Allyson Johnson

Pieces of my Mind

18 Jun 2024

A Piece of My Mind: Life Without Wheels (Los Altos Town Crier (May 29, 2024)

I recently spent a few days with friends who do not own a car, in a city where this is possible.

My friends live in a condo which is three blocks from a bus stop, and five long blocks from a subway station.  Within a ten-minute walk are a small grocery store, a bakery, and the equivalent of what we used to call a five-and-ten-cent store where one can purchase hard goods ranging from light bulbs and screwdrivers to hair pins and underwear.  On the way back from the subway they pass a neighborhood bistro where they can pause for a cup of coffee and a roll if it is morning, or a glass of wine and a plate of olives and cheese if it is evening.

My friends wanted to show me the things they love about their car-free lifestyle, and during my stay we took the bus and rode on the subway.  We took a ferry to cross the river which divides the town from its suburbs.  And we walked. Each day of my stay we walked more than eight miles, and went up and down the equivalent of more than 30 flights of stairs.  (One friend has a pedometer.)

It felt good to walk.  I enjoyed being able to stop and take a closer look at things on the side of the path, or to notice details of architecture and landscaping which would have flashed past a car window. We stopped at a pop-up street market and bought a few pre-used items.  We took alternate paths through the park. When we sat down to eat I had burned enough calories to allow myself to splurge on desserts.

I wondered  – could this carefree carless life style work in Los Altos? Greentown Los Altos (www.greentownlosaltos.org) assures me that it could.  Our town is flat – perfect for walking and bicycling.  We have bus lines that go up and down El Camino Real, and we have satellite lines that run along San Antonio Road and from the Mountain View train station up to Foothill College. And we have an evolving and expanding system of dedicated bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. I imagined going to downtown Los Altos on my bicycle with pannier baskets and hitching up to one of the many colorful bike stands around town, rather than circling the parking lots for a parking space.  No worries about gas prices or car-jacking or keeping my packages out of sight.  Why aren’t more people doing this?

Reality check:  The streets of my friends’ city are lined with parked cars, despite the many public transit alternatives. The cost for using public transport is time. If you have a schedule to meet, a twenty-minute wait for the bus can be a killer. My friends are retired, and time matters less.

In my friends’ city, to take the Metro line from their home to the nearest airport takes an hour and a half.  In a car, the trip takes fifteen minutes.  When my friends took me to the airport, they called for an Uber.

I came home with good intentions to use my bicycle and my feet more, and my car less. The first morning after my return I thought about biking to my exercise class in Mountain View less than two miles away.  But it’s tricky to cross El Camino;  some cars make a quick right turn at Shoreline without looking for pedestrians or bicyclists.  And I don’t actually have pannier baskets yet, and I needed to carry my gym equipment.  And I barely had time for a second cup of coffee.  And so I hopped into the car.

But I’m looking into pannier baskets.

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11 Jun 2024

Freeway Free in Texas – Eclipse Day

For some people, seeing a total solar eclipse is a bucket list item. For me, it was a lucky accident: I always visit my brother D in Texas in late March or early April, and he happens to live in Georgetown, right in the path of the totality of April 8th. I asked him way back last August if I could stay an extra day for the eclipse and he agreed; then my son and his family asked the same favor a few weeks later, so we end up with a mini-reunion.

D belongs to a golf club, and the club makes an occasion of Eclipse Day, with access offered to the driving range for an unobstructed view. Since the celestial event is scheduled for about 1:30 PM Texas time, the club also sets up an outdoor grill serving hamburgers and hot dogs, with soft drinks on tap and Milky Way bars for dessert. (Cute!)

The eclipse – peekaboo clouds, and then just before totality, they part perfectly to frame the diamond ring, then almost evaporate completely as the aurora flares out and a few red coals glow on the rim of the moon – solar flares, I am told later.  The audience spontaneously applauds – good show, God!  Amazing that if the moon were just a bit smaller, or the sun just a bit closer, the effect would not occur. Is this Creation at work for us or just lucky coincidence?   

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04 Jun 2024

Freeway Free in Texas – Nostalgia Tripping

W and I met in the 4th grade in Longview, which was right on the route to my brother’s house in Georgetown, so we stopped off for some nostalgia. The main square with its civic sign (missing a letter already) was new to me, but the details of the “Fabulous 50’s” on the square’s monuments to growth were familiar. I attended one of those new schools, and my mother was a secretary at the R.G. LeTourneau plant for a while.

I didn’t particularly intend to drive past my former homes, but there we were on Fredonia street, and 911 Flanagan was just around the corner, and 913 Cole just a block away. Both homes were nearly unrecognizable with different paint, different landscaping, new additions to the side and rear, . but from this familiar location I easily traced the path I had walked so often to the Jr. high (now an alternative HS) and Nicholson Memorial Library (now a “learning center’). 

We blundered on the Community Center, unchanged at least on the outside, where we and our 6th grade classmates had learned to ballroom dance from Mrs. Bowen. Just as we were thinking about lunch, we way the sign for Cace’s KItchen, run by the daughter and grand-daughter of Johnny Cace, whoseSteak and Seafood house was the height of gourmet indulgence Back in the Day. The 450-seat restaurant by the highway is long gone, but the family kept shipping their classic Shrimp gumbo and Crayfish etouffe to fans right through the pandemic, and then opened up this little bistro in the same building where Johnny Cacy got his start.

Then to the Fisher cemetery in former-Greggton, where W’s mother, father, and grandmother, plus a number of aunts, uncles, and cousins are buried in a cemetery dating back to the early1800’s which is now a TX historical site.

After paying our respects it was a straight shot (not counting a few wrong moves due to construction) out I-20 to Athens, and a comfy, cozy Best Western with a friendly desk clerk, who apologized that the pool is unheated (but it’s been in the sun all day so it should be warm – hah! ) and the spa was out of order (the part needed for repair came in wrong and they are still waiting for the right one.) Who cares!  I was in my swimsuit and coverup already so I went out and lazed on a chaise lounge by the pool while W took her soaking bath – then I took my turn at a marvelous hot shower and shampoo – then to El San Luis Mexican restaurant – we each treated ourselves to a margarita (the size of a glass of iced tea!) before tucking into an enchilada dinner (I had never had a spinach or avocado enchilada – both delicious with sour cream sauce, excellent rice and beans.)

Back to the hotel, a couple of phone calls, then feeling VERY full, into PJs and a bed with four pillows and tucked-in sheets and an adjustable heating/AC system – luxury indeed!

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28 May 2024

Freeway Free in Texas – Caddo Lake

Caddo Lake State Park is another gem made possible by the labors of the Civilian Conservation Corp back in the 1920’s. The entrance to the park is the first sign of their labors – two piled cairns which look like they have already outlasted many visitors, and will outlast many more. Some of the cabins and the eating hall built by the CCC enrollees are still in use, plus a nature-viewing pavilion on the Forest Trail which we set our sights on visiting.

The overnight temperature had plunged from 70 degrees on Monday to 45 degrees on Tuesday (spring weather in Texas can be chancy), so it took us a while to thaw out over multiple cups of hot tea before heading out on our Forest Trail adventure at about 11AM.

  It was only a 1.5 mile loop trail, but we made lots of stops for catching breath, reading trail signs, trying out benches, and using W’s iPhone app to determine what trees and flowers we were looking at, it was near 2PM when we finished. [2 on the map below shows the location of the pavilion – and the elevation change!]

Climbing up to the Pavilion through the deciduous forest was a marvel to my West-Coast eyes. At the lower elevation were tree varieties I had read about, like hickory and elm, that don’t seem to occur west of the Rockies. Along the ridge just above the pavilion were long-leaf pines. I still have a little basket I made from pine needles in fourth grade when we were studying the tribes which used to inhabit this area, and for which Caddo Lake is named.

The pavilion itself did not disappoint, perched on an outcrop with the sun breaking through the trees to form patterns on the flat stones paving the terrace, looking out over an ocean of greenery waving and rustling in the breeze. I thought about the CCC enrollees who put this building together. Some among them had the souls of artists, and the skills of craftsmen, to leave us such a legacy.

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21 May 2024

Freeway Free in Texas: The Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge

We had packed a picnic in advance of our canoeing adventure, and headed for the Park Store/Museum/HQ, where we inquired for the best place to take a picnic and look at the big Caddo Lake (the State Park only includes Saw Mill Pond, a quiet side area suitable for calm canoeing and fishing but not for broad vistas)  The rangerette directed us to the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Starr Ranch, a peninsula only 15 minutes way, as a place with a lake view and a picnic table.

The CLNWR is located on land which formerly housed the Livingston Ammunition plant, which was subsequently designated an EPA superfund site, and which is probably responsible for the bass and trout caught in Caddo Lake harboring unsafe levels of mercury and other toxic chemicals.  At this time, however, the main toxicity seems to have been cleared, the former Guardhouse is now a nature center for RAMSAR Wetlands, and the expanse of flat roads, by-roads, dirt roads,  and grassy lanes invites the birder, biker, and hiker. 

Starr Ranch turned out to be a peninsula with a wildlife viewing dock (looking brand new), one metal picnic table in full sun, a chemical toilet (looking pristine), and a pavilion (beamed ceiling, built-in pews on the side, picnic tables) looking quite new also except for a torn screen on the door, which hung open in the wind in a welcoming way.

No fees, no permits, no people except a couple of Harley riders who were consulting each other and their phones seriously but gave me a big smile – could have been drug dealers rendez-vous-ing but probably not), so we had our mackerel fillets, Boursin cheese, Wasa crackers and red Anjou pear looking out on the wind-white-capped lake.  I almost felt guilty putting our mackerel/olive oil/pear core trash in that pristine trash bin in the privy.

After our lunch we stopped at the Visitor’s Center, housed in a couple of prefabs with an adjacent barbecue pavilion. It was completely deserted next to a parking lot designed for a host of tour buses – or maybe it was the former parade ground.  We signed the guest book, browsed around, and saw not a soul either of staff or visitor.  We could have made off with the stuffed bobcat and possum, but a sign warned that the site was “under surveillance”, and what would I do with a stuffed bobcat anyway?

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14 May 2024

Freeway Free in Texas: Canoeing on Caddo

I wake up to the same utter stillness that lulled me to sleep. I walk through lovely wet green woods under maybe-clearing skies to the loo. 

Breakfast at 9ish of yogurt, fruit, nuts, and tea,then down to the Park HQ to confirm our arrival, get a parking sticker, pick up post cards, and rent a canoe for the PM.

A note of reality: Caddo Lake State Park is not, strictly speaking, on Caddo Lake. The boat ramp and canoe launch area actually border a small side reach of the lake, Saw Mill Pond. The good news: this sequestered area has no speed boats, no water skiers, and very few really deep areas – a perfect place for a couple of senior ladies, or for families with small swimmers, to try their paddling skills. for a reasonable $7 for a half day’s use, the friendly ranger at the Visitors’ Center gave us directions to the canoe launch area, keys which opened the storage shed full of life jackets and oars as well as our designated canoe. A few false starts (we forgot our hats, went to the wrong boat ramp) and then we found our canoe, donned life jackets, grabbed oars, and launched.

Well, we nearly launched, but ran aground on a cypress knee immediately.  Happily, a couple of guys came along, laughed that they had done the same the day before, and pushed us off.   I was feeling very unsteady balancing in the canoe in the far front end, and we had to fend ourselves off a number of cypress trees as the wind kept pushing us around.  We ran aground again on a buried log in a backwater and were on the point of thinking one of us would have to get out and push, but a hefty shove against a tree got us afloat again.  After that we were quite careful about staying in more open water.  We were almost alone in the Pond – maybe one family with a couple of children maneuvering at the far end. We admired the shimmering water, and its reflections in the hollows of the trees. We listened to the stillness. We stayed out about an hour, long enough for our backs to feel the effort of paddling, and then ran ourselves into the canoe harbor perfectly.

Next, return the key, find out where to buy an extra propane canister, visit Johnston’s Caddo Grocery and Bait Shop 5 miles down the road, and then it is time for naps, reading, catching up with the expense sheet, and maybe writing a few post cards if we feel ambitious. Quiet is a wonderful sedative.

—-

I didn’t feel ambitious so contented myself with puttering around, until we decided that as we had skipped lunch making dinner early would be appropriate.  So I got out the materials for basic glop, crossing my fingers that it could be cooked as well in a saucepan as in a skillet, and with me chopping onions and W browning the meat we had it together and cooking nicely on the Coleman’s stove in a half hour or so.   I puttered around interfering with Wnifred’s building of a charcoal-based fire, until we began to smell a scorching at about the time the casserole  should have been done.  Hmmm.  Although I had added some extra liquid to rinse out the tomato can, I did not allow enough extra to account for 1 the noodles being rotini instead of flat egg noodles and thus required Ng more time and 2 the Coleman stove, even at low heat, with only a thin aluminum saucepan to deal with, cooked HOT.  so we had a layer of scorched substance on the bottom of the pan, and rather chewy rotini on the top.  Still, hunger is the best pickle, and we managed to eat more than half, leaving enough for a second meal if we have appetizers before hand.

After dinner I kept fooling with the fire, as the termperature was dropping and the wind picking up.  Although plenty of smoke was generated by the wood we had taken from the firewood rack at the boat dock, the only real flame camer from kindling sticks and pine cones I scrounged from the environment.  We brewed some herbal tea and sat and chatted and i kept  getting colder, adding a thin but oozy yoga jacket, my warm hat , my Biffy , my longjohn sottoms and my sweatshirt to my costume.  By the time we gave up on the fire (a couple of logs had smoldered through, but no real heat generated) and climbed into our cots, i had decided to keep my sweatshirt on, with hood.  I should have also kept the long John’s, as my summer pj’s tended to ride up and were no contest for the dropping thermometer (which hit 43 degrees per the Weather app the next day).

[I have had arthritis in my right hip enough to keep me awake both nights – both nights I got up and took an ibuprofen which cut in enough to help me sleep eventually. tomorrow I will be sure to take a famotidine in the AM hoping my “miracle cure” works again.  It took a week to wear off from the Omoxxxxxx – or was it the Kathy Smith Aerobic workout?  Or is it the hard cot? Or the cold?)

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30 Apr 2024

Flying Down the Freeway in Texas

From Love Field in Dallas to Caddo Lake on the Louisiana Border – W and I first met in East Texas, so the afternoon is a trip through the mists of nostalgia as we flash past familiar landmarks on the ubiquitous interstates.

From DFW we pass familiar streets on the exit signs: Mockingbird Lane, Inwood Ave, Turtle Creek, Preston Road and University Park. The frontage road skirts neighborhoods full of the lovely brick and white-trimmed ranch-style houses of East Texas prosperity, set well back on impossibly wide and deep and green lawns. 

After several mis-directions we make it onto the freeway, past fields of bluebonnets, paintbrush, godetia, and crimson clover. There are more familiar names on the exit signs: Athens, Terrell, Gladewater, Tyler, Kilgore, and finally Marshall, our turnoff.  We stop at a Kroger’s, where W reveals that she had not glanced at her checklist before loading the car.  Just in case, we pick up things we turn out not to need (tea, salt and pepper, bowls) and things we will be glad to have (fruit, crackers, tinned fish, yogurt, fixings for a one-dish skillet dinner, and most importantly, a cooler).

Fifteen miles later we are at the CCC stone-piled entrance to Caddo Lake State Park.  We arrive at 4:45 at the check-in stand to discover that the office closes at 4:30. W’s computer pulls up Shelter 16 on the reservation.

It is dusk by the time we unpack, W is exhausted and wants to sit, and I am hungry. We have our snack lunch for dinner and save the skillet meal for later – a skillet is another thing W has forgotten.  An application of Off! keeps the bugs at bay, W has a mini-lantern for the table, and we make our way through a tin of sardines, a half-box of crackers, and half the cherry tomatoes – Excellent, and easy!

We had planned a post- prandial fire sit, but the fire is short-lived, as we had not stopped for firewood on the way in. Still there is magic, as the stillness thickens, and fireflies begin to flicker in the trees. The humidity is so high that the evening dew is condensing in puddles INSIDE the shelter, but W has brought a tarp for the floor, and cots to raise us above it. A sheet is all I need for a cover as I snuggle on top of my sleeping bag, listening to the stillness until I fall asleep.

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23 Apr 2024

Airport Oddities

When forced to spend entirely too much time in airports, you have time to notice how things have changed. I don’t believe I had ever seen this convenience offered in a airport before:

If the print is too small for you, it reads “Privacy for pumping and breast-feeding.” Wow! There are times when that could have been really welcome to me and mine!

But it’s not only nursing mothers who might crave privacy, or at least a respite from the constant murmur of the airport crowd and announcements of their arrivals and departures. So here’s another accomodation which struck me as novel:

This pair of cubicles was nestled in an out-of the way corridor. One of them was already in use, and the other about to be.

If you think that the world of whimsy is far removed from the hard-edged world of airline travel, be assured that Austin, at least, has allowed its weirdness to seep into its Airport. Here’s Arrivals at Gate ∞ (see above for the entire installation):

You can even print a boarding pass to Narnia or Neverland or any of 118 other fantastical destinations.

But good luck looking for a post card at DFW, SFO, or PHX. The old-fashioned “Hello from [your state here]” way of letting folks know you are on the road is almost dead. You can still find them at AUS, though, another friendly form of Austin weirdness.

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16 Apr 2024

Freeway Free: a Tale of Four Airports

I spent quite a number of hours in four different airports last week.

San Francisco International (SFO) was my first and final. I have made many trips through this airport, but each one reveals a new aspect, as the airport is constantly re-inventing itself with new construction, new retail outlets and restaurants, and new airlines coming and old ones disappearing. I used to fly TWA and PanAm; now my flights are more likely to be United and Southwest. On departure day I am flying Southwest, and my departure is from one of the gates in one of the newer sections of Terminal One. SFO does its best to invoke the quirky sophistication of its namesake city, even though it is actually located thirty miles south of San Francisco, in San Mateo County. The shops offer authentic sourdough bread, See’s candy, and little packets of goodies wrapped in cable-car-shaped boxes, as well as t-shirts adorned with representation of the Golden Gate Bridge and Coit Tower. Restaurants invoke the Asian/European diversity of the City, with Vietnamese, Mexican, Filipino, Japanese, Vegan and Italian supplementing the standard Starbuck’s.

You can also pick up the usual sports-themed offerings from the Golden State Warriors and the 49ers (who actually play home games fifty miles south in Santa Clara, but hey, who’s picky!) Unfortunately, the airport has none of the Victorian charm of historic San Francisco, but I guess a Victorian airport would be oxymoronic.

Dallas-Love Field (DAL) was my next stop. I had expected to be picked up right away, and had my carryon with me, but my friend was unexpectedly two hours delayed, so I had plenty of time to explore DAL.

Love Field is the former major airport into Dallas, but has been supplanted by the much larger Dallas/Fort Worth Intenational positioned exactly on the county line between the two rival cities. Dallas, I am afraid, lacks a civic personality, and this shows in its secondary airport. The shops offer vanilla t-shirts that say, basically, “I was in Dallas and I bought this t-shirt.” The restaurants include Dunkin Donuts, Maggiano’s, Baskin-Robbins, Chick-fil-A, and Chili’s. One Texas staple, Whataburger, is also available, and there is a Dallas Cowboys store, but in general one could as well be in St. Louis. I hunted in vain throughout the terminal for either a Dallas post card or a local newspaper.

I was aiming next to fly out of Austin-Bergstrom International on an American flight to DFW. The flight I had intended to exit on was cancelled, so I had plenty of time to check AUS out while waiting around on standby and then for an airport pickup from a friend.

Sophistication is not a word one associates with Austin, but quirkiness certainly is. Somehow I always seem to arrive or leave Austin around the time of Willie Nelson’ s birthday – or maybe they just celebrate this prominent citizen year round. Plenty of post cards here, celebrating the SWSX music festival, the Congress street bats, the mud-colored State Capitol, and the scenic downtown poised along the Colorado River. There are at least eight venues and stages where live music is presented during the week.

And plenty of local businesses are represented, including Book People (“the largest independently owned book store in Texas” now that Archer City’s Booked Up went belly-up), Earl Campbell’s Taco Truck (intact), East Side Pies, Haymaker and others. Not a sign of a chain restaurant anywhere. Nor any sports-related gear – Austin is blessedly free of major leaguery.

I never made it to DFW but was rescheduled on a flight to the Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX), with a two-hour layover. So, I went from the Barbara Jordan terminal, named for a firebrand Democratic governor in a state since turned GOP, to the Barry Goldwater terminal, named for a firebrand Republican governor in a state edging toward Democratic. Such is history.

A strange feeling of deja vu in the Phoenix Airport – it was just like the Dallas airport, only with mountains around. I’d swear the T-shirts were identical, except for the city name – same diamond-shape logo behind the name, same dusky blues, pinks, and lavenders. Phoenix, of course, is even shorter on history than Dallas. Flying out, the inhabited city looks like something blue (swimming pools) and green (golf courses) that spilled accidentally on the sere gray desert.

And finally back to SFO and the Harvey Milk terminal. American flights come into much less convenient gates than Southwest flights, and there is a lamentable lack of moving sidewalks for the weary returning traveler. The route to baggage claim is also poorly signed – a gentleman stationed at the end of the seeming blank corridor directed me around a kink in the hallway to the escalator down. But I was home.

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15 Apr 2024

New Year for China: Feedback and Blowback

When my previous post “New Year for China” was published in the LATC, I hoped to get a letter or two of appreciation for my positive write-up of the the local celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year and for my regrets about the deterioration of relations between China and the US over the past 20 years.

Here are the letters that came in.

And here was my published response :

Was my original writing really that muddled? Perhaps some readers had earlier bad experiences of Sinophobia, which made them sensitive to possible slights, implications, and innuendoes.

My granddaughter, as a toddler, was knocked over by an unleashed dog, and has been afraid of dogs ever since. Not unreasonable. But, I hope, overcomeable. No one should have to live on the alert for danger.

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