The Human Drought and the New Western Rainmakers (An Essay on Hope for the Promised Land) Part 1 continued.

Part 1 continued.
  ...If I did I have a care back then I still wouldn't have known, that my arrival to San Diego was coinciding with the beginning of the longest and largest drought in man's recorded history, west of the Rockies. Growing up in Minnesota where, in one year the weather swings anywhere from thirty below zero in February to one hundred above in July with an eighty percent humidity, one can't help but be pretty in tune with the weather. Mother nature dictates a Minnesotans daily life on a whole different level than most other people in the world! The last time I checked, International Falls, MN still holds the USA's record for coldest recorded temperature at about minus seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit! But I was twenty-two years old and I think the first time I even glimpsed the news back then was when September eleventh happened.
   In case this information is new news to anyone reading, allow me to catch you up. The entire southwest, California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico have been in drought conditions since the year 2000. In the last four or five years the drought has intensified and taken on new catastrophic levels unseen by humans in this part of the country. Only now is it really going to hit home as California prepares to get serious and start issuing fines for water wasters. Starting tomorrow, August 1, for the first time in state history, people will be getting dinged up to five hundred buckaroos if their sprinklers get the sidewalk wet. I have done some reading but don't know the full details of how the new rules will be carried out from one city to another, I just know that it's finally here and the realities of what is going on will start to be felt by all. I've been monitoring the whole thing from my desktop for the last couple of years as my life has radically changed from carefree rocker to stay at home dad for three sons. But now I'm getting ahead of myself here...let's jump back to, oh let's say about three years ago.
  Marie and I had just welcomed our twins to the world and we were taking them on their first road trip up to the Sacramento area, where Marie's mom and dad had just purchased a palace of a house in Eldorado Hills. It was our yearly Thanksgiving trip and we had not seen the new place yet. We arrived at night after a brutal twelve hour trip that included a puke fest, leading to an extended clean up at a roadside truck stop. The next morning I drove out for groceries and a quick kid break. The navigation system led me around the back way from where we drove in, up to the top of the hill that looked down on Folsom Lake. I'll never forget when it came into my view. I pulled over and got out to give a gaze. It instantly made me miss Minnesota as I looked upon the giant man made lake. I grew up a fisherman in the land of lakes, walleye country! One day my boys will fish also and seeing what nana and papa were living next to now I was filled with happy thoughts of getting them started as little outdoors men. But now flash forward through three years of rapidly intensifying drought...

 

 

...pictures don't lie. To stand in that same spot today, I feel like the native American with the tear streaming down his cheek while someone drives by on the highway and hucks their trash on to the roadside. It's all been let out into the central valley to alleviate the drought. It's gone, in short and when or if it will ever come back...well that's why I'm writing this.
  I suppose some sort of thesis or mission statement is owed to you, my reader, by now. Before you think I'm trying to get a donation out of you or tear your heart asunder with horrifying images and bleeding heart stories. I'm not working for Greenpeace or asking you to hug a tree and stop flushing your toilet. I'm quite simply condensing the info for you that I've acquired through tracking this drought and imparting a message of hope in what appears to be an increasingly hopeless situation. In short, I'm telling a personal story.
  The fact of my life is that I have three young boys to raise, in a city that has to have it's water delivered. The Colorado river basin and the Sierra Nevada runoff that we Californians depend on is disappearing so fast that my sleepless nights are spent wondering what my sons world will look like in ten years. And when I say ten I'm not exaggerating, we are that close to the edge here. It's not like I get to sleep much these nights anyway, but I admit that the fear and stress I've been feeling when I look at scenes like the above picture, has had a grip on me for too long now. If it were not for the good news that my reading eventually led me to, I don't think I would even be able to write this because then... I would start preaching, and no one wants that. Before I keep droning on about this subject though, I would like to mix it up a bit and drone on about a little geography. It isn't my favorite subject, just to let you know, so i'll try to be funny for both of us...to be continued.

                                                                            

The Human Drought and the New Western Rainmakers (An Essay on Hope for the Promised Land) By Tristan Luhrs

 

Part 1. The Grapes of Restlessness
  "Go west young man."
  "Okay." And so I did. In August of 1999, the last summer of the century, I packed up my hand me down Geo Prism, gave grandpa a big hug and a handshake, and drove off into the sunshine with tears streaming down my cheeks. One electric guitar, two amplifiers, a Tascam four-track recorder, and all the other obvious stuff, not so neatly smashed into a small four cylinder car purchased by my mom seven years earlier. That car had seen a lot of traveling in a short time. Mom, brother, and me had road tripped across half the country, and now it would be my trusty steed up through the rockies, down through the desert, and straight into my manifest destiny.  
  San Diego was the place I would land first and the great state of Minnesota was where I was leaving. For the previous four years I had been living in Minneapolis attending the University of Minnesota for the liberal arts and the hell of it. At the end of my junior year I stood one hundred credits to the good, $20,000 + in debt and once again, on academic probation. Back then that was a lot of greenbacks to be in the hole and the free money had long since run out. I could've toughed out another two winters, doubled my debt, and walked away with the degree but my mind had been long since made up to leave. When the winter gave up it's hold on the land and my wanderlust mind thawed, the idea of leaving exploded like the spring pollen in my eyes. I hadn't been to California since I was nine years old on a family vacation, but now had a friend who would let me couch crash. Knowing that I was due for a sizeable tax return, the conditions for my adventures to begin had a green light to hit the highway. Also contributing to my decision to leave was the fact that I was an artist who wanted to do it all. Acting, music, writing, directing, you name it baby, I was a regular Brando meets Dylan meets Coppola all rolled into one. A true jack of all trades master of none, throwing myself at whatever seemed fun and interesting, so if it isn't already apparent then let's make clear now, yes I planned to head up to L.A.
  I was a big party guy back then so when I arrived to the west coast it was as though I was shaking hands with my wildest dreams come true. San Diego had it all, girls, surfing, affordable year round golf, nightly legend making parties from Mexico to Vegas and up to San Fran. Letting the good times roll was easy and affordable and without six months of winter dragging me down I had a lot of stored up energy! Heading into a new century I had not a care in the world and nothing but time, luck and good looks to spend, and the greatest playground on the planet to do it on. All I needed to fund this wild kid was a steady table waiting gig and a cheap roommate situation. I wanted a lot but could get by on little, expenses like cell phone bills didn't exist for me yet so there was plenty to play with...to be continued.

Midweek Mutterings

Evan exits his bedroom to inform me he doesn't want to take a nap
"You take a nap everyday Evan."
"I want some water."
"Okay." After drinking his water he hands me the cup.
"I was so thirsty because I'm done taking my nap."

Rockstardaddy Reprise

And once again...when it comes to nap time, whatever works!

The most interesting stay at home dad in the world

...When it comes to naps and lunch, whatever works. Stay sane my friends.

There ain't no fakin' when a man needs bacon

  As a parent it is important to conduct the family business and or pace of life like normal when a child gets sick. Even though your heart goes out to them and you get a little sick yourself feeling bad for them, it is good for them to see that everything is going along like always and when they return to action the good old same old will be there waiting.
  That sounds great but if you're like me, and I know I am, the complete fucking opposite happens. As a stay at home dad for three sons, all still in diapers, having just one sick makes my world start spinning in a direction that has me sweating out last nights beer and this mornings coffee, by nine a.m. So when the pediatrician said the word 'pneumonia' yesterday my heart, face and mind melted all at once. My skinny three and a half year old, vaccinated blondie with pneumonia! I was shocked.
  I'm no stranger to holding my kids down while they get a needle and he's a tough little dude, but this was a big one for a big illness so by the time it was over we were both overwhelmed and exhausted for the rest of the day. But of course there is two more that need care and that whole daily grind thing, where exhausted mommy has to go back to work. I played two gigs over the weekend which left me struggling for the extra energy but we proceeded to finish up the day the best we could.
   Where am I going with all of this? Well when kids get sick and nature takes them down and they lose appetite and weight and we lose our minds worrying, it always turns to the issue of getting them to eat and stay hydrated. So when they start showing that one first sign that they are going to be alright, it becomes your shining beacon at the end of the tunnel.
   So this morning after two hours of Isaac screaming ouchie and me sinking into despair, I made myself start my own breakfast when all my attempts to help him had been shunned. Suddenly twenty minutes later, as the scent of sizzling bacon filled the air like the call of the wild, I heard his weakened voice from the living room.
"Dad are you making bacon?"
"Yeah."
"I want some bacon." My heart leapt. An hour later a twenty-nine pound toddler had put down a piece of bacon, one scrambled egg with cheese, peanut butter crackers, milk and organic gummy snacks, and a whole glass of water. Not only was I able to post this, but Evan got to have his sword fight with me as darth vader, and Tristan took a normal nap. We still have days of anti-biotics and rest ahead of us to get him back up and running, but the evidence is once again right there for us all to see what we already knew...bacon makes it all better!