THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE.... 'HOME' IS THERE?

It's taken a few days to adjust to being home again following the long journey through California for the past several weeks.

What amazed me most is the continuing 'growth' of Californians spreading out everywhere I went. I drove South on Highway 5 and even in Shasta there was new construction going on North and South...Redding is bustling with new homes and new commercial buildings...and new housing developments sprung up in every backwoods, bodunk little town all the way to Sacramento.

Traffic has grown right along with new homes, and in Visalia...it was apparent on the way in as Caldwell Avenue (once a far South rarely traveled main road) had the same conjestion as the much bemoaned 'Mooney Blvd' of just a few years ago. Where are all these people coming from, I wondered...as I recalled the directions to my daughter's new home in a subdivision that didn't exist just five years ago?

One of the things that struck me is the 'sameness' of many developments. Is there any other color for new homes than tan, beige or gray...I wondered? It was the same as I headed West from Visalia toward the Coastal Cities...growth and new beige, tan and gray homes...huge subdivisions with a four or five "plan choices" for new residents. It seems like everyone is wearing a 'uniform'...only in this case, it's their home. I laughed as I imagined the horror the neighbors might feel if someone painted their home 'blue' for example. Is the sameness for 'practical reasons', or is the growth so demanding that any 'birdhouse' the builder offers acceptable these days? I fear the latter is true.

These new homes are just 'blown up' track homes to meet an explosion in population that reminded me of what it must have been like following World War II when the great race to the suburbs started. When I was a child we traveled from San Francisco to Los Altos to visit Nono and Nona (Grandfather & Grandmother in Italian)...and we passed farms, pastures, trees and open land all along the way.

Of course, everyone knows that the Bay Area Peninsula now stretches to Gilroy and even south of that with nothing but homes and no 'green' except on the occasional golf course. It's impossible to know one town from another without seeing the 'exit' sign on the Freeway. So many people...I lamented as I drove and watched people rush around me in a frenzy to be first and then slam on their brakes...but hey, they must have gained at least ten feet by endangering everyone on the road.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have always left adequate space between me and the car in front of me as we race down a Freeway going 70 to 80 miles an hour.
Even at this speed...wherever possible...there were cars passing me like I was standing still. Keeping that space between me and the next car cost me plenty. It was like bumper to bumper traffic at 70 miles an hour...but any small space open seemed to be an invitation for a driver to dart into it in hopes he would gain 2 seconds on his journey to wherever. I got royally flipped off about 3 or four times heading North to Sacramento once I had all I could stand of the Bay Area traffic and it was time to head home. My offense was maintaining that dreaded 'dead space' between me and the car in front of me.

I was heading to the barn here in Oregon and was probably as anxious as anyone else to arrive at my destination...but hanging on the bumper of the car in front of me was not something I will do...no matter how many 'birds' I get in return for it. It was about 3:00 pm and traffic slowed to a crawl all the way from Livermore to North of Sacramento...and it took me about 6 hours to make what should have been a two hour drive. I envied the motorcycle riders as they passed by the rest of us by riding the line...dangerous, but very effective strategy...I also thought them genius each time I stopped to fill the gas tank on my BIG HOG as well.

O VEY! I noted as I experienced more of this insanity...I wondered at the number of people who drove more than two or three hours each way to work a day in order to find a place where they could afford to buy a home? They might work in San Francisco, but they commute to Modesto. That reality alone gave me a lot of gratitude for my life as I can live it today.

I moved from the Bay Area to the Central Valley when it seemed like there were too many people and I got the feeling that I needed to take a number to join the PTA...and then of course, on to Oregon recently when the City I lived in became one of the worst Air Polluted Cities in the Nation! It was also becoming a 'big city' and with that comes an impersonal sense of community somehow fragmented into small ethnic villages many seldom venture from. Something in my soul has always longed for a little space around me for some reason. I could never live in Japan I fear.

Every place I went in California seemed too 'brown and dry' and each of those homes and the expansion of population presented greater and greater demand for something that California doesn't have...water. I met with a client who happens to be an energy expert and he said that if California doesn't have another record 'wet winter' as it did this past year, that it's people will experience black outs more and more beginning next year. California hasn't invested in enough power generation plants to sustain it, and other States around her want to keep more of their own as they are experiencing growth as well.

Thinking about that inevitability...I know that lack of power paralyzes everything. When the computers 'shut down' life comes to a standstill today, and I can't think of many functions in life not dependent on the continuing availability of power. You can neither buy nor sell at any store or market when the cash registers won't work...toliets won't flush...food will spoil...and chaos will begin...maybe even anarchy as we watched in New Orleans.

This worries me as so many in my family live there. I remember eight years ago when there was a black out for FOUR HOURS...and I witnessed two grown men almost go to blows over the last bag of ice available at a store. I need to remind my kids to buy a generator sometime this next season....just in case.

Compared with the tragedy of New Orleans, the Floods in New Jersey, the Earthquakes in Pakistan...and the other Acts of God of tremendous destruction worldwide of recent history...it may seem trivial to borrow worry like that, but without a sense of community...people do not tend to help each other out...they tend to take and steal, plunder and revert to the survival of the fittest...and among my loved ones are several children as well....so, forgive me if I err on the side of caution and concern.

I know my kids probably roll their eyes at these thoughts believing all is well in our Great Nation as it has always been...and I hope my fears are just the rantings of an old lady who may be reading more into current events than they merit. I've always been the eternal optimist and even faced with great adversity (except once) I've been able to roll up my sleeves and jump back into the fray believing all would be well if I just worked hard enough and tried to do the right things...but today, I'm not so sure that is enough.

All I know is when I came through Grant's Pass heading north I felt the muscles in my neck relax and my eyes were relieved with the sight of that "Oregon Green". The cars were sparce, and the truckers seemed more considerate so I could take a few seconds here and there to look around at the Countryside.

It seems like such a Gift from God to live in a place where rivers, streams or brooks cross any land more than ten acres, and where the sky is clear and blue and the stars number in the millions once more as I remember them as a child.

As I finally drove onto the mile and a half gravel road that leads to this sanctuary I call 'Home'...it was with a tired body and a humble heart.

Not everyone is blessed with children who are so spiritually grounded they believe 'parenting' is the most important job they will ever have, that a good and loving God is there for them in good times and in need, and who have been responsible for such joy in my life...rather than great sorrow. Not everyone can hold their new grandbaby one by one as they are welcomed into the world, and not everyone has kids that they get along with, and who get along with each other.

Not everyone is blessed with always having more than enough of everything anyone could want in life, and being able to claim a little piece of the world as their very own. Not everyone is blessed to be able to work at home, care for an elderly family member nearly 95 years old, and walk or ride for several miles on trails boasting ferns and flora and fauna and trees and even better...never having to see another human being along the way.

It's easy to just curl up in this place and breathe deep, view the landscape God made, and wallow in the elbow room. It's not a place for everyone...but for someone who has been heaped with such good fortune in a million ways...it's truly HOME to me, and "there's no place like HOME", is there Dorothy?