February 16, 2013
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Happy President’s Day
Last night an elegant dinner was hosted by Facebook’s esteemed founder, Mark Zuckerberg at their exclusive home in The San Francisco Bay Area for Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey’s re-election campaign, and as we watched the news one esteemeed guest explained that the food was, “Out of this world,” or something to that effect. If I had large political donor pockets, in this world today, I could have seen giving $3500 dollars to support someone who got his constituents through the horror of the storm where the sea does what a natural body of water does == Reclaims homes which have been built on barrier islands, and I am probably just jealous and have a briar somewhere; But I see a storm of megalithic proportions hitting places like North Carolina’s outer banks at some point, for 40 years ago; people just had little houses, a few larger vacation homes, and now it is hard to see the Atlantic Ocean if you do not have a condo which backs on to the ocean side, and with all of the little towns from Kitty Hawk to Nags head, almost all the way to the national seashore park area; one can have to find the pull over, and walk to the other side to see what is our beautiful warm Atlantic waters in the summertime.
True, in the old days we could not rent as nice condos as we can now, and they fou ill up in the summertime, so you may have a nice day by the water, shop your little heart out, and the dining places of all you can eat restaurants have lines out the door; So much for our quaint seashore where I took my little boys hands, and we would run, burry our feet in warm sand — A most lovely thing to do. My heart goes out to the people of Staten Island, and I cried for the people of New Orleans after Katrina and people are still trying to build back in that part of New Orleans after seven full years.
Here is the rub America for Governor Christie, for local governments everywhere in hurricane country, that if we have a huge earth quake tomorrow and my house moves down the hill; We have not bought earthquake insurance, because it cost an arm and a leg — As I said, we are not the Zuckerbergs, but we have accepted a risk of living in a family home which has been in this family since 1942, and if we are here when the Pacific plate heads North and we do not have heart attacks as people often do when a cataclysmic event, then I would like for our regular home insurance to pay for whatever it might be responsible for. If we have no food, and we are in monsoonal rains which come here at times; Then we are tax paying Americans, and have always endeavored to do the right thing, and I would certainly appreciate if our tents are soaked and it is cold that we might have a warm place to sleep while we clean up.
No one would turn down warm food or a hot towel to wash ourselves off with. My earthquake kit is where I think there will be no colapsing, and if gangs from other places come in here looting and beating up people who are fragile and growing older; Then send in the National Guard, please. But I will suggest that as I hear so many people saying we must have Dikes like in Holland, that we must re-enforce all the levies, and we need to start now rebuilding all that was lost in New Jersey and New York — Then I am going to tell you these are areas of national spending which we need to look at and count the cost. We know the risk of living where we are, and it is our responsibility to pay for earthquake insurance if we want our money’s worth. It is also our problem if our house winds up in the middle of the street, for we know the risk.
It would take the stupidest person out here to deny that every exquisite day just like this one where the trees have budded pink, the flowers are coming out everywhere is the ultimate gift. Thanks to warm temperatures and longer days where the sun allows for photosynthesis and the miracle of this early spring, only Stupid would say that on a day like this one, earthquakes are not probable or unexpected. We are privileged characters, and so is everyone else who lives in a triumph of nature whether it is the warm climate of gulf coast states or the barrier islands of New York where you are at the Atlantic coast, we live in an active climate and earth’s crust and we cannot always tame nature. Those of you who do not own our risk should not be paying for our views or people’s urge to be by the sea, for nature is always going to win in the end.
I do not want the wage earners of this country paying for a place my father in law bought in 1947 or so. He was alive in 1906, for he was 49 when my husband was born. Americans need to sustain the Delta area farmers and see that their water sources are protected. That food feeds large portions of our nation, so you do protect your bread basket, but my friends New York and New Jersey has to take a closer look at how to house people.
Coming in to Madrid or Barcelona, for miles back in the 1980s, I remember being overwhelmed at how many ugly 1950s looking buildings which were obvious homes to Spanish citizens. It seemed to go on forever as we were driving along that Mediteranean Coast. Open windowns, clothes strung up on lines, people going about their day, and these were homes, probably average homes of those who could not afford the luxury of city life, but I realized that many New Yorkers only know apartment lives as well, and I have seen way worse dirty and trash laden that people call homes to this day in inner city America.
What is going on with me that I do not feel that you are responsible for maintaining my life style with tax dollars. Acts of God such as tornadoes pick on everyone. Paralyzing snow storms and blizzard and ice storms are another example of where I know that these acts of nature and of God like the one which went straight up the east coast. Such an event can happen anywhere people live, so that is one reason why you buy home insurance, and if you buy in a flood plain, then flood insurance is affordable to most home owners.
Mercy for our fellow citizen on earth is sometimes realizing that we cannot take from our brothers and sisters of the universe that which is seen as a luxury. Perhaps I am underassessing what we have paid out in taxes to live most of the time in a World’s city, our Paris, our Rome, our Singapore and that I should expect more, but I am looking through older glasses now and knowing that my brother and sister Americans must put food on their tables, and absolutely we help in times of crisis, but I am challenging the notion that we should rebuild in places that are not ours. We desparately need to concentrate on making Manhatten where the millions live more safe from the waters which brought us to this nation, for sea levels are rising; So the greater the mass and sum of population, the more we need to build and to re-enforce our great walls and barriers.
No one wants to lose what they own. I am definitely not rich, but I can make choices which others may not can make. I am not hard of heart, for we need to comfort those who have lost, to provide for basic shelter, a way to work and to school and to attend their wounded souls just as much as we do their bodies. I simply come from a time and a place where I was taught that there are no free rides, just like the college grants I got back in the mid 60s meant I had to choose a job, and I got the best job in school, to reshelve and make certain all the library stacks were in order shelf after shelf, but the fun times were the evenings when I got to be librarian. Maybe schools with Hope Grants should learn to give their students paying jobs around campuses now, and No one would get the idea that Hope is a free ride. My Appalachian lessons of, “Make your own way;” may not be very popular, nor my admission that I do not think you should have to pay for my house on a hill if San Andreas grinds north tomorrow. I would far rather have your prayers for life, for the injured, and especially for the lost.
I am doubting that anyone gives a damn what I think when they are eefete enough to accept a Mark Zuckerberg dinner invitation. I would be certain that caviar and truffles were served in one way or the other, and I had truffles in France, and brought a beautiful one home once, and I have a small bottle of truffle oil. If you never have it in your life, take a tiny nip of black licorice, and that is what it reminded me of.
Bless those who have lost to weather related incidents, and may they find the heart to understand the ocean will rise again before a sea wall is firmly in place.
Barbara Everett Heintz, Author, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon and Kindle Ready — The book which takes you ffrom deepest povery in Appalachia, the abuses, the loss of independent southern farms all the way to Washington, D.C. to Civil Rights and becoming a woman in this dynamic tear to laughter novel. Amazon, Kindle Ready, Rentable From Amazon Library
