Silent, and a shame(d)

 

   My neighbors are moving. 

   I don’t remember if the young couple moved into the bright yellow and white house right across the street before or after my spinal surgery about seven years ago, but it was roughly, very roughly, around that time.  From my front window, I was intrigued by the punk-rock husband with his tattoos and his band t-shirts who didn’t seem to work and who did the yard work, hung up Christmas lights and sometimes played guitar in the front yard – there might have been a few band practices over there after they first moved in – and by the wife who always smiled and who always seemed to be pregnant.  Indeed, most remarkable, I watched the couple have four boys – four boys! – over the years.  The oldest looks to be about 7; I remember when he was a toddler.  Several weeks ago, the whole family was out washing one of their cars, with the new toddler watching from a stroller. 

   Now they are moving, and I’m sad.  I’m sad that I won’t see this family grow, that I won’t be able to see the boys get older, go to junior high school and high school. 

   I’m also pissed.  I’m mad that I never found out what the father does and if he did or does play in a band.  I’m mad that I never found out the boys’ names. 

   I’m pissed at myself, pissed that I never went over and talked to them.  Just talked to them! 

   It sounds simple – going over and saying hi, like good neighbors supposedly do, but I guess it’s not for me.  For me, it’s more than being shy. 

   I’ve been thinking about this over the last year, especially after attending a memorial of the mother of a few kids I grew up with.  I realized, as we greeted each other awkwardly, that I never spoke to them, because I felt bad, embarrassed that my speech is hard to understand.  I was ashamed of my speech (and probably of being disabled).

   When I was in Santa Barbara last month, I saw an old friend who’s about my age.  We talked about getting older, and he mentioned that he’s having a hard time finding friends who are younger than he is.  I’m having the same problem.  I want to find people who are younger – people like my neighbors who are now leaving – to be friends with.  It is hard enough, as my friend can attest, and it doesn’t help that I am ashamed to talk. 

   That’s a real shame. 

The Big Yellow House (no longer)

 

   On the drive north from Los Angeles along the coast on Highway 101 (and 1), right before Montecito, home of Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and Megan, and Santa Barbara, is the small, unassuming town of Summerland.  For all my life, as long as I can remember, there was a restaurant there along the highway called The Big Yellow House which was, literally, a big yellow house.  (It was actually one – the first? – of a small chain of big yellow houses known for being, literally, big yellow houses and for serving Thanksgiving dinner every day.) It was pretty much a landmark. 

   Last month, I went to Santa Barbara for a few days, and when passing through Summerland, I saw that the big yellow house is no longer The Big Yellow House.  The house is still there, but it’s now a furniture store (perhaps appropriately enough, in a house), and it’s not yellow but off-white or a very pale yellow.  What’s most interesting is that the big The Big Yellow House sign was still there, somewhat faded, along the highway – perhaps in recognition of its status as a landmark?  Or maybe as a memorial?

   It occurred to me, as I passed through, that it was like my life.  Or lives. 

   Ever since my spinal surgery seven years ago, it has been like I have a new life.  At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.  The surgery left me far more disabled, being able to do less and having to do things in other ways. As I’ve written about before, this means I’ve had to make many adjustments including to my attitude and mindset, like being satisfied with sticking around Claremont most of the time and not always traveling as I used to and not going so far when I do travel. 

   Although I’ve made progress on this adjusting, it is, as I’ve also written about here, not easy.  The fact is that my old life, my life before the surgery, is still and always will be there – somewhat faded.  As the song goes, there is always something there to remind me of what I used to be able to do, of where I used to be able to go, of the way I used to do things.  It doesn’t help that I keep doing or trying to do things, like going to all of the concerts and performances at the colleges here, that I used to do (and I was getting tired of keeping up with it all before my surgery!).

   What makes it so hard is not that or just that my disability is worse. I am more disabled, because I have a new disability. I now have a spinal cord injury – the surgery to remove a virus damaged my spine, leaving me paralyzed from the chest down and only able to move my neck and my left arm to a limited extent (and also with considerable neuropathic pain). On top of, layered on, the Cerebral Palsy that I was born with. After all that it took for me to learn to live, to make a life, with Cerebral Palsy, I now, in my 60’s, have to learn to live and make a life, with a lot of new ways of doing things, with a spinal cord injury.   

   What’s hard is that, although my old structure, my old life, is still there with its signs, although somewhat faded, I am no longer The Big Yellow House.

At home - and not - in Claremont

 

   There is a lot of things I love about living in Claremont.  I love the colleges, all the artists and all the artsy people (as pretentious as they sometimes are), the small-town and relatively liberal vibe in the midst of a white-bread if not conservative suburbia. 

   But it does drive me crazy – not in the good way.  Claremont has its problems.  What bugs me even more is when it pretends it doesn’t.  For instance, here’s my latest Claremont Courier column, published on June 28. I can only hope the problem doesn't get worse with the Grants Pass Supreme Court ruling which came down that very day. 

HOMELESSNESS IS NO JOKE.  CLAREMONT’S ATTITUDE ABOUT IT IS. 

   Remember Occupy Claremont? 

   Remember when there were people camping out in front of City Hall some 15 years ago?  They were there in solidarity with other encampments in cities across the U.S, starting on Wall Street in New York City, protesting economic inequality.  Remember? 

   The recent encampments protesting Israel’s war in Gaza reminded me of it. But I’m also reminded of it when I think about homeless people in Claremont. 

   I remember that during Occupy Claremont, in which some of the people camping were actually homeless and in which the participants were supported with meals and showers by Pilgrim Place residents, there was a fair amount of commentary, plenty of it negative with not much sympathy for the cause.  A typical letter in these pages said that the encampment made the village “dangerous.” 

   There was a group of Claremonters – people who cared more about the poor and the unhoused than about what the Village looked like – who met at the time to discuss what could be done to help the homeless in Claremont. Because they knew that they were more than the 5 or some other ridiculous number that was come up with in the first homeless count here, also at the time.

   They also found out, among other things, that many homeless people spend the night here, where they feel safe, and go to Pomona during the day for food, showers and other services.  It was also known that a number of students in Claremont schools didn’t have homes, ones where they regularly stayed. 

   The situation isn’t that much better today. For example, as I’ve heard from a few sources, there are two shelter beds in Pomona reserved for “Claremont’s homeless.”

   Really?  Two shelter beds for the homeless in Claremont?  (There are no homeless shelters in Claremont.) Tell me I heard wrong – please. 

   And, according to many of the homeless persons who hang out here, like those who use the Friday shower program at Saint Ambrose Church, the shelter in Pomona is dangerous, unclean, etc.  No wonder they spend the night here.

   That there are two shelter beds for the unhoused in Claremont – and they’re not in Claremont?  What a joke!  And not a funny one, never mind probably illegal. 

   At least for now, cities aren’t allowed to criminalize or drive out the homeless unless they have shelter or housing for them.  Otherwise, the homeless have to be allowed to sleep in parks, in cars or wherever they feel safe. 

   But it looks like Claremont wants to ignore this, would rather move the homeless along and act like they’re not here, like Claremont doesn’t have a homeless problem.  Half the items in the police blotter in these pages are about homeless individuals (as if they can pay the fines!).

   Like I said, a joke – and an unfunny one. 

   Look, I get why Village merchants complain about finding people sleeping or having urinated or defecated in their doorways.  This is a bad, bad problem – no doubt about it.  But punishing those who have nowhere to sleep and go to the bathroom and then acting like this isn’t a problem here isn’t a solution.

   Locking the restrooms in Larkin Park and forcing the homeless to more or less use the grounds of the nearby Quaker meetinghouse, in which homeless people could spend the night for several years before the COVID pandemic, as a toilet, driving the meeting to make the agonizing, unfriendly, unQuuakerly decision to make trespassing on its property a crime is not a solution. 

   It’s a bad, bad joke. 

   Yes, Larkin Place, which will provide housing and services to homeless people, is being built next to the park and the Quaker meeting but only after some fierce protesting by neighbors and others farther afield and some resistance by the City Council.  The fact is that, essentially, it’s the law that this facility and two or three others in Claremont are being built. It’s the law that more housing, more affordable housing, be available, including in Claremont. 

   But Larkin Place may not solve the homeless problem – yes, the homeless problem – here.  Homeless people may still show up in Claremont.  Claremont should get serious about this problem and realize it’s a problem, not a crime to sweep away.

Left behind

 

   When I’m out and about, either around my neighborhood in my wheelchair or further afield in my van, I don’t see nearly as many “Black Lives Matter” yard signs as I did even a couple years ago. 

   When they showed up or at least proliferated in 2000, after the police murders of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor and too many other Black individuals, the yard signs became almost hard to escape, appearing everywhere. I found this quite heartening – all the more so when COVID was raging and we were all isolated, more or less.  That I was the only one on my street to have a “Black Lives Matter” yard sign was curious to me, but that is perhaps a story for another day. 

   Now, I’m not the only one who is alone in having this sign; there are many other streets that feature only one or two of the signs, and some appear to be just hanging on or pushed aside, as if someone hasn’t gotten around to throwing them out.  It looks like “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t matter anymore.  Or is it that Black lives don’t matter anymore – or again? 

   I see these signs disappearing, and I keep thinking of the Occupy movement. 

   Remember Occupy?  Remember Occupy Wall Street, which expanded to Occupy New York, Occupy Los Angeles, and so on, with people camping out in many cities, protesting economic inequality?  There was even an Occupy Claremont encampment in front of City Hall in the Village downtown area, to some people’s consternation and with showers provided by a local community of retired church workers.

   Whatever happened to this movement, which seemed so powerful when it was happening about 15 years ago?  Perhaps the current encampments on college campuses protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and the colleges’ involvement in financing it are what brought the Occupy encampments to mind.    

   Will the college encampments pick back up when school starts again in August and September and if the Gaza War is still going on?  Or will it be another discarded, forgotten movement? 

   As I see the dearth of “Black Lives Matter” signs and wonder about the Occupy movement and how long or if the pro-Palestinian encampments will continue (if the Gaza war and college investments in Israel continue), I wonder why these and other liberal, progressive movements tend to fizzle out while anti-abortion, pro-gun and other conservative movements or forces go on and on.  Not only that, they often get stronger. 

   Look at the way the anti-abortion folks hung in there for decades, since at least the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in 1973, to see that decision overturned in the Dobbs decision two years ago and vowing to continue and get a national abortion ban.  Look at the way the pro-gun people persist, getting gun safety measures blocked even in the face of unending horrific mass shootings, including at schools.  Look at the dozens of anti-trans and other anti-queer state laws that have been passed or are pending. 

   It’s not that progressive measures aren’t also approved (civil rights, gay marriage, etc.).  It’s the conservative movements and how strong and persistent and how vocal and loud they are, to the extent that some of these measures are threatened. Why do many progressive movements not have this staying quality or power? 

   Is it because conservatives, who always tout that they’re pro-law and order, are more orderly, so to speak, better at organizing or being organized, following directions?  Perhaps progressives are just too loose, being more socialistic – the conservatives might say communistic - anti-authoritan, less inclined to being organized and following directions.

   I’m all for going one’s own way, but there should be a way to do this and not veer too far off track and end up losing.

Getting unstuck (?)

 

   The other night, I was watching a documentary on Netflix called Radical Wolfe about Tom Wolfe, the famed and somewhat controversial author of such modern classics as This Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities.  I was struck when, during one of the many television interview clips shown, Wolfe, in talking about The Right Stuff which took him most of the 70’s to write, described writing as “agony.”

   This made me feel better.  It helped to hear this.  It helped to hear Tom Wolfe, this great, famous writer who I have always loved, saying that writing was agony for him.  I don’t know if I would say that writing is agony, but, as much as I love it as Wolfe undoubtedly did, it is often not easy, to say the least. (Another quote I like – I don’t know the source – is “I like having written.”)    

   I don’t say this to elicit pity or as an excuse, considering that I haven’t posted here in months.  I’m just saying.  It’s a fact, an explanation. 

   The fact is that I haven’t been writing much lately, because I’ve been preoccupied.  It’s like my mind has been taken over, hijacked, by issues I’m dealing with, leaving no room to develop ideas to write about.  I don’t like it that this happens.  Like I said, it’s just a fact, it just is. 

   One of these issues literally took my time.  For many months, I had a pressure sore on my butt and had to lie down for at least part of the day.  This robbed me of time to do things – like write. (I did get out a column for the Claremont Courier and a few short items for my Quaker meeting in spurts when I was up and not going out.) Last week, the doctor told me that the sore is gone.  Hooray!  But now I’m wary of getting another sore and wondering if and how much I should lie down sometimes.  I’ve been lying down for a couple hours on most afternoons, but I wonder – and worry – about wasting time – and not writing. 

   Another thing very much on my mind is hiring at least two attendants.  I don’t like hiring anyway – getting strangers to take care of me – and the process this time has taken months, with the added stress that I need more than one attendant.  It has been hard to attract people, to get them to come for an interview, and a couple good prospects have backed out, despite the remarkably good pay I’m now able to offer.  The background checks, required for my funding and which can sometimes takes weeks and sometimes months, don’t help.  I also feel bad for my remaining attendants, who have taken on many extra hours and some overtime.  (One has been working practically every night for at least a month while starting a very difficult course of study.  Also, I’ve been assured that I have enough funding to cover the overtime, but still…)

   I’m also anxious and excited about this summer when I’ll be away not once but twice.  In July, for the first time in five years, I’m going to an annual five-day gathering of West-coast Quakers.  The meeting is being held at Whittier College, 40 minutes away, close enough to have my attendants do their shifts there.  The other trip is to Santa Barbara, about 2 hours away, in late August.  This should be easy and relaxing, but it’s a consolation of sorts, after backing off from a trip to the Bay Area, which proved to be too difficult now and which I’m still mourning, yes, mourning (I still need to cancel the airbnb). I’m looking forward to both times away, but there’s a lot to get ready, including getting my attendants lined up.  I wish traveling wasn’t so much harder than before my spinal surgery or even a few years ago – another thing I’ve been ruminating on.

   I rather be thinking about things to write, and writing them, than obsessing about these concerns, as mundane or profound as they are.  Like I said, this is not an excuse – and I did get this whole post out of just saying! – and I can only hope to be back here more often.  I will try.  That’s all I can say.

 

   Actually, I can add a bit more – my latest Claremont Courier column, which I managed to write when I was up and not going out. As you’ll see, it discusses the frustration of not being able to do what one was able to do or is used to doing – a feeling of being left behind.   

                TIME FOR SOME SMALL-TOWN QUIET

                           By John Pixley

   Whew!  It’s May.  I can take a breath! 

   Whew!  The colleges are wrapping up another year.  Except for a single leftover concert and a frenzied weekend of commencements, complete with crowded streets, this month, things will be pretty much all quiet on the collegiate front. 

   It’s about time! 

   It seems crazy for me to say, but, just in case it isn’t clear, I’m glad that the semester is over.  Or, rather, I’m relieved that the semester is over. 

   I’m relieved that all the concerts, performances and other presentations are over.

   This really does sound crazy coming from me. I have always rhapsodized about how the colleges and their events – often free! – make Claremont all the more special, an all the more unique and wonderful community in which to live.  I wrote a whole column a few months ago declaring that we don’t need L.A, that there’s enough going on right here in Claremont, thanks largely to the colleges here, not to bother with driving on the freeways. There were many years when I bemoaned that Claremont was dead during the summer, declaring that the commencements were cause for literal mourning, with the ensuing months not only hot but devoid of the colleges’ activities. 

   But things have changed, as I’ve been finding.  Yes, the town side of the town/gown equation has changed. Claremont isn’t quite the sleepy little town it used it be, where the sidewalks were said to roll up at 5. The Village has practically become a hot spot, especially on weekends.  There is the Laemmle cinema.  And there is a good amount of live music, whether in the Village on Friday evenings, in Memorial Park on Monday evenings and at a few other venues. 

   I suspect, though, that, probably more significantly and importantly, more than Claremont has changed.  There are no doubt plenty of teenagers and young adults who think that Claremont is Dullsville, who think that nothing goes on here, especially during the summer, who put up with the freeway traffic to escape to L.A and the beach and plot how to bust out of here someday.  As I heard a student speaker say at the Pomona College commencement years ago, Claremont is “a nice place to live when you retire.”

   Well, I’m about that age when I’m ready to retire.  Yes, I’m older – or at least more disabled.  I am not able to do what I used to do, and I don’t have the energy to deal with getting to and especially from L.A.  And, frankly, I barely can keep up with all the concerts and performances, much less the talks, at the colleges, especially as they pile up in the last month of the school year.

   It’s not that I don’t miss my adventures in L.A.  It’s not that I don’t look forward to spending a few days in Santa Barbara later this Summer and that I don’t sometimes wish I had I had a house or apartment at the beach where I could spend weekends (or weeks) at least during the summer. I do – sure, I do!  But I have come to appreciate how much we have in Claremont and how easy it is – not like dealing with the freeway traffic – and be thankful for and content with it. 

   And, every now and then, we really see that Claremont isn’t such a sleepy little town.  The colleges may not be big-time like UCLA or Harvard (despite the “Harvard of the West” t-shirts), but there is indeed life on the campuses – for better and for worse. 

   I was reminded of this, to my amusement and, yes, irritation, this Spring.  In late April, as the media kept proclaiming that the wave of student protests over the horrendous war in Gaza devolving into ugly, heart-sickening, sometimes violent confrontations, sometimes culminating in arrests by city police, began at, was inspired by New York’s Columbia University, I was like, wait, didn’t this happen at Pomona College weeks earlier in early April? 

   Not that that it was something to be proud of (especially with the protesters masked). But we were a small, sleepy town that doesn’t count.

   Well, I for one am ready for a few, just a few, months in a little, if not so sleepy, town.