A Phalanx of "Oh You."

So much of the country appears to be wasteland.  Is that a fair thing to call it?  A pejorative, certainly.  One man’s “waste . . . “   Dry, dusty, desert, it seems, that extends out and rises up in sharp, denuded peaks, of no great size, considered from way up here.  There are disparate signs of humanity, but not many.  One remembers how little of one’s own country one has any real knowledge of.  I’ve flown across the country dozens of times, but driven across and back only once.   And that was thirty years ago.

The news, bad, of course.  Go to China if you want good news.  The nice thing about China Daily:  inflation is always under control, thieves have always, just been caught.  Advertising revenue isn’t particularly important.  Manipulating public opinion is the unvarnished objective.  Flying across the country from New Jersey to Los Angeles the Washington Post has a heat map of where all the Corona cases are flaring up across the country.  The New York Times informs me that California with fifty cases now, has declared a state of emergency.  Lovely.  I fly home tomorrow night and perhaps, by then, New York will have done the same.  (It did.)

I had it in my mind to go to the Huntington Library and see the collection, perhaps I’d find some live jazz.  Forget it.  I’ll probably just do my meeting and return to the cordon sanitaire of my budget hotel.  I wouldn’t even bother to make the trip, but I can safely say, this voyage is important. 

Last night was in Maplewood New Jersey.  My brother and his family live about fifteen minutes from Newark Airport.  That . . . is convenient.  I got to see my nephew at his school.  He’d told all his teachers and his friends that I was coming and I was greeted with a phalanx of “oh, you,” as I made my way through the school and out to the playground.  What a lovely age, what a lovely young man.  He’s open to ideas and to whatever is before him.  He wants to share everything.  Being around children of that age is rejuvenating. 

We’re landing now.  Perhaps I’ll give you some kind of update from the City of Angels.  First I have to do my share of driving in this city of freeways. And there it is, like it always was, the California sun cutting through the arrival hall, making a mockery of the "wolverine" coat in my arms.  

Thursday, 02/05/20