Archive for category: Uncategorized

I’ve had the opportunity to receive a COVID vaccination as well as to take someone to get theirs. I have been able to also attend these events in two separate counties; San Bernardino and Santa Barbara. While one was run by the County of San Bernardino and used the Ontario Convention Center, the other was provided by Cottage Hospital and held outdoors at the Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital using the parking lots. A third I attended was also held in San Bernardino County at the IEHP office building, a rather large but extremely empty headquarters.

The first rather obvious difference is the fact that Cottage held their clinic outdoors, using parking lots  as tent cities and directing traffic so people in line will hopefully not back into the car behind them, or bump the one in front of them. These were very slow or non-moving lines for the most part.

A traffic monitor out my driver’s side window is waving me to pull forward while on the opposite right side of the vehicle my mother is in the process of getting vaccinated. To my left, her orange flag is angrily pointing to where she wants me to move the truck to. Inside and on the right side everyone is yelling ‘don’t move!!’, ‘I’m giving her a shot!!’ and I think I might have heard ‘don’t fucking move an inch!!’. My foot remained firmly planted on the brake pedal.

I must say, maybe the monitor on my left just couldn’t see the nurse on the right side of the truck and that she was giving my mother the vaccination, I blame it on taking the truck. That’s another story as in coming to Santa Barbara for years I always bring the keys to the Honda. But not this one time. Not the one time that having the Honda would be the definite vehicle of choice. At any rate maybe the size of the truck blocked her vision but she seemed to wave her flag more vividly and glare at me angrily as we just sat there, ‘not moving a fucking inch’. My foot firmly planted on the brake pedal. I also had a sense of enjoyment actually watching her get more frustrated with the fact that I just sat there, not moving, not following to where her flag was now stabbing, but I had a grin on my face knowing full well there was nothing she could say or do that was going to change this situation. Her frustration was only going to grow.

The process in San Bernardino was quite different. IEHP provided a fast initial check-in then a second stop for the first available nursing station. There was no waiting on this particular day, but I had the impression this day was no different than previous clinics they had held, all quite organized. Following the injection you are scheduled for your 2nd dose in approximately 3 weeks. In both of the San Bernardino clinics the date receiving the 2nd dose gets scheduled while you are waiting out the observation period.

Not in Santa Barbara. Well at least not by Cottage Hospital. When I inquired about the 2nd dose I was told; ‘you’ll hear from us in three to six weeks’. Not important what I said next, I’m only trying to illustrate the differences here. I then Googled the ‘six week’ period as everything I had heard, read, knew and believed was that you were supposed to receive the 2nd dose in three weeks. Since when did six enter into the pandemic picture?

Everyone seemed to be generally happy at all three events which is more important than you may think. I assume everyone at the San Bernardino County events was getting paid. From the girls at the entrance gate, the guy taking my digital temperature, the registration desk, the people movers monitoring the lines and finally those administering the needle. Nurses? Aides? I’m not sure what level of experience is required, and under these circumstances what requirements may be passed aside. But I am sure everyone was getting paid something for their time and service. That’s one reason to seem happy, but I think there’s another reason that should actually be a requirement… It’s a bloody pandemic! It should, at least to me, be a bit frightening to everyone, especially all of us cattle about to be injected. So it does help when those in charge, those who are providing the service and instructions as to what to do next, where to step and when, should be pleasant and not add to anyone’s discomfort by seemingly being unhappy to be there. Think about it, I really didn’t want to ‘have’ to be there, but it’s a fucking pandemic, it tends to cause some changes in our daily lives.

But the Santa Barbara clinic wasn’t just for having a cheery attitude, it was circus time volunteerism. There were hundreds of volunteers, or so it seemed. More volunteers than people coming for a vaccine. It starts immediately after you pull into the street to enter the parking lot. Signs, billboards alerting you to ENTER here for the vaccination clinic. Almost immediately you are stopped and asked if you are here for the clinic. As if I may have possibly not seen any of the signs and directions, some with big arrows indicating a left turn made here equals clinic, or maybe I did see them, read them but chose to ignore them. …’yes, we are here for the clinic’.

Onward, but only about 25 feet when stopped and asked again.  ‘yes, we are here for the clinic’. This person then scans the parking lot which through my windshield shows six distinct, although sparsely lined with orange cones, but more than making up for it with an orange dressed volunteer. Some with traffic flags. I could immediately see lane one had a backup, lane two was fairly long, lanes three and four hardly had lines, lane five had a few in line and lane six was similar to lanes three and four. I could see all this in just one quick glance. I felt confident in my ability to pick a lane without causing some sort of parking lot disaster, nothing that would cause need to call AAA towing or prevent the drive-thru clinic in continuing to provide service to the community for the rest of the day. No one sang it better than Jimmy Cliff; ‘I can see clearly now…’ And that was what I was expecting to hear, but this is what I was told; ‘move up to the next person and he’ll direct you which lane to enter.’ What?!! Move up twenty-five feet to be told which lane to get in?!! Just look. Any idiot could tell you 3, 4 and 6 are the shortest.’ I guess I was wrong, not these folks. I drive up twenty-five feet, the guy scans the lanes and says: ‘go to lane six’. Even odds on that bet.

These are long lanes. Although unlike the lines at Disney, airport check-in or the Garden Buffet at the Flamingo these are straightforward. Once past the ‘instruction’ stops, there’s an injection stage and finally the observation stage, all sections of one single lane. There are volunteers everywhere, sitting in tents looking at papers or a laptop. Some are eating lunch or on break. Hundreds maybe thousands are walking around. Alongside your vehicle or cutting in front or in back of it, which is okay because we are stopped, waiting. We are waiting for the next instruction to be told to move 25 feet forward.

Volunteers are everywhere. Asking me the same questions regarding who is getting a vaccine, asking other volunteers who is processing this vehicle, asking if all paperwork is complete, asking who is getting a vaccine today (yes, I know but this was asked more than once). It seems like forever but I attribute that to what appears to be more confusion than organization. The vaccination finally arrives and administered through the open car window but of course with another round of the same questions. Done. Move up 25 feet and wait out the observation stage. An injection time was written on the window and we are told by one volunteer the wait will be 15 minutes, but that volunteer apparently wasn’t assigned to dictate the observation time. How do I know that? Because the person who was in charge of figuring out what an added 20 minutes equals to the time stamp scribbled on the window was a different volunteer. He would literally run up and down the line of cars just having conversation and telling us how many more minutes we had to sit and wait, how he was hungry, the weather, is anyone experiencing side effects, the number of people who came for a shot, and more. I really can’t remember as I tuned him out after realizing that his answer to the math problem of: injection time + 20 minutes was not correct, but what was the point in arguing. I watched him in the side mirror running up and down the line of cars, stopping randomly to have a conversation at some vehicle window. I pictured him like a carhop on roller skates with a burger, shake and fries who forgot which car had placed the order.

I had read a story in the Santa Barbara Independent published about an earlier clinic held at this very spot, the GVCH, and in it a volunteer had been interviewed.

“This is my 13th time volunteering because it’s been so much fun,” said Kate Ford, president of the Santa Barbara School Board,..”

Wait. What. “because it’s been so much fun.” Are you serious?  Fun?  The people in the cars are here because they wan’t to maybe try and save their lives by getting a vaccine with a drug that’s only been approved under a emergency use authorization (EUA) and has not gone through a FDA approval process as yet.

Ford also said that many of the older folks who get vaccinated are grateful and sometimes bring gifts to the volunteers, like flowers, See’s Candies, or lollipops.  …well, fuck me for not bringing flowers or a bottle of wine. I guess I was just preoccupied.

It’s starting to all make sense. These are the people who need to be a participant. Anything. They are missing their social get-togethers, really missing them a lot. The clinic provides them a substitute solution. Their like the dogs on the beach when you can finally take the leash off. I’m looking out the side mirror and there he is. Running, stopping, bending over or squatting outside their car window, he’ll be here soon.

 

It’s been a long time since I’ve driven up Hwy 18, along the Rim of the World Hwy, and into Crestline. I still own some property, but everyone I knew up there has since died or has moved away and all that remains are the memories. The Stockade Grub and Whiskey has it’s got a spot reserved in my memory, and will probably still be in business long after I’ve retired and/or expired.

It’s a bit bigger inside than it looks from the outside. The inside front, facing Lake Drive is the bar with pool table. Towards the rear are tables, as there should be when you’ve added the word “Grub” in your name. The bar is good, and appeals to me as I favor the roadhouse, mountain, rural and rustic look. That’s the “Whiskey”. You really can’t go wrong on the whiskey side.

As for the “grub”, I only went at dinner, but I understand the breakfast is good. The dinners were great. I can only speak for the steak smothered with mushrooms. Smothered so that the little life this steak might have had left by ordering it medium rare, had been extinguished by a huge portions of sauteed mushrooms covering it. Each visit, this was how the steak came time and again.

It’s time to point the truck north and take a drive up to Crestline. The original “Roadhouse” on Hwy 18 up towards Running Springs doesn’t exist anymore, but I know by taking Lake Drive, the Stockade is still standing on the right. If you go but have trouble finding it, just look for the Skull and Crossbones flying under the Stars and Stripes.

2007 marks the seventy seventh anniversary of Ruth’s Diner and makes it the second oldest Restaurant in Utah Unfortunately, Ruth didn’t live to see it. She passed away in November of 1989 at the age of 94. She was a great story teller–a spirited woman whose language could embarrass a gangster.

As a young woman, she was very pretty, shown by the photos on the diner wall. Ruth performed in some of the bars around Salt Lake City as a cabaret singer from about 1912 to 1916. She tells of being dragged off the stage one night by a jealous woman with a fierce grip on her hair, although “the biddy regretted herself for some time to come.”

In 1930 she started the diner as Ruth’s Hamburgers downtown in the Meredith Building at 120 East Second South. The location was directly across the street from a very small house of ill repute and Ruth fed the girls and listened to their stories about various police, politicians, judges and other clients.

After many years of flipping burgers downtown, her building was sold and demolished. So she bought a Salt Lake Trolley car and moved it up Emigration Canyon where she reopened in 1949. Ruth built an apartment onto the back of her trolley car (it’s now the lower dining area and kitchen) and lived on the property alone with her Chihuahua dogs for almost forty years.
Ruth was extremely independent but did make two known concessions late in her life. When she turned eighty, she switched from Lucky Strikes to a filtered cigarette, and she finally placated the health department by posting a hand written sign on the wall next to the door which read “No Smoking Section – First Bar Stool Only.”

During the 50’s and 60’s, Ruth’s became a familiar stop for the fraternity boys looking for a cold beer and some local color. ID’s weren’t carefully checked since Ruth didn’t think any more of that law than she did the new smoking ordinances. “They can enforce their own laws!” Her dogs were just as spirited as she was and often tried to bite any customers they didn’t know.

Although she sold the diner in 1977 (to one of the college boys who’d been a regular for 20 years), Ruth lived out her last years in the duplex behind the diner. On her 90^th birthday, a waitress paid Ruth a visit after her shift. She sat down on the couch, but felt something hard. She reached between the cushions and found a gun. She said, “Ruth, this gun is loaded!” Ruth replied, “Well, it wouldn’t do me any damn good if it wasn’t.”

Visiting a friend in Salt Lake City, we drove through the Emigation Canyon area and stopped at Ruth’s for a beer. Didn’t get to meet Ruth, but just pulling in and seeing a trolly car atop a mountain, you know you’ve found a place with history.

We’ve lost James Brown and we’re not sure exactly sure what, where, or when it all went wrong regarding Michael Jackson, but it appears the void they have created has finally been filled.

It comes in a small package and surprisingly from afar, India to be exact. The little guy’s stage name is Thavakalai (Tamil for “frog”), an adult Indian actor who made his acting debut back in 1983, and usually playing the role of a child. At first I was quite impressed after watching the video, but soon found it to be a bit disturbing. I can’t quite describe how or why, but the more I watch it, the more weird it all is to me. Oh well, live with it…got to hand it to the country, if you have a question and use the telephone to ask it – you’re probably speaking to someone who lives there. Tech support, customer support, medical transcribing, data processing, they do it all. Move over Hollywood, I expect that a country with over 1 billion people will produce a lot more little superstars?