The Life in My Years

The Highway 395 Chronicles: Reno

Paul

August 28, 2024

You can always recognize the road warrior by looking at his arms. The right one, the one that rests on the center console is pale. The left one, the one that rests on the frame of the open window is weather beaten and bronze.

October 15th, 2022
The morning sun leaps angrily off the concertina wire at the High Desert State Prison just outside of Susanville, California. I slow down and glance off to my left, taking a long look at the high walls. It’s not unlike the times when I’m home in the San Francisco Bay Area, and find myself passing San Quentin. Slow down and look. I’m usually on my way to a warm, peaceful Marin County beach, or detouring away from a jammed Bay Bridge and heading to the Golden Gate to get into San Francisco.

During every drive by I stare, fascinated, wondering about what life is like behind that concrete. Not unlike slowing down to gawk at the aftermath of a car collision, it’s one of those “there but for the grace of God” moments.

During every passing, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong. Those men were once kids. Kids like me. They played tag, hide and seek, and baseball, went to school, had sleepovers, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bothered mom and dad for a puppy. They went through the phases of marveling over the sciences that excite kids; dinosaurs, sharks and space.

But something went sideways. Abusive parents? Addictive parents? Absent parents? Didn’t give a shit parents who should never have been parents? A few regrettable and ultimately fateful moments with a “friend” who’d already gone sideways? A society in which some have disadvantage baked into life’s cake? It’s easy to forget that some people never share the kind of childhood I had.

There’s a Christian notion that babies slide out of the chute already damaged. “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Well, that’s pretty fucking half glass full. Just another reason to reject religion.

Past the Susanville Pen, shake my head, exhale and drive on. Drive on – it’s what we do.

Next stop is Reno, Nevada, 90 miles southeast, nonstop on Highway 395.

I’ll get to Reno well before check-in at the hotel so on a Saturday, college football game day I can kill some time in a casino sports book – or kill some of my bank account at the Blackjack tables.

Just out of Susanville, it’s the 395 I’ve become accustomed to; high desert, rangeland and not a lot of cars in either direction. I’m spending the drive memorizing the little Blackjack crib card that instructs the hopeful player; when to hold’em, when to hit ’em, and when to fold’ em.

Always split aces and eights. That’s the easiest one. Well, except for standing on twenty-one.
Don’t hit twelve or higher if the dealer shows two. Intuitively this gambit doesn’t make any sense. There’s that giant chasm between twelve and twenty-one that the dealer could so easily land in.
Never, ever, split a pair of tens. Ha! That’s the mistake that every novice to the tables makes. I’m certain I did it – but only once – I hope. If the rookie is fortunate, he’ll get a compassionate dealer who’ll pause the action and ask, “Are you sure you want to do that? “ Maybe another player will nudge the newbie, “Stand on that.”

I’m looking forward to Reno. I’m going to indulge myself with a nice meal at the Peppermill or the Atlantis. It’ll be a nice respite from the microwave shit that’s seen me through up to this point. The Peppermill and the Atlantis are the only two hotel/casinos that are worth a damn anymore in downtown Reno.

A few miles to the east, Grand Sierra is decent, but out of the way. Cora and I stayed at the GSR one time. Our stay coincided with the final day of the Burning Man Festival out in the desert. The attendees were using the GSR parking lot as a sort of rest area. The place looked like a cross between a refugee camp and a scene out of Mad Max.

There was a time when Reno had a busy, vibrant strip, back when Reno laid some legit claim to its motto of being The Biggest Little City in the World.

That motto still glows on an arch over Virginia Street. The arch went up in 1926. It welcomed tourists from California, before the Highway 80 bypass, when the interstate ran right down the strip. That was when Reno’s strip was all the shit. Now the strip is all just – the kinda shitty. What’s left of it anyway.

The Highway 395 Chronicles: A Night in Prison Town

Paul

11 comments

July 31, 2024

October 14th, 2022
I’m on a one night layover in Prison Town, USA. No, I’m not staying in a 6 x 8 concrete studio, courtesy of the great State of California. I am a less than satisfied guest of the Super 8 Motel, in Susanville, California. It ain’t all that super but we’ll leave the details to the Yelpers and the Trip Advisors. I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much. Accommodations are a lot more rudimentary a few minutes away at the lockup nearby.
(Prison Town, USA was the title of a PBS documentary about Susanville that aired in 2007)

From where I’m sitting, there isn’t much to recommend Susanville. To be fair I haven’t been downtown. The Super 8 is located on the bleak flats just outside of downtown, smack next to an entrance road to the Lassen County Fairgrounds. There’s a tire shop/auto wrecker across the street, and kitty corner to the motel is a Walgreens. Make no mistake, there’s no mistaking this place for Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. If this is representative of the town as a whole then the Susan that the ville was named for must’ve been pretty damned ornery.

Maybe the “historic downtown” is quaint and interesting with the usual collection of a candy store, an ice cream shop, a family diner, and a divey bar where colorful, hard bitten, old timers in dirty ball caps grumble about Sacramento and DC into rocks glasses filled with cheap whiskey. There may even be one of those country stores that sells scented candles, kitchen gadgets, local jams, wooden signs emblazoned with pithy down home philosophy, and dish towels embroidered with Old Glory; the insulting part being that all of that Americana is made China (Except the local jams but who knows these days. Local might mean local to Shenzhen).

Like many of the small rural towns that sprouted in the mid-nineteenth century, Susanville started out as a logging and mining town. It was, at other times, a rail hub and an agricultural town.

Now the town’s main industry is incarceration. Counting three prisons in the immediate vicinity (the High Desert State Prison, the minimum-medium security California Correctional Center, and the Federal Correctional Institution, in nearby Herlong), nearly one-third of the population of Susanville is realizing the dubious hospitality of the Golden State, complete with the proverbial three hots and a cot. (When I visited Susanville all three prisons were in full operation. Since then, the California Correctional Center has been deactivated)

Joe Goes to the Bench

Paul

9 comments

July 23, 2024

The exhale was palpable, as if the very earth beneath America’s feet had physically billowed. A massive sweeping sigh of relief as the news broke.

Does it make me a bad American that I had to find out from my friend Eden in Toronto? High noon. I’d just returned home from the local coffee joint where my phone was silenced and my head was buried in a travel book.

A three word text sent at 10:57.

“Biden is out.”

“Fuck yes.” I responded (Before you get on your high horse, Eden and I have a sort of informal contest to see who has the pottier mouth).

I turned on the television to catch up. Open and shut relief on MSNBC and CNN after twenty-four days of tension since the June 27th debate debacle.

The look on Rachel Maddow’s face? You’d have thought she’d just had a gargantuan movement after three solid weeks of solid constipation. After coming out of the bathroom, newspaper in hand and a big smile on his face, dad would often say, “There’s nothing like a good crap.” Yep. That and the sudden resurrection of a presidential campaign that had been left on the side of the road for the buzzards to feed on. Right, Rachel?

I spent the rest of the afternoon switching between the news and watching the Giants baby faced rookie pitcher Hayden Birdsong throw an absolute gem against the Colorado Rockies, hoping that bad defense and anemic hitting wouldn’t rob the kid of a win. (Yeah I get it, CNN and MSNBC are not really news stations)

By the time I was grilling a salmon for dinner, it had already become clear that Kamala Harris would be replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket and there would be little resistance within the party. I’d already jumped on the bandwagon and donated $25 dollars to the campaign. It wasn’t so much a matter of the money but one of helping fuel a campaign that needed some momentum.

Hell, didn’t need my money to inject some life. An ebbing campaign had just been stabbed in the thigh with a heavy dose of epinephrin.

***

Incidental Notes From the road part II: The Old Bridge

Paul

4 comments

July 13, 2024

A loose continuation of the post Incidental Notes From the Road – link here.

“I dropped south to New Harmony, Indiana, twelve miles downstream from Grayville, Illinois where I’d spent that first grim night.”
From Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, by William Least Heat-Moon.

October 12, 2021
I’m standing in New Harmony, in front of the now closed bridge that William Least Heat-Moon crossed 43 years ago. He’d stopped for gas in New Harmony, and then drove over the New Harmony Bridge that spans the Wabash River, the border between Illinois and Indiana.

Heat-Moon’s crossing marked the last day of an odyssey; three months and 13,000 miles between “that first grim night” and this old bridge.

At loose ends after separating from his wife and then losing his job as a college professor, Heat-Moon outfitted an old van that he christened Ghost Dancing, and then he took off on a meandering journey through America’s backroads (the roads designated in blue on road maps). Life had offered him the proverbial shit sandwich. Heat-Moon declined the offer, and instead decided to put time and miles between himself and the source of his troubles.

Lemons into lemonaid. Make due with what ya got.

Is it a coincidence that forty-three years after Heat-Moon crossed over the Wabash, I’m standing here in New Harmony, looking through a chain link fence at Illinois on the other side of that river? Not at all. It’s almost as if it were meant to be. It was a labyrinthine string of circumstances that got me here. It all started with my own need to escape.

Declaring Independence

Paul

18 comments

July 10, 2024

I declared my Independence last Monday.

That is, I resigned from the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent. For years, usually after another Dem disappointment, the idea of leaving the party would cross my mind, but it was a combination of my own laziness and the reality that, as an Independent, I wouldn’t be able to vote in primaries that kept me from jumping ship.

And then came the June 27th massacre and all that’s followed.

Joe Biden’s debate failure, his subsequent interview with George Stephanopoulos, his letter to the Democratic members of Congress, and his phone-in to the Morning Joe television program combined to overburden the poor camel. The spine specialist could only shake his head and walk away.

My disgust over Biden’s insistence on running, despite the preponderance of voters from his own party who have consistently said that they believe that the president is too old to serve a second term, has long been feeding my appetite to depart a deluded party.

Biden’s post-debate persistence to stay the course, a persistence backed by his campaign and the cult of Biden (because at this point, what else could one call it) has me wondering just what the goal could possibly be.

Call me an old romantic fool, but I’ve always believed that the primary goal of every presidential election is to elect the man best suited for the job.

The man best suited for the job. Why is that so often a unicorn of an idea?

Every four years at least one of the major parties manages to endorse a fool. This time around both parties have managed to fail the nation by pitting a pair of unqualified old men against each other (and against the well-being of the country). And both parties did so knowingly and without regard to the future consequences.

In this election, as in the two previous, the electorate has been presented with another goal, and that is to beat Donald Trump. At least that’s the goal of anyone who wants to preserve a semblance of democracy and to keep the lunatic from occupying the assylum director’s chair .

This has been Joe Biden’s goal, and in that I take him at his word. Anything after that, and he loses me.

Two Wolves and a Sheep

Paul

17 comments

July 7, 2024

There’s a scene in an episode of the drama/comedy, The Bear, in which Sydney, the young sous chef, knocks on the papered over glass door of the restaurant that she and her partner and crew have been remodeling – just a simple makeover, really. She’s spent the day bouncing around Chicago, visiting various restaurants, sampling menu items to get ideas for her own menu. She’s been eating like a Roman senator at a bacchanal. She’s tired and stuffed and then stunned when Carmen, the head chef, opens the door to reveal that the remodel has been turned into a tear it down to the studs, major overhaul.

Carmen talks Sydney down from the ledge, pointing to the reality that the joint is old and there’s mold, dry rot, rust, leaks, structural issues, bugs and rodents. There’s nothing for it but to accept the reality, swallow hard, roll up sleeves and get to work.

Age, mold, dry rot, rust, leaks, structural issues, bugs and rodents. That could describe the way in which America chooses its president – especially the bugs and rodents part. If there was ever any doubt that the American system is not only decrepit and in need of being torn down to the studs, rebuilt and modernized, this current election cycle is proof positive that the system is antiquated and precariously close to collapse.

From the very start, the founders established a system that was only a façade of democracy. In the decades since, time marched on, and the system was not allowed to keep pace. The introduction of political shenanigans only made things worse. A system that from the beginning was not nurturing of a democracy has become even less democracy friendly. (And to be clear, we are not a democracy. Please see a previous post, The Saving Democracy Myth).

The events of the past week, and in fact, this whole presidential election cycle, have shown just how obsolete, and undemocratic our electoral system is. And just for fun, let’s add corrupt to the mix. We’re on the cusp of conventions, which have become glorified political infomercials, and just four months from election day and the electorate is faced with the most dreadful of binary choices – ever.

Welcome to the buffet folks. On the table before you we’re offering a rotten, old orange carp and an over done chicken that’s far beyond its sell-by date.

Obscene Supreme Court Ruling Prompts… Not Much from the Proletariat

Paul

2 comments

July 4, 2024

Obscene Supreme Court Ruling Prompts… Not Much from the Proletariat

This a repost of a piece written by Martin Fredericks IV, on his site, IV Words.

In his piece, Martin wonders about the deafening silence following a Supreme Court decision that essentially paves the way for an American monarchy or autocracy. Two-hundred and forty-eight years ago today The Declaration of Independence was birthed, rejecting the idea of a monarchy.

Two-hundred and forty-eight years after brave men and women put their lives at risk to reject monarchy, Americans are reacting to a Supreme Court decision taking a cleaver to democracy with, “Hey Marge, could you pass the artichoke dip,” and “What time do the fireworks start?”

Happy fucking birthday.

The links to both of Martin’s timely pieces are below. Please read.

https://ivwords.com/2024/07/02/supreme-court-democracy/

https://ivwords.com/2024/07/03/supreme-court-protest/

SCOTUS Tossed The Birthday Cake

Paul

2 comments

July 3, 2024

U.S. Supreme Court Clobbers Democracy

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the six right wingnuts on the Supreme Court would pave an autobahn towards autocracy, closing out the SCOTUS session and in effect, closing out the scattered remains of democracy.

The timing was both ironic and convenient. Ironic in that SCOTUS issued its decision shit canning the whole idea that The United States is not a monarchy (or autocracy) mere days before we celebrate the signing of the document, 248 years ago, that condemned the monarchy it was getting read to overthrow. The decision is also convenient for the American autocrat in waiting, one convicted felon named Donald John Trump, who’s firing up the engine on his redesigned MAGA to take a ride on that very autobahn.

Martin Fredericks IV is a pull no punches blogger whom I’ve been following for some years now. He puts the most recent SCOTUS outrage in proper angry perspective. Please read Martin’s piece, U.S. Supreme Court Clobbers Democracy.

An American Legacy Story Part II: Rickwood and Reggie

Paul

6 comments

June 25, 2024

Continued from An American Legacy Story Part I: Willie

Rickwood (baseball) Field, Birmingham, Alabama. June 20, 2024.
Baseball has been played at Rickwood since 1910, making it America’s oldest active baseball park. A baseball game will be played at Rickwood today. For over a century, thousands of baseball games have been played at Rickwood; Major League Baseball’s (MLB) spring training games and exhibitions, semi-pro, and Negro League games. For a time, the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide used the field. Rickwood has even starred as a movie set

Today, Rickwood will star again, this time as the host of a regular season Major League game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. This game will be more than just any other in the long 162 game grind that starts in the promising spring, grunts through the hot summer, sweats out the dog days of August, ending in the crisp birth of autumn.

Today’s game is a celebration of the Negro Leagues, a celebration that’s long, long overdue. It’s also an unexpected celebration of one of the Negro Leagues’ and MLB’s favorite sons, Willie Mays, who, at 16, began his stellar professional career at Rickwood as the starting center fielder for the Birmingham Black Barons. Mays passed away two days ago in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the age of 93. It’s almost as if the baseball gods had preordained the convergence of events.

An American Legacy Story Part I: Willie

Paul

6 comments

June 24, 2024

Banner photo: I shot this photo before a baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants, at Wrigley Field in Chicago, on the day after Willie Mays passed away.

June 18, 2024. My wife and I were sitting, lower box, along the third baseline in Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Stadium. The buzz started sometime in the early innings as the White Sox were playing the Houston Astros. I heard the first murmur from someone a few rows down from us and to the right. I only heard the name, “Mays.”

When it comes to baseball the name Mays, isn’t just a name. Willie Mays is baseball. Pick a sport, any sport and you’ll find that there’s an ongoing debate as to which player is that sport’s greatest. In baseball, the name Willie Mays is always mentioned beside Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron as the greatest player in baseball history. It’s one of those never resolved sports debates that takes place in a stadium or a bar or early morning in the office break room as people pour their morning coffee and dip into the donut box.

For me the choice is easy – it’s Mays. Maybe that’s because I watched him play so many times, though I did see Aaron a time or two. Ruth? I may be old but I’m not that damn old.

So in a baseball stadium, I suppose it would make sense that the name Mays would come up. Or not. Willie Mays, who spent most of his career playing for the New York/San Francisco Giants never played for or against the White Sox. Never, to my knowledge, did he set foot in Comiskey Park, the stadium that the Sox called home. So, I wondered, why the buzz? Because now it wasn’t just one lone mention. The name Willie Mays was circulating around the park.

The murmurs continued throughout the game, always at a distance. And then a man stopped to chat with a woman seated behind me. That’s when I heard the news that Willie Mays had passed away at the age of 93.

As the Sox and Astros, played my mind drifted from the game. Numb, hit with the now all too familiar realization that yet another precious piece of my life had been taken. As we get older the pieces just tumble away like bricks from an aging building. It might be a death, or the closing of a cherished institution, or the destruction of a building or monument. The pieces crash to earth and get bulldozed aside by time, and we find ourselves less one more fragment. When the World Series is done and the Giants have completed another season of mediocrity will June 18th even register in my failing memory?

A short time after the buzz began, rumor became official as the public address announcer shared the bad news with the stadium crowd. The crowd rose and a long standing ovation followed and every face, even those of the players on the field, turned to the picture of Willie Mays displayed on the scoreboard. I wasn’t the only one who had lost another fragment. All of baseball was feeling the loss.

We hadn’t planned on going to that game. The White Sox are one of the worst teams in baseball this year and the only reason to go would be to knock another stadium off the list of stadiums that we’d visited. It was a last minute decision that very afternoon to go online and buy tickets.

Irony? Destiny? Shithouse coincidence? Whatever it was, it was certainly fitting that I heard the news of the passing of baseball’s greatest while I was sitting at a baseball game. I guess it was equally fitting that the next day I would be watching the Giants play the Chicago Cubs in Chicago’s Wrigley Field.

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