"When she tried to sing it sounded like a walrus giving birth to farm equipment."

"Her eyes were like the stars, not because they twinkle, but because they were so far apart."

And so on and so forth.

Stand for the National Anthem.  The San Francisco QB refuses to rise for the national anthem. I don't care. He can stand, sit, walk out the door, do anything but talk on his cell phone. If he talks on his cell phone while we sing the national anthem he should be shot.

Who Likes Beer. Hillary Clinton likes beer. Trump doesn't like beer. That settles it for me.

Older Women. A lot of older women are strong supporters of Hillary Clinton. They believe that Hillary Clinton is a genuine leader and an inspirational figure who will make a very good President. She is one of their own.

But.... I prefer Tim Kaine for President. He is the right age, 58. He has moderate views and a friendly smile. He served as Governor of Virginia....serving as governor is the best qualification for the top job. And, finally, he has a stable and unremarkable marriage.

Election Forecast. Trump is gaining on Hillary. His dramatic trip to Mexico captured the headlines. His immigration speech was carried live on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News.

Where was Hillary?  Hillary had to shake off the Weiner thing. She is not getting her message across.

The Frog Hospital Story. I called Charlie Krafft because Fishtown Editor Allen Frost wanted me to call Charlie. Charlie and I have been on the outs three years ... I won't go into it..... So I called Charlie and we talked.

It was Charlie himself who coined the term "Frog Hospital" although he denies it. He says that Clyde Sandborn coined the term "Frog Hospital" and Clyde drowned in 1996. Well, it doesn't matter. We will continue the Frog Hospital story in subsequent issues, but first we have to raise some money......

Your Subscription Dollars. Your subscription dollars fund the enterprise. Our work at Frog Hospital is essential to the well-being of the nation. This election is getting too nasty, but you can count on me to stay cool and calm. I will maintain my sense of humor and strive for universal friendship.

Make sure that sense of harmony continues -- Go to the Frog Hospital blog and hit the PayPal button for $25 or make a check out to Fred Owens and mail it to

Fred Owens

1105 Veronica Springs RD

Santa Barbara CA 93105

 

thanks for your support,

Fred

--

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital