Matt's Journal

It’s Monday, traditional chore day in most places. Back when I was growing up in New Orleans, Monday was Wash Day and also the day when you ate red beans and rice for dinner. I can recall my father pointing out the suds in the big drainage ditch next to Airline Highway and saying it was Wash Day. I think he was joking, but I’m not sure. There’s no denying the presence of suds. Back then they used phosphates and who knows what other heavy-duty cleansers that we know better than to use now.

It’s chore day still, and I have a list. I’m going to cook today and Thursday. Why in the world, being retired, should I not cook at least half the time? Laura’s cooked all these years and worked too. She took time off to raise our son and I suppose we got into the habit of her doing the cooking. I like to claim that I enjoy cooking; why don’t I do more of it then? Exactly. I signed up to cook all of last week, and succeeded in producing edible dishes every night. The hardest part is coming up with ideas, followed by procuring the food. The rest is fun and routine. I will thaw and cook a salmon that I got from Sunh’s Fish last week – excellent fish there. I might make au gratin potatoes if I can find a healthy version of it. And, of course, the obligatory vegetables, which I’ll have to buy since I don’t think we have any in the house.

So there’s cooking on this chore day, and I’m going to clean the bathrooms too. They need it. I have a load of darks in the wash; I generated most of them from my weekend jaunt to the Big Easy. The wonderful blue fleece from my mother in law got heavy use in the hills last week, making the load.

I wanted to call the Census Bureau about doing one of those hourly jobs where you collect census information from those who won’t fill in the forms online. They called while I was at the funeral repast on Friday. I called them today and they said they had no openings if I wasn’t a veteran, but to call back at the end of the week. Fine; I don’t need the work and would rather it go to someone who does. It seemed like an interesting and useful thing to do, though, and would involve going out and not sitting at a desk.

Back when I worked I made lists every day of what to do. It kept me from getting distracted, to which I am prone, and it felt good to check things off the list. I still do this now, and my chore list is on a paper slip to my left as I type.

I need to get a reporter’s pad from OfficeMax or the college. And I need to pay for the books for the racial equity class I’m taking. The book “White Fragility” is one of them. I did not like that book; my friend said it was because I felt guilty. Perhaps. But I preferred the book “Biased”. The author worked with the Oakland police to reduce police shootings. The main ingredient in her approach: get the cops out of reflex mode – for example, to hold off on a chase and call in reinforcements. The best thing I learned from that book: step back. Bias is automatic, but even a little thinking can offset it. And thinking gets you closer to reality, which is what it’s all about.

What books am I reading now? Well, Larry McMurtry’s “Roads”. He wrote “Lonesome Dove” which I read years ago. His project was to drive stretches of Interstate and write about it. I’ve driven some of the stretches he describes, but responded to different things than he did. For example, I have driven to Flagstaff a few times – the town itself made a big impression on me, as does Barstow, and the yawning emptiness of the East Mojave between Barstow and Needles. These places would merit more writing than he gives them. I also don’t have the negative impressions of northern New Mexico that he reported. I’m sure his observations are valid, and I have enjoyed his book, but my perceptions are different because I’m different. It’s like seeing New Orleans and my family there through my father’s eyes instead of my own. As you become able to see for yourself, you develop your own connections to things and your own likes and dislikes.

Barstow is a town that should be more significant than it is. It’s a major crossroads; I-15, I-40, CA58, US395. But it’s hard to get to Barstow. The exits are inconvenient and confusing. All the buildings there are old and look tired, as if they’ve seen better days. Maybe older cars needed Barstow while new ones make it unnecessary? Barstow is a true desert town, with no trees, where houses have rock gardens and where you can climb a hill and see unobstructed views for miles around. It reminds my of the years I spent in El Paso. Are the folks in Barstow just too dumb, or benumbed, to take advantage of their location? There’s a Fred Harvey hotel there, converted into offices. Fred Harvey made a big impact on that route, which follows the old Santa Fe railroad. Laura gave me some Fred Harvey coffee beans she got up at the Grand Canyon. These are good, but I suspect that their original coffee wasn’t so good – they used percolators, after all. That was still miles better than what came before him.

Besides “Roads”, I have a few books on snowshoeing. We got some snowshoes at Costco which had a sale on them recently. I’ve been out twice since then and have greatly enjoyed the solitude and mobility that they offer. The books describe places to go nearby at Tahoe, and in Yosemite and Lassen too. I am wary of going alone and need to find a partner for the more remote outings. For nearby ones I just go alone.

I read “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” by Wallace Stegner – what a good book. I like almost everything I’ve read by him. He wrote some good books of nonfiction too – one on John Wesley Powell of Grand Canyon and National Parks fame, another on water in the west, another on the Mormons.