Really missing my best friend Al these days.

            I’ve been thinking recently about an old friend of mine, Al. I haven’t seen or talked to him for about 15 years. It’s not that we lost touch; it’s that Al felt he needed to cut me out of his life. What did I do that was so bad? Nothing, I’m just a “trigger” from his past and our years of substance abuse together.

            Al was the first person I ever got high and drunk with and he was my best friend through High School. I started smoking pot when I was 15 and pretty much didn’t stop until quitting cold turkey when I was 28. Al on the other hand kept going and not just pot, he loved alcohol.

            When I first meet Al in 1970 at the start of 8^th grade he was on crutches because of hip surgery to fix problems from a 6 inch growing spurt the previous year. Even on crutches he was a better basketball player then I could ever be. We were different in most ways, he was tall and thin, I was squat and husky, he was outgoing and I was introverted, he was athletic, I was not. We had different tastes in music, I was still into the Beatles and he loved Motown.

            Our upbringing and family lives were also very different. Al was born and raised in Flint; I had lived in 5 different states and 2 different countries. His family went to Church regularly, my parents didn’t believe in God. He had a close extended family with his grandparents living just 2 houses down from his. My closest relatives were 3000 miles away and in the previous 10 years my grandparents had only visited from Argentina twice.

            I guess the biggest difference was that Al was fearless and I was afraid of just about everything. I still remember the first time I saw him get drunk. We were at a schoolmates Bar Mitzvah reception and there was a table filled with glasses of sweet Kosher Wine. When no adults were looking Al just started pounding them, probably 4 glasses in a couple of minutes.

            Within a couple of years we started smoking cigarettes and pot. When I got my drivers permit at 15, Al who already had his license and a car would let me drive around the neighborhood while we smoked joints and listened to music on the radio.

            That kind of sums up our life in “high” school, just spinning our wheels looking for the next buzz. We experimented with lots of different drugs but still managed to survive and graduate. Because we didn’t enjoy school or studying, neither Al nor I really thought too much about going to college. Al got a “summer” job at a General Motors factory and I already had a job (driving around smoking pot) as a currier for a medical laboratory.

            A year after graduation I decided to go off and try my hand at selling meat (see my column archives for that story) and Al just stayed a “shop rat”.

            After a couple of years on the road I returned to Flint where I bummed around for a while but eventually I got a real job where I stayed for the next eleven years. I also settled down, got in a relationship then married, bought a house, and quit smoking pot for good.

            Al and I still hung out but not as much since we did have “adult” lives now. Al had a few relationships but never got too serious, in part because his substance abuse got in the way.

When I last saw Al he was still trying to kick his habits. He had been on and off again with counseling and AA. He was also talking about getting married but I don’t know if he did.

So that’s a little of the story about me and my best friend. Obviously there is so much more to the story of our 30 year friendship. What I didn’t mention until now because I didn’t want to prejudice your feelings about us, is that Al is black.

Now my question to all of you is honestly, what was the mental image you had while you were reading the column? I’m sure it wasn’t of a younger me smoking a joint with a black dude. Does knowing the color of his skin now change your image, attitude, or empathy for Al? Should it make a difference?

           Of course it shouldn’t make a difference, unfortunately for too many people the reality is that it does. That reality is what I will explore in my next column.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 17 of the following link. Winters Express 4/21/16

A positive change for the Holidays?

             Peace on earth, goodwill towards man. Does it get any simpler than that?

As some of you may have noticed I’ve been putting more of a positive spin on my last few columns. I’m not sure what’s gotten into me (maybe just age) but let’s just go with it, and I’ll try not to dwell on the negative for a change.

Not dwelling on the negative is easier said than done especially with the reality of the violent world we live in. Right now it’s all about terrorism, both religious and political. Whether it’s in the Middle East, Colorado Springs, Paris, or just 500 miles away in San Bernardino, it feels like it’s all around us. Yet we go on with our lives, we are naively optimistic that it won’t happen to us or our loved ones.

I guess for me one of the amazing things about being human is that we all go about our lives knowing that someday it’s going to end. Talk about naïve optimism, how much more optimistic can you get? We love, teach, learn, work, reproduce, and create families, all knowing way back in our minds that it’s finite, even futile.

I suppose the reason so many people turn to religion is because of the promise of an afterlife. It’s just too hard to fathom that this is it, you only get one chance.

But what would happen if the religious teachings were the opposite? What if we were taught the truth that there is only one life, this one, the one you’re living right now? Would it become a free for all? Take what you want now since there is no future or treat others with kindness since there’s no point in fighting? I don’t know which way it would go and it’s kind of futile to think about it since the modern religions are so well established that I don’t think they’re going anywhere anytime soon.

Ah, but one can dream that someday humans will see the light that there is no light at the end of that proverbial tunnel to heaven. Maybe then they will stop all the hating and hurting and killing because we are different and embrace the love and the kindness because we are all the same.

So were those last few paragraphs positive or negative? I’m not sure because this positive stuff is kind of new for me. How about we just move on and see what’s in store for Winters in the not too distant future.

As Bob Dylan wrote so many years ago, “The times they are a changing” and things are definitely going to change around here. Change can be good, bad, or a combination of both. I’m trying to stay positive so I will reserve judgment and see how it all plays out. That being said here’s what’s in store for us in the coming few years.

There are tons of new houses coming with new families filling them as well as filling the schools, the restaurants, the shops, and the roads.

The PG&E facility will bring a whole new modern look to the eastern gateway to town. It will also bring new employees, some who might even live in the new houses. It will bring hundreds of annual trainees that will spend time and money here in town.

Right now Hotel Winters is just a hole in the heart of downtown but soon it will be this new massive building full of vibrancy with guests coming, going, and staying. It will change the landscape of our downtown forever.

The vacant lot on Grant just west of the Dollar General will eventually be filled with the old (seniors) and the new. A new credit union, doctor’s offices, senior’s center, and senior’s housing are all going in that space as well as a traffic circle out front.

A new retail development is in the works for the first block of Railroad north of Main Street. I’m not sure what businesses will be in there but they will be one more place where locals and visitors alike can contribute to the Winters economy.

Last but not least is the new car bridge at the south end of Railroad Avenue. As compared to the old one this one is big, bright, and bold. It will for sure make some kind of an impression on those visitors using it as the gateway to historic downtown.

So as this year ends and a new one begins I am optimistic about my life here in Winters. The outside world can be a big scary place but I still feel safe in this wonderful small town. Yes there will be a lot of changes but the people that make Winters feel like home will still be here and I can happily live with that.

Happy holidays (whatever yours might be) or at least Happy New Year, because you never know…

To view the column in it's original form go to page 16 of the following link. Winters Express 12/17/15

The Generation Gap at Warp Speed

            In my last column I wrote about how the perception of a “Millennial” would be totally different than what I was feeling. That got me thinking about the “Generation Gap” and how it seems to be widening at “Warp Speed”. If you know what “warp speed” means then you’re probably of my generation.

            The generation gap is something the media coined to describe the difference in changing attitudes, beliefs, and work habits of young adults verses their parents. Since the media also loves to just label things they have given names to subsequent generations starting with the WW II era “Greatest Generation” to what we have now, the “Millennials”.

            I’m part of the “Baby Boomers” AKA the “Me Generation” because so many of us were self absorbed, materialistic, and in need of immediate gratification for just about everything. I find myself blaming my own generation for most of the current problems, like the growing income inequality, climate change, and yes the negative ramifications of our incursion into the Middle East. But let’s leave all that for another day and another column.

            The thing we did right was technology. I am amazed at the advancements I’ve seen in just my adulthood. Typewriter to personal computer, to laptop, to tablet. Regular broadcast TV to cable to satellite, TV with nothing to VHS, to DVD, to DVR. And what about the telephone? When I was in high school only the cool rich kids had a private phone and number in their bedrooms. Then we got cordless phones and answering machines, then pagers, and finally cell phones. Now we have smart phones that have more computing power than the first desk top computer I had back in the early 80’s.

            But I think the biggest and most important development has been the Internet. My generation may have invented it but it’s not ours anymore. The younger generations took it and went nuts with it. I’m talking about social media and instant global communications.

            At this point, being of the older generation I kind of have to lump the internet and smart phones together. I know they are different technologies but they are so interconnected I can’t tell them apart. It’s hard enough for me to understand a computer program verses an app, is there a difference? I don’t have a smart phone (yet) so I don’t really know about apps. I guess that’s my point, the technology is changing too fast for me to keep up and that’s creating the widening generation gap.

            The gap isn’t in the technology part itself, I will eventually learn to use all the gadgets. The gap is more in the how and the why of the younger generation using it.

The how is fast; swishing and swiping and tapping and typing. It’s so fast that they don’t even have time to write whole words. It’s all about abbreviations and acronyms or even just making words up. That’s one of the things that got me started on this column. I kept hearing the term “on fleek” and just couldn’t figure it out. I finally “Googled” it and all I could say was OMG, really, that’s just “Cray” because you’re using a made up word instead of a real one. If you don’t know, in essence “on fleek” means on point or perfect or awesome or I guess whatever you want it to mean.

The why is where I have a real big generational gap. It’s seems to be all about sharing personal information. That’s what the whole social media phenomenon is about. You have FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrest, Snapchat, and all the rest with new apps popping up every day. You have friends and followers, likes and hash tags, photos and videos, tweets and re-tweets. Putting it all out into cyber space for just about anyone to see and possibly forever.

In my opinion it’s TMI (too much information) but that’s the generational thing. I’m from that selfish me generation and I don’t like to share. I still have way too much of my parents generation in me and we were taught to keep our feelings and our problems to ourselves or maybe just to our closest friends or family.

Even though I say that I don’t like to share, obviously I do like to share my opinion or I wouldn’t write this column. I also do have a FaceBook account but I think I have more ignored friends requests than actual FaceBook friends. For me FaceBook, the internet, and social media are more about watching, reading, and hearing what others are doing and saying than for sharing what I am doing.

I guess I’m more of a voyeur than an exhibitionist and that’s also kind of what’s different about our generations. This Millennial generation wants to be seen (I think that’s why tattoos are so popular), they want to be heard, and they want to share their lives.

I wonder if they’re like all us previous generations and just want some attention from their parents. Maybe all this posting and tweeting is just an abbreviated version of Andy Warhol's proverbial “15 Minutes of Fame”, but with the lightning speed of the internet and the attention span of a tweet all they can hope for now is 15 seconds of fame, unless of course they go viral.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 16 of the following link. Winters Express 11/5/15 

Location, Location, Location

           In Real Estate as well as in Business the saying goes that the three most important factors are location, location, location. That’s why when I moved to Winters 14 years ago I thought I had hit the jackpot.

            Winters was located a quick 10 minutes from where I worked 3 days a week in Vacaville and right off the freeway for the other 2 days I commuted down to the East Bay. Within a couple of hours we could be in San Francisco or at the Ocean or just sipping wine in Napa. Whatever leisure activity we fancied was just a day trip away.

            Talk about prime location, the house we bought was it. Right downtown within walking distance to all the amenities that were available back then. Restaurants, bars, video stores, hardware and drug stores, a bakery, the bank, the post office, the library, art galleries, and even community theater.

            We couldn’t believe our luck, and it just got better. The Palms came to town and we had live music to go with everything else. Berryessa Gap was building their tasting room and there was a vibrant art scene going on.

            In 2003 when they started renovating some buildings at Railroad & E. Main I thought that would be a perfect location to open a Coffee Bar. It was just a couple blocks from my house so I figured I could walk to work.

            At that point, my life was located in this perfect dream. But like so many dreams there can be some nightmarish qualities to it as well. What I recently realized is that for the last 12 years I have been living and working in a construction zone.

            It took over a year for the coffee house to be built out. As soon as we opened they started renovating the two buildings right next door as well as Ficelles behind us. Then the following year the City expanded the parking lot at the community center. For months we had heavy equipment and loose dirt and dust right across the street.

            Not to long after that, construction of the bulb outs commenced at Railroad & Main. Once again heavy equipment, dirt, dust, and ugly fencing. They even closed the intersection to traffic for what seemed like months. That sure didn’t help our business at the time.

            After we sold the coffee house and the economy tanked there was a short reprieve but then Preserve started construction just a few doors down from my house. Even after they opened they were still working on the patio.

            And finally in the last three years they took out a dam, built a temporary bridge, tore down a bridge and are now in the final phases of completing the new bridge and redoing the intersection at the end of our street.

            I almost forgot to mention that right next to where I work they’ve just demolished 3 businesses and the old fire station. They’re making room for a hotel, so I guess no end in sight as far as construction goes.

            So where am I going with all this talk about construction and location? The point I’m trying to make is that the location where I live and own my house is no longer the idyllic dream it once was, at least not for me.

            All the construction we’ve had Downtown has been great for the businesses and there are more visitors coming to Winters now than we could have ever imagined a decade ago. But like with almost everything there are two sides to the coin. With that growth of outside visitors there are now some quality of life issues for the locals.

            In the grand scheme of things our local’s problems are pretty minor. Sometimes we have to wait longer for a seat in the restaurants or wait a little longer at the ever increasing number of traffic lights. Parking can be a pain especially if you’re in a hurry. Everywhere downtown is more crowded and louder, not exactly the definition of quaint.

            Like I was saying, I’m not too happy about where I live but that really has more to do with me than with the location. I’m older, set in my ways, and somewhat socially awkward. If I was a hip Millennial who enjoyed the loud vibrancy of the new and improving downtown Winters I would love this location.

            So I think whoever coined the phrase “location, location, location” was a little off, it really should be “perception, perception, perception”.

Oh by the way if you know a Millennial with money to burn, feel free to give them my location, it could be a dream come true for both of us.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 13 of the following link. Winters Express 10/15/15

Irreconcilable Differences

            I want a divorce! No, not from my wife, I want one from myself. You see I’m starting to realize that I have irreconcilable differences within my own psyche.

            Those of you that know me or even if you’ve just read my columns you probably think that I tend to lean towards the pessimistic. You would be correct if you just looked at my writings or even the outward persona I portray in public. But if you were to look at just my actions you might actually think I was an optimist.

            So what are these optimistic actions I’m talking about? First and foremost would be the big move to California 16 years ago. We left the life we knew so well for an unknown opportunity 3000 miles away. Then after just 18 months we bought a house that we really couldn’t afford in a community we didn’t know anything about. A couple years later I invested everything I had to start a business in this same community.

            That’s the more recent stuff; I have a whole long history of blindly diving into jobs and businesses.

            I seem to have a negative outlook on life, yet I always act like I can make it better. See what I mean? Irreconcilable differences between my thoughts and my actions.

Here’s another example of the ambiguity in my life. One of the reasons I moved to California was to be closer to my Mother and siblings. I thought that since we had lived so far apart for 25 years it would make me feel more like part of the family if we were in closer proximity. But the reality is that we’re not a close knit family, never were, never will be. What I realize is that it’s not about the miles, it’s about the emotions. Or in the case of my family it’s the lack there of. It’s not that we don’t love each other or wouldn’t do whatever we had to do to help each other. It’s that we don’t have a strong emotional need to show it.

But that last example is another case of that irreconcilable difference in my mind. Even though I don’t have a need to show much emotion towards my own family when I see sappy family crap on TV or at the movies I get all teary eyed and really can’t control it.

OK, enough of the family and emotional issues, that’s just kid stuff. Let’s get to the really big issues; you know life and death stuff. That’s where I have the real psychological conundrum, reconciling living and dying. I don’t mean death per se since that’s inevitable for all of us and I’m resigned to that. What I’m talking about is the half glass thing, pessimist versus optimist. That’s my big issue, am I living life or am I just killing time and going through the motions until the inevitable end? I mean all my life I’ve heard the hype about “live life to the fullest” or “don’t worry, be happy” but that’s just not me.

Don’t get me wrong, for all intensive purposes I consider myself a happy person and I have enjoyed many moments in my life but have I ever “seized the day”? I don’t think so. Sure I’ve lived many a day but most of them without much forethought or planning. I’ve always pretty much just lived my life in the moment. I’ve never had a “life’s plan” or given much thought to the future.

I never thought I would be this age; it was just one day after the next and now I’m here.

I never thought about a long term relationship or marriage but 35 years ago Diane and I were spending so much time at each other’s apartments that we figured we should just live in one. Four years later she changed jobs and I didn’t think she should be without health insurance so I suggested we get married and two weeks later we did. Now 31 years on I couldn’t imagine it any other way but I sure didn’t plan it.

I never thought about having kids, no I take that back. I did think about NOT having kids. Lucky for me and my marriage that Diane wasn’t very interested in kids either.

So not having a plan is how I’ve lived my life but contrarily I really like things in order. One of my biggest sayings is “a place for everything and everything in its place”.

So all that’s another irreconcilable difference, who I am verses how I am.

Damn, now I’m even more confused with myself than when I started writing this column. I think it’s just time to call it a night and go to bed. Because as I always say, “there’s always tomorrow, or not”.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 10/1/15

Taking one for the team is good for the community

I’ve never really been one for team sports, that’s probably why I like playing racquet ball, chess, and poker where it’s just me against them. Most of my life (even the one year on the high school soccer team) I never felt like I fit in or was part of a team, family, or community. Growing up my family was fairly dysfunctional so we weren’t that close and definitely didn’t work well as a unit. Most of my past jobs I either worked for a strong boss or I was the boss, not the best formula for building a team. Living most of my life in a community (Flint, MI) that was in social and financial decline also didn’t create much sense of camaraderie.

But some of that changed when we moved to Winters. I started to feel what it was like to be part of a community. The very first experience I had here in Winters was when we were trying to buy our house. It was for sale by owner and that owner was the (for lack of a better word) eccentric Bruce Goulden. Diane and I had come to look at the house for the first time with check book in hand but Bruce was in no hurry. He was still fixing it up and had some other people that were interested in it as well.

            

            It wasn’t that he was trying to start a bidding war; he really didn’t care about a few thousand dollars. He wanted to know who would best fit in the community. I on the other hand just really wanted this house. I felt it the second we walked in, it felt like home (still does just a little noisier). So I wrote Bruce a letter telling him how much we wanted the house and that if he sold it to us we would give back to the community (weren’t really sure how). After a week or so he told us that we could have the house so we jumped on it.

            We started to get to know our neighbors and they introduced us to their friends who introduced us to their friends and we quickly started to feel like part of the community. Bruce took us to one of the Winters Express Friday the 13^th parties and introduced us around and so it went for the first few years.

Things were also starting to change around Winters, The Palms came to town, Dan Martinez started making wine in the back of a building on Main Street, the Participation Art Gallery was open, and there were plans to rehab an old modular building that had been moved downtown.

It’s that rehab project that got my attention; I thought it would be a great location for someone (other than me) to open a coffee bar. But long story short, two years later Steady Eddy’s Coffee House was born and that’s where my contribution to the community comes in. It may not be what you think because creating a business that’s still going is not what I’m talking about.

I’m trying to bring this back full circle to the team player thing. More importantly I’m talking about sacrificing for the team because that’s the reality of what happened. If we think of Winters as being the team then Steady Eddy’s is now a successful part of it. They are poised to have a good long run but that’s not how it was in the beginning. The truth is that the first four years were rough (as most start ups are) and Diane and I were almost bankrupted. I’m talking physical, emotional, spiritual, as well as financial bankruptcy. To use that sports analogy we “took one for the team”.

That being said, I love that Steady Eddy’s is part of the community but would I do it again? Maybe not, but probably yes because as much as I hate to admit it I’ve kind of become a bit of a team player. At work I’m not the boss but I feel that I make a contribution to the Turkovich Team. At home I do my share of the cooking, cleaning, and cat care. In the neighborhood I’m working with the City to come up with a compromise solution to the noise and parking problems. In the community I applied for a seat on the planning commission (I didn’t get it) and am watching all the planned growth with an optimist eye.

         I guess what I’m saying is that even though the sacrifice can hurt your personal stats it’s necessary for the good of the team and I’m OK with that. So GOOOO WINTERS.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 9/10/15

Forgetting the Thrill of the Kill

            Recently there has been international outrage over the killing of Cecil the Lion by an American hunter. I’ve written before about my opinion on hunting for sport but I will reiterate it again for those who don’t know. I feel that as a species, Humans will never socially evolve or advance as long as we still get a thrill from killing things.

            I know that’s kind of a simplistic thing to say because killing is such a huge part of our common human history. If humans hadn’t evolved to be such smart and efficient killers we wouldn’t be the dominant animal on the planet. The reality is that for most of us it takes a lot more brain power to not kill than to just let our primal instincts run loose.

            Killing is such an everyday part of our lives and lexicon. Right now I’m “killing time”, but when I finish this Pulitzer Prize winning column I will have “killed it”. When I’m playing racquet ball and I make a great shot it’s a “kill shot” or when I get my butt handed to me on the court I got “killed”. Even when I do something nice for my wife, I’m “killing her with kindness”. But these are just everyday meaningless words, what about when someone really ticks you off and you just want to “kill” them? What’s stopping you?

            For most of us it’s our brains (conscience) and the fact that most of us don’t walk around with a way too easy to use weapon in our pocket. I know that if I had had a gun on me the day I was fired all those years ago I could easily have killed my boss, or at least that’s how my fantasy goes. But really that’s just a fantasy because I know myself and I don’t have the stomach for killing. I even find myself saying “sorry dude” as I mush a spider that surprised me in the house.

            For me there’s a hierarchy of killing verses conscience. I know some of you will probably laugh at me because I’m even thinking about this but here it is.

Insects, spiders, and rodents: I have no problem killing them when they are bugging me but I don’t go out of my way to preemptively get rid of them.

Fish and Shellfish: I have no problem killing or for that matter “eating them alive” as in fresh Oysters.

It’s at this next level that I can’t do the killing but I also don’t stop the killing being done for me.

Poultry: I still eat it a little and I do love those fried chicken embryos.

Pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle: Because of my wife’s eating habits I don’t eat any meat at home but occasionally I do when I am out. In all good conscience even that’s getting harder to do.

Wild animals: I don’t think any wild animal should be killed, period. I know all the excuses about managing the herds or them threatening our space and livestock but there is such a fine line there when it comes to the “thrill of the kill”.

Cats and Dogs: As painful as it is for me, I will have them euthanized when they are suffering irreversibly.

 Now at the top of my list are people. I can’t imagine taking a human life and I am thankful that I came of age in-between wars. I was never put in that position, unlike so many young people that were. But I also don’t want any people killed in my name. I don’t believe in capital punishment and I can say this knowing that my sister’s murderer is still out there somewhere. I may wish they were dead but I wouldn’t want them killed in her name.

I also don’t want wars fought in my name. I have always considered myself a Pacifist so I don’t think that in this day and age we should be fighting any wars especially preemptive ones. If some foreign power wants to come here to Winters and attack me or my family then I will defend myself, even to the death if I have too. But really, I don’t find that very likely.

But let me bring all this talk about killing back to Cecil the Lion. The part that I find most upsetting is that Cecil was first shot with a bow and arrow and suffered for 40 hours before he was killed. That was inhumane. Inhuman, as is the collateral damage from our wars on terror. Inhumane, as is the treatment of the fifty plus billion animals that are “harvested” (not slaughtered) each year to feed our insatiable appetites. Inhumane, as is the way many of the poor are treated here in America because of the growing inequality in wealth.

Even as it feels like we are being overwhelmed by all this inhumanity it is my belief that our humanity will someday evolve us from the natural born killers that so many of us still are. That evolution has to start sometime, so let’s hope that it starts now with the death of Cecil. As has been said for countless millennia, “May his death not have been in vain.” 

To view the column in it's original form go to page 7 of the following link. Winters Express 8/13/15