Police harassment and intimidation in SLO County

Yesterday, I received some friendly advice that it’s better to “lay low” than put myself on the radar of local law enforcement.

My friend had heard me complain on the radio last week that the recent Narcotics Task Force arrests of more than a dozen medical marijuana distributors lacked the force of law, and was intended merely as harassment and intimidation.

Local law enforcement has made it clear that medical marijuana, which is legal in this state, won’t be tolerated in San Luis Obispo County.

Talk show host Dave Congalton at 920 KVEC asked me to come on the air because I’d spoken out in the past when the sheriff’s department overreached its authority by setting up and taking down Charles C. Lynch for operating a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay.

Lynch was later sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison, much to the distress of 9^th U.S. District Court Judge George Wu who sentenced Lynch. Federal law gave Wu little choice, the judge said, but to send Lynch to prison.

The Justice Department, even after newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced it would back off from marijuana cases, was fierce in its prosecution of Lynch, demanding that he serve a minimum five-year sentence.

The judge thought better of it.

It was clear that Lynch had committed no real crime against the community. He wasn’t the big drug lord that the government tried to make him out to be. He was dispensing large quantities of “medical” marijuana, to be sure, but, unfortunately, federal law and the U.S. court system refuse to recognize “medical” as a legitimate claim. The term “medical,” in fact, was ruled out as a means of defense in Lynch’s case. Lynch became another victim to the War on Drugs.

Lynch, who now must submit to regular and random drug tests, recently declared bankruptcy, and remains free pending the appeal of his case.

Sadly, Lynch’s cross with the law seemed fueled not so much by federal agents as by local Sheriff Patrick Hedges, who acted more as sheriff provocateur than sheriff protector, and made known to residents that he would not tolerate the sale and use of medical marijuana, even though voters had already made it legal, and California’s then-Attorney General Jerry Brown had provided the necessary legal guidelines on the issue.

They weren’t the clearest guidelines but the intent was clear: Medical marijuana, within certain parameters, is legal and should be protected in the state of California.

Meanwhile, the sheriff’s department and the Narcotics Task Force, whose job it is, I presume, to enforce local community laws and standards, have continued to ignore those guidelines. Instead, they enforce their own interpretation of the law—as federal operatives, in a sense—not as it’s written, which is to serve and protect the interests of law-abiding citizens, including those who sell, distribute and use medical marijuana in the state of California.

Sadder still is that, as a result of overzealous law enforcement, Lynch’s life as a businessman and homeowner, has been completely wrecked: He lost a thriving business that had been welcomed and supported by the City of Morro Bay, he filed bankruptcy and faces losing his home. To what end?

Whose interests were being protected and served?

His life will never be the same; and neither will those children be the same, who watched recently in terror as armored police burst into their home, forced everyone at gunpoint to the ground and needlessly hauled their parents off to jail. The parents were later released after the district attorney dropped the charges.

The message? Don’t mess with the “cowboys,” as they’re called, who make up the San Luis Obispo County Narcotics Task Force.

Unfortunately, what the NTF is doing—without oversight from the pubic or any other local agency as far as we know—is not law enforcement; it’s intimidation and harassment. It won’t pass muster in the California legal system, and it’s a terrible waste of precious resources.

It’s also bad for business, bad for the local community, and makes the cops look like renegades.

My friend is probably correct in suggesting that I keep my mouth shut, which seems to be the consensus among many who live here in San Luis Obispo County: Don’t cross the law; keep your mouth shut. People here are afraid to speak out. That in itself ought tell us something about the sort of “law enforcement” we have here.

Why should anyone but actual criminals be afraid of cops?

I’m not against law enforcement. I’m against law enforcement that uses terror to bring down non-violent suspects such as medical marijuana growers, distributors and users.

Frankly, I don’t want to be on anyone’s radar. Like most people, I’d rather be left alone. But I refuse to “lay low” when law abiding-citizens are being unjustly harassed and thrown into jail.

That alone ought to send shivers down the spines of anyone who cares about their safety. Any time the police can break down your door with hardly a second’s notice in the middle of the night and throw you around in your own home, you’re not safe.

I detest the pervasive use of SWAT tactics—designed to overwhelm and subdue violent criminals—to arrest distributors and users of marijuana, medical or not, who have no violent criminal past and who, if they were stoners, would be the least likely to resist.

Too much can go wrong, as it did recently in Utah when police got a warrant to raid a home using SWAT methods on the fear that the suspects inside might respond with gunfire.

A guest, unbeknown to the police, was sleeping in one of the rooms, and responded to the pre-dawn raid by grabbing a golf club to fend off the intruders. He was gunned down and died on the spot, not an uncommon occurrence in the endless, costly and useless War on Drugs.

It’s only a matter of time, so long as local law enforcement continues to imprudently apprehend medical marijuana providers and patients, before someone is seriously hurt or killed.

More tragic still is that those who were targeted by local law enforcement in the recent raids weren’t even violating the law. They were, again by most news accounts, in compliance with California laws that regulate the use of medical marijuana.

The district attorney has already dropped charges against three of the people who were arrested. Likely as not, any charges that do stick and go before a judge will also be dropped. In any event, a court case from these arrests ought to be welcomed as an opportunity to show how out of line local police have been.

Recently a judge in Montana couldn’t even seat jury because potential jurors said they would refuse to convict someone for possessing a few buds of marijuana. The defendant faced felony charges of “criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.”

The judge in the case was confounded by the citizen revolt and said he’d never seen anything like it before. Be sure to witness more such citizen revolts if police continue to cross the legal line of enforcement.

If the tone of Congalton’s frustrated listeners who called the station and complained of being unfairly targeted for growing and distributing medical marijuana is any indication, courts in this county will also have a tough time finding citizens who support the NTF’s local war on drugs.

I don’t know much about the Narcotics Task Force, a state-mandated agency supported through the participation of local police departments; I don’t know where its budget comes from, or who oversees its operations. I do know they’re members of our community, they’re “out there,” spending countless hours spying on and attempting to entrap legal medical marijuana distributors and customers. It’s a terrible waste of time, money and energy, which could be better spent preventing real crimes.

We also know that without the support of our local lawmen, the NTF would cease to function.

Too often I hear people say, “What can you do? The cops will do whatever they want.”

Only if we let them, only if through silence and complacency we turn our backs and “lay low” to avoid getting into the crosshairs of police who don’t respect the law. As long as no one speaks out, lawmen will continue to harass and intimidate law-abiding citizens whenever they please simply because they don’t agree with the laws we’ve enacted with our votes.

That’s not law enforcement; it’s harassment and intimidation. §

For the sake of argument

I drove straight to Jim’s place, hoping to put to rest any doubts or hard feelings that might remain between us.

We’d had a failure of communication—our first—a few days earlier. He got angry when I challenged him about Sarah Palin, whom he admires: “Do you really think she’s qualified to be president?” I asked. It’s the same question he’d asked me two years ago about Barack Obama.

He snapped, thrust his truck into reverse and started to pull away, grumbling something, before he stopped momentarily, stuck his head out of the cab and yelled, “You tell that Steven character to pay his rent on time or I’ll just turn the water off!” He backed out of earshot, furious, and drove away.

He’d come out to check on me, as is his custom, to see if there was anything I needed, to talk about water use in the two-acre blueberry enclosure my friend, Steven, rents from him to house, feed and water 1,500 thriving plants. I know Steven is responsible and would get current as soon as possible—if he had gotten behind, which isn’t so rare in these tight economic times.

I got the feeling that Jim had been harboring other resentments and had simply had enough, and burst out in anger. I didn’t take it personally; I’d never seen him act this way before, not since I started tending the blueberries nearly three years ago. Our conversations have always remained civil, even when it includes politics, on which we seldom agree. I never thought he’d get upset over me asking him about Sarah Palin.

The drive up to the farmhouse winds through Jim’s well-tended orchards and can be treacherous on some corners if you’re not paying attention, dropping off suddenly into a ditch or clump of trees. It’s about a half-mile or so past the packinghouse, workers’ quarters, and the blueberry enclosure. I seldom drive up that way unless absolutely necessary.

I thought about just going straight to the enclosure, set my worries aside and let Jim settle. In time, our differences would abate. But I’ve seen how things left unattended can quickly turn sour, how one seemingly “simple” misunderstanding can turn best friends into bitter rivals or enemies, and make families into unbearable hornets’ nests.

Believe me, I know.

My brother, for example, hasn’t spoken to me, my mother, or anyone else in the family for nearly 20 years; maybe more, I’ve lost count. He’s refused to make peace, not enough even to send flowers or a word of condolence when mom suffered the loss of her husband of 45 years, a stepfather who treated us like his own sons.

His refusal to settle with our stepfather before he died made no sense, and his icy unwillingness to send a note of sorrow to our mother felt needlessly harsh and mean. I wanted to lash out and make him suffer the way I had seen our mother suffer over the many years he’d stopped talking to her. I felt the cold drowning force of bitterness trying to choke down my own grief. “He’s such an asshole!” I said. “How could he not even send flowers?”

It all began with what was an apparently “simple” misunderstanding, not unlike the one I’d just experienced with Jim, when a word or statement is misconstrued, and if left unattended, breaks the bonds of friendship or tears rifts into sacred family connections.

It’s unfortunate because many people pay a heavy price for these hardened feelings, which only become harder to break as the years pass.

I like Jim and didn’t want him to think that I meant any disrespect, didn’t want our misunderstanding to grow into something worse. We may live on opposite ends of the political spectrum but I don’t want it to become an obstacle to friendship.

I’m impatient with things hanging in air, with uncertainty, especially when it comes to friends and people of close acquaintance. It drives my roommate crazy that I want to “fix” things right away.

“I can’t settle things as quickly as you would like,” she argues.

I would rather have gone straight to the field and waited for another day to make amends with Jim, I would rather have gotten busy with work and forgotten about our differences, imagined or real, but I knew that wouldn’t work. I needed to make peace.

I kept thinking about the New Testament admonition of Jesus, who tells his followers that if anyone has anything against them, a complaint or a grudge, it’s better to go and make peace with that person first before going to the altar, the place of worship, to meet with God. Make peace with your brother first, he says, then go and worship.

I haven’t been to church in a long, long time. The blueberry field has been my sanctuary, a more welcome refuge than most—a place of quiet, with few distractions, and opportunities to find clarity. It’s like going to my own place of worship, where every day, in the silence of the vast open sky and surrounding hills, I encounter something much larger than myself, something that makes me glad to be alive.

I could feel some of that slipping quietly away as the days passed without a word from Jim. I was sure that he had taken offense and probably didn’t quite know how to say so. I was sure that the longer I lingered without going to him and straightening things out, the more likely a rift would form, potentially ruining a good thing.

“How hard can it be to make peace?” I asked myself on the drive up to his home. I’d never really thought about it out loud until now, the cost of making peace, the courage it takes to face another who may have a grudge or other legitimate complaint and attempt to make things right. It’s not as easy as it sounds. “How could anyone who wants to make peace get hurt?”

I decided to run up to Jim’s place to see if he was there and tell him, “Hey, I hope there aren’t any hard feelings between us, Jim.”

Usually, when we talk politics, Jim’s good-natured and keeps his sense of humor. He’s never lost his composure. Our differences are not unlike those of other Americans divided by politics; he listens to Rush Limbaugh while driving his truck around the farm. I can’t tolerate Rush for long, not before I begin to think what an enormous misinformed blowhard he is.

On one occasion, Jim drove up in his truck, blasting the radio with Rush Limbaugh’s churlish voice, which he listens to every day on local KVEC. He turned down the radio, popped his head out the window, as if waiting for a sound, and yelled, “What! You’re not listening to Rush?”

He knows I don’t care for Rush. “I don’t have a radio, Jim. I just listen to yours as you drive around the farm,” I shouted back.

Thankfully, Rush is on for only a short time in the morning, and Jim also occasionally likes to listen to the Rolling Stones or other early rock n’ roller’s from his days as a ‘60s rebel. Mostly, though, the farm is quiet, unless the tractors are running close by or the packinghouse is busy.

Jim drives busily up and down the farm’s dirt roads, monitoring his orchards, watering systems, or charging the batteries of a tractor, taking care of problems before they happen—if he can get to them in time. He’s busy and industrious, often getting into scrapes such as rolling his truck on its side while trying to move a fallen tree.

I have a great deal of respect for Jim. He’s been good to me, a complete farming neophyte rescued from the ravages of journalism. He’s gotten me out of jams when the irrigation has sprung leaks, or he’s brought tools I didn’t have on hand, and has offered advice on weed control and other farming matters.

Despite our political differences, he’s been a good friend.

Jim likes to share his story of attending the original Woodstock, where he subsequently met up with some hippie organic farmers and got hooked on a lifetime of farming. Along the way, with nearly 200 acres to tend and a family to support, however, he’s changed a lot of his ideas, including how to farm.

“The whole organic thing’s a sham,” he said once. “Well, maybe not entirely,” he added, “I know a few organic farmers who are doing OK. But how many of the people you know who eat organic are actually environmentally responsible? Don’t they all drive cars? Fly in airplanes?”

He’s been farming for more than 35 years, and he’s meticulous, keeps the machinery running smoothly, takes care of breakdowns as they happen, and doesn’t rely on factory mechanics to do it for him for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. He does it himself.

He likes to get things done and doesn’t have patience for people who don’t pull their share of the load. “I get up at 5:30 every morning because I’ve got things to do,” he complained recently. “I don’t sit around and wait for things to happen.”

When I finally caught up to Jim, he wasn’t at the house but down by the enclosure, pounding on a wall in the washroom of the workers’ quarters with heavy mallet. “This is how I work out my frustrations,” he said, after I told him I hoped he wasn’t offended by anything I’d said the other day, and that I didn’t want politics to become an issue between us.

“Yeah, that’s all right,” he offered. “I got a little excited. I’ve had a lot going on.”

A tenant had failed to pay rent since August, he added. The tenant has pleaded for time, telling Jim he’s working on a re-build of a car he plans to sell, and he just needs a little time. “Well, it’s been over three months, he hasn’t sold his car and I haven’t seen a penny.”

It was this and a few other things, like the cancellation of a big order and a family emergency, Jim said, that set him off the other day when he drove away.

“Still,” he added, “I don’t know what the big deal is about Sarah Palin. She’s just as qualified as anybody to run for president. I think she’d make a great president.”

I kept silent, saving that argument for a more appropriate time, biting my tongue to keep from pointing out that Sarah would hardly make a great president if she couldn’t complete her first term as governor. This wasn’t the time for debate, which will come soon enough, but for mending, and making peace. §

Who loves war?

America loves war.

It struck me most plainly tonight when the waitress asked if I’d like a plastic bag in which to take home some chili.

I mentioned that L.A. had recently come down hard on plastic bags, which was probably a good thing, the waitress said.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I replied, “there are a lot of things we could do without, or if we have to have them, we could at least find a way to make them so that they have less impact on the environment and use up less energy.”

It started a discussion on how our dependence on petroleum reaches into virtually every aspect of our lives: plastics, personal care, travel, commerce, housing, credit cards, you name it.

“We can do better,” the waitress said. “We have the ingenuity to tap into renewable energies, create jobs, and build things that won’t destroy the environment or kill us.”

“Then we wouldn’t have to send our armies and navies overseas to secure a resource that is clearly limited and won’t last forever.”

“Jeez,” she said, “did you have to go there?”

It’s hard not to go there, to where American taxpayers’ dollars are being wasted on mayhem and murder, when we could be spending our resources in more creative and less wasteful ways.

It’s hard to fathom why, when so many Americans languish without jobs, and education, mass transit and other delivery systems in the U.S. are in such shambles, we are spending so much money to conduct an endless war overseas.

But we’re a culture steeped in death and war. We love to battle, which we promote everywhere, in film, games, toys, at the mall, on university campuses. The U.S. war machine permeates our whole culture.

We love grace under pressure, gallantry, machismo, the rule of law, integrity, a sense of duty, commitment, the willingness to rise above, stand alone, face the enemy, and fight for love of country.

We’re a warrior culture, however, with an ethos based less on the glories we publicly espouse—the carefully selected words we use to promote selfish interests—and more on an indignant—steeped in hubris—sense of entitlement, the idea that we can have it all, anything we want. Everyone else be damned!

Take nothing away from the brave soldiers who fight our wars, although I know many who think the whole military enterprise is a complete sham.

George Carlin, who knew his time was short, spoke bitterly in the final season of his life about war and those who participate in it: “If you’re dumb enough to join, you deserve to die,” he said.

I don’t go that far but I understand what Mr. Carlin must have been feeling. He’d seen enough of the waste of war to know there’s plenty of sham in it.

And who, after living through a series of conflicts and wars doesn’t begin to see it for themselves? Who does it really benefit? Who gets rich off of war?

The men and women who go to war for us are not to be blamed for its stupidity.

The problem arises from a lifestyle the rest of the world has only dreamed about, a lifestyle of extravagance and excess that we have come to expect and demand, and will have to change, if we want to avoid the inevitable demise that comes to a culture driven by the violent ethos of war.

America built so much of its wealth, and its lifestyle, on oil and now, as oil reserves become more scarce and more dangerous to extract, we go to even more drastic measures to ensure its continued flow.

We send our armies and navies overseas not to fight terrorism so much as to secure our one and only—but increasingly less—reliable energy source. From the perspective of empire, it makes perfect sense. Secure the cheapest energy available so we can continue to enjoy our “lifestyle,” which is held up before us as a sacrosanct, non-negotiable entitlement. Few of us really know what it means, however, beyond getting what we want.

But from another perspective, one that doesn’t necessarily include war, it doesn’t make sense at all to spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year to feed a machine that destroys rather than builds; that poisons, maims, and kills rather than feeds, heals and creates life.

Sen. John McCain recently suggested that U.S. military spending could be trimmed by $100 billion. Imagine what could be done if we put $100 billion into education or healthcare or alternative and renewable energies. I’ve been called simplistic for arguing this point, even from those who agree that endless war will end badly.

But it doesn’t require much imagination to see the possibilities of limiting overseas adventures, which rob our national treasury of resources that could go into long-term innovations that will help reduce our dependencies on cheap oil.

I’m not a pacifist but I do know that most wars are stupid and unnecessary. They ruin rather than create prosperity. At some point, it becomes more imperative to build and renew, to innovate and create industries that will move the nation forward than to try sustaining an economy based on cheap oil and war.

“What’s holding us back?” the waitress asked. “We all know that eventually we’ll have to consume less, innovate and create new industries that aren’t based on oil.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “no one I know is holding us back. Ours is an economy literally built on dinosaurs.”

“Well, the people at the top, the people in Congress, sure haven’t done much to move us forward.”

“You got that right,” I said. §

I'm ready for that change, Mr. President

Editor's Note: A fuller, more recent version of this story was published as the cover article in the October 2010 edition of Cold Type, an online magazine with "Writing worth reading from around the world."

As I write this, a collection agency is leaving another annoying, threatening message on the answering machine.

The voice is petulant, measured and all business.

I’ve just walked back into the house to make a call of my own after starting up my work truck—a 30-year-old beast that backfires and sputters—and finding the gas tank too close to empty to go anywhere but to a gas station.

I’m literally running on empty. Unfortunately, I don’t have any money to buy gas.

Once the publisher of a literary magazine, I now work as a farm laborer and love being outdoors and away from the crowds, but I don’t earn enough money to cover my basic expenses, nothing in my pockets, and nothing in the bank.

So I came back into the house to call my girlfriend. I need at least $10. That will get me enough gas to drive to the farm where I can put in a few hours and earn some much-needed income. I know, it’s pathetic, but what are my options?

I’ve been looking for work since the economy crashed two years ago. I’m one of the “long-termed unemployed,” those who don’t receive welfare payments and who no longer count in official unemployment figures.

I struggle to collect my thoughts but, even with the voice machine turned down, I can still hear the annoying bottom feeder trying to get money out of me.

“I’ll leave my number with you one more time in case it wasn’t clear…”

Oh, it’s clear, all right. They call six times a day. How could it not be clear? Our only recourse, given we can’t afford debt relief services, or even to file for bankruptcy, is to ignore them.

The bottom fell out of the American Dream and all we do now is hope we can pay the rent. We’re cutting way back on everything, even things we need to stay afloat—like gasoline.

Ironic, that gas has become the symbol of my worst poverty ever. Gas has always meant going places, getting things done, getting to work on time. Now, I have barely enough quarters to put a gallon in my tank.

I’ve been poor most of my life, but never like this, not to the point where I can’t buy gas to get to work.

As the nation reels from economic woes unlike anything since the Great Depression, we’re finally beginning to realize that the American empire’s attempt to control the world’s oil reserves has had a devastating impact at home.

Cheap oil isn’t cheap any more.

But neither are cell phones and phone lines, which we canceled. Whittling our expenditures hasn’t hurt so much as the grinding, demoralizing effect of not having enough money to cover our basic needs.

I’m almost certain that my circumstances are caused as much by forces beyond my control as they are by failures of character. Still, it’s hard not to feel like a loser when every day six of the 10 messages on our message machine are from collection agencies.

I heard of one collector who, when informed that his potential victim was already holding down two jobs, barked: “Well, get a third job!”

If only it were that easy.

My only consolation on days like this comes from knowing I’m not alone. I’m not alone in my poverty, my anger over government handouts to corrupt bankers, or my frustration over the lack of jobs.

Few people I know have money to spend, their savings are quickly disappearing, and they’re living on less, much less.

Numbers indicating the bleak outlook on the economy keep appearing in the news but they don’t really mean that much to me. They don’t move me in any particular way other than to say, “See, it’s the economy.” But the numbers don’t tell the real story of how so many millions of Americans are struggling.

“Unemployment rose a fraction last month to 9.6 percent,” says one recent report. Tens of thousand of jobs have been created but not enough to sustain a healthy “recovery.”

Meanwhile, bankruptcies and loan defaults continue to plague us as bankers, recently padded with taxpayer dollars, refuse to renegotiate troubled loans and mortgages.

Some prognosticators say we’ll never be the same; wages will never be as high as they once were, homes never as expensive, and banks never as loose with their money. It will be at least 10 years before we can expect a recovery.

Until then, economists say, we’re in for even leaner times, worse than what has already passed. I shudder to think about it. The unrest at home seems to be mirrored throughout the neighborhood and beyond. So many people appear, like me, unsettled, angry, and financially depleted.

The lack of a vision that upholds the interests of all Americans will do that. So will endless war and a failure of leadership. Our current president won office through the promise of change and a real hope for the future.

Sadly, I find myself echoing Sarah Palin: “How’s that hopey changey stuff workin’ for ya?”

What I’ve seen so far doesn’t inspire much hope: The middle-class in America, what’s left of it, has fallen on hard times, malcontents have hit the streets, complaining of socialists and Muslims, and religious nuts threaten to burn holy books, while the government throws billions of dollars down the drain to fight the longest war in our nation’s history.

All of the precious resources we’ve wasted on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m certain, have contributed to the failure of our economy—the billions of dollars that might have been spent on projects at home have surely depleted the national treasury, as did the massive bailout of the banks.

And what have we gained from it all? Where are the jobs? Where’s the money for small businesses? What’s happened to education and the infrastructures that enable fluid commerce and industry? What, really, were the benefits of two wars and the largest cash delivery in history?

Now, it seems, we stand at a precipice, where we vainly await the long, slow and elusive but hoped-for recovery. After two years, however, I’m tired of living so close to the edge of disaster.

I’m ready for that change, Mr. President.

Like millions of other Americans grappling with the demoralizing impact of poverty, I continue to hope for the best. I hope that, somehow, things will get better. Meanwhile, I’ve set my sights on lesser dreams. I’m scaling back and learning to live with less.

My girlfriend arrives in time to hear the fourth collections call of the day. She hands me $10 and a few dollar bills. “Will that be OK?” she asks.

“Fine,” I say, “I just need enough to get to work.”

As usual, we ignore the petulant caller leaving another annoying message on the machine. The collection agencies, obnoxious as they are, don’t scare us. They’re the least of our worries. §

Field Notes: Watering without a timepiece

I can’t remember today’s date. It’s been one of those kinds of weeks.

In my field notes, I write down: “Aug. 8, 2010 Mon.” It’s actually August 9, 2010. My watch, the one that belonged to my father and which my mother gave to me after he died, is broken. It’s not keeping time properly. I’ll get it fixed when I can get enough money together.

I feel somewhat challenged without it. There are other ways to monitor the irrigation but I’ve grown accustomed to turning my wrist and checking my watch to make sure I haven’t gone over my 15-minute maximum of watering each section of the field.

For a few moments after arriving at the farm, I wonder how I’ll monitor the irrigation without my watch. There are eight sections to water, each with about 200 plants. About 15 minutes of watering ensures a full moistening of each plant’s precious roots. It’s not too hard, however, to tell when the plants have had enough water.

After 15 minutes, little pools of wetness form around the bottom of the grow bags and saturate the surrounding weed mat on which the bags rest. I decide to eyeball today’s irrigation time. When the weed mat gets wet, I’ll turn the water off.

At first, I protested the idea of wearing a watch, even though it belonged to my father. My mother insisted that I take it, which I did. Eventually I got used to wearing it, and I appreciate having a memento from my father, whose death nearly two years ago still unmans me.

It’s not the kind of watch to wear while working on the farm. It’s an evening, go-to-town watch, a Seiko Quartz. My dad enjoyed getting dressed up and going out. Young women have given me doubletakes after noticing the gold wristband beneath my work sleeve. I’d like to think it’s me they’re ogling but, at 52, I’m pretty sure the looks are for the gold band and watch.

It’s probably not a smart thing to do, wearing a fine watch like this while laboring on the farm, but what do I know? I’ve never worn a watch until now; I never felt the necessity of it. I’ve gotten used to wearing it and if I didn’t wear it to the farm, I’d never put it on because I don’t get out enough.

I protect it the best I can.

Recently, while attending a party at a friend’s ranch, which attracts the usual suspects from the area’s original hippie population, a woman considered an “earth” mama, blurted out in front of a group of friends: “Stacey, what are you wearing a watch for?” Her contempt for timepieces was clear as crystal.

I got suddenly self-conscious, put my hand over my wrist as if absent-mindedly considering taking off my watch. Her question wasn’t playful, friendly, or even conversational. It came off like a snob-filled, judgmental statement, not a question.

It reminded me why so many of my friends hate hippies. “Buncha lazy-assed hypocrites,” says one friend who can see right through the plasticity of people who think they’re better than others. Of course, not all hippies look down their noses at Establishment trappings such as gold timepieces.

A whole bunch of thoughts went through my mind: “She doesn’t even deserve an answer…. This is my father’s watch…. I like to know what time it is.” I looked upwards and gauged the time by the sun’s position in the sky. “Sure, I could live without a watch. I did it for nearly 50 years….”

I fumbled with the watch, rotating the band on my wrist until finally, I thought, “Fuck her! I’m wearing this watch. What the fuck difference is it to her?” It pissed me off. I didn’t know what to say and stared at her as she sat lazily in her lawn chair in the midst of a crowd of friends who stood in a circle above her, chatting away. I wanted to say: “How come you’re such a fat ass?”

I went with my first inclination, which was to ignore her.

The leaves of the plants are turning up and away from the sun, exposing their undersides to the light. I’ve never seen them do this. It worries me a little and I make a note of it.

It amazes me how lively these plants are. They put on a new show every day: Changes in color, erectness, growing and dropping leaves, blooms and berries.

I’m always a little surprised at how dramatic the changes can be in the space of even a few hours, depending on the time of day or year, the levels of temperature, light, wind, and humidity.

Several plants appear limp, especially the young shoots that have begun appearing in recent weeks. The new leaves hang limply, as if fallen and defeated, or protecting themselves from lack of moisture. I check the bags and the soil feels dry. It won’t hurt if the plants receive more water than usual today, I decide.

I don’t really need my watch, but I sure miss having it on me. §

Fourth of July in Cayucos

I’m raw and unbalanced, hung over from a bout with beer and whisky. I skipped going to work today. It’s gray, overcast and generally gloomy.

Besides, it’s a Saturday, and a Fourth of July weekend. I hate working weekends, especially holidays, but I’m getting used to it. In this economy, few can afford to turn down work.

I awakened early, before 7 a.m, and rode my bicycle to the park to practice aikido, a Japanese martial art designed to defuse conflict, with a friend. It’s been a long time since we’ve done this. It helps me keep an even temper.

Even with a hangover it felt good to tussle and talk. We usually talk politics and the economy. He hasn’t worked in nearly four months; I’m barely employed, working as a farmhand and laborer.

“There’s no work around here,” he says. “I may have to drive down to San Diego to pick up work.”

He’s a union carpenter and, until recently, supported a family of six; the last of his four children graduated high school last year. Finances aren’t as critical now as they used to be. Still, like everyone else, he needs to pay the bills.

“If I was smart, I’d find something to do with the military; that’s where all of the money is.”

Everyone but the banks and military is bankrupt, I say. “What’s wrong with this country?” We launch into another frustrated, cynical litany of ills that plague our nation: Militarism, greed, corruption in government and business, a weak economy and an empire in decline.

“This can’t go on forever,” he says, “we’re more than a trillion dollars in debt.” If anything, the message of the last two years of economic failure has been: The party’s over. The excesses of our revered material lifestyle have drained our accounts and left us empty handed.

Most Americans, hopeful as ever, seem to think the party has merely lapsed into a sustained lull. Things will get better, they say. The markets will regain their vigor, jobs will become available, and spending will save the republic.

Glossy red, white, and blue plastic streamers wave in the wind from houses along Ocean Avenue, which runs through the middle of Cayucos, the small California coastal town where I live, where tomorrow floats and troops of scouts, drill teams, and grass-skirted dancers celebrating the Declaration of Independence will march in a show of America’s love for “freedom.”

Cayucos loves a parade, and its freedom. Our small town plays host to more than 20,000 visitors during the Fourth, who come to celebrate their freedoms by eating hotdogs, playing in the sand, and shopping at the "Peddler's Fair," known by locals as “crap on the creek,” mostly throw-away junk.

The word “freedom” gets tossed around pretty easily these days, as if we all agree on what it means: Freedom of the press, speech and religion; the protection of personal effects from government search and seizure, the right to trial by a jury of peers, the right to bear arms.

More often, however, “freedom” becomes an amalgam of unspecified ideas and feelings, which patriots will defend to the death, about what it means to be an American, which usually includes waving the flag, getting goose bumps during the singing of the national anthem, and chanting “U-S-A!” at soccer games.

Upon closer review, this muddle of feelings and ideas about freedom just as likely arises from the belief that Americans are unique in exercising their right to get rich by whatever means possible, to spend money freely without end or hindrance, even when there isn’t any to spend.

“Freedom isn’t free,” we’re told in countless bumper stickers meant to remind us of the sacrifices that have been made on our behalf. Soldiers, mostly young men, have given their lives to ensure we continue to enjoy the clear advantages of being an American, including the right to spend our diminished earnings at any outlet of our choosing.

Fourth of July, as often as not, has come to be celebrated not so much for the Declaration of Independence from tyranny as for America’s great military empire and raw technological power, which still has not squelched terrorism, but nonetheless allows us to conduct full-scale war without the requisite sacrifices at home.

We can still shop at Wal-Mart and spend freely without guilt while others shed blood in foreign lands to stop the amorphous terrorist cell sprouting everywhere like a cancer across the globe.

“The military isn’t protecting me,” Patrick says. “My tax dollars are supporting the slaughter of civilians. That’s not independence.” Independence is being able to protect yourself, he suggests. “I don’t need the military to do that.”

In my weakened mental state, I don’t argue the point. He’s right, the War on Terror, as most wars, was a sham from the start. We still haven’t caught Osama bin Laden, our invasion of Afghanistan has become America’s longest-ever war, and the Taliban is as strong as ever.

“Why are we spending all our money over there?” he asks. “We need it here.”

Already, chairs have been placed in a mass claim for seating along the parade route. Police tape has been pulled through lines of chairs, marking seating sections between groups of the nearly 20,000 spectators who will gather for tomorrow’s parade.

They come from all points: San Francisco, Fresno, Bakersfield, Los Angeles. It’s the busiest day of the year for our little town of less than 4,000.

The parade features the usual Independence Day amusements: Spectators waving American flags, young gymnasts cartwheeling, local bands rocking on flatbed trucks, grannies dressed in patriotic colors, waving to the crowd from old jalopies.

Once, an outfit of youngsters from Fresno, dressed in paramilitary uniforms, marched crisply in rigid formation, looking distressingly similar to the Brownshirts who helped the Nazis in their rise to power.

“I’m not that patriotic,” Patrick says. “It’s all a gimmick.” If they can get you to believe their story, such as “we need this war,” he adds, they can get you to do anything they want.

Last year, one of the grass-skirted matrons from a beach-chair drill team bolted from the formation as it approached the entry point of the parade. “Hey!” she waved, beckoning me to wait for her. She threw her arms around my neck, firmly pressed her middle-aged buxomness against my body, and planted her lips on mine.

The rank smell of alcohol at 10 in the morning assaulted my senses. Before I could pull away, I felt her tongue probing my mouth. “Yuck!” I turned my head away and slipped out of her arms. She ran back to her group as if nothing had happened.

Cayucos is a friendly place. “Did you see that?” I asked my girlfriend.

“What?”

“She just put her tongue in my mouth.”

“Yeah, right.”

You never know what’s going to happen at the Cayucos Fourth of July parade, but one thing’s sure: Just about everyone here’s proud to be an American, with or without their hangovers. §

I never thought it would be like this

Worried that I might sink into a hole, squeaking out an inadequate living as a part-time farmhand, mom suggests that I look into an opening at Fairhaven Memorial Park and Mortuary, not far from where she lives.

“They’re looking for a funeral director,” she says excitedly.

“Mom, I’m not qualified for a position like that.”

“You might,” she responds. “You’re good with people and you’re low-key.”

I try to imagine myself—sober demeanor, faint smile, slight signs of hope and compassion carefully constructed across my face, voice subdued—doing the business of a funeral director: “So sorry for your loss. How may we assist you?”

A warm, professional grasp of the hand and on to the next order of business. “So sorry for your loss….”

“Mom, thanks. I’d really like to stay in the field I grew up with. I like stories.”

I’ve spent most of my adult life pursuing stories for newspapers and magazines. I grew up believing that there’s a place for stories that present life not as another promotional campaign but as it is actually lived by real people. Unfortunately, the market for these kinds of stories seems to be dwindling.

“You could get a whole bunch of stories working at a mortuary.”

“I’m sure I could mom.”

She tells me it’s worth looking into; the job has been advertised for more than three weeks, she adds; they might just consider me. “It doesn’t look like they’ve found anyone.”

“Mom, that’s what businesses do; they run an ad for a few weeks, build up a candidate pool, and make their selections.”

“Well, you could look into it, get some stories, write a book and get rich.”

“I’ll look into it, mom.”

It’s not a bad idea, really. There’s likely to be more job security in this business, of course, because there’s never a shortage of dead people. It’s unlikely to be a dead-end job (no pun intended), and the story possibilities…well, you’d have be six feet under not to see them.

I go online, find the mortuary website and locate “career opportunities.” The site lists openings for Assistant Sales Manager, Family Services Counselor, Sales, and Operations Manager.

I click on operations manager, curious what duties such a position at a mortuary might entail. Assign holes to be dug? Bodies to be dressed or cremated? Gravestones to be lifted, set into place? Coffins to be bought and sold?

The ad reads: “Premiere…mortuary seeking an individual looking for a challenging opportunity that offers the ability to grow and develop a strong employee staff.”

The “challenging opportunity” sounds interesting but the ad offers no details. I can only imagine the possibilities: “Hey Hector! How come you haven’t filled that goddamned hole yet? It was supposed to have been done yesterday. We have another graveside service scheduled in the next plot at noon. What’s taking you so long? … The furnace broke down again? Damn it! We’ve got five stiffs whose ashes we’re supposed to deliver by morning….”

As for growing and developing a “strong employee staff,” I like people but have never felt comfortable managing them: “Here’s the deal guys, I’m used to working a deadline, just not at a mortuary.”

Unfortunately, they want an “experienced manager with a minimum of 5 years of funeral home management experience.” That eliminates me right away. The call volume of “over 700 cases” a year I could handle. Hell, I used to handle almost that many calls in a week as a newspaper editor.

Additionally, the job prefers an individual who’s a California licensed funeral director. That’s probably a good idea. Someone with a license can be expected to get the job done right. No Maxwell House Coffee cans as urns in this business.

Next, the Family Services Counselor’s duties include “promotion of the funeral home through public relations.” Well, here’s another opportunity to create stories. “At Fairhaven, everyone’s dying to get in….”

I hate public relations. I agree with the late comedian Bill Hicks, who said that people who earn their living convincing others they should accept things that aren’t true, or buy things they don’t need, should just go ahead and kill themselves. “You’ll be doing a public service,” he says.

I also hate sales and skip over the remaining ads, so much for career opportunities in the funeral business. The year 2010 seems to be the year of deflated career options.

The latest reports suggest that many boomers like myself are working at “survival” jobs such as checkout clerks at chain hardware stores earning $10 an hour; or the lucky ones have found positions for which they are severely over-qualified at slightly more than $10 an hour and far less than the six-figure salaries they had before the economy crashed.

“I never thought it would be like this,” they collectively groan. “I was supposed to retire and spend my golden years taking it easy.”

In a recent Frontline episode on PBS, “Close to Home,” which features a local hair salon in the upscale Upper East Side of New York City, a woman in her mid-forties laments: “I’ve had to borrow money from my mother just make ends meet.” She’s embarrassed, and surprised that she’s admitting her sudden unexpected dependency as an adult.

A former middle-aged executive who’s been out of work for more than two years admits he never anticipated long-term unemployment. The hardest hit age group in the U.S. for periods of unemployment lasting two years or longer are people 50 and above.

And so it goes, as regular salon customers complain of their reduced circumstances: “I never thought it would be like this.”

Welcome to the economy of dashed hopes, where nearly an entire generation is forced out of retirement to survive the sudden loss of personal financial resources built up over a lifetime, where careers have been severely downsized or eliminated entirely, and where a banking industry on the verge of collapse, recently bailed out by the federal government, refuses to renegotiate home loans for people unable to make ends meet.

So far, we seem to be taking it in the shorts without much complaint, but here’s what one struggling homeowner recently said he’d do if the bank refuses to renegotiate: “If the fuckin’ bank comes after my home, I’m gonna call my buddy, who’s gotta ‘dozer, and I’m gonna have him bring it over here, and I’m gonna get on that thing, drive it off the trailer and plow it right through the middle of that fuckin’ house. And you know what? I’m gonna tell the bank, ‘You can have your piece-a-shit house.’”

Another friend recently called me a “malcontent” because I’ve never been happy with the status quo, with the little bit of truth or good that squeaks out of Washington, D.C. or Sacramento; I’ve never quite trusted Wall Street. I do, however, see something positive in the crumbling condition of our global banking and business enterprises, which seem to have forgotten the smaller economies of Main Street.

We’ve been challenged to reduce consumption, to find more sustainable models for doing business, to turn to our neighbors and friends for help and support, and to think independently from the “experts” who run our government and industry.

In my own neighborhood, we’ve talked about how to grow more of our own food, and ways to earn a little more money by selling the surplus, and saving money by doing more of our own repairs. Maybe it’s a pipe dream but already one of our own opened up his yard as a nursery because he can’t find enough work as a landscaper.

Selling plants won’t make him rich, he says, but it’s a better alternative to having nothing.

I’ve never lived so close to the ground, planting, tending crops, working as a farmhand, as I have in these reduced circumstances, thinking how much better it is to be above ground eking out a living than to be below ground pushing up daisies.

Still, there’s enough uncertainty and desperation in this economy for people like my mother to suggest that maybe, just maybe, her malcontent of a son might qualify for another ground-breaking endeavor. I won’t waste my time pretending that I might qualify for such an opportunity, but at least it’s an opportunity. §