Let it rain, let it rain!



I believe we've had more rain in the past two months here in Taft, than we have had in the past five years combined! Lord knows we need it with the ongoing drought in California.



As I drove along Hwy 119 from Taft to Bakersfield the other day the vast vistas, usually so brown and sparse were lush and green, with what "appears" to be little mini-lakes dotting the countryside. In fact when my sons fiancee flew into Bakersfield recently, after picking her up at the Bakersfield airport, as we drove this route to Taft, she mentioned how as she flew in she was astonished to look down and see the many bodies of water, the hundreds of lakes dotting the landscape! It was only then, she realized what those "lakes" were....all the standing water on the ground from the recent rainfalls!

It won't last, but for now we are enjoying the greenest, most lovely spring in the past many years. I am curious to see what awaits us this summer...hotter than ever temperatures (we average 115 - 120 degrees July through September here)...yikes...or perhaps something milder.

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while. ~Kin Hubbard

We've bought a house!



For the past 2 years we've been checking out homes in the area as the housing bubble exploded, and prices fell off a cliff! Sadly so many have, and continue to, lose their homes so there are more foreclosures and short sales competing with "regular" home sales, driving prices down, down, down. This area of California it seems is one of the top 10 worst hit in the nation for foreclosures, but while for some it is a tragedy for others its an opportunity to finally buy a home that is affordable, that is realistically priced, not hyper inflated by a market played out like a game with reckless abandonment by the financial sector we were used to trusting. My how things have changed in the past few decades as we all went about the business of living our lives. Well, its easy to get a good rant going on that subject but suffice it to say, we're all paying the price for taking our eyes off the ball, entrusting others to keep our ship on its seemingly eternal, smooth course, giving up the wheel to those we voted to be our voice as we pursued other more personal interests. My, look what happens while the cats away....the mice WILL play!


When we first moved to this state from the NW 5 years ago our mouths dropped at the high cost of real estate - ANY real estate, be it a virtual shack anywhere near a beach or your average 3 bed/2ba home in any inland city such as Bakersfield. From what houses had been valued at back in our home state, leastways in our area of the state, we'd were looking at double, even triple, the price! We decided at that time to just continue to bank the $$ from the sale of our home in WA, even though, long story short, we ended up losing a chunk of it in the financial downturn, thanks to those very same unscrupulous and greedy folks I just ranted about...in our particular case, two young investment brokers at Wells Fargo Bank. But thats another story, one however that shook our long held faith in banking institutions. I had always looked up with respect and admiration to the great benefactors in the Banking Industry, at one time had worked in a bank for several years when I was a young twentysomething. I liken it to how I had always looked up to Doctors as near Gods. Such innocence has long been lost. Those days are forever gone, forever lost...

Despite the market flooded with foreclosures and short sales, we soon discovered it would not be easy, finding and purchasing a home here. What used to be simply a house for sale, was suddenly a house for "auction"...contrary to all the "normal" procedures we'd always understood re buying and selling a house. Oh no, in these times, unbelievable as it would have seemed, the banks, the overextended, failing banks, STILL continue to hold all the cards, having become fat on TARP funds. Seeing no rush to quickly release their huge real estate inventories, letting them "trickle" out more slowly created more demand and higher prices. When we'd see a REO house listed at a certain price we soon learned that was just the "starting bid". After placing your bid you could expect to be met within a few weeks with what is your "best" offer, and after that, what is your "biggest & best" offer??? Never knowing of course, if there even was anyone out there who HAD actually bid higher than you....or just the bank "working the deal". Time and again we got frustrated and stopped looking. Thinking that we'd just continue to rent for a few more years.

Then just as we were least expecting it, a house basically fell into our lap! Funny how that happens...wish too hard and it won't happen, fa-get-about it and it will! Something to do with "energy" or physics? But wait, wasn't that the principles set forth in the book "The Secret"? Well, hate to argue, but the thinking, wishing and praying on the matter had the opposite effect for us...just "letting it go" is what worked for us! Regardless, thats what happened. A house we'd looked at a year ago was suddenly back on the market, one we'd both felt would be "perfect" for us...it seems the previous pending buyers, the ones who'd held the "winning bid" THAT time, got tired of waiting for the banks to maneuver and agree on a selling price, it was a short sale (or as our realtor calls them "agonizingly long drawn out sales") and after 8 long months found something else. The very day the house hit the market again our realtor, bless her heart, pounced on it, called us and within hours we'd placed our offer, a few days later we were told the bank accepted. Timing. Its all about timing! We still held our breath though for the next weeks, waiting for something to thwart the deal...a bad home inspection, an appraisal that wasn't where it needed to be...so, so many different things that could have resulted in disappointment.

And so, as we prepare to move into our new California home, we once again look to the future, and hope for more stability and peace as this country begins its slow and long road to recovery. I am grateful for my home, even as I feel a sense of guilt, as I consider all those that today are homeless in this great country. I believe its long past time America turned its generosity inward, and took care of its own. The needs are many and great.

Home is a shelter from storms - all sorts of storms. ~William J. Bennett

ABSENTEE VALENTINE

This years Valentines Day marks the 6th one my youngest son has celebrated with his fiancee from behind prison walls. I had to quick re-do the math, recount the fingers, hard to believe that 6 years has already passed...at times the years seem to crawl and at others, generally once each is in the past, they seemed to have been gone in a flash. My son says so too.

Anyways...as always, and in great detail, Corey described to me the type and color of flowers and the very gift he wanted to surprised Sarena with to celebrate yet another Valentines Day, on this long journey. He was well pleased with what I came up with. But the best gift of all for both of them, was her being there with him, for 2 full days, having flown 1200 miles to do so.

12 1/2 years for a first time, non-violent offense...selling marijuana, an herb with medicinal properties that, as we speak, is under review in this very state, edging its way towards being a legal substance. Cigarettes and alcohol kill, yet they are legal substances. How are such things decided?

Some days I wonder just how we got to be so unforgiving as a society, so hellbent on punishment, voting in longer and tougher sentencing for even first time, non-violent offenders. And with a felony following you the rest of your life the road ahead, after reconciling with society, is long indeed, and unforgiving. With longer sentences, and mass imprisonment in this country (we are officially the worlds largest jailor, we imprison 7 times the Canadian inmate population, and I think three or four times that of the UK). Over the last two decades we've seen the emergence of private prisons for profit, turning the entire prison system into a mega industrial complex.

Living now in California there seems to me more prisons here than in any other state in the nation. As California struggles with bankruptcy, funding for schools and education falls away as well. With less education comes more crime, its a catch 22, and I don't see anything changing anytime soon. People have to wake up first.

I suspect by the time my son is released, in 2015, marijuana will be legal. The irony of that doesn't escape me. Don't mistake me, I was raised, and we raised my boys with the same basic understanding that we are a nation of laws, and the breaking of laws has consequences. But however well and fine that may be, sometimes youth combined with certain temptations proves too difficult to resist...and as harmless as marijuana may appear to be (I don't know of anyone who has committed a violent crime or crashed into anyone, killed anyone, while under it's influence) and however widespread its use, it is still illegal. My son was convinced he was doing no harm, he viewed himself as just another businessman, in a very lucrative business, not your everyday, street corner drug dealer. But one day, and at that over a year after he had ceased to sell it and returned to a "crime free" life, with a legitimate source of income, the Federal Govt came calling for their pound of flesh. My young son accepted full responsibility for his own actions (unlike his 2 co-defendants who spent less than a year in prison, interesting how that came about).... but the sentence....the devastating sentence. The plans, the dreams that would be put on hold for so, so long.

I still wrestle with that, though the years are passing quickly, more than anything now, as I look to the future, to his release, my concerns, my worries are mostly about what the hurdles will be, will he be able to overcome them, will he forge a good and happy life for himself, have the family he has always wanted, and now has waited for, for so long. There are no skills being taught in his prison, thankfully he continues to educate himself and has earned two associate degrees, and will continue to work towards earning his Bachelors degree....but will that be enough?...I worry about the world, the "state" of the world, he will return to, so much has changed since he left it all behind.

But thats not why I'm blogging today, suffice it to say, that has all been dealt with, amazingly (to us!) all our lives went on, albeit in a manner we'd never have imagined or dreamed. Having moved from 3 states away from the very beginning of his sentence, to be close to Corey, to continue to share our lives, hoping that regular and often occurring visits would offset the "institutionalization" that would be inevitable to some degree, we re-established our lives here in California, found peace, and new joys over time, and, even within the confines of the prison world, understand that this is just another journey, albeit one we we'd never have chosen.

This system has run amuck, reform is long overdue. So many families and inmates suffer under this oppressive and overly punitive system. As Anthony Kennedy once spoke at an ABA convention, above the prison door hangs a sign "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here". We need reform, not hopelessness, even President Bush stated we are a land of second chances. Are we, really?

For my son, for my family, for now, it is the daily living of our lives, being present in each moment, that we never take for granted. Not one single day...especially, not Valentines Day.

Love is missing someone whenever you're apart, but somehow feeling warm inside because you're close in heart. ~Kay Knudsen