Eva with a chicken

Eugene got the headline last week, "My Son the Librarian."  First born and all that. Eva only got an honorable mention, a tag along kid.

But I used to tell her, "You always be grateful to your older brother. He was the one who took the blows. He ran interference for you."

Mother and father work out their theories of child-rearing on the first child, until they get exhausted and give up. Then the second child comes along and they just do what comes naturally. It gets easier for everybody.

So being first born you get more attention, but how good is that?

Here she is about 11 years old holding a chicken, a Rhode Island Red. We lived on the old farm, 3325 Martin Road, Mount Vernon, 20 acres of overgrown pasture and alder wood. Probably 1990 when this photo was taken. Eva was born not far from this farm, at Skagit Valley Hospital, March 4, 1979. She was a pretty baby and the nurse combed her black hair into a curl.

We took her home from the hospital. She was energetic but not cranky. Didn't need too much sleep, always healthy, liked to play, had a good appetite, grew up strong and true.

I need to dig out a photo of her when she was a teenager and tell about those years. But I will leave you with this image of her embracing her hen friend.

These were magic chickens.  The coyotes were always coming around the house at night, but they never got a chicken. We never penned them either, they spent the night in a tree, I guess.

We had  three goats, but that didn't last long. One day we came home and one of the goats was inside the house, standing on the kitchen table, looking like she owned it. They were too smart for me, so we gave them away to somebody.

We cut all our firewood off the alder wood in back of the house. Lived there almost five years. Until January, 1991, when we got up and moved clear across the country to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a furnished apartment with off-street parking in the fancy part of town  -- Cambridge is where Eva matriculated as a  teenager, so I will tell that next.

When we lived on the old farm on Martin Rd, Eugene helped with the firewood.

Looking for Work. I finished working at the greenhouse at Healing Grounds Nursery in Goleta and I am looking for another position. It's very discouraging. I have a dismal employment record and few marketable skills. If esteem depends on accomplishment in the world of work, I come up zero.  I did enjoy working at the Wilson County News in South Texas -- the publisher of that newspaper reads Frog Hospital, so i want her to know that -- and I liked working at the Hedlin Produce Stand in LaConner.

That's two bright spots in 50 years of labor, but I'm not done, I will find something. The only thing worse than working is not working.

Important Events in the Lives of Famous People

Frederick Winyard and his wife Nora -- their home is in Anacortes -- traveled to Portland, Oregon for the 50th class reunion of Reed College, class of 1965.

Fred denied rumors that he served as a mechanic on Ken Kesey's Magic Bus back in those days.

Patricia Paul, LaConner attorney and almost famous cook, is re-considering her plans to visit El Salvador -- too much violence.

Alan Archibald, prolific left-wing blogger from North Carolina, is spending five weeks in Portugal, Spain and Morocco. Alan has sent me an email almost every day for the past ten years. I read most of them and often answer back. His blog is Pax on Both Houses.

Harvey Blume of Cambridge, Mass. and Andy Boyer of Columbus, Ohio are hoping the Cleveland Cavaliers can finally bring one home. Me too.

Monica Guzman, cutting edge blogger from Seattle, has been awarded a one-year fellowship at Harvard  -- you know, that school in Cambridge. She posted a link to a story about Digital Journalism -- her field -- that was published in the New York Review of Books.

The story is about news websites such as Buzz Feed and Vox, and how prominent journalists like Nate Silver are breaking away from the mother ship -- in Silver's case, it's the NYTimes -- to found their own news websites.

All this new news stuff goes right past me, but one thing remains the same. The article reports that sites like Buzz Feed are pressured by their advertisers to promote certain stories and kill other stories. Yes, that is the eternal struggle for integrity in journalism, in all formats. Advertisers pay the freight and want to have their say. Some things never change.

The Drought.  In the Goleta Water District north of Santa Barbara, water rates are going up by 50%. It's really quite simple -- when people use less water, the costs to the district do not decline. They still have to maintain 270 miles of pipes and pumps and service 16,000 meters.  Ergo, they need to charge more money for using less water. Makes perfect sense to me. But a lot of rate payers are simply not paying attention and will be rudely shocked come July when their $100 monthly bill comes to $150.

This is called a drought surcharge. My question, before the board at the June 9 meeting, will be, "When the drought is over, will the rate go back down again?"

Other Drought News. A square patch of lawn, 10 feet by 20 feet, in Laurie's back yard, looks brown and dismal. No watering. We can replace the grass with a drought-tolerant ground covering called dymondia, but it makes little sense to do this in June, when the ground is hard. We will wait until November, when we can expect at least some rain. That will soften the ground and make lawn removal much easier. Really, summer is not a good time to dig up grass and re-plant. I'm afraid we will have to kindly gaze on the brown patch and let it stay dormant.

Life in Santa Barbara. Life in Santa Barbara is a peach.

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I love this photo. It costs me seven years and a $150,000, but it was worth it. This was our wedding day, September 1, 1997, the day after Princess Diana died in a car accident.

Precious changed into this red dress for the reception after the ceremony. She loaned her flowery print dress to her cousin Tanti on the left.

Tanti was a free spirit -- notice she is not wearing shoes. Tanti had six children, "She likes men too much," Precious explained. And she was always happy and smiling -- I mean Tanti.

Precious was more reserved. The only time I ever saw her cry was at Aunt Janet's funeral when she threw herself on the grave and wept.

I said why do you never cry, and Precious told me about the time when she was ten-years-old and the soldiers came to Entumbani and made it a killing field. Precious took her younger brothers into the bushes and they hid for several days. She can't remember how long, but there was no water or food, and if they cried they would be found and killed.  So she never cried, and not since then never cried.

But our wedding day was happy for everyone.

You can't get a photo like this, of an African woman and her cousins on her wedding day. This natural, simple beauty. So relaxed, yet so proud. So sweet, yet so intelligent. Just as they are. You can't get this photo unless you truly belong there. So that's why I said it took me seven years and $150,000. You can't just get on a plane and fly to Africa and get this photo. You have to fully be there, as I was, for a time, 18 years ago.

God Bless Africa

Too many beautiful women. I will tell you about this some other time -- who they are and why they are gathered under the pepper tree at our house on Shottery Crescent.  But it relates to today's topic, the African National Anthem, because this is their song.


God Bless Africa is the African National Anthem

This moving rendition is sung by Paul Simon, Ladysmith and Miriam Makeba.

I searched the Internet high and low for the lyrics and translation, but I could not locate them. Perhaps it is better to simply meditate on the opening line -- God Bless Africa -- yes, may God Bless Africa  -- Nkosi Sikelele Africa.

A man with an orderly mind might question this phrase -- "African National Anthem."  This orderly man would ask, "Africa is not a nation, so how can it have a national anthem?"

I can explain this. Of course Africa is a continent composed of many nations, but the idea of a nation, firm and compact within its borders, with a certain culture and language distinct from other nations -- this notion is somewhat foreign to Africa. It might seem confusing to the orderly man. Surely it was confusing to me.

When I met Precious and her friend Nellie one evening in February of 1997, in the patio of the Palace Hotel in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and she told me her name was Precious, I was amazed at her forthright beauty and dazzling smile. But I am a man of a restrained and modest nature. Precious, as a name, seemed so over the top  -- I almost blushed.

In time I found out she had other names, at least two that I knew of. She showed me her two passports. One from Zimbabwe that gave her name as Precious Sibanda, born in 1967. The other passport was from Malawi and said her name was Precious Mataka, born in 1971.

This was not orderly. This was fantastic.To my credit, I never asked her what was her real name. "But, what is your real name?"  People with questions like that don't last long in Africa. That is like asking "What time does the bus get here?"

You just have to go with it. And sing with gusto, "God Bless Africa, Nkosi Sikelele Africa,"  the words of the African National Anthem.

The Wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Elephant

Their name is Ndlovu which means elephant. This is their wedding portrait on that special day in 1997 -- Mr. and Mrs. Elephant.

Commonly in Ndebele culture people have the names of animals, so you will meet Mr. Monkey, Mr. Cow and so forth.

You see the woman in the red blouse -- that is Precious, a cousin of the newlyweds. You see the the bridesmaids in procession in their rented gowns. I had seen them at the hall rehearsing their wedding dances the day before.

Amina was one of the bridesmaids. She has a half-sister to Precious, having the same father, but a different mother, as Precious's father seemed to go through wives rather quickly.   Amina's mother was a Tonga woman and the Tonga people from the Zambezi Valley are the blackest people of Zimbabwe, black as coal, black as midnight, black as velvet, a richness of pigment and a poverty of soil. The Tonga people are very poor in their hot country where the rain is scarce and the corn grows scarcely.

Amina was blacker than Precious, and younger and not as pretty. I liked her a lot because she was easy to be with.... Precious was the oldest of her brothers and sisters and the oldest of her cousins being the first born of her father who was the first born of her grandfather..... it gets complicated... she was related to the Ndlovus in some way..... After a while I just called them all cousins.... and they called me umkunyani which means son-in-law or "he who pays for everything."

I have to explain that in another post --  the lobola -- how a man pays for his bride.

Back to Mr. and Mrs. Elephant on their special day, seen here in procession in the township of Nketa Nine, at the home of our Uncle Smiley and his wife, Mamazala.

The blessed couple had six children and had been living together for 12 years, but the government had launched a new program of giving low interest mortgage loans to married couples. This program prompted the ceremony. Mrs. Elephant  would have her dignity at last and well deserved too, you would admit. She would have her proper home and she would have a proper wedding, complete with gown,  bridesmaids, cake and wedding feast.

Mr. Ndlovu had approached me several days before the wedding.  Would I give him a ride to Filabusi in my truck to pick up the the meat for the wedding feast? -- they had slaughtered a cow, he said.

Of course, I said, knowing it took an hour to get to Filabusi, and this being Africa, the arrangements of picking up the meat might take most of the day.

"So the beef is ready to be delivered?" I asked. He hesitated, looking at his feet, well, they have not yet slaughtered the cow.

Oh boy, this will be a long day, to find the cow, slaughter the cow, load the beef in the back of the truck and deliver it somewhere -- had Mr. Ndlovu arranged a cooler to store the beef?

Not exactly. In fact, he kind of wondered if I could loan him the money to buy the cow -- please?

Go the Barclay's Bank, withdraw enough cash to buy a cow, drive to Filabusi, find someone who wants to sell a cow, negotiate a price, then slaughter the cow, load the beef, drive back to Bulawayo, and arrange for storage in a cooler.

That was too much for me. I knew he had a job as a heavy equipment operator and was not poor, but he had spent all his money to rent the hall, and rent the bridal gowns, and buy the cake and other things. He had no funds for the beef.

I think I gave him the money in my pocket and wished him the very best.

But there was no beef at the wedding. Look at the photo again. notice the bowed head and sheepish expression on Mr. Ndlovu's face. Notice the fierce anger of Mrs. Ndlovu. No beef, and the meat of the cow is everything in Zimbabwe. The cow is prized above all other animals.

I wanted to laugh, but it was too sad. I took this photo from where I was sitting -- I had brought two chairs out to the yard to sit in the shade -- one for me and one for Mr. Mataka, the grandfather.

Mr. Mataka, approaching 80 years, was a happy man and always smiling. But this one and only time he was angry and he did not smile. "There is no food!" he said.

But, to my knowledge, Mr. and Mrs. Elephant got their mortgage and got their home and maybe they are happy together today, 18 years later.

I feel rich and thankful that my memory recalls so many of the details of this wonderful day in 1997.








 

My Son the Librarian

By Fred Owens

My son Eugene got a full-time job as a Librarian at the Exposition Park Regional Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. His specific responsibility is "Adult Services." We have teased him about that job title.

The Exposition Park Library is a 90-minute bus ride from Eugene and Erica's apartment in the Highland Park neighborhood  -- a long commute and quite common in LA. Eugene has been a bus rat for years -- he doesn't drive or own a car, and you can live quite well without one as he has established. He is a Man About Town. Living well in a great city like Los Angeles is about as good as you can do.

Eugene worked several years as a substitute Librarian before getting this permanent position. As a sub he got to know almost every branch of the library -- they posted him all over town.  And he got good at bus navigating .

At the library, Eugene often occupies the Reference Desk. In that capacity I picture him as Captain Kirk on the Enterprise, boldly going forth,  calmly assuring troubled library patrons with "How can I help you?" and "Where do you want to go with this?" and "What do you hope to accomplish?"

Happiness is children doing well in the world. I used to  tell him this when he was a teenager, "Just do something I can brag about, that's all I ask."

The daughter is doing well too. Eva has been at Boeing for a few years now. She recycles airplanes -- not by herself, of course, but she works in that area. They don't just throw the old planes away -- if you think about it....... She and Lara live in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle with their dog Odie.  I got a FB post from her today -- she has camping on Mount Baker. Ah, the great outdoors.

Tragedy. Maybe I am cherishing my kids a little bit more today because of Joe Biden's loss. I can't imagine anything more difficult.

Katcho Achadjian for Congress

You cannot look more Armenian than Katcho Achadjian,  Such a mustache and such a smile. This is a face with great character and depth.  He is running for Congress in our California district. I will vote for him surely, unless I discover something in his character or in his political record that indicates a defective nature. He currently serves in the California Assembly and he is used to the long commute to Sacramento and used to endless  meetings with fellow legislators. We could do worse to have such a fellow in Congress.

Helene Schneider for Congress. 

 Helene is the mayor of Santa Barbara.  She has such vigorous, life-affirming hair. She gives a California meaning to the word zaftig.  She declared her intention to serve in Congress, but she is making a big mistake. Being the mayor of Santa Barbara is the best and happiest job in American politics. Life is beautiful here. We are rich and we live near the beach. Helen presides as mayor over this feast and she comes home to her family every night.

But put her on the red-eye to Washington every week, staying in some dreadfully expensive and dreary apartment, squabbling in vicious and pointless committee meetings.She will hate Congress. She will become very unhappy. "Helen, you've got it good right here in Santa Barbara, and I want you to stay with us." So I will not vote for her.

Presidential Politics.  It's kind of a weird race for President with so many on the Republican side and Thunder  Pussy standing alone for the Democrats. See? That's why I don't write about her -- it's too easy to be insulting.

The race in  2016 could be the first contest with no White Man on the ballot. Put Marco Rubio with Carly Fiorina on the GOP ticket, and put Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro for the Democrats. There's nobody who looks like me.

Carly Fiorina is not Italian! She just married some guy with that name. I just looked that up. I am so disappointed. I was hoping for a First Italian President, but she has little chance of winning anyway.  What I Iike about her is that she is capable of filling the office. I have a broad perspective on this. I believe there are a fairly large number of Americans who might serve well as President, and I am vigorously anti-dynastic. She could do a better job than Texas Governor Rick Perry.

The most experienced candidate by far is former New York Governor George Pataki, a three-term Republican governor in a very Democratic state. You never heard of Pataki because he never screwed up too badly. And that is almost inspiring.

Ted Cruz is Hispanic. Can you be white and Hispanic at the same time? He could be really good in the debates. Can we just have Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders debating? They are the only two candidates of any interest.

Let's all vote for Bernie Sanders and put  the first Jew in the  White House. I love him. He's from Brooklyn. Just to hear him talk is a blessing. If the election were held today I would vote for Bernie.

Question. Is America going to hell or are we on the path to a golden future?

Answer.

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Cruising on the Zambezi River

I was going to tell you about the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Elephant. And I was going to tell you about the quality and nature of African hair.

And I will tell you -- and I will tell you about all the Aunties, and our trip to Malawi and so much more. You will love to hear these stories and look at these photos.

But today I am relaxing on the evening Booze Cruise. Notice I am wearing a cotton sweater -- because it is not always hot in Africa. And notice the smile on my face and the relaxed posture of my folded hands and the cold beer on the table, drifting down the Zambezi River, where the river is broad and deep approaching Victoria Falls. There is an awesome geography as the water boils over the falls into a cauldron of furious white water, but above the falls, it is blissful as you see it.

The only danger are the hippos. Hippos live in many rivers in Africa, along with crocodiles, and many Africans cannot swim and fear the water for this reason. Of the two, crocodile and hippo, the hippo is the most dangerous -- so big and strong and angry. They will kill you and sink your boat, so we kept close enough for a look, but not too close.

As for hippos and other wild game, the big fearsome animals -- the lions and leopards and rhinos and buffalo and elephants,  all the big game, I have never heard an African say a word of encouragement except to say kill them all and eat them for they are too dangerous. All conservation efforts come from white Europeans. But the people who live in Africa love cows, because they are gentle and can be herded -- they do  not love elephants which can crush any fence and trample any cornfield. And to live near a wild lion? And not have a powerful rifle to protect your home?

I am afraid to say that African people have no romantic notions about wild game, no ancient traditions. Except for the cows. They only love the cows and fear the rest. Lions and elephants are good for the tourist business, that is all.

You may disagree with this notion, but you do not live in Africa.

Excuse me. I was distracted from my reverie. Forget my cynical sermon. Leave your cares behind and picture me floating down the river, with my cold beer and the beautiful woman who took this photo. Look at my face and see her reflection in it, and see how beautiful she is. African bliss.

Riding the Elephant

Precious was having a wild hair day so she went for a ride on the elephant.


African elephants are very hard to tame. They are not used as work animals like the elephants of India. I asked the driver on the elephant I was riding. "How do you get them to do what you want?"

He said, "I can't get them to do anything."

"But we seem to be riding safely," I said.

"Until we run out of peanuts," he said.

The elephant would twist his trunk up and back to the driver and be given a peanut.

This was in 1997 in Chihvu, which is on the road between Bulawayo and Harare. The elephants were kept at a game farm called Denise's Kitchen. We stayed there overnight and rode the pachyderms on a whim.

By the time of this outing we had been married for several months. I was getting homesick and missing my kids and the money part was impossible. I could see other white people becoming established in Zimbabwe and making a living, but the ways of the African economy were too mysterious for me.  I had hoped to buy farm property and grow some vegetables and manage a backpackers hostel near Matopos National Park. That was impossible. I wanted to go home.

I said to Precious, "Do you want to go to America?" She said, "Yes." I figured if she was brave enough to ride the elephant, she could be brave enough to come to America.

"Do you want to come to America?"

"Yes."

This is the full extent of the conversation we had on this topic. It was typical, in our relationship, to have very short and compact dialogs. She spoke English poorly and she had no patience to teach me her language of Ndebele. And she had the very attractive quality of getting right to the point. She said yes because that's what she meant.

This was a woman who would go shopping in five minutes. Like walk into a store -- this actually happened and I saw it -- walk over to the dress rack, spend about 30 seconds scanning up and down, and then say "I'll take this one."

But we have more to say about elephants. The next post will feature the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Elephant.

Also, at a later date, we will answer questions white people have about African hair.

We Were Here First

Yah, you were here first and $2 will buy you a cup of coffee.

Bushmen, or San people, drew the cave art resplendent in Matopos Park, as you can see, wonderful drawings in red ochre, drawings made thousands of years ago.

We used to drive out to the park and stand in the cave to look at the drawings. We pretended it was our home. I said to her, "We could live in this cave, fix it up nice, have a fire, stay warm and dry and the leopards could not attack us at night." I said that because it made sense to live in a cave, and to make drawings is a natural urge, common to all men at all times.

My African wife, Precious Mataka, was afraid of the Bushmen, or San people, as they are also called. "They are thieves and witches. They will play tricks on you. Stay away from them," she said. What could I say to that?    The Bushmen, or San people, are still remnant in far away places, but almost none are in town, so I never saw them.

I don't think I saw them. But maybe they saw me.

Who was here first? Not me, that's for sure. And how much does that matter? How much respect is due? Maybe a little, in my opinion. It much more matters what you are doing now.

I said I would explain the click sounds in the Ndebele language, also found in Zulu and in Xhosa.   The click sounds came from the Bushmen who have many click sounds.

They have been the sole occupants of South Africa for 10,000 years -- no, for 50,000 years -- no for 100,000 years -- and they speak with clicks.

But, maybe 2,000 years ago, at the time of Christ in Palestine, the Bantu peoples made a mass migration. The Bantus  -- all these tribes of Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, Shona, Tswana, Tonga, Kalanga and others -- originated in the central highlands of Africa -- in Rwanda and Burundi and the Congo and Cameroon.

They came migrating southwards with their cattle and crops, moving slowly, over generations, but taking over from the Bushmen who were pushed aside and conquered and enslaved.

Now the Bantu live and rule in South Africa, but they adopted the click sounds from the Bushmen in their language, and that's why the Ndebele language has click sounds -- a Bushmen heritage.

So my African wife spoke Ndebele and made click sounds which  I learned to imitation  -- but here family was not Ndebele. Her name, Mataka, was not Ndebele.  Anyone who heard that name would know her people were new comers.

I will tell you where her family came from in another post.

Amacimbi

Amacimbi means caterpillars in the Ndebele language. We say "mopane worms" in English. Amacimbi are not grown commercially, but gathered naturally when they appear from time to time in groves of mopane trees.

Amacimbi make a favorite tasty treat for African people, and an acquired taste for the rest of us.

But I am writing about the language today. The "c" in amacimbi is a click sound. Like a Tsk-sound made without breath, with your tongue right behind your upper teeth.  Ndebele has a 6 or 7 click sounds which are difficult for learners to pronounce.  I will tell you where the click sounds come from in another post.

Ndebele is spoken in the southern region of Zimbabwe. It is considered to be a dialect of Zulu, or a related language,. Either way Zulu speakers and Ndebele speaker can understand each other.

You remember Shaka Zulu, the terrible African warrior chief. He had a top lieutenant named Mzilikazi and they fought many battles together, but after a time they had an argument, and Shaka Zulu said he was going to kill Mzilikazi with his spear.

Shaka Zulu was a great killer, as you all know, so Mzilikazi ran for his life and his regiment ran away with him. They ran all the way to Zimbabwe, far from Shaka Zulu's army.

Mzilikazi conquered or took over the local people in southern Zimbabwe and founded his own tribe -- the Ndebele people.

And that is why the people of southern Zimbabwe speak Ndebele today.

ten thousand miles

TEN THOUSAND MILES

By Fred Owens

Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe is over ten thousand miles from Los Angeles. That's a long journey to a far away place, a very different place -- exotic, mysterious, dangerous, and beguiling. You might go and come back wounded and ravaged by disease, or come back laden with precious jewels, or disappear without a trace and never come back at all  -- if you went on this journey of 10,000 miles.

But that's not what I am writing about today. I am writing about the sidewalks of Los Angeles, which have never been inventoried precisely. The best guess is that Los Angeles has 10,000 miles of sidewalk. Ten Thousand Miles!

The sidewalks are deteriorating badly, an estimated 40 percent are in need of repair. This is obvious to any casual pedestrian.

The problem is tree roots. The problem is good versus good, which is what intrigues me. Trees are good and sidewalks are good. Tree roots grow under the sidewalk and heave them up. That doesn't bother me as a walker, I can just step around and over the bad parts -- but it's a harm for the wheel chair or the baby stroller, or the grocery cart, or any impaired walker.

It will be hard to make the sidewalks level again without severely damaging the trees. Los Angeles needs a sidewalk genius to to solve this problem.

Ten thousand miles of crumbling infrastructure  -- another example of a failed civil society.

The Real infrastructure. Bridges are falling down, Water pipes are bursting. Highways rumble with potholes. Nothing is getting fixed properly.

But it doesn't matter. The real infrastructure is in your pocket. It's your smart phone and it connects you to the Internet, which is the highway that actually matters  -- if you're 25-years-old and ready to take over the world.

The kids don't care if a bridge collapses, they just download the Bridge Down app to find an alternate route. Every problem has an app that solves that problem. That is the  new infrastructure -- the one we keep in good order because it has become  essential.

Imagine Google being down for a day, or Facebook being down for a week -- that would be a total calamity. The kids would hurl themselves into traffic or jump off cliffs and die  -- their despair would be fatal -- which is why these vital systems rarely fail -- they are too important.

But ten thousands miles of sidewalk in Los Angeles  -- that was yesterday's problem and nobody cares.

America Needs a Nap. Napping would improve the quality of life in this country and do so cheaply. A well-rested country is a happy country, Go to bed! Now! People who use their laptops or smart phones after ten p.m. should be arrested for Disturbing the Peace. At ten p.m. you make herb tea and read a book  -- unless you're out having fun, which is permitted.

Internet usage is isolating -- and you are alone when you do that even if someone else is in the room. People tend to engage their laptops for a reason, and these reasons often resemble something we call work. Stop working! Go to bed!

Or take a walk. Or just just lay your head down on your desk for ten minutes.

If you don't get enough sleep you will gain weight. Poorly rested children are candidates for obesity -- they substitute food for sleep and get fat.

Teenagers should not be allowed to drink coffee or caffeinated soft drinks, none, not until they are 18.

Get some rest. Take it easy.

$15 Per Hour or Bust. I don't care how many small businesses fail -- I have no sympathy for Mom and Pop. The minimum is $15. If you can't pay that you deserve to fail. I've worked in small businesses all my working life, and there is no virtue in smallness, no inherent benefit that I can tell, no excuse for not treating the help well. Your small business may be your dream, but it's not my dream. If you want to work 60 hours a week to stay afloat in your little shop, then fine. But don't think you're doing the world a favor by sacrificing your life on the altar of free enterprise. Freedom is the freedom to fail and if you can't pay a decent wage, I hope you do fail.

I'm not at all sure I am right about an increase in the minimum wage. There are many sound arguments against this, but I am right, or at least convinced, that we ought not be sentimental about small businesses or make efforts to save them.

Otherwise.  Otherwise I'm staying out of politics.

Frederick Winyard of Anacortes, shown here, about to take his out-of-town guests for a walk to view the Deception Pass Bridge.

I

Winyard wrote:

Your story about the drought tells it all. You live in a state with an

anti-industrial mindset. California greens drove

out timber, electric-generation, manufacturing,

agriculture is next. Return to natural-man, but

keep smart-phones and the media-industry.

The Pacific Ocean is an enormous reservoir of

water, just need to remove salt. Israel does it,

they bloom a desert by adding fresh-water. 

California loses population to states with more

economically-constructive politics. Your article

describes unimaginative morally-superior folks

fighting over the diminished remainder.

Frederick Winyard of Anacortes sent in this pithy rejoinder. His astringent style makes a good counterpoint to blind optimism. Fred has been my great pal and hiking buddy. He strides rapidly over the hills and mountains of Fidalgo Island, all the while talking as rapidly as he walks. He is a retired software developer with some interesting stories to tell about where he has been and what he has done. His wife Nora is a lovely woman -- warm hearted and cheerful. She is a talented seamstress. I have enjoyed many fine dinners in their Anacortes home. I have also been of some help doing their garden work and pruning.

African Dreams -- all the cool stories about Zimbabwe and the journey of Ten Thousand Miles can be found on my Frog Hospital blog

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Eating Mopane Worms

Notice she's wearing a lion t-shirt and she's staring at me to see if I flinch, and I'm about to chomp down on my third or fourth fried mopane worm. I call them land shrimp. People in Zimbabwe love a plateful of plump fried mopane worms. They're going to stick a plate in front of you sooner or later and I knew that. My expression, hoisting this grub to my mouth, is brave and non-chalant. It's a rite of passage, and they will laugh themselves silly  watching you eat your plate full. You do it once and you don't have to do it again.

Mopane worms have a rich, full flavor. I could see why local people love to eat them. But they are an acquired taste that I did not choose to acquire.

Galloping with Zebras

We stayed in the cottage for one week. Then I went up north on the bus, four hours to Kwe Kwe Town. In that town I called the owners of the Kwe Kwe Game Farm, and they came to pick me up in their small truck.

They were a jolly couple, the owners of this large farm, white people. He wore shorts and carried a big German Shepherd in the back of the truck. She was a brassy blonde, coming into town for a few groceries, and then to pick me up as a paying guest.

He wore shorts. White farmers in Zimbabwe -- they may be all gone by now, but in 1997 there were several thousand -- the white farmers always wore shorts. They had legs tanned from the sun, and trim figures from plenty of outdoor exercise, although my farmer friend had a bit of a gut.

African men never wore shorts. They always wore trousers. Trousers make you a man, not a boy, so they never wore shorts -- unless they were quite wealthy and at ease in the upper reaches of Zimbabwe society. Prosperous African men might wear shorts, and their ladies might wear jeans. But the common African man always wore trousers and his wife always wore a skirt or a dress. I noticed things like that.

But you want to hear how I went galloping with zebras on the game farm. It was a large farm the white couple owned, some thousands of acres, and only a small part cultivated and plowed for crops, the rest was brush and fields of tall grass stocked with game  -- zebras, giraffes, impalas, kudus, gazelles, wart hogs and other creatures. All happily living on the farm.

Sure, the giraffes might have wandered off and broken through the fence quite easily, but why would they want to leave when they had a few thousand protected acres for roaming? And no poachers to kill and eat them.

I saw zebras racing faster than the sun. I got on the horse they brought out for me. I rode with the guide who stayed near me and knew how to ride. I asked for a gentle walker so that I might be comfortable and enjoy looking at the trees and grazing animals.

My horse was willing to walk -- for about ten minutes, but what he really wanted was to run with the zebras, so we had to let him run and me hanging on for dear life, a little scary but great fun, galloping and pounding across the pasture, zebras racing alongside, impalas making impossible leaps.

I stayed with the farmers for several days. They hosted caravans of backpackers and paying guests like me. They loved their big German Shepherd dogs. Picture them in the evening lounging in the living room in velveteen reclining chairs, watching satellite TV from South Africa, dogs at their feet, African help making dinner.

They kicked all the white farmers out of Zimbabwe a few years later. The Kwe Kwe Game Farm is in ruins. The wild game has been shot and eaten, the fences torn down, the irrigation equipment sold for scrap. The people go hungry now.

The people of Zimbabwe would rather starve then take directions from white farmers. 

I am skipping ahead. Another story is how Precious and I met. People asked me that many times, "How did you meet her?"  Sometime soon I will tell that story. For now I will say that our meeting was arranged, quite informally, by a man named Joseph. Things happened quickly after that --- but I will tell you later.

This was our cottage on Airport Road, in the back of the big house. It was one room, with one electric light on the ceiling and a hot plate for cooking and ironing. The cold water tap was outside. The flush toilet was in the back. It was very simple.

I mentioned the hot plate for cooking and ironing. For cooking you understand how it is used, but in Zimbabwe people place a heavy non-electric iron on the surface of the hot plate until it is warm enough to use to remove the wrinkles.

Zimbabweans do a lot of ironing. It is a national past-time. They like to look sharp.

We talked about the Ernest the Garden Boy -- you can imagine him nearby moving slowly. You can imagine the mistress and her young daughter in the big house in front of the property. And now you see this photo of our little romantic hideaway, where we stayed in the first two weeks of our relationship in February, 1997.

There was only a double bed for furnishings, plus the table and two chairs as you see them placed outside the door during the good weather.

Precious showed me the typical domestic arrangements. She cooked and ironed and washed from a kneeling position because there was no table, except the one outside. I think she was used to that, although her grandfather's house, where we visited later on, had a more complete kitchen with tables and shelves and a refrigerator. Her grandfather's living room had a set of furniture with a couch and love seat.

But this cottage had none of that and Precious seemed accustomed to it -- kneeling. I had been traveling for a month and I was not clean. She fixed me a bath with hot water heated on the hot plate, and then poured the hot water over me in the back of the house where the cold water tap was. I scrubbed all over so I no longer smelled or looked so dirty.

Then she washed my clothes in a bucket. This was using cold water and just scrubbing and rinsing, and then hanging the clean clothes to dry on the barbed-wire fence next to the cottage.

There are no washing machines in Zimbabwe. Women -- sometimes men -- wash all the clothes by hand. People with money do not buy a washing machine, they simply hire a poor woman to wash the clothes for them.

Precious was neither rich nor poor by Zimbabwe standards. She did for herself and her family.

The clothes dried and she ironed them to a stage of wrinkle-free perfection. This took hours, with heating the iron over the hot plate and then ironing on a towel folded on the floor.

African people -- at least in Zimbabwe, as I met them -- are very clean. Precious even told me once, in confidence, that white people were a little smelly to her.

But I never saw such ironing and cleaning in my life, and my clothes, as they came off the barbed wire, all sun-dried, felt like royal garments. I felt like a new man. Re-born. I asked her to marry me. Or it was more like we agreed that we should get married. And not right away, but we were closing the deal and things like this happen quickly in Zimbabwe.

I would never have done it -- become engaged -- if I had stopped to think about it.  But I felt so good. Nobody had ever looked after me so well  -- and there was what I could do for her too, being a good man who would not beat her or cheat on her but would treat her kindly and I had money.

Love can flourish in poverty. Add money and it can still flourish.

And she cooked too. On that hot plate, in the morning, she made fried eggs with fried potatoes and a big slab of white bread from the bakery smeared with margarine, served with hot tea with sugar.

At night, dinner was sadza and meat. Sadza is a stiff cornmeal porridge  -- it is the staple of Zimbabwean cuisine, but there is no cuisine in Zimbabwe, no cunning, no subtlety. The old tribal people -- the Shona, Ndebele, Kalanga, Tonga and others -- they ate plainly. and any culinary sophistication was stamped out of them by a hundred years of British occupation.

The British built a beautiful infra-structure in Zimbabwe -- bridges, railroads, sewer systems, electric power plants, and the like -- but they ruined the cooking.

Go to the old French and Portuguese colonies for good food in Africa.

She cooked, I sat in the chair by the front door, as you can see in the photo. Six months later we were married. A year later we moved to America. Things went badly after that in America, but the first year in Africa was very good. And we were good to each other. It was easy to be good to reach other in that little cottage.

Even when we rented the nice house later on, she kept doing the laundry by hand. I said we can hire somebody. She said no, she said, "I won't have some other woman in my house."

There is so much more to tell. Like how we met. And I will tell you about the Aunties. Precious had very many aunties, but it was Aunt Winnie and Aunt Janet who smiled on us and wished us well -- another time for that story. I have a photo of them.

The truth? I wish I had never gone to Africa. It was a disaster. To marry an African woman so different from me was stupid to a high degree. I just got tired of regretting this incredible mistake, so I have decided to tell this story, which includes and amplifies all the good parts, and this way I do not feel like such a foolish person.

And besides, what if I had stayed home? At least I have a story.

Ernest the Garden Boy

I met Ernest 18 years ago. He was standing under the African sun with his feet on the African earth.

He was standing with a hoe in a patch of corn by the side of this house on Airport Road in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

He was standing almost as still as a statue, moving ever so slowly, lifting the hoe with infinite effort and letting it fall at the base of the row to break up a clod.

The rainy season begins in October and I met him in February when the corn was man-high. That was in 1997.

Would he remember me 18 years later? Of course he would -- I remember him, don't I? so he must remember me. I was the kiwa who came out to the garden to join him  -- not to watch him, but to join him. Not that I picked up a hoe and worked along side, but I was with him in the way that two men of common labor are with each other in silcnce.

Is he married now? Did some plain-looking garden girl look him over and say he'll do. After all, he works, he has a position, he's not a bum. He's a quiet man and steady -- a girl could do worse than to marry this garden boy.

He got drunk one night at the beer hall, and his rage, simmering in him for years because of his lowly position, all come rushing to his head in red-hot anger. After so many years of bumbling, he shouted. He stood up and pitched over the table and began fighting anyone near him, until they wrestled him to the ground and the police came and took him  to the tank and beat him. 

Ernest didn't lose his position at the house on Airport Road. The mistress understood how things were with him and she was kind. He stayed away from the beer hall after that raging night and went back to tending the corn patch.

I suppose he is still in Bulawayo and still working like this in a patch of corn somewhere,  near to fifty in age now, with several children and grandchildren, and no better and no worse than when I met him in 1997 at the house on Airport Road.

Maybe they don't call him a garden boy anymore . One hopes this occupation has been dignified in Africa.

Note. Kiwa means fig in the language of Ndebele and Shona people. A fig is pale pink on the inside, so a white man is sometimes called a kiwa.....this is a friendly nickname.

Note on Corn. Corn was brought to Africa from America by Portuguese explorers in the 16th century. Corn farming quickly spread across the continent because of its superior yields, replacing native grains such as millet. Cornmeal is now the staple of most African diets. In Zimbabwe, every farmer and every gardener plants corn in late October, hoping for enough rain to bring in a good crop. When the rains do come, people eat well and the farmers make money. Some years the rains do not come, and there might be hunger and privation.

The Drought and the Oil Spill -- another Weekend in California

By Fred Owens

Santa Barbara oil spill news.

I got tar on my sneakers yesterday -- on a beach walk. Little tar balls are common on Santa Barbara beaches because of natural oil seeps. It's been that way for as long as anybody can remember, but yesterday it seemed to be worse. We're about ten miles down the coast from the oil spill, so it would not surprise me if there is more tar than usual coming our way.

We saw the pelicans flying around a lot -- one flock going up the beach, another flock going down the beach  -- they seemed to be at sixes and sevens like they were disturbed about something, and that could be from the oil spill.

And we have a drought of epic proportions. It's another weekend in California.

We don't have special plans for this weekend, but we are heading down to the harbor in a bit to hear the ukelele players. They are a local group of ukelele players who meet every Saturday at 1 p.m. under the flame tree next to the Harbor Master's office. Maybe a dozen faithful players and singers. We don't play, but we like to listen to them and sing along.

This is how we deal with serious problems in California. And it works.

Big Farm, Small Farm. Size doesn't matter. Some farms are big, some farms are small. Some farms are good places to work, some farms are not. I have worked at three small organic farms since moving to California five years ago. They were okay. The pay was all right, and the product was good -- we grew some good, honest veggies and bodacious flowers and herbs of good quality.

But I am not in the movement. I am not a believer. The trouble with organic people is the high incidence of wing nuts, airheads and conspiracy fanatics on these farms -- okay this is California and we do grow a lot of fruit, so I guess it's going around. They breed here -- bio-dynamic ghostbusters, psychic healers, aromatherapy zealots. An organic farm is a rural homeless shelter for folks who are a little bit strange. But you need to humor them. Don't say Roundup out loud -- they start screaming and falling faint. They pull crumpled citations out of their pockets and insist you read the research. Outer space beings are coming to save us soon! In the meantime place these heirloom seeds in a corner of your cheek and suck on them slowly..... Seriously, I'm glad these people have a place to go. Modern life can be daunting and we all need shelter.

These little farms got me settled in California and I am grateful, but, as I said, I am not of the true faith.

I'm looking for another job, probably a farm, a greenhouse, or a produce stand. My intention is to work with rational people, people with common sense, folks who know how to tell a joke, who know how to laugh at themselves. Working with good people is my goal.

But whether it's organic or not, whether it's big or small, doesn't matter.

I don't hate Monsanto. You would think Beelzebub, the devil himself, runs a chemical company out of St. Louis, with a plot to take over the world and destroy all life.

I don't think so. My own associations go like this -- Monsanto? from St. Louis? Oh, they must be nice people. I have cousins in St. Louis, and they sure have a great baseball team. I love those Cardinals. And the Clydesdale horses at the Budweiser brewery -- you never saw such pretty horses.  Now, what were you saying about Monsanto?

Gulley Report.  The coyotes in the gulley in the back of the house are howling a lot. We don't know why. But we hope they kill all the gophers, because the gophers are running rampant. Kill all the gophers, but leave the cats alone.Our cats aren't stupid. They stick by the house and they come in at night. Good kitties.

Skunk News. Unbelievable, but we just today discovered a mama skunk and six baby skunks emerging from the culvert under the pepper tree very near to the house, and we have noticed an odor these past few days. The baby skunks wrestle and prance around. Don't tell the coyotes about this.

Tree Report. The eucalyptus trees, across the gulley and up the other side, look weather beaten and water-starved with poor leaves. The drought might kill them. The big sycamore, growing right at the bottom of the gulley, has old deep roots and plentiful green foliage. It will survive.  The Valencia orange tree in the back yard died, but it was more than 30 years old, and it may have just been a natural finish. The camelias in the front of the house have not been getting any water and they look to be suffering. The roses get the dish water, carried out in a bucket, but I am diverting some to the camelias out of compassion.

Water Issues. Okay, I made some wisecracks about the organic foo-foos. I hope they don't mind. I care a lot about these things, I just don't care to give evidence of my concern.

I am getting involved in water issues. The Goleta Water District where we live is just outside of Santa Barbara -- 89,000 people on 27,000 acres of foothills and ocean-side flatlands. The water comes from Lake Cachuma, a fast dwindling reservoir, plus the state canal which is getting parsimonious in deliveries, plus ground water.

Goleta has 8 producing wells, which were wisely re-pumped with surplus waters during past rainier winters. Still, the situation is dire with not a gallon to spare, and every gallon to fight over.

Comes now the wealthy enclave of Montecito to the south of Santa Barbara with billionaires and polo fields and wealth beyond your imagination. But no groundwater -- no groundwater but tons of money.

Comes now the Slippery Rock Ranch adjacent to the Goleta Water District. The ranch has 750 acres of avocados and pasture and a recently discovered aquifer of enormous proportions.

"We're sitting on a gold mine of water!" the ranch owners shouted with glee. Indeed they are.

Well, it only took a few morning coffee conversations at Jeanine's Cafe in downtown Montecito  to come up with this idea -- pump the water out of the ranch and sell it to the mansion millionaires.

Comes now the Goleta Water District saying the water on that ranch is from the same pool as the Goleta Water District -- you pump one, you pump all and they sued the ranch.

I studied the law suit, Goleta Water District v. Slipper Rock Ranch, all nine pages, and clearly written. The summons declares that the Goleta Water District is suing the Slippery Rock Ranch for stealing the water that rightfully belongs to the district. The Ranch replies that "water under our ranch is ours and we want to drill it out, truck it down to the rich folks in Montecito, and thereby profit." But the Water District claims, and will prove, that water flows downstream and is thereby influenced by the law of gravity and since the Slippery Rock Ranch aquifer is some what above and adjacent to the Goleta water district, it is substantially in the same pool and YOUS CAN'T HAVE  IT, ipso facto.

I am on the side of the district, but first I will need to be convinced, so I spoke with Brian Trautwein, the resident water expert at the Environmental Defense Center, who rattled off facts and figures that support a writ of condemnation against Slippery Rock, that they are water thieves plain and simple.

But I have decided, being prudent, to also talk with the ranch owners who have enough money to hire their own expert.

I found the name and phone number of their attorney, Steve Amerikaner. I researched his legal career, which is long and distinguished, and I read some of his common pleas and found him to be intelligent and fair-minded. In short, I set out intending to hate him, but I like him instead -- which doesn't make him right.... I will call him this week.

Are you interested in hearing all this? Water rights and water usage are of vital importance. The conflict between Goleta Water and Slippery Rock is just one piece of a larger struggle. My intention is to study this particular issue and so to be of some use to the greater good -- while we wait and pray for rain.

A fuller report of the Goleta Water Conflict can be found here.

Stay tuned. And be happy. And keep an image of those ukelele players making pretty music by the Santa Barbara Harbor -- that's California.

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Fred Owens

1105 Veronica Springs RD
Santa Barbara, CA 93105

Thank you very much,

Fred Owens