Wednesday, October 27, 2004

The Melting Pot

I was all over the Washington DC area today. I started out early this morning in Frederick MD, traveled to Fairfax, VA to Manassas, Woodbridge, Springfield, and ended the day in Alexandria, VA. For those of you who haven't been in this area in a few years, here are my impressions:
  • There's a whole mess of people living around this town.
  • Every one of them was in a car on the area's streets today. What a mess.
  • The speed limit signs must have been put up as an April Fools joke and somebody forgot to take them down. Either that or we have been taken over by the metric system and nobody told me. Let's see...55 in kilometers per hour is...yup - 85.
  • I was never good with pinball machines. I would set the little steel ball in motion and then watch it fly down the table and disappear into one of the many little holes at the bottom of the gameboard. I felt like that little ball today when my car approached a series of highway signs that read, "I-95 this way. I-295 that way. I-495 Keep Left. I-395 Keep Right. Downtown Straight Ahead. Franconia Road This Exit." Oh, and just to make sure they have you at their complete mercy, this: "Road Work Ahead. Keep Left." What to do? Pray.
  • English may be our first language but Vietnamese, Spanish, French (Haitian?), and Chinese are tied for second.
  • There are quisines around here I didn't know existed. Ever had an urge for Peruvian food? Go down Richmond Hwy. to Hybla Valley. Honest-to-God Peruvian chicken. And before you ask, I don't know.
I have to say that I find the many ethnic areas of DC to be fascinating. It's not like Miami or El Paso where everyone around you speaks Spanish. Here you can be in an area dominated by Vietnamese immigrants (Annandale), drive five minutes down the road and be in a heavily Hispanic area (Alexandria), get back in the car and drive some more and be in what I can only guess is an area dominated by Nigerians. It reminds me a lot of the neighborhoods of Los Angeles - but everyone here gets along. And seems to have the same purpose in life - to achieve the American dream. It sure isn't like Bland County where we have white folk and ... well, white folk.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Bugs

The invasion has begun. The air is filled with thousands of ladybugs. They swarm at the edge of the forest on the hill above the house; the proverbial cloud of insects. They cling to the cedar siding. They crawl through the cracks in the door to reach the warmth of our home. They land in your hair; stick to your clothing. Why? I don't know. Maybe its just a winter-is-coming act of self-preservation.

It's one of the many fascinating aspects of life here on the mountain. Bugs. We get lots of 'em. I'm no entomologist. Nor do I ever want to be a bug expert. But the little creatures sure can capture your attention.

Take the praying mantis. Have you ever seen one? A really big one? How about tousands of them? They roam the slopes below the house. Why are they there? I don't know. 

What do they eat? I don't know. But they make it very difficult to mow the grass. I am an animal rights person, after all. Er. 

Bug rights...oh, never mind. The downside to this story are the crows. We have a huge colony that dominates the skies in the area. They seem to like to eat the mantises. But that's enough of that. 

Then there are the lightning bugs. They light up the darkness at night all across the valley below, briefly, and are gone.

Only to reappear a few feet away, blink, and dart back into the darkness. An act of...what? Joy, I think. After all, they are only seen on the most wonderfully warm and serene summer nights. I tend to think they are flitting around in celebration of a chance to live, knowing perhaps that they have but a brief time.

And spiders. For some reason (we need that entomologist!) they begin to appear in the early autumn. By the hundreds. They weave their webs in every eave, most windows, in the bushes. They are found in the house, in the barn, in the garage, hanging from the trees. Big ugly, hairy black ones, "daddy long-legs," and small stubby fierce-looking little devils. They all seem to have voracious appetites - for other insects.

We get a lot of moths on the mountain too. Some are huge, colorful, and breathtakingly delicate. Others are simply dull gray. The moths seem to supplant the butterflies, which appear in the spring and flutter about all summer. By the hundreds. One learns to drive slowly down the gravel turnpike so as to not smash the many butterflies that seem to like to gather in the roadbed, particularly when its damp. There are not enough butterflies in this world to have them decorate the front grill of my Ford Escape.

We are well into autumn now. Most of the butterflies are gone. As are the lightning bugs. The moths and the ladybugs will go - wherever they go - when the temperature dips well below freezing. Come December, when the winter winds begin and the air is bone-chilling, snow will be knee-deep and all the bugs will have moved on. Somehow, I think they are the smarter creatures.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Hurricane Victims Far From Shore

I find myself in Marietta, Ohio today. I rolled into town last night and, as I was checking into the hotel, I asked the desk clerk where I could buy some Chinese carryout food (an addiction that I have to deal with). I was told that the only Chinese restaurant that was in the immediate area had been flooded out when Hurricane Ivan blew through here a few weeks ago.

Ohio. Hurricane. Flood.

When Ivan blew through Florida and Louisiana, the news cameras were focused on the damage inflicted on those states. When it came through Bland, Virginia, Paula and I worried that the torrential rain was going to sweep us right off the mountain. We were lucky.

But way up here in Ohio, one can see, along the banks and in the lowlands around the Ohio River, the evidence of major flooding, and considerable damage. I remember remarking at the time, in looking at the weather radar, that this area up to Pittsburgh was really getting hammered with rain. I was right. It must have been devastating to the people that live near the river(s).

I encountered a bit of animosity here also. I was talking to a local woman who said the flooding here in the Marietta area was caused – in part – by the Corps of Engineers releasing water upstream around Pittsburgh to relieve the lock and dam system north of here, but at the same time, adding to the damage downstream. The anguish is understandable. The damage was, by government fiat, shared amongst the many river communities. Understandable and unavoidable.

I hope the government now lends its support and that they recover.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Detroit - Spend Yor Money But Leave Quickly

I lived for several years outside the city of Detroit. In all my travels to and through hundreds and hundreds of municipalities, it is the most depressing of all the communities I've ever been in. Much of Detroit lies in ruins today as a result of what was once called - in ancient times - "white flight." You can literally drive into the area around what was once Tiger Stadium and still see evidence from the race riots that took place in 1967 and 1968. Beginning in earnest in the 1960's, several hundred thousand residents packed their bags and moved - to the suburbs of Livonia, Garden City, Farmington, Warren or Taylor. Others just kept on moving farther away. 

The remarkable thing about Detroit is that it is the only major city in the entire country that has not experienced a renaissance. Even Cleveland, once termed the "mistake on the lake," is seeing its downtown rebound. If you're in the area, go down to the Flats in the evening. Everything you'd ever want to do or see is there. It thrives. So why has Detroit not seen a similar turnaround? The simple answer is race.

If there is one man who should have a statue erected in his honor for having done more to create the pile of ruins that is Detroit today, it is former Mayor Coleman Young. Mayor Young fought his way to power in a time when white people were in charge of the city, and he proceeded to correct the problems Detroit had - the same problems every other city had at the time - with racist hiring practices, racist police tactics, racist housing practices, racist political parties, a racist power structure, etc. Coleman Young was successful at transforming the city and driving out those who stood in the way of black equality and opportunity.

The problem was that Coleman Young was every bit the racist himself. It was no secret that he was intensely suspicious of, and held deep animus toward white people. He is famous locally for having made the comment to whites in the area that they should stay "north of 8 mile," Eight Mile Road being the northern boundary between Detroit and several predominantly white suburbs. Non-black residents obliged him. They fled. With them went their stores, their factories, their small businesses, their churches, their investments, their capital. The population of Detroit has plummeted and the city's economy has suffered grievously since.

Not that the residents of the city seem to care. The preponderance of the citizens of Detroit are black and they'd apparently like to keep it that way. I read (another) piece of evidence of this today in The Washington Times in an article entitled, "Detroit's Plan For 'African Town' Stirs Racial Tensions." It says in part: 
The Detroit City Council, in defiance of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, likely will move forward with plans to create an "African Town" in the tradition of Chinatowns and Little Italys nationwide, even though the issue has turned into a racially divisive economic-development proposal. In July, the council resolved to build up a section of the city devoted to African and black American literature, cuisine and art, which Mr. Kilpatrick endorsed. He vetoed the resolution, however, when it became clear that the council's plan would allow only black businessmen and investors to use the $38 million earmarked for the project. 
To his credit, the current Mayor termed the project to be "both racist and unconstitutional." But the city council overrode his veto. "'The resolutions speak to a real and critical issue that cannot be ignored — the economic disenfranchisement of African-Americans, who represent 80 percent of Detroit's populace,' said council member Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr. on his Web site." In the year 2004. The city of Detroit is fighting an enemy that fled the battlefield forty years ago.

So Mayor Young lives - in spirit if not in flesh. When I left the area in 2001, there was not one movie theater in the entire city (with a population at the time of nearly 1 million people; tiny Wytheville near me has a cinema complex as well as the old Millwald Theater downtown). Residents of the city had to go to the suburbs to do most of their shopping after nearly every downtown store - including some that were legendary - had closed their doors long ago. Thinking about starting a new business in the city? Try to find some serious investment capital. 

And the city council still talks about African-American disenfranchisement. In a city where African-Americans hold the only franchise. A city in ruins. God help them.

Monday, October 04, 2004

Ladder 49

I called and left my son a message last night. "Call me back. We have some issues we need to talk about." The issues? Paula and I had just gotten back from seeing the new movie, "Ladder 49," a thriller about the life of a Baltimore firefighter. 

It was a fanciful and yet not unrealistic account of the dangers firefighters confront every time they get the call to don the uniform and race off into the night to fight a fire. 

Dangers that exceed the tolerance levels most of us care to endure - or even contemplate.

My son is a firefighter in the city of Roanoke.

My call to him was intended to be one in which I was going to tell him of our concern for his life, for the well-being of his wife and our grandchildren, and - somehow - to convey to him how proud of him we are. Without giving away the plot in any way, the overriding message from the movie is this: We are prepared to sacrifice our lives to save others. The pay is not great. The dangers are real. And the call to action is frequent and ever-present.

I got his answering machine. So I left him a mildly humorous "I just found out what it is that you do for a living; you will resign from the force first thing in the morning" kind of message. 

When not fighting fires, my son also serves as an Emergency Medical Technician. I heard that he lost a man the other day to an apparent heart attack. They were communicating with each other as the ambulance was racing to the nearby hospital but the man lapsed into unconsciousness despite my son's best efforts at cardiac resuscitation and that of the hospital emergency medical personnel. They were unable to revive the man. I haven't talked to him in recent days and I don't know any of the particulars. But the man's death weighed on him. And it was only one of many calls he responded to that day. One of many, many days. A day like so many others. 

I recommend the movie. Be prepared for lots of action, some sorrow, and excitement throughout. And in the end - I hope - a certain pride in those that "race off into the night" so that our children and grandchildren can sleep safely in their beds.