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July 09, 2005
Boom & Bust Economies
Along with 6,000 plus people in Northern California, my wife Dinah and I entered Mount Shasta's 4th of July Fun Run & Walk, the "largest small town walk in America." While some ran a 5-mile run, we joined the majority of participants and walked the 2-mile loop (I had been put in the Clydesdale category, after all, a category aptly named for men over 200 pounds). So as we strode along at the base of the majestic Mt. Shasta, bands and musicians playing at every turn, we took in the clear blue day. And the cool, thin mountain air felt good.
Along the last half mile of the loop, local gourmet restaurants offered sample nibblets for us. We indulged. As we nibbled, we were met by Dinah's uncle and aunt. My wife grew up in the Mount Shasta/Weed area and much of her family still lives here. This is an area settled by loggers and Italians. Dinah's mother, for whom we now care in our home in Chattanooga, grew up in Weed also. And Dinah's grandmother, straight from Italy to New York City, came to California around the turn of the twentieth century. This stock of people were strong Catholics, unlike the Baptists with which I grew up.
After the race, winners were announced, followed by a parade down Main Street. I sat with Italian in-laws and listened to the gab about the inflated real estate market in California. We were interrupted now and then by my son, Jackson, who was excited by the parade and the mountain and wondered how his mother could have ever left this "piece of heaven." I smiled and then listened to my wife's family talk about the median price of a home in the state being anywhere between $300,000 and $450,000. Property had obviously become overpriced, and Californians were talking about when to sell to avoid a coming "bubble burst."
Posted by wjbailes at July 9, 2005 03:24 PM
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Comments
Dear John,
Great comments on the mystical $400,000 threshold house game in sunny California as you visited Mt. Shasta in California. This is the land of flips, turn overs, and financial killings regardless of the carnage. Greenspan has given Californias an opening like a new goldmine tip and all Californians are rising to the boom and bust occasion. Like lemmings, they keep running forward ignoring common sense, logic, and data that stares them in the face. As prices accelerate in California we all find ourselves living in Roach Motel where you can check in, but you can't check out. The higher you sell, the higher you have to buy, so taxes soar and sleepless nights become common. But there is an alternative. Find a small town or a community that actually lives each day to the fullest. Perhaps a place where people can pay what houses are really worth. Where sunsets and sunrises are worth something. Where coffee shops becomes debate centers and avenues of discussion about the real issues in life: friends, family, moral values, and our own sense of destiny in a world almost gone mad with power, governments as the largest corporations, and people constantly in motion. What we really want is peace and quiet, a good book, a few friends who are honest with us, an unpolluted environment whether a lake or a beach, and the ability to see deeply that we are, in fact, living a good, wholesome life. But in La La Land in any town of California we are frustrated with the constant motion and effort to someday stay in one place. Like ants we move from place to place ruining everything in our path then we look for another perfect place to move to and destroy. Locomotion is surely a national disease but Californians have perfected it to the highest degree. I dream constantly of small, honest towns where people enjoy each day without traffic jams, where politics is more carefully monitored not unlike the corruption in large cities. Names such as Asheville NC, Silver City NM, Moab UT, Bardstown KY, any small Southern town and many Midwest towns surface. The list is large. But caught in the California tornado of growth, Pacific Time entraps us with money, soaring home prices, and the idea that the real life is in the future and the majority of us are caught on a train going nowhere.
Posted by: Dennis J. Cleary at July 9, 2005 06:55 PM