Day Two: Tehachapi to Edwards Air Force Base February 20, 2012

Wesley Leon-Barrientos (far left) and Jeremy Staat (far right) with the Edwards Air Force Base Fire Department, February 20, 2012.

Day Two started under gray skies but despite the early morning gloom, there was good news—after a quick breakfast at the Apple Shed (and if you ever find yourself in Tehachapi, you simply must stop there and have a meal or partake of the homemade baked goods or the bakery’s specialty fudge), Tehachapi Mayor Ed Grimes announced that $10,000 was raised for the Jeremy Staat Foundation as part of opening day’s citywide benefit events. He then presented the Keys to the City to Jeremy, Wesley and Dale, along with a special “Tehachapi” city pin. Around two hundred people were out on a gray morning to see the riders off.

It is surprising just how cold the high desert can be. More than one Tehachapi resident remarked that had the circus come through a week earlier, it would have encountered spring-like weather instead of the brisk 40 degrees from the day before. But the cold weather did not deter the five cyclists (two civilians elected to ride with Jeremy, Wesley and Dale) from donning their cycling gear and heading east on Highway 58 toward the first stop in the town of Mojave and a drive-through the former military base. With a quick snack and replenishing of beverages, the caravan headed toward Edwards Air Force Base and the final destination of the day and a docket of activities.

Because Edwards Air Force Base is an active military base, taking photographs is highly restricted. A one-day stopover is planned, with rest and recuperation for the cyclists, setting up our radios, impromptu visits to active-duty military who work and reside on base, and a day to catch up and send out media alerts! We are housed in a very cute 3-bedroom house on base with a fully-equipped kitchen, and I’m planning on making spaghetti & meat sauce for dinner tomorrow if Jeremy lets me get groceries—why not have home cooking while we can? A nice meal of pasta before Wednesday’s 78.1 mile ride will fit the bill perfectly for the riders and road crew!

A Beginning Under Grey Skies—To a Brisk Sunny Afternoon Filled with Love, Patriotism and Adventure

When most Californians think of Ken County, they think of row crops, orchards, vineyards and dairies. What most Californians don’t know about Kern County is its patriotism—the majority of its residents, regardless of country of origin, age or sex is very much in love with all that is good in the United States. Even though this area has suffered greatly thanks to the ongoing water wars, the residents of Kern County are generous to a fault. And you will have to work very hard to find a more patriotic people who want to do the right thing by our military, both active duty, honorably discharged and retired.

On a grey Sunday morning, February 19, 2012, the residents of Bakersfield, Lamont and Arvin gave Iraq war veterans Jeremy Staat and Wesley Barrientos, and Vietnam veteran Dale Porter a sendoff that is worth of their mission. The trio have accepted the challenge to ride across the southwestern and southeastern United States, passing through 13 states over a period of 100 days, with the journey culminating in Washington, D.C. on Memorial Day. The goal of the trip is to increase awareness of issues facing veterans today—the high suicide rate of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan; access to medical care; and assistance in seeing GI Bill education benefits.

Appropriately, the starting point was Kern Couny’s Wall of Valor, which is located near Bakersfield’s Amtrack station. Across from the Wall of Valor was “The Wall That Heals,” a half-scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. It was right that those veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country were front-and-center and on the minds of everyone in attendance.

A bit about the main characters, though neither Jeremy, Wesley or Dale would say they are the main characters—the main characters are those veterans who have gone before them, any man or woman who fought for freedom in any of the armed forces—those who returned from their service with their lives intact, and those who lost their lives on the battlefield. Those veterans past need and deserve a voice, and this trio is speaking for those who cannot.

In an article for The Arizona Republic on January 19, Jeremy described the Wall-to-Wall ride as a “traveling circus.” And for the first day, it certainly was. Traveling with the cyclists are a pair of chase trucks emblazoned with a special paint scheme for the trip, and a motorhome as a place of rest along the route for the riders. From the Wall of Valor on Truxton Avenue in Bakersfield to the main drag of Tehachapi, police escorts from the cities of Bakersfield, Arvin and Tehachapi, along with the California Highway Patrol, ensured the riders’ safety and made it very clear to passersby that something special was heading east on the Purple Heart Trail and south on Highway 58 toward the Ride’s first overnight stop in the small town of Tehachapi.

About 100 cyclists left the Wall of Valor alongside Jeremy, Wesley and Dale. The route through Bakersfield, Lamont and Arvin was peppered with pedestrians and families who pulled off the road and waved flags and held homemade signs—pretty impressive for a Sunday morning!

In the tiny farming town of Arvin, several hundred people converged at the city’s Veteran’s Hall to honor the riders. Jeremy and Wesley have a special affinity for schoolchildren, and the children showed their love for the pair by holding up handmade signs; the mayor gave the riders a welcoming speech, and photo-takers abounded. After a quick refueling of Pedialyte and fruit, the cyclists approached the most challenging part of the day.

The first day is anticipated to be the most difficult ride-wise. Just out of Arvin is the newly-christened Purple Heart Trail, formerly known as State Route 223, complete with a seven-mile seven percent grade. From a distance the route doesn’t look terribly challenging, but there are no level spots or inclines whatsoever.

Tehachapi is a 102-year old city with a population of around 14,000 people that has not lost a bit of its small-town feel. Although the “circus” came through town on a Sunday, residents showed up by the thousands to enjoy special events sprinkled throughout the city’s main street. Three restaurants donated the day’s revenue to the Jeremy Staat Foundation, and residents eagerly purchased commemorative t–shirts and for the most part wore them immediately to show their support. People of all ages milled about waiting for the cyclists to make the last difficult uphill trek into the city.

Mayor Ed Grimes and his committee vowed that the Ride’s first stop and citywide celebration would be the gold standard by which all other stops will be judged. And that certainly will be the case. The riders managed to stop by each special event, posing for photos, accepting thanks and congratulations for a job well done and a successful ride. Jeremy, Wesley and Dale made the 50.7-mile ride from Bakersfield in about 8 hours. The only snafus, which were ever-so-minor, were rest stops (which were expected) along the Purple Heart Trail, and when a cable broke on Wesley’s hand crank. Fortunately there is a back-up hand-crank bike in the mobile bike repair shop that will shadow the riders all the way to Washington, D.C., and the bike was repaired by the next rest stop.

Crops Minus Water Equals No Jobs

It’s not like I have been too busy to blog. Just haven’t been in the mood or had much to say. I gave up the hardscrabble surrounded-by-liberals life in the SF Bay Area and returned to the Salinas Valley—not exactly heaven on earth with all of the gang activity and lack of jobs. So, I am pretty much unemployed and there’s not much market for writers/editors/PR people in this neck of the woods!

Now I have something to say… I’ll be leaving on Sunday, Feb. 19 for a 100-plus day adventure with three veterans who will be riding bikes across the southern United States to bring awareness to veteran’s issues. I’ll share more in another post.

This post is about the utter disconnect California has between agriculture, specifically agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley south of Stockton, and the population centers that tend to vote for Democrats.

Please people, don’t let the dems tell you they are for jobs.

As I was driving down the Central Valley from Coalinga this past weekend, I noticed signs about water allocations that have been cut to farmland over the past 4 years or so. In some places in the CV, growers have had up to 80 percent of their water allocations cut, and in some farming communities, acreage has been taken out of production all together because water was cut off totally. Growers won’t know how much water they will be allowed to take from the aqueduct system until just before spring—but they are being billed for a 100 percent allocation, even if they are forbidden to take a drop!

The consequence is farmers don’t grow produce, farmworkers don’t have work, and consumers pay more for cotton, table grapes, tomatoes, melons and other truck crops they are used to having in abundance.

I was just sitting here thinking about the ramifications—and the lip service regarding how we need illegal immigrant labor to work farms. Wait a minute here—if there are unemployed farm workers in the Central Valley, why does the Salinas Valley and other farming regions cry “We have a labor shortage!” when there are no doubt unemployed farm workers in the Central Valley. And why don’t those unemployed farm workers move to the Salinas Valley and those regions who draw upon ground water for irrigation? The wages are proportionately higher in the Salinas Valley to help with the higher cost of living. Housing is available, too.

The whole water mess trickles down to all of us, but city dwellers have NO idea of the seriousness of this “save the fish” crap that’s shut down the pumps at the Sacto Delta, sending water south to farms. There are millions of acres in the Central Valley that are lying fallow—what a waste! In the last election, the Republican senatorial candidates all understood this—and of course Barbara Boxer, with her head in the trees hugging that fish is squarely in bed with environmentalists. She doesn’t care about jobs—her answer is to increase entitlements to those unemployed farm workers. Naturally the growers who can’t farm still have to pay their taxes—so what if they have no income! Pay up or lose your land!

Yes, all this started before Obama was crowned. But it was the Democratically-controlled Congress and Senate who did this—not Bush. So don't blame Bush.

Next time you drive down I-5 to LA, look at the easy-to-read signs along the road that reveal grower had 80 percent of their water allocation cut, the following year 80 percent and in 2010, 50 percent. The signs have been up for awhile apparently—but most people driving by are utterly clueless as to what they mean. They probably think the open farmland is a wildlife preserve and that fallow farmland is a good thing!

Work Ethic

I have been stewing about this for about 24 hours and the only way I am going to let this go is to write about it. Writing keeps me sane.

My daughter is embarking on a career as a paralegal. She has a challenging, good-paying job with a former professor of hers—as far as I am concerned, the ultimate complement to your worth, skills and knowledge is being hired by a former professor. Heck, I’ve been lucky to have been hired for freelance jobs one of my former professors at SJSU, and he is the current department head! He’s asked me to do research for a mass communications textbook, and to prepare a collection of papers for the department’s certification process. I’ve also worked for another of my former professors, a practicing PR professional with her own business, providing written materials if she gets too busy and bogged down with work. I guess you could say having lived it, I know how meaningful it is to have a professor’s respect.

So I couldn’t be any more proud of this kid—she’s overcome a learning disability and has emerged into a good writer and researcher and problem-solver. In other words, she’s inherited some of my skills. She would never in a million years acknowledge this, but she did tell me once that her friend Sara said to her “You know where those skills came from, right? Your mom.” Quite the complement.

Yesterday she was working on something—she maintains confidentiality as well as I did when I was working as a nurse, perhaps even better. I have no idea what kind of cases she is working on other than sometimes she will say “People are disgusting.” Whatever it was, it was making her crazy and she had a hard deadline of 7 p.m.

Anyway, she called her dad, or he called her, to ask if a money transfer between his bank account and hers had gone through. She jokingly said to him, “I want to retire.”

His reply: “Well, I hope your work ethic is better than your mom’s.”

SAY WHAT???

Okay, here is a bit of my personal and work history. I was married three months shy of being 19 years of age. No I was not pregnant, and I had finished only a couple of semesters at a community college, taking prerequisite classes toward applying for a nursing program. My college career was not an immediate success; as a matter of fact, I dropped out of San Jose State after about 10 weeks into my first semester a year and a half before I married. I was 17 years, 2 months of age when I started college, utterly unprepared and way too young. My grades were fine, I just was socially inept and terrified.

In other words, the only work I could do was in the fields (yes, farm labor) and assisting my mother with farm labor payroll. But that was in no way going to be my career, and my husband and I both knew that.

I hurt my left knee in November of 1976, dislocating my kneecap and eventually requiring surgery. After a couple of years (still working for my mother and working in the fields for cannery tomato harvest and chili pepper harvest in December) I was able to jump with both feet into finishing the nursing degree, driving 80-plus miles a day for classes five days a week. I finished the nursing degree in January 1982, took my boards in February, and reluctantly took a job at the local hospital in June, a dinky 42-bed place that I really did not want to work at. While going through nursing school, I worked hard to impress the staff at the hospital in Carmel, about an hour-and-fifteen-minute drive from where we lived in the hopes I’d be hired there. My left knee was slightly problematic pain-wise, so during breaks and meal breaks I’d ice the knee so I could finish the shift. The pain was not horrific and I did not need pain medication. We did not own a home, but my husband did not want to move from the city we lived in, so I compromised and worked where I did not want to work, ever.

I was hired as a part-time employee, because that is pretty much how they hired nearly all nurses. At times, part time meant three or four days a week, an 8-hour shift. After orientation, I found myself on the night shift, and did not adjust well. Every dime I made, we saved for a down payment on a home. Eventually we had nearly enough in savings to buy a home, and along with a gift of $8K from my parents, we found ourselves homeowners, and I was 5 months pregnant.

I was able to work until my 28^th week of pregnancy, and was working nearly full-time hours, when I woke up one morning with a horrific headache. I was supposed to go to work that afternoon but thought I should have things checked out before I was to go to work (by then I was working the 3–11 shift, much better for me, and I really wasn’t needed on the night shift as there were some nurses who actually preferred that shift). Instead of reporting to work at 3 p.m. that day, I reported to the hospital as an inpatient with pre-eclampsia. No more work for me until delivery, which was accomplished at 37 weeks. I was back to work six weeks after my daughter was born.

For the next several years my knees got worse and I suffered a few back strain injuries, but I was one of the go-to nurses, living less than 10 minutes away from the hospital I’d frequently be called in to work different shifts if things got busy with labor and delivery patients. There are too many times to count when I’d receive a phone call at 1 a.m., be asked to come in to help out, and then be asked to stay for the day shift, or be asked to work a p.m. shift after working the 7 to 3 shift because of multiple laboring women, consequently working anywhere from 12 to 16 hours.

Not bad for someone with no work ethic…

Because my back and knees were getting a bit worse (at the tender age of 32), I went to work at a nursing job that was a bit more sedentary, one where I would not have to do bedside care nursing or any janitorial clean-up work (on the p.m. and night shift, because there was no janitor on duty between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.). I’d hurt myself a couple of times slipping in amniotic fluid and lifting and moving heavy equipment. At my new job I had inmate workers who did patient care and custodial duties; all I had to do was vital signs twice a shift, pass medications, change dressings, and chart. Easy job, and finally a full-time job with great state benefits. Except I got hurt one night, blowing out two discs effectively ending my career in April 1989.

The next several years are a blur, three major spine surgeries, dealing with disability pay and eventually a permanent disability settlement, and three years driving to Seaside on nearly a daily basis to take my daughter to a private school. I did manage to get a job in nursing, sort of, as a worker’s comp case manager, which I did for about 18 months as a part-time worker, perhaps 20 hours a week. The job required lots of driving, something that irritated my back and caused much wasted time, as the bulk of my work was an hour north of where we lived. There was no talk of moving. Our daughter started club swimming after she finished at the private school, so that was a daily trip 80+ miles roundtrip every day after school for three years or so.

I quit the worker’s comp job around the time my father died. All of the driving was not good for my back, so I returned to my mom’s business for a couple of years doing overflow work for her until I decided I had to do something with my life, build on my education and perhaps find something new to do. I started as a full-time student in September 1997 at the same community college I’d earned my nursing degree, attending classes 5 days a week, and transferred to San Jose State in September 1999. I graduated in May 2000, taking 18 units a semester and one winter session in order to get out of college quicker, driving 100+ miles 4 days a week, and maintaining a 3.75 GPA. My degree was in PR, and there was no work in south Monterey County. I needed to move north, but again, not happening. I did get a part-time job editing for a transportation study department associated with the university; the job was do-able by telecommute but they were happier having me onsite. That job started the month I graduated from SJSU.

While I was attending SJSU, my daughter was attending community college. She was desperately unhappy at the local high school where she was getting no assistance for her learning disability and was failing from school. She was much happier being able to take only two or three classes at a time in college, though math remained a problem for her.

Finally in the summer of 2001, I was sick of driving several times a week to San Jose, and my daughter needed to go to school without the distraction of two hours in a car every day. I elected to move north, leaving my home, and I am sure a not real upset husband (other problems in play not worth discussing here). Ever since I moved up here, I have been looking for full-time proper work, and until the economy tanked, I was able to pick up enough work to pay rent and keep a roof over our heads and food in the ‘fridge. I returned to school in December 2003, graduating with a master’s in sport management in May 2005, that degree coming from the University of San Francisco, and again with a stellar GPA.

I apply for jobs at least once a week, and have applied for so many these 11 years I cannot possibly count. I do not get interviews, and the one I did get, I was passed over for a person of the correct ethnicity who could not do the job, but she was Latina, and that is what it was all about. I apply for PR jobs, writing/editing/desktop publishing jobs. Things I can do. I let my RN license lapse last year, I could not afford to pay for required fingerprints or the licensing fee. Yes, all under $200 but I did not have it to spare.

Meanwhile, whenever any freelance opportunity comes my way, I grab it. No job was too small, and I’d even edit grad student papers. But this spring with the budget crisis work came to a screeching halt around June.

Not that 2010 was a great year. I earned less than $20K, supporting myself and my daughter, who was in school full-time and not employed. Her father claimed her as a deduction on his taxes. I haven’t done my taxes in several years because I can’t afford to pay anyone to do them for me.

I have pushed my body to do things it has no business doing, put off dealing with health problems because I cannot afford to go to the doctor even with insurance. I have gone without medication for weeks at a time—and one really should not take chances by not taking medications for asthma and high blood pressure. But I have, and I am about to do it again in a couple of weeks.

This year I will be lucky to earn $12 to 15K. I made it this far with help from my mom and stepdad, something I feel really guilty about. I earned enough to pay rent through July, and that’s about it. There is no work available to me until October at the earliest because of the federal and state budget crises, unless of course I manage to get another job before then. My daughter does not get her first paycheck until early October.

On a regular basis I go without meals. I have not bought clothing for myself, other than redeeming gift cards from my mom, since March 2008. I need new bras. I need new shoes. My cats need vet visits and dental cleanings. My car needs new tires and an oil change, which doesn’t matter, because I am not supposed to be driving a car with a clutch and I know it’s not safe for me to do so. With my daughter finally getting a job, there is hope for paying rent. In the meantime her dad has had to help, as many of the paralegal jobs are in the Bay Area, as are my daughter’s friends and her life—and he doles out the money, enough to pay rent, enough to keep us a month behind on utilities, and a food budget of $100, maybe $200 for two people. My daughter eats elsewhere, and her social life is utterly unaffected. I was able to buy groceries myself until early July.

I am usually hungry, in pain, perpetually looking for work and I have no work ethic (I was given some money to get some groceries, so I bought brain food for my daughter as she's going to be working from home for a couple of weeks). I am not looking for martyrdom, but all of a sudden he’s Mr. Perfect, the victim in all of this? I am sure he’s not missing any meals, gets his prescriptions when he needs them, and enjoys his paid vacations going gambling God-knows-where. He has sacrificed so much to get our kid through school... if he had his way she'd have struggled at Hartnell, dealing with the driving like I did, never finishing a course of study, and probably getting married to some local chump. So much easier.

Karma is a bitch … and I do hope I live long enough that my daughter gets what I have done for her, to ensure her success, to make sure she has a great career and a fulfilling life.

Exercises in Frustration

I really don’t know why I believe any economic news coming out of Washington, D.C. nowadays. All I have to do is look at my situation and I can say with all honestly I am not better off than I was in 2008, and I am probably worse off this year versus last, and last year was a real stinker! I’ve not bought groceries since just before July 4; there is no milk in the ‘fridge, and I’ve not had a loaf of bread in the apartment for three weeks now.

I’m self-employed only because I cannot get employment from someone, anyone, other than contract work. Yes, working from home allows some flexibility but it is so full of uncertainty and frankly, at times it is just not fun working alone! There are times that I wonder if I had known the future—that I would still be under- or unemployed after earning both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree—would I have worked to get those degrees at all?

My answer is still yes—my brain enjoyed the challenges of college and as an older student I was eager to learn and better able to sift through the bullshit that college can be. I enjoyed being a mentor to 20-somethings and being mentored by 20-somethings. I made friends in college who remain friends today. Working with others is what I miss most about this self-employment crap.

I am beginning to wonder though—will I, and the millions of talented under-and unemployed people over 40 who are just waiting for a chance to rock a job going to have to wait until January 2013 for the pendulum to swing back and hopefully change the job hiring climate to looking for experienced and motivated workers, and those job applicants becoming a prized commodity?

Growing Old is Not for Sissies!

Let me preface this by saying that 54 years of age is not and should not be old!

But in the past several months, I have nagging little health issues that are probably a consequence of my younger days atop a horse. Specifically, I have nasty pain in both hips, pain in my right shoulder (probable rotator cuff) and female problems. Of course my back and knees are ongoing issues but I am pretty used to them.

I have been holding myself together trying to get my daughter “raised.” And she has been getting job interviews and I am hopeful something will come to fruition—and soon. I am so tired of trying to maintain a household on my crappy income—two people living on what really isn’t adequate for one person.

I have a perfectly good house and husband located two hours to the south of where I sit at this moment. Had I not moved up here to at least try to get good work for myself (and I define good work as work with benefits… which I have not gotten anywhere close to in 10 years of trying!) and live closer to several colleges, my daughter might well be married to some local guy, utterly dissatisfied with her life, living in a place with limited opportunities.

If she gets a job, I think it’s just fine if I choose to move back home; the limited work I do can be dome remotely, with maybe a trip to San Jose once a month, if that. I could also start dealing with my health issues, having what little income I can earn go toward co-pays and doctor bills. At any rate, I am hoping my daughter gets a job soon … now if only I could make her understand just how bad my hip pain is, and how it’s turning me into a hermit!

Sleep-Deprivation and the Blessed Pope John Paul II

I do need to get a good night’s sleep in the worst way! For a change it’s not pain keeping me up, but television. First I pulled a nearly all-nighter watching the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton early Friday morning. Just as I caught up with sleep, I remembered that this weekend was to be that of Pope John Paul II’s beatification ceremony, and tripped over a live broadcast.

I have no doubt that John Paul was someone special and utterly worthy of sainthood. Maybe he isn’t as flashy as many of the “older” saints, but in our time, when a miracle has to be something very special to attract the Church’s attention.

John Paul II was so charismatic, something that is impossible to see on television. No doubt that is where most have seen him. I was one of the lucky few to have breathed the same air as he, at Carmel Mission in the fall on 1987. I’d volunteered to provide emergency medical services for media covering the Pope’s visit to the Monterey Peninsula. He presided over mass at Laguna Seca raceway, and following that mass, was headed to the mission for lunch with priests, take a short nap, and then head to his next stop, which I think was San Francisco.

The Monterey Diocese set up big-screen televisions for us to watch the mass, so we could feel closer and also know what was going on. I can’t remember the exact time John Paul II was to arrive at the mission; I believe it was noon or 1 p.m. The media room was at the back of the mission, situated in such a way that we would not be able to see him arrive or depart. Yes, all of us volunteering were disappointed we’d not see him, but there was a kind of peace in knowing we’d served him somehow…
As the day drew to a close, we were told that John Paul wanted to thank the volunteers who were not able to lay eyes on him. A decision was made to have him depart the mission from a different entrance/exit; he would exit into an open area, walk to his limo, and then the limo would drive on a circular path so as many of us could see him as possible.

Watching him walk out was so unreal… John Paul II was still very active and fit, and had some sort of energy around him. I know that sounds stupid, but it was just a feeling I’d not yet ever experienced. I was far enough away I could not see facial expressions; I was standing quite far from the limo. But the Pope had decided he wanted us to be able to see him, and he wanted to thank us. He drove right by me, and though I am sure everyone felt the same, I just know he looked right at me.
There was a grace, a sense of peace and a sense that I was close to someone extraordinary. He did his famous wave, and kept it up until the limo was on the straight driveway and out of our sight.

I know the moment was extraordinary, because to this day, I can close my eyes and recall a 20-second memory clip of John Paul II in the limo, driving in that circular drive, looking at me. I do not have any other memories that play in my mind’s eye that long. Yes, I have flashes of special moments, but Pope John Paul II is a full 20-second memory clip that I can recall by closing my eyes and asking for it. When John Paul II lay mortally ill, I could recall that memory and would pray for him while it was playing. When I heard he’d passed, I was at an Oakland A’s game. There was a moment of silence announced on the loudspeaker, and I closed my eyes and recalled that memory.

Okay, so that might not be a spectacular miracle. To me it is enough to know that John Paul II did and does have God’s ear. Last night I prayed to the newly-Blessed John Paul II and congratulated him and gave thanks for him giving me the opportunity to lay eyes on him. John Paul II is no doubt the only pope I will have seen in person in my lifetime. Sure, I wish I had a photograph of John Paul II during that visit, but I think my 20-second memory clip is far more valuable.