Category: Blog Page 3 of 4

Pachinko

On June 6, 2022

BY MIN JIN LEE

“Living every day in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”

Book recommendations come my way from a variety of sources. Friends, my writing group, the library newsletter, and even the entity that seems to know me best—Amazon—all contribute to a growing list of books that are “must” reads. But the best book I read this spring wasn’t pushed my direction.

I click-baited my way to it.

My daily Colorado Sun newsfeed gently suggested I check out the opening title sequence to a new show on Apple+, Pachinko. Bypassing the major news events of the day, I went straight to YouTube and watched the cast dancing to Let’s Live for Today by The Grass Roots. Immediately hooked, I parasited my way into my daughter’s Apple+ account to watch the first episode. Normally, English language dubbed over a Japanese/Korean script wouldn’t be my schtick–but there was something about this story…

Back in the day, whenever I mentioned a good movie to my high school drama teacher (who also served as the English teacher, ASB advisor, and about half the other positions in the school,) Ms Lewis would remind me “the book beats the movie every time.” Ms. Lewis was rarely wrong.

Min Jin Lee’s second book, Pachinko, earned her a National Book Award finalist spot in 2017. The story follows Sunja, a young woman born in Japanese-occupied Korea, as she escapes the stigma of an illegitimate child by emigrating to Japan and raising her family in Ikaino, the Korean section of Osaka. Spanning nearly 70 years, Lee deftly weaves a compelling family saga through the Asia’s 20th century rise to modernity.

Although I was lured in by colorful TV stars dancing in a Pachinko parlor, it turns out that was just glitz for the big screen. The book’s plot—things that happen to a family over decades—kept me hooked. It was a familiar concept, like Larry and Sally Morgan in Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety; or Danny and Maeve Conroy in Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House. I find the journey of a family familiar and Dickensian.

But I’m also wary of comfort reads. It’s important to push outside comfort zones and I’ve been guilty of diving into a series at the expense of broadening my horizons (no thanks to you Wyoming cowboy authors, CJ Box and Craig Johnson.) I’m familiar with Asian culture after living two years in Seoul, Korea and three years in Beijing, China. But saying I understand the Asian mindset is like a foreigner splitting five years between New York and Los Angeles and returning home claiming to completely understand Americans. Nope.

Min Jin Lee opened my eyes to the plight of the zainichi (Koreans living in Japan,) and the workings of the yakuza (Japanese and Korean gangsters,)—topics I knew nothing about. Her book settled me in an unfamiliar but intriguing world—like discovering Orville Peck’s music or Avogado6’s art—and I liked it.

The stoicism Lee describes throughout her novel was not a surprise. I’ve read and watched enough Chinese authors and directors (Ha Jin’s Waiting; Zhang Yimou’s To Live) to recognize that a hero in an Asian drama is one living a life of quiet desperation, bound by tradition, authoritarianism, or—in Pachinko’s setting—discrimination. These are not stories that conclude with “Mai Tais and Yahtzee”—instead the journey is the story.

Given the choice of thumbing the remote over to Apple+ of checking out the book, I recommend the latter. But not before you watch that opening title sequence—one more time!

A Small, Small World

By Cam Torrens

On May 9, 2022

In Blog, Nonfiction, Ruminating

There is nothing more cliché than Disney’s song “It’s a Small World” *

The parlor game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, probably made the actor more famous than fighting sand worms or getting his shoelace caught on a tractor.

But isn’t coincidence amazing? It’s like an affirmation that the impossible is actually…possible.

1989. I am stationed in Zweibrucken, Germany flying the mighty C-23A twin-engine Sherpa, a plane also known during its brief seven-year Air Force tenure as “the slowest, ugliest plane in our fleet.” I’ve just graduated from flight school and moved from a shared apartment with a twin mattress on the floor and a giant Orca pool toy hanging from my ceiling. I’m confident I’ll decorate my new abode in Germany differently, now that I’m an Air Force officer and a qualified pilot.

But single occupancy apartments are scarce in the villages surrounding our base near the French border. I end up living on the second floor of an old farmhouse in the 500-person village of Rosenkopf, about five miles east of the base. The first floor has been modified—the foundation split into a series of stalls for the pigs my landlord raises. The smell of dank hay and the livestock reminds me of the couple years we lived on a farm in Oregon along the Columbia Gorge. Good memories.

I bring a couple of my squadron mates over to check out my new digs the day after I move in. I ask if they smell the hay. I see them look at each other before one of them, a blond-haired Captain who’s been in the squadron for two years already, speaks up. “It smells like shit.”

But I love it. The house. The village. There’s only one other American family in the town and only a handful of German families with any English skills. A great opportunity to learn the language.

Six months later and I’m best friends with the elderly German couple two houses up the hill. The husband, a bed-ridden World War II vet who spent most of the war as a POW in America, and his gregarious non-English speaking wife who makes it her personal mission to feed me. Two of their three daughters also live in the old farmhouse and before long, I’m spending holidays with them—an amateur Thanksgiving effort on my part, and them folding me into a memorable Christmas picnic in the woods with sleds, schnapps, and sausage. We become good friends.

That spring, I’m sitting next to the husband’s bed and he’s helping me through a conversation in German while we both drink beer. With each gulp of Parkbrau, I feel my German language skills improving. He’s describing his third daughter—the one who lives in the US—and her family. She had married a GI some twenty years before and she and her husband and grown boys live in northern Idaho. I switch to English.

“I used to live close to there—a little town west of there in Washington called Kettle Falls.” I have no idea why I’m telling him this. I was in 7th grade when I lived there, and the population was less than 1,500. I don’t remember a stoplight.

My friend’s eyes flash. “That’s where they lived before. In Kettle Falls!”

I shake my head. “Are you sure? It’s a very small town.”

“Yes, Kettle Falls. When did you live there?”

I do some mental math. “Around 1976.”

“That’s when my daughter and her family were there. They lived there for about five years.” He calls for his wife and rattles off our discovery in German. I understand enough to recognize he’s asked her to go get a picture.

She comes back and thrusts the picture in front of me. Her husband is staring at my face over the back of the photograph to see if I recognize his daughter.

I’ve never seen their daughter or her husband in my life. They’re posed for a family picture with their two boys sitting in front of them. I stare closer.

“That’s Chase and Del…Sanborn,” I stab at the photo with my finger. “From Boy Scouts!”

I hear a “Mein Gott” behind me from my friend’s wife and he utters something—also in German—I don’t understand. I explain to them that their
grandsons and I went on camp-outs together, built snow caves, and cooked with Dutch ovens. I leave out the stories of lighting farts, a stolen Playboy, and a wedgie gone bad. Because I’m a mature Air Force officer now…and I don’t know how to say “wedgie” in German.

They insist I call their grandkids on the phone right away until we calculate the time difference and realize it’s midnight in Idaho. The next morning, I’m back at their house and they are holding the phone to my ear. Del, the younger of the brothers, is on the line and we both marvel at the odds that I’m standing in his grandparents’ house. We catch up on each other’s lives. After ten minutes, we run out of things to talk about, and I hand the phone back to his grandmother. We’ve never spoken since.

But it’s a story that I’ve never tired of telling. Ask a hundred random Germans if they’ve heard of the farming village of Rosenkopf and ninety-nine will say “nein.” (did I just do an English-German homonymic alliteration? Is that a thing?) Ask a hundred Americans what state has a town named Kettle Falls and ninety-nine will have no idea. But there I stood, in a German farmer’s kitchen on the phone with his grandchildren, my childhood Boy Scout buddies.

Impossible? Obviously not.

God. Fate. Karma. You believe in what you believe, and I’ll stick with my beliefs. But I think we can agree it’s a small world out there. And all things are possible.

* “It’s a Small World” is also the third most annoying family road trip song behind “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and “This Is the Song That Never Ends…”

Home Alone? (gasp)

By Cam Torrens

On April 5, 2022

In Blog, Ruminating

Home Alone? (gasp)

At what age did your parents let you stay alone in the house? I’m not talking overnight, but from the time school let out until your folks got home. I’m betting it was under the age of 10.

I can’t pinpoint my exact age, but I have vivid fifth-grade memories of unsupervised walks home from school with my 8-year-old and 7-year-old sisters and plopping down in front of the TV until the adults finished work. Enough time to take in Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, or Bonanza. Enough time to raid the freezer for an afternoon microwave invention (we weren’t allowed to use the stove.) And just enough time to have my sisters in tears through various types of psychological terror (I saw Mom & Dad give your Barbies to Goodwill) and dry-eyed before the car pulled into the driveway (Oh, look! Here are your Barbies in the back of the closet.)

Was it a different era? Was this afternoon independence a phenomenon occurring after I walked to and from school barefoot… uphill both ways? Or do some elementary school kids out there still enjoy this bit of unsupervised bliss? I think it still happens. It’s just not something people discuss.

And this article from the Colorado Sun reveals why they aren’t talking about it. In Colorado, they’ve just updated laws “to clarify that a child is not neglected when allowed to participate in reasonably independent and safe activities. Those include walking to and from school, playing outside or staying home alone.”

Wait just a darn minute. It was illegal in my state to have my kids do these things? They couldn’t walk home from school alone, play outside alone, or stay at home alone?

Not exactly.

But what was happening was a massive public affairs campaign highlighting the child abuse hotline and encouraging people to make calls when they saw something that didn’t look right. And over 80% of the time, the calls ended up being about kids being left alone. Guess what parents were the targets of most of the calls? Homeschoolers letting their kids play alone outside during school hours, parents of color, and low-income parents who couldn’t afford to have their kids in paid after-school activities.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about effective initiatives to put child abusers behind bars. That’s where they belong. But I’m of the opinion the pendulum has swung just a little too far to the “overprotective” side with our kids. Or in this case, when it comes to passing judgment on other parents.

Something’s wrong with a system where you have to write laws to tell you what you can do. Normally, these statutes highlight what’s illegal.

In the Air Force, we used to be jealous of Navy pilots because their regulations (unlike ours) only told them what they couldn’t do. 1.6.3.1 Thou shalt not buzz the tower, was crystal clear. But any naval aviator worth his salt knew that meant everything else was fair game. Thus, the inevitable newspaper article, Bothell High Grad Buzzes Alumni Football Game With Navy F-18. “I didn’t buzz the tower,” the pilot would protest.

When you have to start writing laws telling people what they are allowed to do, it implies that you’ve covered everything they aren’t allowed to do. And that’s just not true. We still have 31 states that don’t have laws against leaving an infant in a car unattended. It’s still legal to drive a tank on a public road (if you have the right mirrors,) own a flamethrower, and flip off cops. I’m not calling for more regulation, but if you’ve got to meet your rule quotas, we don’t need you telling us we’re authorized to let our kids play unsupervised on the local playground. Write something prohibiting all the “wrong” things and let us figure out the “right” things to do.

Just saying.

Note For Reader: I actually believe the government is “here to help.” Things just go awry in execution. If you’re interested in learning more about the decision to leave your kids at home alone, read this useful pamphlet from Health & Human Services!

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine

By Cam Torrens

On March 1, 2022

In Blog, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Reading

BY anne applebaum

Non sequitur: a statement (such as a response) that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously said.

I used a non sequitur several weeks ago. Not that I would have self-identified my error through the use of the Latin term—wouldn’t want to pile pretentiousness on top of ignorance, right?

The topic was Ukraine and the potential Russian invasion and the appropriate international response. I believe my input to the dilemma was something along the lines of, ‘not that I condone Putin’s actions, but it’s worth considering Ukraine, as a country, has only existed for 30 years. Sure, there is a long history of Ukrainian culture, but the reality is that Russians have lived in eastern Ukraine for much longer than the country has survived as an independent nation-state.’

I guess I threw out my remark to show an inkling of knowledge about Ukraine and Russia. Who knows, maybe it worked because I didn’t get much of a reply from the person to whom I was talking. But something felt off about my comment. It might have been factually true, but it was neither insightful nor relevant.

So, I did what I always do when I realize I’m behind the power curve on an issue. I hit the books.

I started with Tim Judah’s In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine, a 2016 book of interviews and descriptions from pro-Ukrainians following the 2014 Maidan Revolution and pro-Russian rebels manning fortifications in eastern Ukraine. Judah traveled the corners of the country pulling tales and opinions from everyday people on the streets while giving his unfamiliar readers a geography and history lesson (I’d never heard of Bessarabia in Ukraine’s southwest—600K people speaking primarily Russian but ethnically Bulgarian, Moldovan, Albanian, Gagauz and Roma. You travel through the country of Moldova just to get to this part of Ukraine.) I finished the book knowing much more about modern Ukraine than I did before.

In February, I took a seminar on Putin’s Russia and listened to a lecture by the Foreign Policy Association on Russia as a nuclear state in decline. The presentation was online and recorded and presented on the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Suddenly, many of the discussion questions were obsolete.

But the mother lode of Ukraine background proved to be Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine. As the title suggests, the book focuses on the 1932-33 Ukraine famine—or in Ukrainian, the Holodomor. Pulling from primary sources, including diaries and recordings, the description of the tragedy is heart-wrenching and serves as both a reminder of man’s capacity for cruelty and a harbinger of future atrocities in the impending World War.

I recommend the book, not solely for Applebaum’s characterization of Stalin’s reasoning (collectivize the farms to increase grain exports and finance his economic plans, mobilize poor peasants against richer peasants—kulaks—to provide scapegoats in crisis) or his execution (refuse to lower grain quotas during the famine, take food from farmers’ homes, bar starving peasants from entering cities in search of food, relocate Russians to the eastern Ukraine to make up for the 13% of the population who were deported or starved to death,) but also for the excellent history she provides of Ukraine before and after Russia’s February Revolution of 1917. She wraps up the book with an epilogue summarizing the period from the famine to modern day Ukraine.

This book opened my eyes. How can you discuss a country’s history of sovereignty if they’ve never been given a chance? Ukraine sits at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, the second largest country on the European continent with some of the least defensible borders. Ukrainian culture reached its peak over a thousand years ago, before being invaded by the Mongols, dominated by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and taken over by the Soviets.

The international community won’t tolerate Italy reclaiming Great Britain just because they used to be part of the Roman Empire. They won’t put up with Great Britain trying to force India back into the British Empire. The list goes on—and I recognize there’s probably another fancy Latin phrase that describes a logic fallacy in my argument.

So, two points:

Ukraine deserves to have its sovereignty supported (for all of you asking about the military option…that’s a different essay for a different day)

Check out Applebaum’s book from your local library or buy it. Especially if you need a refresher (or a primer, in my case) on Ukraine history.

Note: Amazon links are for reference only. Recommend using your local library!

The Candy Bomber’s Final Mission–Colonel Gail S. Halvorsen

By Cam Torrens

On February 17, 2022

In Blog, Uncategorized

President Reagan described our democracy as a “shining city on the hill”—a beacon of hope for struggling nations. That the best way to promote our values is to demonstrate them every day for all to see.

Yesterday, our country lost our longest living ambassador of love, compassion, and kindness. Air Force Colonel (retired) Gail Halvorsen, also known as The Candy Bomber, passed away at age 101.

Halverson is best known for his initiative during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49, officially known as Operation Vittles. After talking to some despondent Berlin children, Lieutenant Halvorsen advised them to stick close to the runway the next time he flew into Tempelhof Airport. After signaling with a rock of his wings (the children would later nickname him “Uncle Wiggly Wings”,) he dropped small packets of chocolate and other candy out the doors of the plane before landing. The children were ecstatic, the Germans grateful, and thus was born Operation Little Vittles.

After the airlift, Col Halvorsen continued a successful Air Force career—including a stint as the commander of Tempelhof Airport—and retired in 1974. That might have been the end of his official career, but he never stopped representing our country as a humanitarian hero. Besides returning to Berlin multiple times for candy drop reenactments, Halvorsen performed candy drops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Japan, Guam, and Iraq.

While the candy he delivered may have been symbolic, his commitment was not. I flew with Col Halvorsen at 18,000 feet over war-torn Bosnia in 1994 during the Balkan wars. We both wore flak vests inside our armored aircraft and used supplemental oxygen for the high-altitude airdrop. While our Air Force never lost a C-130 during these airdrops, the flashes of gunfire on the ground made it clear that Col Halvorsen was delivering his message in a combat zone.

I remember being amazed at this 74-year-old man energetically immersing himself in the mission—as fit as an airman half his age—and thinking how fortunate I was to meet this kind of hero near the end of his life. Little did I know, Col Halvorsen would continue this kind of work for the next 27 years.

I think President Reagan was telling our nation it’s less important what you say your country stands for and more important to do the things that represent your country’s values.

Colonel Gail Halvorsen had that figured out a long time ago.

Here’s a toast…

Routine Maintenance

By Cam Torrens

On January 8, 2022

In Blog, Ruminating

Routine Maintenance

I have no idea why I’ve settled on 4:52 as my wake-up time. It was even earlier back in my Air Force days (and my go-to-sleep time was much later.) I did a lot of burning the candle at both ends back then and didn’t carry the respect for a good seven-plus hours of sleep that I do now. So why am I getting up before 5 am?

Because I got things to do! If you read my blog post after COVID Year 1, then you recognize I’m a counter. I like to keep track of things in my little day planner (books read, miles run, hot tub usage, etc.) You know—important things. Add them up at the end of the year, put them in a spreadsheet, and then hide them on my computer so no one calls me out for being weird.

But it’s not just counting. I like a routine, too. Probably sounds funny from a guy who spent 30 years in the military, moving every 1-2 years, and deploying overseas regularly in between assignments. It was hard to keep a consistent routine, but I always gave it my best shot, especially with working out and reading.

It’s not like routines are odd—they’ve been around forever and plenty of the “big names” are fans. The Stoic philosopher, Seneca, said,

“Life without design is erratic.”

A couple of decades later, Epictetus noted,

“Progress is not achieved by luck or accident but by working on yourself daily.”

Leap forward a couple of thousand years and I think author Annie Dillard says it best,

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days…”

These days, I have the time and stability for a routine—and I’ve become slightly obsessed with it.

Breaks in my routine annoy me.

There in lies the crux of the problem. I think those long-dead philosophers were right about the importance of designing a life, developing key habits, and incremental improvements. But they were giving advice on how to be better, not how to live better. It’s easy to look forward on a chessboard and try to figure out your next move, but you have to remember your opponent gets a move as well. In other words, life happens to you (rather than “for” you) and if you constantly shirk from external events in order to check off your “to-do” list, then guess what?

You’re not living life.

This truth surfaced for me when four of our children returned for the holidays from college and work and joined the remaining four of us still hanging around the homestead. As I looked at the list of planned family activities (not me! I didn’t make the schedule…) my first thought was “Oh man, I’m not going to get my run done on this day. And there’s no way I’m getting any of the rest of my ‘stuff’ done on that day.” And just as I felt that twinge of annoyance, another thought struck me. It went something like this: “You are a frikkin’ idiot. Your kids traveled from the corners of the country to celebrate a holiday that is all about life, you won’t see them again for months, and you’re worried about making “X’s” in your day planner?” If I’d been standing in front of a mirror, I wouldn’t have met my own eyes.

I’m sure you all learned this lesson long ago, but thanks for letting me share life’s personal reminder to me. Do not underestimate the power of routines. They are an incredible tool to help you be better (and another opportunity for your kids to make fun about you getting older and set in your ways.)

But if you want to live better, you need to embrace the unexpected opportunities that will inevitably slam into your plans for the day. Use the routine when life is routine. Chuck it when you see a chance to get out there and LIVE.

*Note: after I posted this blog, I marked it off with an “X” in my planner

Klara Meets Cloud Cuckoo Land

By Cam Torrens

On December 23, 2021

In Blog, Book Reviews, Fiction, Reading

BY Kazuo Ishiguro and Anthony Doerr

No, the title above is not an actual book. I just finished reading Klara Meets the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr.

Not my usual genre—both these authors are writers of literature, as opposed to my go-to authors of mystery, crime, and suspense. But these two had already lured me in years ago—Ishiguro with his Remains of the Day (Booker Prize) and Never Let Me Go; Doerr with All the Light We Cannot See (Pulitzer Prize) and his collection of short stories, The Shell Collector. Ishiguro writes concise prose, able to say so much with just the right words. Doerr turns poetry into paragraphs even I can enjoy!

Imagine my surprise as I turned to literature this month and found both these books included a glimpse into the future, far enough forward that you could accuse the authors of dabbling in science fiction.

Klara and the Sun reveals a world where Alexa and Siri are no longer voice helpers, but Artificial Friends that walk, talk, and think—sentient, in fact. Ishiguro neglects setting and science (we readers aren’t sure where the story takes place or how the science works) in favor of character and existentialism. It works…and proves a page-turner comes in many forms.

Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land deftly hops between characters from the 1453 siege of Constantinople, present day Lakeport, Idaho (based on one of my top-5 “I want to retire there” locations—McCall, ID), and a spaceship bound for a new “Earth” in 2146, all tied together by an inextricable attraction to an ancient Greek story of a utopia in the skies.

Wait. That sentence above was long and awkward and doesn’t inspire a lot of enthusiasm to read the book, right? Trust me. Anthony Doerr can make the long read fast and he leaves out the awkward. He’s a masterful storyteller and Cloud Cuckoo Land is just plain fun, in that special way a “story with a meaning” can be.

So, which to read first? If you’re feeling like a realist this week and are interested less about optimism than about pondering our future, start with Klara Meets the Sun. It’s a short (but engaging) read and you’ll spend more time thinking about Ishiguro’s characterizations of mankind’s future priorities than you did reading the book. My favorite quote, however, shows what doesn’t change:

“I suppose I’m saying [she] and I will always be together at some level, some deeper one, even if we go out there and don’t see each other any more. I can’t speak for her. But once I’m out there, I know I’ll always keep searching for someone just like her.”

But if it’s hope and idealism you seek, even in the face of a virus that won’t go away and an uncertain climate, then turn to Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land. Like Ishiguro, he pokes at what’s existentially important in a declining world:

“But as he reconstructs Zeno’s translation, he realizes that the truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be part of the problem is to be human.”

Both books are beautifully written by talented authors. You’ll find as much joy in thinking about what you just read as you did hoping the books wouldn’t end.

Don’t Look, Ethel…

By Cam Torrens

On December 18, 2021

In Blog, Running

Don't Look, Ethel...

There’s a rumor around the family that I was a third-grade streaker. According to this fake news, I only exercised this habit when the folks were away and the babysitter was in charge. Maybe I have a lingering memory of this embarrassment? Maybe not—could be something my sisters made up. It was the ‘70s after all and Ray Stevens had just launched his album Boogity Boogity—so I’m going to claim I was unduly influenced by the social media of the day.

But I’m not embarrassed about my current streaking habit. My sister-in-law and niece challenged the other sisters (I’m married to one of them) and myself to a running streak—how many days in a row can you run at least a mile? And you have to check-in by text each day when you’re done. Now I do quite a bit of running, but I always take at least two days off a week, so I wasn’t sure about this one. But then I thought “a mile?” How hard could it be to add 5,280 feet to the off days?

So here we are at Day 61. I was hoping the benefits of the streak would include better endurance. Faster times. Maybe…self-actualization?

Nah. None of that.

But I ain’t quitting, and I’ll tell you why. It’s because of the check-ins!

These texts are my daily dose of humor. OK, it started pretty tame. I think on Day 8 someone posted a pic of an 8-ball. Then on Day 10, I posted a clip of Bo Derek running down the beach. “Game on,” right? The ladies got into it on a #12 argument between Roger Staubach (they are all Dallas, born and raised) and Tom Brady. A walk down memory lane on Day 20 with a pic of a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. OJ Simpson hurdling suitcases at the airport on Day 32 had me ROFL (I’m learning…but shouldn’t it be ROTFL?) Now we’re just starting to push boundaries with the AK-47 pic and an ad for 50 Shades of Grey.

But these texts are also check-ins with family that wouldn’t have happened as often without “the streak.” We know who’s having a good day and who isn’t. We’re organizing our next hike. Sharing Christmas prep. And doing a lot of laughing. I’m not a big telephone guy, but I love these daily bits of family connection.

I’ll keep on streakin.’ Doing it for family!

“Pardon me sir, did you see what happened?

Yeh, I did…I was standing over there by the tomatoes

And here he come

Running thru the pole beans, thru the fruits and vegetables

Naked as a jay-bird

And I hollered over at Ethel…I said don’t look Ethel

It was too late, she’d already been incensed…”

A Place For More “Vans Down By the River?”

By Cam Torrens

On December 7, 2021

In Blog, Ruminating

You can’t shake a stick around Denver without hitting an occupied motorhome parked on the side of the Mile High City’s streets.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of individuals in Denver who call these ubiquitous motorhomes or recreational vehicles (RVs) home. There are a greater number of Denver homeowners who call these same vehicles an eyesore, a safety concern, and an environmental hazard.

I found myself driving one of these cluttered streets with my significant other, who made a comment that made me go, “hmmmm.”

“Why not make an RV Park just for these quasi-homeless, outside of town, with dump stations, water, and electricity. Where they can park without fear of being towed?” she asked.

I answered with an observation that didn’t come close to addressing the issue.

“Transportation. If you move them out of the city, away from the bus and metro, then if they find a job, they don’t have a way to get to it.”

She gave me the nod. The one that means, “OK. Valid point. Is that all you got?”

Well, it was. At that time. At that spot. But it got my ruminating side going. RV parks for those with nowhere else to go. Is that a thing? Do they work? How do they work? Aren’t they addressing the symptoms of homelessness rather than the root problem?

The COVID-19 epidemic highlighted the vulnerability of the homeless and accelerated innovative proposals that had been waiting for someone to pay. With federal COVID funds available, cities across the United States began looking at ways to get the homeless off the streets and into living quarters. You can read about a successful RV housing program at San Francisco’s Pier 94 and the failed projects in San Jose and Seattle here. But what you can’t find out there on the Internet is a single instance in which providing an RV park for the homeless resulted in a long-term, permanently funded, solution to homelessness in a city. Spoiler alert: you won’t find a solution in this blog either.

Because it’s complicated.

Let’s do some point/counterpoint on this RV park concept:

Point: Shelter and sanitation are basic human rights. Providing RV parks for the homeless grants these rights.

The quasi-homeless living in street-side RVs have it better than most of the homeless population. Thousands are living in tents or under tarps and relieving themselves on or near local landscaping. But those in RVs are also often without heat or water and run into the same problem with waste due to full tanks. Five-gallon buckets dumped in sewer drains or on vacant lots
provide a dumping solution.

Counterpoint: OK. If you build it, they will come. But what next?

Once you move the homeless to an RV park, what comes next? “Get a job,” is the most oft-quoted response. It is also the response that shows a lack of awareness about the homeless problem. Depending on where you search for statistics, data shows a quarter to a half of all homeless struggle with mental health disorders and/or drug and alcohol addiction. Giving these people a roof over their heads, water, and electricity might be the right thing to do, but it won’t “cure” most from the underlying conditions that led to their life on the streets. Note: Homeless in shelters have lower rates of mental health
issues and/or alcohol/drug issues—so, quasi-homeless in RVs may have lower rates as well.

Bottom line: If you’re going to fund the RV park, then you should fund the required counseling and treatment to address conditions preventing your tenants from gaining employment.

Point: The RV park concept gets all these vehicles and people off our streets

How about a city we are proud of and not one that looks like a graveyard for 1970s RVs and a repository for blue tarps? If we build these parks with the appropriate infrastructure and support, then our streets will shine again and we’ll look like a city that takes care of its homeless. The San Francisco Pier 94 program is a success story. Built with federal COVID funds, San Francisco will sustain it with state funds.

Counterpoint: Who is going to pay for it? Who is going to maintain it?

Great. Who is going to pay for it? It’s a rhetorical question because everyone knows the money will come from the taxpayer’s pocket. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a federal program using emergency funds or a city program run by volunteer organizations (funded by government grants,) this RV park initiative is a burden paid for by taxpayers who did not create the problem but live with it every day. And it’s not like the government has a great track record for effective and efficient use of funds for projects like these. Look what happened in San Jose—$1.3M spent before they relocated the 37
residents and the project shut down for escalating costs. If you’re going to
build it, a long-term sustainment plan is required—one built from guaranteed resources and not from emergency funds and contingency volunteers.

Bottom Line: You can’t build this concept like an experimental refugee stream. It has to be programmed and developed in the same fashion as a permanent homeless shelter—with consideration for transportation, food, waste management, counseling, job training, and safety factored in before the gates open.

Point: The RV park concept makes our neighborhoods safer because we no longer have the quasi-homeless parked on every street.

It’s not just the local residents who feel insecure when walking down a sidewalk populated by the homeless. Other homeless people can feel threatened as well. It’s not the homeless descriptor that frightens others. It’s the known fact that mental illness and drug/alcohol use are more prevalent
among this population than others that makes these streets feel less safe than
others. Centralizing these RVs in designated parks makes more streets safer.

Counterpoint: Right. You build these parks and now they are all together in one spot. And everyone who lives near that one spot is now concerned about their own safety.

Does moving these RVs and people to a central RV park really make more people safer? Tell that to the people in Los Angeles County’s Westchester where the congregation of RVs and tents sits just yards from a local school. It doesn’t matter where in a city you build this RV camp, it’s going to be in someone’s “back yard.” And if you build the project far away from the city population, you’ve built a detention center rather than a housing solution that allows for potential future training and employment.

Bottom Line: There is not an “in-city” RV park solution which will make everybody happy. But centralizing these RVs would make larger sections of the city safer.

Point: Providing the homeless a “permanent” home in the RV park helps them restore their dignity.

A permanent shelter in a neighborhood setting can restore a homeless person’s sense of dignity, giving them a place they can call their own. When the person doesn’t have to spend the day wondering where they will sleep or park next, worried about their safety, or searching for their next meal, it allows them the stability and time to get themselves together.

Counterpoint: Does it really?

Some would argue giving the homeless a permanent place to live without asking for something in return does not provide dignity. As Andrew C. Brown, director of the Center for Families and Children at the Texas Public
Policy Foundation and Michele Steeb, former CEO of Saint John’s Program for Real Change in Sacramento noted, “Giving them (the homeless) a roof over their head without expecting them to address the root causes of their homelessness robs them of their inherent dignity and the opportunity to reach their full potential.”

Bottom Line: The RV park solution alone is not the answer. It has to be connected to an opportunity for the residents to either receive treatment for the disability that factors into their homelessness or training and employment assistance for a future that allows the resident a pathway to becoming a tax-payer who contributes to the type of shelter in which they once lived.

I said at the beginning of this piece, “it’s complicated.” If it wasn’t, then every city would copy the success stories around the country and their streets would overflow with lemonade stands and kids playing kick-the-can instead of stationary RVs.

This post looked at one concept with a soda-straw view and didn’t address the root causes of homelessness, the potential of low-income housing initiatives, the scourge of drug and alcohol addiction, or dealing with mental illness. Heck, we didn’t even discuss whether the RV park would provide the RVs for the resident like they did (or planned) in San Francisco and San Jose, or whether residents could tow or drive their current RVs to a designated park.

The point I wanted to make was the same one Colin Powell made prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. “If you break it, you own it.” By this, I mean that if you are going to use our citizens’ fiscal resources on an initiative to help the homeless, then you need to plan it, fund it, execute it, and maintain it. Not half-ass it. Pulling the homeless off the streets and giving them a roof over their head in an RV park is not a solution. But housing opportunities, as part of a comprehensive rehabilitative and vocational effort to reduce the number of homeless, could provide hope for those in need and make our cities a better place to live.

The Lincoln Highway

By Cam Torrens

On November 27, 2021

In Blog, Book Reviews, Fiction, Reading

BY AMOR TOWLES ‧ RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 5, 2021

Amor Towles, former investment banker and now a best-selling writer, is not a prolific author. He has published three novels since 2010: Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and his latest release, The Lincoln Highway.

“I’ve read everything he’s written!” probably doesn’t sound very impressive…

But Towles is one of the few authors writing books I would read again. Normally, I plow through novels like a freight train through snow drifts—no turning back. Towles’s books, however, are extraordinary; representative of the time and thought he pours into them. For a reader who respects the classics but is more comfortable with genre fiction than The Great Books, Towles offers an alternative: literary fiction that feels like a classic but has you flipping pages like a USA Today bestseller.

When I read his Rules of Civility, I felt as if I was reading a cross between Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Funny thing, I remember little from those classics, but couldn’t put the Towles book down.

When I read A Gentleman in Moscow, Tolstoy came to mind. I have no idea why, because I’ve never read a Tolstoy novel (just a couple of short stories.) And you would think a story about a man who stays in the same hotel for thirty years would run about the same pace as Tolstoy, but that’s Towles’s genius. Another book I shouldn’t like but ended up loving.

I knew The Lincoln Highway involved a road trip, and I tried to picture how that “link to the classics” was going to work. Would I feel like I was reading Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath or Travels with Charley? I was hoping for something a little more upbeat and my level. Mark Twain and his iconic Huckleberry Finn, maybe?

My youngest boys wrote and illustrated a book for my daughter’s college graduation a couple years ago about her impending road trip from Durham, NC to Tacoma, WA. Structured like The Odyssey, it included a strange hitchhiker, stale jojos from The Flying J truck stop, and zombies chasing my daughter, moaning “Bras” (my sons were later horrified to discover they had misspelled “brains.”) This was the type of road trip I hoped Towles had authored!

I was not disappointed. The Lincoln Highway takes place over ten days in 1954 and ranges from the Midwest to New York City. The novel’s tone is much closer to Mark Twain and my boys’ masterpiece than Steinbeck. He seems to have done it again because when I finished, I felt like I had read a page-turner from Homer (my oxymoron.) He has put together unique and rich characters, each on a personal quest, with the road trip as the “coming of age” vehicle.

My only critique is a backwards compliment. Towles’s character development is so good, I invested myself in the minor players as much as the main characters. At the conclusion, he left me with questions as to the fate of those other players.

If you’re a reader of literature, then approach this book recognizing it’s more Twain than Steinbeck. If you’re a genre reader and rarely read anything that gets a book review, I encourage you to give The Lincoln Highway a go. Some good ol’ boys on a road trip! What could go wrong?

But if you read nothing older than 2005, prefer short sentences and lots of suspense (like me) then I’ll throw you another recommendation that’s nothing like Towles’s work. Try Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards.