Garfield county: the place no one knows

Most of us -- those of us who love to travel, at least -- have in the back of our minds an idea of a place that is totally remote. 

A place we've never been, a place no one we know has ever been, a place we hardly even hear about except as shorthand for legendary inaccessiblity.  A place not only remote physically, but also living in a time warp, still primitive or medieval culturally and socially.   There aren't that many left.  Timbuctu, maybe.  Yellow Knife.   Upper Congo Basin.  Tannu Tuva.

But while perusing last week's election results, I found such a spot closer to home.  Garfield county.

Garfield jumped to my attention as I reviewed, county by county, the voting results for each candidate and measure on the Washington state ballot.  Garfield's results were as far from the over-all state results as seemingly possible.

Democrat Inslee became governor, although losing most of the counties outside King (Seattle).  But he lost those counties by generally moderate percentages;  he lost Garfield, winning only 26.48 percent of the vote.  Democrat Cantwell was re-elected U.S. Senator with 60.19 percent of the state's votes.  She lost Garfield, winning only 36.47 percent.

Gay marriage won state-wide by 53.35 percent.  It lost in Garfield with only 28.59 percent.  Marijuana legalization won state-wide with 55.53 percent, carrying a number of generally conservative counties from east of the mountains.  Garfield, just 37.91 percent.  Charter schools squeaked by with 50.72 percent of the vote, cutting across usual liberal/conservative voting lines, and losing slightly in King county.  It attracted only 41.6 percent of the votes in Garfield county. 

Garfield county appears not only to be very conservative, but to be essentially opposed to anything that comes up for a vote.  Where is this place?  I actually had to dig out a state map to find out.

And there it was.  In the southeast corner of the state, bordering Oregon to its south, and just one small county away from Idaho to its east.  Garfield isn't the smallest county geographically -- there are six smaller.  But, with 2,266 residents, it is by far the smallest in population.  It has only one incorporated city, its county seat -- Pomeroy.  Pomeroy boasts 1,425 of the county's total population. 

But, you know ... unlike the Upper Congo, or even perhaps Tannu Tuva, Garfield doesn't sound like that bad a place.  Especially if you're respectably conservative.  As an unofficial website describing the city boasts: "The Republican party stood out in its ability to raise compaign money in Pomeroy."  I'm sure that's true. But I don't think that means that well-behaved liberals wouldn't be welcomed.  The website of the Pomeroy Chamber of Commerce (yes, there is one) states:

Here in Pomeroy you'll always be greeted with a smile! We have the appeal of a small farm town with possibilities that are endless.

The Chamber's website lists upcoming attractions:  "Holiday Bazaar," "Old Fashioned Christmas," "Chocolate Extravaganza," and "Twinkle Light Sale."  That's all within the next three weeks, and, before you urbanites say anything snarky and supercilious, ask yourselves whether any small town of about 1,500 that you know of has such an active Chamber of Commerce.

Pomeroy has a junior-senior high school with 184 students, and an elementary school with 156.  Test results well exceed the state averages, with 96.3 percent of tenth graders passing both the reading and the writing tests.

I'd never live in a place where I'd be considered the "County Liberal," but Garfield county might well be worth a visit, especially if I'm ever headed into Oregon to see the nearby Hell's Canyon area.  Local lodging, listed on the website, tends a bit toward the trailer court and RV park variety, and restaurant listings are heavy on coffee houses and drive-ins, but that may be part of the charm.

My investigation into the world of Garfield county reminds me that it isn't only red-staters who at times live in ideological and cultural bubbles.  It's also easy for us who rejoice at living in liberal bastions to forget that life in more conservative areas -- e.g., all the "fly-over" states -- can be just as happy and satisfying for those who choose to live there as (and often lived with greater community spirit than) anything with which we're familiar.  Not as culturally or intellectually challenging, as a city like Seattle, perhaps, but all choices of lifestyle have their trade-offs.

Twinky farewell

Just a quiet moment of silence, please, for the death of the Twinkies.  And the Ding Dongs.  And Sno Balls.  And, notably, Wonder Bread.

But -- to me, most tragically -- Hostess CupCakes.

Hostess Brands, Inc., the maker of all the above, and more, announced today that it's shutting down operations.  The company has been in bankruptcy since January, and a strike this week delivered the final blow.

American's changing food preferences have been cited as the underlying cause of the company's financial woes.  In other words, there is junk food and there is junk food.  And Hostess's products were really junk food. 

I could never fathom how anyone could eat Twinkies.  Ding Dongs were ok -- it's hard to dislike chocolate.  Sno Balls -- remember them?  one pink and one white per package? -- always looked good, and sounded good in concept, but never quite passed the eating test with me. Just a little too marshmallowy, maybe. 

Wonder Bread was the bread of my childhood.  White bread only, of course, although the brown bread seemed to differ from white only by the addition of food coloring.  You knew a brand of bread had to be good when it was so wonderfully soft and plushy that you could wad a slice into a tiny ball, a pellet of carbs so small that you could fit it into your bean shooter.  (No, I'm not sure that's true, but I'd be surprised if someone didn't do it.)

But the chocolate "CupCakes" -- the package of two chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and a white squiggle across the top -- were a childhood favorite.  Happy (and rare) the day that I'd find them in my school lunch sack.  I loved them in high school.  And in college.  I'd pack them for energy and solace when I started off on a long day hike.  They were a pleasure that became guiltier and guiltier as the years passed, and as I became increasingly conscious of health concerns.

The Hostess cupcakes had one nutritional value: sugar.  Or as the British nutritional labels more coyly express it: "energy."  But they had a taste and a consistency that was well nigh irresistable once you had a package in your possession.

So today we lament not just the demise of an iconic American company, not just the passing of another set of familiar products from our childhood, but the passing of an era.  A time when depression-starved bodies craved "energy"-packed food, when processed food was a novelty that quickly replaced home baking, when our tastes were uncomplicated and unevolved.  When we ate whatever tasted good.

The government saved Chevrolets and Chryslers -- even greater icons of our youth -- but the maker of Twinkies and CupCakes apparently is not "too big to fail."  Our tastes in transportation remain pretty much the same as they were fifty years ago, but our tastes in food have moved along.  So rest in peace, Hostess Brands.

If I could have just one last Hostess cupcake with a glass of milk, I'd feel that I'd properly and happily celebrated the wake of a memorable American company.

Clouds from hell

Hurricanes like Sandy and Katrina aren't the only weather-related disasters our country has faced within the lifetimes of people still alive.  It's easy to forget the Dust Bowl of the 1930's, a multi-year catastrophe that ruined farmers' lives and drove them and their families from their homes.

Like Sandy, the drought-related dust bowl was caused in part by mankind.  Throughout the 1920's, farm land in the affected area -- the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, parts of Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico -- had been offered for sale at low prices by land speculators.  Land that had existed as grass prairies for centures was ruthlessly plowed under, primarily to grow wheat at subsidized prices.  Favorable rainfall had created good crops, and had encouraged ambitious young families from other parts of the country to move to the Southwest.

The drought began in 1930, and reached its peak in 1934-36.  Enormous dust storms blew uprooted virgin soil across the area, forming clouds so dense that they turned day to night, and deposited soil on streets as far away as Chicago and Cleveland.  Families at first thought they could ride out the drought; they gradually, year by year, went bankrupt, losing everything they had, including hope for the futures of themselves and their children.  The ambient dust, breathed into the lungs, caused an epidemic of pneumonia, affecting especially the kids.

Ken Burns has produced a four-hour documentary of the history of the Dust Bowl, including extensive interviews with elderly survivors, folks who were children at the time.  Burns spoke Friday night at a packed Neptune Theater in Seattle, illustrating his talk with about 50 minutes of clips from his documentary, to a silent and stunned audience.  The surviving motion picture clips of approaching dust storms -- looking like distant mountain ranges moving inexorably closer -- are breathtaking.  The survivors' stories are heartbreaking. 

Many of the families migrated to California -- where they were reviled as hated "Okies."  Their treatment by the already depression-impoverished residents of the Central Valley is eye-opening.  "Niggers and Okies seated only in balcony," read signs outside movie theaters.  Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and the songs of Woody Guthrie evolved from those artists' own familiarity with the migrants' hardships in California.

The documentary concludes with mention of a lesser drought in the late 1940's and 1950's.  Since then, more favorable weather, better planting techniques and -- most critically -- irrigation, have created a relative prosperity in the area.  But Mother Nature will have the last laugh.  Irrigation has been dependent on wells drawing water out of the Ogallala Aquifer, a reservoir of subterranean water left over from the melting of the last glaciers.  The aquifer has already lost 50 percent of its depth.  Scientists estimate it will last another twenty years.

One expert pointed out that future generations will curse us for having used the water they needed for drinking to grow water-thirsty wheat on soil suited only for plains of grass.

The documentary will be shown in two parts on PBS, November 18 and 19.

Almost too good to be true

We all recall occasions when we had no lofty expectations -- but when things, nevertheless, turned out much better than expected.  The Christmases when we unexpectedly hit the jackpot with our first bicycle or our much longed-for electric train.  Or the in-class essay we merely felt good about, until we got it back with an A+.

Tuesday evening was something like that.  I had been fearing the worst all year long -- a Republican landslide at every level.  I gradually got my hopes up during the summer, only to have them dashed by Obama's dismal performance in the first debate.  By last week, I still felt pessimistic, but hoped against hope that the amazing Nate Silver -- he of the statistical analyses for the New York Times -- actually knew what he was talking about when he predicted first a 70 percent chance, then an 86 percent chance, and finally a 91 or 92 percent chance of an Obama victory.

What I did not foresee was Obama's ability to carry every state he had carried in 2008 except Indiana (how did he ever carry it in 2008?), and -- barely -- North Carolina.  The evening just got better and better as I flipped channels with one hand, and joined like-minded friends in Facebook exchanges of rumors and mutual exultations with the other.  I was practically delirious by the time of Romney's gracious concession speech and Obama's surprisingly sober and moving address to his followers.

But the presidential race was just the highlight.  The first votes ever supporting same-sex marriage in Washington, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota.  The first votes ever fully legalizing marijuana in Washington and Colorado.  Neither vote will have the slightest impact on my life, I hasten to note, but both show signs of liberality of thought and willingness to experiment that -- based on the deadeningly negative, ignorant, and angry comments I've been used to reading on-line -- I had thought dead. 

Washington figured in both those stories, you'll note.  Also, we apparently have once again elected a Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, after a strongly contested campaign against the Republican attorney general.  The attorney general, Rob McKenna, the only elected state-wide official who was a Republican, had defied the rest of state government to single-handedly join the State of Washington as a party to lawsuits opposing Obamacare.

The new attorney general also will be a Democrat.

And, although the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives is gerrymandered into place for the present, the Democrats -- supposedly at strong risk to lose control of the Senate -- have actually gained two seats in the upper chamber.

Well, my cup runneth over.  I know that this is to some extent just a lot of game playing.  I'm cheering for the liberals the way I cheer for my college football team.  Enormous problems confront the nation.  The Democrats may handle those problems no better than would the Republicans had they won.  Democrats and Republicans will need to cooperate if we're going to accoplish anything.

But my happiness stems primarily from a renewed confidence in my fellow citizens.  They are not all writers of idiotic comments, posted at the end of Yahoo! news stories.  The tea party does not represent the majority of Americans.  At least fifty percent of the voters -- if not necessarily thoughtful political theorists -- have been at least intelligent enough to sense what was best for the nation.  And for themselves.

In 2012, that itself is cause for celebration. 

So, yeah!  America got that new bike on Tuesday.  America aced the test.  We've been celebrating.  Now, let's tackle the real problems facing the country -- with intelligence and mutual understanding.