Signs On A Highway

We drove a lot of miles the other day, heading south to see my mom. Now that we're living in the Sierra foothills, we took a different route than our usual Highway 101. Interstate 5 is a challenge in so many ways. Speed limit is 70 mph, which means traffic zooms by between 80 and 90. The land is flat and endless for hundreds and hundreds of miles. If the heartland is the breadbasket, this stretch of earth is its fruit and vegetable basket. Corporate farmlands stretch to the horizon in neat lines that make kaleidoscope a verb in a speeding car. We noticed interesting signage every couple of miles for about a hundred miles, where orchards have been laid to waste and empty acres and tumbleweeds press against field fencing. The signs said: Congress Created Dust Bowl. Mmmm. I said to Roger, well, they also created the orchards, the highway, and the water system. A drought makes everyone suffer. Sometimes someone has to decide who suffers first. These are the times in which we live.

Roger sez: Water supplies in California are an insane hodge podge of claims based on first claim, and on down, seniority. Also crime and bribery, aka political donations. Check out "Chinatown" the movie by Roman Polanski. Also the book "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner.