Around the Rock

textures and feel

     A fall afternoon around the iconic Morro Rock on the California central Coast.

      This shot from December 2014 shows the rock in context of Morro Bay, Cayucos and a few of the other "sisters-" those volcano plug peaks that spine the central coast.

coming soon

getting it done

      A shout out to the Cubs, finally!  Reared in Indiana one infuses a certain Cubness even if your favorite team is something else. Non fans suffer with friends who are loyal, so their win in game 7 was sweet.  It was an exciting, perhaps one of the most exciting World Series ever. And so we'll dispose of all that mumbo jumbo about a curse and a goat and all of that.  And since we are, may I suggest a new goat as a curse on all of the self righteous in the world. Please welcome the new goat, James Comey.

    See you down the trail.

Roughhouse Coast

boys being boys

  Young male elephant seals are back and have taken over the colony beach.

    It's the season when the sub adults and young males come in from feeding and practice sparring. Soon the females will be back and many of them will be pregnant. Birthing season follows in early winter. The peak of mating season is valentines day

    Now the young males practice the battles they'll do with the bulls, the 5000 pound Kings of the beach. When they arrive the big old boys divide the beach among their harems.

    Never too young or small to start learning the skills that are required to carve out a harem.

   "I'm tougher than you" they seem to taunt each other.

  In the surf as well as on the beach they size up the competition.

   Most could save their energy. It is rare for a young male, like those currently in residence, to successfully challenge the old boys.

   Their glottal deep well barks echo along the beach South of the Piedra Blancas Light Station on the Pacific Coast highway. Compared to the basso profoundo rumble of the adult males, these fellows sound like tenors.

The night returns

  

     The sound of something wakes her. It is 6:00 AM and the 45 people in the church fellowship hall are stirring. She stretches and her cot creaks. She sits up rubbing the sleep from her eyes and feels that her back pack is still there. She is nine and her every possession in the world is in that back pack.

     Her mother has already brushed her hair and gotten her coffee and tells her to get an orange juice before it is gone. Soon they'll line up for a bus ride to the day shelter where volunteers will offer smiles and cereal. If she is lucky she may get a muffin before another bus takes her to school as her mother meets with a case worker trying to help her find a job and housing.

     She will spend the day at school, maybe wishing she had a phone or a better change of clothing, or that her mother had a car. Unable to afford after school activities she will take a bus back to the day shelter where she will get a chance to take a shower and wile away time until dinner, served by volunteers. Then she and her mother and other women and children will be bussed to a church to spend the night. Lights out at nine.

      This is a representation of a day for a homeless child in San Luis Obispo. She could live in any city or town. Grace Macintosh of Community Action Partnership provided the details and narrative of this girl. Social workers in every city and town in America can provide their own cases.

      As a case in point, some 1,515 homeless have been counted in San Luis Obispo County. 35% are women, 15% are under 18 and 87% are unsheltered.  There are fewer than 150 emergency shelter beds through out the county.  The specific numbers are significant, but more important is to understand that similar statistics  are replicated across the nation. 

       As Grace said, "Just imagine what that is like for that 9 year old?"

       The increasing number of homeless is a problem. These are not refugees of war or disaster. These are people who cannot afford housing, victims of an economic system that leaves them short either of money or employment. There are working homeless as well.
        We've all read of fights to prevent the building of shelters or housing options-"not in our neighborhood." That too is common in most communities. 

       Social workers are seeing more seniors as "newly homeless" because a death, loss of income, support, medical bills, or other changes of fortune upend their world. Imagine being in your 70's or 80's, a product of a stable life but suddenly without a home. 
       In addition to those made homeless by economics are those who are on the street because of mental illness, addiction, transients who work a circuit and who may panhandle or do crime. That too is a growing population of Americans, especially young men and women.
       What are the solutions? What options do we have? What can be done?  The more cynical among us opine "there have always been the poor and there will always be." But what kind of answer is that? 
      No matter where you read this, these scenarios play out, not too far from where you are.

    See you down the trail.

Taking for Granted?

California Persimmons-Mill Street, San Luis Obispo

for granted?

    Blogging brother Mike, keeper of the Genial Misanthrope found in the Rich Blogs list on the right of this page, launched  a rumination with his Just A Late Fall Day post.
     His thoughts on our peaceful and bountiful lives, vis a vis most of the earth's population, punched my guilt button. Assignments put me in some of the most desperate and fearful places in the world. Upon returning home my gratitude for how good we have it pushed that button too. I regret that too many of us take too much for granted. So, motivated by Mike's reflections we will today celebrate some thoughtful, creative and simple but wonderful things.

the great experiment

      This is the pin I received 62 years ago as a Polio Pioneer.

I'm grateful my parents agreed to let me take part in America's largest public health experiment. 
       Polio ravaged communities in the 1950's. In 1954 600 thousand school kids became the first to take the Salk vaccine as human guineau pigs. 443 thousand of us got shots of the experimental vaccine while 210 thousand got a placebo. It worked and soon inoculations were offered to all.

       Today is World Polio Day. The disease has almost been eradicated though there is more work to do, and remembering is a part of that. I don't recall being terribly frightened about taking the experimental medicine. I was more frightened about the disease which had crippled or killed in our hometown. 
      We also realize the Polio Pioneer public experiment was one of the first society changing events involving boomers.

it takes a village  

        There are places where this election year has been a joy. A couple of weeks ago candidates for our village government, the Community Services District, gathered for an open forum. By the way that really is Ed Asner at the far left. He began the evening by saying he "had a big mouth." He was there to help moderate and to offer his own brand of humor. 
         The forum was civil, intelligent, helpful and was evidence that when approached properly, representative government is as good as it can get, a real conversation among neighbors about a common future.

party in the garage

    Friends who are nearing completion of a major construction project invited friends to a "bless this building" dinner in the new garage.

     Shame on me if I ever take hospitality and friendship for granted.

    Regardless of what it is, seeing a plan come together brings satisfaction.

   Celebrations are for remembering.

    No one can see around the bend. No one lives in constant bliss. Complex problems, changes, the hurt of dear ones, health and so many other matters are real. But there are moments, memories and situations where the best response is to simply be happy and grateful. 

     Mike, thanks for getting this train rolling.

    See you down the trail.

      

Give them guns & It was this big....

let's just end this stuff

     I've been listening.  I'm a good listener. As a reporter I'm a professional listener. 

     So, you listen long enough and some place in your cranium rationality gets strangled, choked by exhaust fumes we call politics. Used to be one could take it in and, like the energizer bunny, keep on clicking. That went south sometime in the last year. We are talking survival now.

     Give them guns. Give all of them guns. The candidates, the handlers, the pollsters, the traveling media, the anchor set media, the studio audience, the protesters, the t-shirt billboard wearing partisans-who may already have guns, the House of Representatives, the Senate, except Mitch McConnell, K. street firms, every PAC, the Koch brothers, George Soros, Ken Bone and find old Joe the Plumber and give him a plunger and mop.

       Give the rest of us a bunker. And then give us an all clear when the last round has been fired. Then fire up the band with some John Phillips Sousa. Then cue up Moby's latest -Moby and Void Pacific Choir's These Systems are Failing. Then we'll just listen to the quiet and concentrate on our breathing and then try something entirely new-thinking.
      (Will this qualify me for the NRA Golden Gun award?)

it was this big

     My friend Ray fishes in the Sierras. He's partial to float tubing on alpine lakes on the eastern slope.  Three times this year the weather has conspired against his gentle floats under blue skies. Wind, chop, rain and snow have conspired against him, but Ray is a fisherman and he persists. Thank you Ray.

      This baby was 18 inches and some four pounds as he encountered Ray's lure as a gale was bout to beach him, again. Instead it "got landed" before Ray. Rays says he'd left the net behind and so this guy was in the tube and out of the tube and back in the tube where it stayed, before it was iced.
    A day later it was in my fridge and the next day it had been celebrated as such. Lemon infused olive oil, dill, lemon wedges and thyme bathed and pampered it in a "spa moment." It then got to the sauna, 400 degrees.  Normally it would have been saluted on a grill, but the muse said, "bake this big boy." 

    Soon it was further decorated, celebrated and added to another ring in the circle of life.

     Thanks Ray.  God bless the high Sierras and those who dwell there in, in all of their incarnations.

      See you down the trail.

The Effect

after 

      Mid Rain

     gauging it

       The net-.7 of an inch. The first rain of the new season.

    After these moments, clean air and lots of smiles on the central coast. Hopes for a good rainy season.

on killing Black men

    FBI Director James Comey hit the nail on the head. He said videos of police killing black men is driving a narrative; "biased police are killing black men at epidemic rates." Comey added "It's a narrative given force by the awesome power of human empathy."

     But Comey notes there is no way to know if the number of black, brown or white people being shot by police is "up, down or sideways over the last three, five or 10 years." There is no national data base or tracking of people killed by cops.

     This writer finds that inexcusable in this age of data and algorithmic analysis. The Associated Press reports the FBI is moving forward with plans to establish a national data base on police use of force. In the meantime I wonder why, as a gesture of public service, police departments don't post their own internal data on use of weapons, lethal and otherwise?

    See you down the trail

The First

the front

    The western sky performed a dramatic rain dance.

It delivered. The California central coast is getting its first measurable rain of the season. Looks like the soaking will extend into Sunday evening. It is welcome.

      See you down the trail.