A Long Trip

So, now that summer is winding down, it's time once again to make preparations for that dreaded return to school in September. In the past, that meant packing up my things over the course of a week and then dragging those things across the full length of the country. The whole trip is usually a bit depressing. The worst moment is right after getting completely settled in at my seat and realizing that I'm basically on my own glorified flying school bus. Once the flight gets underway, I forget such things and zone out to music, watch a movie, or do a crossword. Once I land, however, I remember that I'm going to school, but that means I get to see my friends, and our de facto family will reunite.

Not this year.

After spending the summer in Washington, I'll soon be traveling home for a few days before leaving for a semester in the United Kingdom.

I'll still be blogging, at about the same frequency (I hope), with new material about how the New Northwesterner lives on the far side of the Atlantic.

And while my friends settle in on their very first morning of classes, I'll be on an airplane, headed home, depressed to leave my friends but excited to see my real family for a little while.

Thunder and Lightning

Okay, so in my last post, I said I could do without summers on the East Coast. That isn't entirely true. I missed one little detail.

August is the best month of summer. Not because its baseball's stretch run, or back-to-school time, but for that moment of indescribable happiness that comes along on selected afternoons in August: the very moment the sun comes back out after a massive and violent (and most times mercifully brief) thunderstorm that brings sheets of rain and an impressive light show.

As the storm clears out, the sun emerges with brilliance and and smell (oh man, the smell) of fresh, moist, crisp air fills the lungs. Sometimes you even get a rainbow as icing on the cake. The temperature and humidity have both come back to within the 'habitable' range.

Man, I love a good thunderstorm.

But I'm realizing that it just isn't going to happen. It's Western Washington - rain capital of the country. Who could blame me for hoping, after the long and damp winters?

Where's the high humidity? 100 degrees anyone? Oppressive heat? Come on, summer, give me your best shot. Yet mother nature seems to have cried uncle before even lighting up the sky just once.

I miss my east-coast thunderstorms. They're like clockwork, happening at the same time (hence, the 3 o'clock shower) every day. It's the worst time of day for a run to the coffee shop two blocks over. It's the best time of day to stare out the window for a while. And it's always fun to see those poor corporate-types caught in the rain without an umbrella.

Mother Nature? A request. Thunder and lightning. Bring it.

Pleeeeeeeease.

Summertime

Allow me to set the scene.

It's late afternoon on a Saturday. A few people are over listening to the ballgame. The grill is firing up some freshly charred goodness, to be placed between a bun.

Ah, summer. What a glorious time of year.

If only the weather weren't so much like mid-spring. Come on. It's 65 degrees and mostly cloudy.

But this is the Northwest, so I guess people get used to it. (This is, of course, not to say that it never gets that way - it's been plenty hot, but not consistently for days on end.)

But why am I complaining? I'm a New Yorker, so to me, "summer" translates to "100 degrees, 100 percent humidity, the 3 o'clock thunderstorm, and enough ruined shirts to last a lifetime."

I guess I could do without it. Yeah, I could.

Bring on the burgers, and get outside!

The Local Watering Hole Destroys Society

It's Friday afternoon. It's been a long week. I get a call from a good friend, inviting me to join him and some others at the local bar for some well-deserved relaxation. I tell him I'll meet him there, knowing full well that my age prohibits me from certain beverages. It doesn't bother me - I'd just like to spend some time with some friends and shoot the breeze. A nice way to kick off the weekend.

Except that in the state of Washington, it's not going to happen. For anyone. According to them, minors underage scum like me allowed in the same room with alcohol pose a threat to disturbing the peace.

I remember my first trip out to Seattle, a few years ago when I was looking at colleges. My father and I had picked a restaurant for dinner a few blocks over and we figured we'd hit the chic-hipster-looking bar off the hotel lobby for a beer (him) and a soda (me). We sat down, ordered our drinks and a small appetizer, and chatted. So far, so good. The drinks and food came, and our evening was off on the right foot. Until we were accosted by a waitress giving me a funny look, asking my age. I said I was 18, and that I was drinking a soda. She then asked me to leave politely, saying that minors aren't allowed in the bar.

Uh, lady, the bar's 20 feet behind you. It's right over there. And I'm drinking a soda, remember?

No, she said, the bar. The decorative metal bar behind you that separating this area from the lobby. You have to leave now.

I wasn't exactly going to make a scene, but I was skeptical. So I asked her what the deal was.

She said that, in Washington, a minor underage scum can't be within the clearly defined area cordoned by the "bar".

Well, it's not like she made the law, so me and my father quickly finished our food and left, rather confused by the whole thing.

I wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow at a bar back home in New York - this is from experience.

Witness the Revised Code of Washington, Title 66, Chapter 44, Section 310, Paragraph 2:

"The Washington state liquor control board shall have the power and it shall be its duty to classify licensed premises or portions of licensed premises as off-limits to persons under the age of twenty-one years of age."

Now, from the same section, Paragraph 1 Clause A:

[It is punishable blah-blah-blah that...] "To serve or allow to remain in any area classified by the board as off-limits to any person under the age of twenty-one years;"

(Read the rest here.)

"Area"? "Off-limits"??! Who knew such a liberal-seeming state could be so puritanical about something like this? It's not like I'm going to jump over the bar and pour vodka down my throat until the bartender tackles me.

I want to know why Washington state thinks that I am unable to control my behavior just because I was born after a certain date. I want to know why Washington considers me to be a petty criminal if I want to spend time with my friends.

The real crime here is the terrible prejudice committed by Washington's law that labels any and all minors to be out-of-control hell-raisers with an insatiable lust for booze.

I could go on to say that ridiculous laws like this are the underlying cause for high rates of underage drinking (they are) and other nonsense, but that's not what I'm getting at. I'm not explicitly advocating for lowering the drinking age, but that's also beside my point.

The stigma that this law creates denies meaningful interaction between members of a community or neighborhood. My parents would tell me stories from their college days about the bars they went to with their professors once a week to have an intelligent conversation over an afternoon beer. I read about how the local pub was once the center of its community, a place for all to gather, confirmed by a recent visit to London.

I'm even denied entry to music clubs every so often, because I'm under 21. I'm going for the music, stupid.

See what I mean? Washington's liquor law destroys society.

Marooned

I had a peculiar dream a few days ago that went something like this:

I've reached adulthood and I'm successful. I have a really nice big house. It's comfortable. Life is good. Then, on the tv, there are reports of an as-yet-undetermined natural disaster about to strike my very neighborhood. I call loved ones, tell them I need shelter for a while. I pack up the important things in the car (you know, health records, old pictures of family, my laptop - stuff I'd rather not lose), and hit the road.

Then the dream really started getting weird.

Instead of traffic funneling at least somewhat smoothly onto the highways, its total chaos just beyond my street. No one is moving, horns are honking, and I'm sitting in deadlocked local traffic for hours. There is no way out. Inevitably, the as-yet-undetermined disaster strikes, and everything in its path is obliterated.

Then I woke up. It was just a dream, I told myself.

The next day, I realized that this was no dream - for some, this could be an unfortunate reality someday. I got stuck in traffic in my dream because there were no highways to take people away. No airports. No trains.

Citizens of the islands of the Northwest, be warned. It could happen to you.

What happens when a modestly populated island has to evacuate in the face of natural disaster? Some of these islands have thousands of people. Many islands have no highways, and only one road through to the mainland.

Some, like Block Is. (Rhode Is.), the bulk of the San Juans (Wash.), or Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket (Mass.), don't even have that.

Sure, maybe they have small airfields, but how many people have airplanes? Commercial air service at small airports is a dying industry, so that's not exactly a safe bet.

So, get on the ferry. The slow, lumbering ferry.

How do thousands of people get off a ferry-access only island in a short period of time? It seems like its asking for trouble.

Now, people living on islands without a reliable link to the mainland is hardly new, and certainly not a northwest-specific trait. But Northwest Islanders take pride in their self-isolation and cutoff from assistance from impending disaster. The Washington St. Ferry System is huge, but its still ferries. They're slow, weather-dependant, and can't hold thousands safely at once.

I even heard that Vashon doesn't even have a real hospital, only an emergency clinic.

And it's not like the Northeast, where the only real imminent natural threat to population centers is the occasional low-level hurricane making its way up the Atlantic coast. (Oh, and did I mention what happens when the oceans rise due to global warming? Wait. That's not natural. We did that. Never mind.)

The Northwest won the geological lottery, situated strategically on the national capital of tectonic activity. We have earthquakes, volcanos, mountains, avalanches, and unusally depressing weather.

Why do people do this to themselves? What is so alluring about living on a low-access island? I would equate it with something like living in Iowa without the cornfields.

But I guess I'll never really understand this one.

Is The Grass Greener On The Other Side?

Well, yes and no. It really depends which side you choose.

I'm fresh off a short vacation in which I covered all three Pacific Northwest climates: The constant gloom that haunts the Pacific coastline towns of Oregon (west of I-5), the dry oven that bakes south-central Washington (east of I-5), and the pleasant weather stuck in between (anywhere on I-5).

Of course, this is only true during the period of time commonly accepted here as "summer", as the definition that I was brought up on (summer is Memorial Day to Labor Day on the East coast) doesn't seem to apply here.

Especially on the North Oregon coast, where the weather was startlingly reminiscent of what I've come to expect of late September or early October, even despite the warm temperatures. It was a little difficult to enjoy the natural beauty of the dramatic Pacific coast in thick fog and mist.

Or in the Cascades, which have clearly been baking in high and dry weather for quite some time, despite the patches of snow at the Mt. St. Helens observatory some 4,300 feet above the sea level I had just driven up from. (For the record, the views there are spectacular and give pause to the incredible power of the events of 1980, but I was very glad to get the heck down from there and back on the highway. I'm not afraid of heights; I'm just not used being in open space quite so high up.)

The drive west on Oregon Route 6 through the Tillamook (rain)Forest was a lush dark green, through to the quaint little town of Tillamook. Washington Route 504 from Castle Rock up to the Mt. St. Helens observatory at Johnston Ridge (52 miles of rolling hill climbs - my '99 Taurus is a tough little trooper) was different, through high forest of a lighter shade of green. And I must not forget the crown jewel of the city of Portland, the overwhelmingly gorgeous International Rose Garden for which the city is nicknamed, although green grass faces some tough competition from the bright hues of the roses. (In full bloom right when I visited, no less. July 4th was the right day for it.)

Here in the Northwest, it really is greener. But there's a catch: I miss out on my favorite time of year, Autumn in the Northeast. Here, the green just keeps going. Back east, the leaves on trees explode into hundreds of reds, yellows, and purples, all at the same time when September blows in. It's natural beauty in its own right.

It may not be a towering mountain range that dominates the landscape there, but that's not what people go to see.

So is the grass greener on the other side?

That all depends on what side you started on.

Sometimes, There's Places I Don't Miss

If you build it, they will come.

The kids built it, and just like that Iowa cornfield, they certainly came.

Sad.

I read the New York Times quite a bit to get a taste of the news from back home. Now, this sort of thing wouldn't happen in the specific town I live in or its surrounding towns (they're actually fairly liberal and this sort of issue could be resolved with a chat in the town administrators' offices). I love baseball; I've said that before. So when I read something like this, it is infuriating. Parents have a knack for screwing up a good thing; this is greatly magnified by the fact that this dispute occurred amongst the uptight, antidepressant-popping control freak adult citizens of Greenwich, Connecticut.

The question: would Northwest parents have the sheer arrogance to repeat something like this, or would stopping kids from having their fun cause them to think twice?

There are plenty of good, legitimate times for parental interjection. Drugs, unacceptable public behavior, teaching responsibility, and so on.

But I often wonder what it might have been like in the times where parenting meant giving your kids room to grow on their own. That era is long forgotten. It is this sort of story I will remember when I have decisions to make about future children of my own.

Current parents, ask yourselves: How did it get to this? Have we failed our children?

Someday, I'll be a parent too. If they build it, let them come. Maybe a little bit of the magic from that Iowa cornfield will rub off on them, too.