We called the California Cousins...

 

We called them California cousins.
 
That’s who we were headed to see when I was four.
 
I feel like this is a memory, except I know I was too young to remember.
 
So it’s probably something I was told over and over again until it seems like something I remember.
 
An oral tradition in our little family when I was a kid.
 
Just a single hippie mom, and her two kids, fresh from a divorce and looking for a new life.
 
A new life out West.
 
We were going to see the California Cousins, and live with them.
 
I think that if we had made it, life might have turned out very different for me.
 
For us.

But our car broke down near Pine Bluff AR where my grandparents lived and we stayed there.
 
I did end up making it to CA two decades later.
 
Loved it.
 
I loved the beach and mountains and deserts.  I loved the Hollywood Industry and star sightings and making movies.
 
I was married to a girl from AR who didn’t love it so much.
 
Hated it, in fact.
 
And by virtue of a convoluted decision making process, we moved back here.
 
Expect my brother stayed in CA.
 
He grew up hearing the oral traditions too.
 
The stories about the cousins, the tales about how good life could be if we could only watch a sunset from the coast.
 
My brother is more hippie than my mom. An actor, a teacher, a show maker (lighting and direction.)
 
He married a girl from Santa Monica, and has two kids he’s raising on the border where it turns into West Hollywood.
 
They are ten years younger than my children now.
 
Literal California Cousins.
 
I wonder if my kids will ever want to live there.
 
I listened to a guy last week bitch and moan about California, calling the wildfires a punishment for their “Democratic” leaders.
 
I asked if he had ever been there.
 
He hadn’t.  Had never left Arkansas in fact.
 
He was very proud of that.
 
It just made me realize the limits of our conversation.
 
We got invited to a pool party after our baseball tournament this weekend.  The topic turned to wildfires, and politics, heat waves and hurricanes.
 
The host blamed it all on Republicans. One hundred percent of everything wrong in America squarely on their doorstep.
 
Another limited conversation.
 
I don’t consider myself enlightened in any way.
 
Except, I’ve been to third world countries that make our worst inner cities look like a paradise.  Electricity. Water. Indoor plumbing. A roof made out of wood and shingle and not a tin scrap scrounged from somewhere.
 
I’ve known paupers who were wise and millionaires who inherited everything except the ability to make money.
 
I’ve gone hungry for days, and I’ve had a bounty of food to share with dozens.
 
I’ve been to CA and thirty two other states.
 
And IMHO, this country is pretty amazing.
 
I could probably find a hundred things to love about each of them.
 
But that’s my outlook on life.

I found a couple of things to love about a shanty town in Africa. (hint: you’ve never seen such smiles in your life)
 
All this to say, something I think you know by heart.
 
Life is exactly what you make of it.
 
If you think CA burning is a political plot, then you will find it.
 
If you think TX Hill Country was made for long drives on longer days, then it will happen.
 
And if you think this country of ours is worth fighting for, then vote.
 
I don’t think you can argue about anything.
 
I have yet to be convinced of anything by arguing, and despite hundreds of examples, I can’t change anyone’s opinion by arguing.

I don’t know anyone who has, can or will.
 
I can tell you this:
 
We live in amazing times.  Amazing. We carry a computer in our pocket stronger than the one Reagan used to run the free world. Stronger than the one used to put men on the Moon.
 
Every day, we learn more “things” than at any other time in history.
 
There are signs of life on Venus, Mars and Ceres, a moon, and as we expand our horizons, so too does our ability to learn more about them.
 
(Ceres is covered in floating ice, and the theory is alien squid live in the environment.)
 
I read a post by Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) about saving a pigeon from a hawk.  He had 70,000 comments on it.
 
That much passion about a bird and a food chain.
 
70k people throwing 10 bucks at a cause is almost a million dollars.
 
70k people working together to solve a problem, any problem is a start.
 
Hell, 7 people working together to solve a problem is better than a start, it’s a solution.
 
That’s a pretty good world to live in, even if you can’t search for the green flash at a beachside happy hour.
 
What problem would you want solved today?
 
Cheers,
 
Chris
 
PS.  This week, you can get BATTLEFIELD Z for free, and if you check out the cover above, you can see I’m trying to have Lone Star done by the end of this week for you.
 
You can also grab BEACHHEAD to jump into the Invasion Earth series and I have more coming up for you soon.
 
Also, check out:

INCURSION

and

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Sample Fair!