Out of the Bubble and Into the Car

I realize that we live in a bubble in San Francisco. In many ways, including our politics, our city is just a little different than much of the rest of America. One of those differences is our weather. This summer, while most of the country has been sweltering in a brutal, climate-change heat wave, we have been shrouded by our old friend the fog. Calling summer our June gloom, gray sky July, and of course, Fogust is our way of overcoming our chilly summer weather. We did have a mini-heat wave beginning in July when the temperatures got up into the 70s and people were almost passing out in the streets. But on the 4^th, just as the fireworks were exploding above the city, our natural air-conditioner kicked in and Karl the Fog came rolling back through the Golden Gate. Most years we never see the 4^th of July fireworks because of the fog but this year people were cheering as we watched the fog roll in and the temperature plummet.

Politics has always been a part of our lives, and this strange year is no exception. On the national level, the Democrats seemed to be doing a slow march over a cliff. So, it felt like a good time to get involved in local politics. The political environment in San Francisco is often described as a knife fight in the phone booth. But whomever emerges is often very savvy and tough and some go on to national leadership such as Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, and Kamala Harris. We attended an evening with the candidates for Mayor with a very smart, respectful, and engaged audience. We went to some neighborhood talks by some of the candidates.

We finally decided to support an old acquaintance of ours, Aaron Peskin. Our way of getting involved was to host a house party for Aaron, invite our neighbors and friends, and engage in a discussion with our community. It turned out to be a remarkable event that generated a lot of donations for the Peskin campaign and allowed us all to participate in an important way with democracy.  

Another remarkable event was when Walker’s girlfriend Rosa received an Emmy for her PBS science program called Deep Look. We cheered her on with her sister Ana as we watched the awards ceremony. Rosa came over after the ceremony and showed us the statue. Impressive!

Two years ago in Nova Scotia, I shared by first case of Covid my darling wife Ellen. Now, she returned the favor. We share everything. It’s true love!

The big push of this summer was producing the last installment for the Library of Congress of our American and Global Library projects. This was all the work we have been doing starting in 2019 of libraries throughout Canada, the US, and Mexico. The North American Global Library work will be added to the work the Library of Congress already has of our European Global Library work that they purchased in 2022 and the American Public Library work that they collected in 2015. Printing and cataloguing the new work took up most of the summer. We are utterly exhausted but totally happy to have finished this mammoth effort. And we are proud to have all this work now permanently archived at the Library of Congress.

We were very excited about seeing the Presidential Debate at the end of June. But it turned out to be like watching a horrible bully beating an old, defenseless man to the ground. And this shocking event was only the beginning of a month unlike any other in American politics. Next, Trump barely escaped assassination from an insane gunman. Then, the Republicans staged a hyper macho-man, Las Vegas-like convention to nominate Trump. After that, President Biden (with a little help from his friends) decided he would not continue his campaign for President and threw his support behind his Vice President Kamala Harris. At that point, I happily put in my order for my Kamala for President t-shirt! This was a historic, mind-boggling series of events that we all lived through and are still trying to understand. Can’t wait to see what the Democratic convention will be like in August.

While this was going on, Walker got an assignment to cover the election in the troubled country of Venezuela. This was a particularly difficult one because our government has no diplomatic relationship with Venezuela. After the election, the US accused Venezuelan President Maduro of stealing the election and we recognized his opponent as the winner. To call the situation tense would be an understatement. And Walker and his CBS crew had real concerns that they wouldn’t be allowed to return to the US. There was even a photo published in the New York Times of Walker working on the edge of massive crowd. Violence was beginning to erupt throughout the country. But like a miracle, Walker and his news team finally made it out at the last minute to Columbia. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Just as Walker was making his return, we made our exit from the fog of Fogust to the heat of the heartland. Driving across country is always a challenge but it always includes unexpected rewards. Elko, NV turns out to be the largest gold mining area in the world right now. We had a wonderful conversation with some mining engineers sitting next to us at a table that looked like the Last Supper. But we said we said our goodbyes when one of them started talking about defeating that “Kamala” so she wouldn’t regulate their environmentally damaging gold boom. Ah, America!   

For most of the drive, the famous sparkling blue big sky of the West had been replaced by an oppressive gray caused by massive forest fires. This was only made worse by temperatures that hovered over 100 degrees every day. However, we did come upon two beautiful highlights. One was an area in the Rockies called West Yellowstone. It is an area just west of the National Park that is classic mountain West with high valleys, rugged peaks, and lots of open spaces. This was a thrilling reminder on why I love this part of the country. Unfortunately, as we got closer to Bozeman, MT, the unplanned ugly urban sprawl made me wonder about the title of Montana as the Last Best Place.

The other spectacular place we enjoyed was Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. Over a hundred years ago, this was the home of Teddy Roosevelt where he sought solace in its open spaces.  Today it is home on the range for lots of buffalo, antelope, and prairie dogs. And, as it turned out, lots of tourists. Twelve years ago, Walker and I marveled at how empty this National Park was compared to most. But it was easy now to leave the crowds behind and we spent a blissful afternoon enjoying the big sky, the buffalo and a beer by a slowly meandering river. It was worth the whole trip just to be here.