Road Rage and Mayhem on my Bucolic Doorstep

My loyal reader will recall that I began blogging in order to make sense of my constant "bridge burning." I only began a second blog about Eureka after realizing that the community is both creepier and lovelier than I had first imagined. In my first post on the town, I promised that I would discuss an inspiring community institution, and then a shocking crime (in which the "victim" may have been the primary perpetrator!) that occurred only a few weeks after and a few feet away from where I had settled into a charming apartment built in the 1880s to lodge lumberjacks.

Simple, but lovely, with those 6-foot high windows...

This post is the latter of the two promised, discussing what is known about a criminal misdeed, and speculating why such an awful thing might happen in this seeming paradise, while we are forced to wait for evidence and opinions to be presented months from now at a probable trial. Here is a newspaper synopsis of the basic facts (with links to other news reports following in the text, below):

"UPDATE: SHOOTING SUSPECT IN COURT.

Cameron Cramer, 07/26/2011, Times-Standard

[A] 30-year old [man] is accused of shooting a female 3 times while they were both driving in separate cars on H St. and 14th St on Monday around 5:30. The victim was shot twice in her torso and once in the head.  She is in critical but stable condition according to Eureka Police.

On Thursday [the man] was charged with Assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm as a felon and possession of a firearm within 10 years of conviction. [He] turned himself into authorities on Tuesday after S.W.A.T. raided his home [without success], a few blocks south of the shooting scene, on Monday night."

"The bigger the gun, the bigger the fun!" said this Internet photo caption, which does NOT depict the H St. shooter...

As a member of the first TV generation (where crimes are solved, and justice is obtained in less than 50 minutes), I just assumed that the whole story would be revealed within a few daze of this incident, in which a man blasted away at a woman as they drove by my porch, where I was sitting in my pj bottoms and flannel shirt petting a neighbor’s cat. For several days I BECAME part of the story, quoted extensively (about knowing NOTHING about what had just happened!) in the local newspaper, and then for 8 minutes live on a local radio station...

I was sitting right on those steps, in the little forest of rhododendrons and ferns, when the popping began!

Information has dribbled out in the weeks since the crime, including:

An independent witness-supported allegation that the “victim” had repeatedly rammed the shooter’s car just before the latter turned in his seat and, while continuing down H St., blew out his own back window putting three bullets through her windshield and into her, leaving her in critical condition;

Victim's car, after woman crashes into a parked car after getting shot...

Both the man and woman had been arrested previously for a variety of petty crimes, ranging from shoplifting and domestic violence, to DUIs and drug possession;

And, the two may have been involved in at least one previous driving-related altercation, which had led to citations for excessive speed.

The suspected shooter was quickly identified, and the victim was eventually named as well. The shooter’s lawyer made a statement to the press.

What remains unknown to this day is:

What, if any, relationship the two might have had that eventually led to the shooting.

And, the current medical condition (and even location) of the victim. The last pubic information was that she had been moved to a hospital outside of the area, and remained in critical but stable condition.

NOT the victim, who is not this angelic-looking with 3 bullet-holes in her...

The info provided above came out weeks ago, and I have finally given up on getting “closure” any time soon about an event that occurred just yards from my unsuspecting self. However, since that day I have repeatedly noticed rude and even violent road rage-like behavior by folks up here when they are behind the wheel. I have seen this while driving, walking, and especially on my bicycle.

A happy couple (but NOT these two) honked and gestured rudely as they passed my bike; I was apparently slowing them down before they reached the already red traffic light, where I caught up with them and informed them that bike riders have a right to be on the road, and they continued their rude gestures...

I ride my bike whenever possible (gas has JUST dropped [barely] under $4 a gallon up here). A number of drivers have gunned their engines, honked, yelled and/or gestured obscenities, and even swerved in their lane to intimidate me as they passed when I've just been peddling along on the side of the road. As a recent transplant from LA this local behavior well behind the Redwood Curtain is quite unexpected.

Road rage in LA... I GET that!

The people in this small town have no “commute” (the US census reports that the average Eurekian drives less than 10 minutes to and from work!), no traffic, and are surrounded by hundreds of miles of beautiful Mother Nature. So why do so many of them drive so recklessly and with malicious intent?

The snail and the tortoise represent two bike riders not sure who should yield; this also occurs frequently up here...

I have asked various locals about this road-rage-without-the-urban-stressors [Note (10-19): somehow (not for the 1st time!), this post has "lost" the rest of this paragraph... I will rewrite and repost ASAP.]

However idyllic life is here, I too have succumbed to rage-like feelings.

Today, for example, I chose the shortest line at the store, and then felt the anger begin to build as the one guy in front of me dawdled endlessly during the check-out process. He was on his cell phone, of course. Then he realized that he'd forgotten to get some vital item, and rushed back into the aisles to grab something, without so much as an embarrassed look on his slack-jawed fact. Now the cashier had time to look at her cell... He returned to check-out with his new item, and then waited until the cashier finished ringing him up before even looking for his wallet. And, was this really the first time that the guy had ever swiped a debit card and entered his personal info? He seemed so confused, and required step-by-step guidance from the cashier. All of the other lines had cleared by now, but all my crap was already scattered across the converyor belt... Why should I have to gather everything up and move to another check-out station?

I was ready to strangle the self-absorbed bastard, and could feel the physical signs of stress building in my body! It took me a half hour to calm down enough to laugh at myself! What is MY excuse?!? That is fodder for my OTHER blog, on burning bridges.

I'm trying to get some, but it ain't easy to change!

Finally, why did I claim to have obtained “15 minutes of fame” from this incident? After the long news article linked to above, wherein I was quoted as saying I thought I'd heard a series of vehicle backfires, I got a call from a local radio station...

In brief, although preinterviewed before the live exchange, the fact that I couldn’t say anything interesting about what had happened right in front of me the night before still flummoxed the radio DJ interviewing me. In desperation, he asked me on-air why I had recently moved to Eureka. When I told him that I came here to write, he proceeded to fill up the remaining 5 minutes of scheduled airtime by asking me about my three books. I got to outline the contents of each of my hypothetical books on the air. 

How I feel when my writing is going WELL...

Now I have to write all three of them, since hundreds of locals have been forewarned of my intentions! I better get to work...

Food for People!: a “thick” description

Vignette 1: After considering the relative benefits of two “miscellaneous” items on a “choice pantry” rack at some length, Ms. “C” chooses the peanut curry sauce (“It will taste better on a stir-fry!” she declares.) Now “C” pushes her cart to the bagging table, where shoppers pack up their food before leaving the pantry. I compliment her on her large insulated tote bag, and she replies, “My daughter got it somewhere. Since my bike chain broke I’ve had to walk here, and the kids' milk was warm by the time I got home.” “How far away is your place?” I ask, concerned about the 15+ pounds of food that this 60-something year-old grandmom would be carrying up hill and down dale. “I think it’s about 3 miles, but it’s a beautiful day today!” “C” says as she pushes open the front door and waves goodbye. I want to drive her home myself, but I ride MY bike to the food-bank. For some reason, she reminds me of my own mom at that age, some 20 years before her lingering death. I am also troubled by the fact that “C” doesn’t have enough cash to get a bike chain fixed…

Inspired by my friend Meg, who always finds opportunities to volunteer for those in need, I decided I should do something when I arrived in Eureka on July 4, 2011. Food for People is close to my house, has a great name, an inspiring façade, and serves the community as Humboldt County’s official food-bank, with many on-site programs and satellite services (that include 17 pantries and monthly free farmers' markets across the whole county) for those without the resources to purchase adequate food.

I worked with the Mexican immigrants that pick America’s crops for more than 2 decades, and found that too often they cannot afford to eat the food that they pick! 

A logical next step in my education about how others live was to get to know some of the many Americans that cannot afford the food that they need, even though it is harvested by poorly paid immigrants.

I was one of three Boomers in a group orientation that occurs every Monday at the Food for People facility on 14^th and Summer streets. The other 7 newbie volunteers were “kids” between their mid-teens and late-20s. The diverse group had various motives for wanting to volunteer at Food for People.

Vignette 2: 15-year old “M” says that she volunteers most days at Food for People. I ask why she is spending her summer at a food-bank. She says, “Oh, it’s something to do. My dad grounded me in April, and school and the pantry are the only places I’m allowed to go!” I try to imagine what such an innocent-looking teenage girl could have done to be punished for so long… “Well, maybe he’ll let you slide soon?” I ask hopefully. “I doubt it,” she responds. “I won’t get to do anything else until I finish high school.”

The orientation was thorough, beginning and ending in the front entry area, which contains a reception desk and lobby seating, free food (bread and produce) for anyone that walks in the door, and the all-important “choice pantry” (described at length, below) for eligible clients. In addition, we toured: the intake interview rooms; the hot-meal kitchen; the meeting/eating room; the food prep, cull, pack, repack areas, and adjacent stacks of dry goods, walk-in refrigerator, and 2 freezers all in the “middle” warehouse; and a “back” warehouse with more pallets of staple goods obtained from the federal surplus food program, as well as via ongoing regional food drives.

The Food for People website has a lot of information and numerous photos about the facility, its history, staff, volunteers, newsletters, and programs, as well as how and why every good citizen should donate time, food, and/or cash to our county’s official food-bank. I am presenting a new volunteer’s viewpoint here…

Even on the days when the choice pantry is closed (such as “orientation Mondays”) there are at least a dozen folks performing a variety of tasks to keep all of the Food for People’s programs running. A buzz of goodwill permeates the building, bouncing off of the diverse educational posters on the walls and the pamphlets strewn about on tables that provide facts, figures, and illustrations on the growing need for affordable and nutritious food in the wealthiest nation on earth.

What follows was gleaned from attending 2 successive orientations, my first three days working as a volunteer, and formal and informal interviews with staff, other volunteers, and clients.

In addition to being the food-bank for numerous pantries throughout Humboldt County, Food for People has 12 different programs that provide food to walk-in shoppers, people that suffer a sudden food emergency, seniors, children, and the homebound, among others.

Volunteer coordinator Laura is an energetic dynamo with a newly minted MA from nearby Humboldt State University. She explains many important issues during the orientations. Her presentation style is a blend of enthusiasm, patience, precision, and no-nonsense facts about policies for serving the food-bank’s clients, honoring the donors’ preferences, and following government edicts. The staff webpage claims that Laura plays “a mean violin” too!


Laura also made three key points that are well-known and widely ignored: 1) adequate nutrition is a HUMAN RIGHT for all, not a privilege for some (to be considered further in a later "editorial" post about people and food); 2) most of those without sufficient resources to purchase adequate nutrition are children, women, and the elderly; and, 3) shoppers at Food for People are assisted cheerfully and without judgment, since the circumstances that brought them to the food-bank are much more complex than the stereotypes presented by many in the media and politics.

There are many volunteer options to choose from. One of the few that I ruled out was “gleaning,” which may include harvesting fields local farmers have stopped picking. I know how hard farm labor is, even just a few hours a week! So my hat is off to the gleaners; long may they stoop and pick, lift and haul, and provide much of the freshest fruits and veggies that are displayed in the pantry.

However, “gleaning” also includes less arduous work; gleaners often pick up produce already harvested but set aside for the food-bank by local farmers, or left-over after farmers’ markets have concluded. So local farmers deserve a “hip, hip, and hooray” too!

To-date, my primary job has been as a “shopper’s helper.” I love this job because it offers intimate contact with the folks that the Food for People’s choice pantry was created to serve. Many shoppers shower us helpers with praise and affection, even though the staff and other volunteers do the harder, behind the scenes, work. The shoppers may not know who you are and what you do, but I salute all of you unseen heroes! Every time a shopper thanks me, I “send it up” to all of you…

Every new client has an intake interview before they can shop in the pantry. The interviewers are highly trained volunteers that try to identify each client’s overall household needs, and provide any available assistance to get those needs met. There are scarce but still existent public and private resources available to help some obtain low-cost healthcare, childcare, housing, and job training. The intake interviewers provide referrals to eligible clients.

The intake interviewer also finds out if a new client has dietary restrictions or lacks cooking facilities. These issues may lead to adjustments in the types of foods that clients will be able to use. As Laura explained it, “The interview is a chance for us to touch base with those that come to the pantry, and to make sure that we’re serving them to the best of our ability.”

Vignette 3: Ms. “R” looks like a teenage surfer girl, with tie-dyed T-shirt, cut off jeans, and flip-flops. Except THIS surfer girl is way pregnant, and already has 3 step-ladder children waiting for her in the lobby while she obtains an emergency box. “I’m living in a place with a ‘closed kitchen,” she tells me to explain why she doesn’t want to shop in the choice pantry for fresh veggies. "They are packing me a box full of energy bars and trail mix, so I can snack between meals" She shivers slightly, then adds, “I moved home for a few months, but things didn’t work out. Now I’m back in Eureka without any of my warm clothes…”

Of course, because of donor mandates, the client’s household size and income earnings must be determined. Federally subsidized foodstuffs, for example, are provided only to those that are below a specific income level for a given household size.

After intake, each new shopper is introduced to a shopper’s helper. The helpers are given a laminated card that has been filled in by the interviewer. This "shopper's guide" lists all of the categories of food for which the shopper is eligible. These categories include federal surplus goods of various types, fresh fruits and veggies, and canned, packaged, and wrapped goods from dairy, grain, and miscellaneous categories. The amounts and types of food each shopper receives are also determined by the stock on hand when the shopper comes to the pantry.

When I have been a volunteer, at least 3 helpers were on duty, and usually kept busy. They escort the shoppers around the racks and coolers that contain the items then available. Many specific items (especially the fresh veggies and fruits) vary by the season, the day of the week, and even the hour of the day. New food items are constantly flowing in via various sources, after which they are sorted, weighed, and put out on the racks, table, and coolers by volunteers. Of course, items also run out as shoppers select the items that they want.

Due to the high demand for food – Food for People serves 12-15,000 people a month (!) – individual shoppers only get to shop in the choice pantry once a month. Due to federal guidelines a shopper usually gets enough food on each monthly visit to supply about a week of their household’s total monthly needs. And, it's not that the food-bank doesn't bring in much food to distribute; last year Food for People put 1.2 million pounds of edibles in clients' hands!

A separate program allows clients to return once more each month for an “emergency box” (and a bag of fresh produce) that has a few days’ meals. These boxes are put together with the recipient’s individual and household needs in mind. Finally, there are racks with free breads and bins with free produce that anyone can come in and take daily, although the quantities that each walk-in can take from the free area are usually limited.

I was amazed at what I got out of being a shopper’s helper! During the 6 hours I have worked thus far, guiding a few dozen shoppers around the choice pantry, I found that many of my largely unconscious middle-class biases against “the poor” were exposed.

I am a “progressive” when it comes to the situation of new immigrants in the US because I have seen their faces, heard their stories, and witnessed many of their experiences. At Food for People (and a reflection of Humboldt County’s demographics) most of the shoppers I have helped are “white” (like me), and I found them to be much more diverse (and “human”) than I had expected. Then I remembered how the white farm workers from Oklahoma were revealed to be human in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." It was Steinbeck's ability to reveal the humanity in those that had been stigmatized by society that made the book (and subsequent movie) a classic. While the city elite in Salinas, California may use him as a tourist draw TODAY, Steinbeck was vilified, and his books were burned and banned throughout California and elsewhere for decades!

In the 1930s, poor white people were disparaged by many in the media and politics as undeserving "hobos, "commies," and "Okies." Today, new stereotypes keep many Americans from having much sympathy for the destitute; you can probably think of many reasons why you don't want your money going to help the "bums," "hippies," and/or "druggies" that you sometimes label on the streets. Yes, some clients may be able-bodied, while others may be drug-dependent, and/or mentally and/or physically disabled, and the homeless often don't have access to bathrooms, laundry facilities, or clean clothes… However, many of the Food for People's clients have dependents that are innocent of the vices and traumas of their parents, and all of these people are human beings that deserve to eat!

Most of the shoppers that I have helped were humble, or even embarrassed to be at a food-bank. They were also very appreciative of the services that Food for People provides. Most shoppers liked the fact that they got to choose among the fresh and packaged foods available. (At many food-bank pantries recipients just line up for a prepackaged, take-it-or-leave-it box of staples.) Many shoppers at our choice pantry linger over small alternatives; from the dairy category, for example, “Should I get 2 small yogurts, a stick of butter, or a quart of low-fat milk?”

Some decline some foods that they don’t like (or are not familiar with), or items that they know they would not be able to prepare or consume due to their particular living circumstances. Examples of such limitations include not having a stove, or a fridge, a kitchen, or even a stable residence.

Food for People staffers try to accommodate the special circumstances of these shoppers by offering more of those items that the shopper will be able to use; however, the federal program goods are provided with a rigid formula, and those items cannot be adjusted to fit an individual’s needs.

The foods in the choice pantry include the federal surplus staples (including canned, frozen, and refrigerated items in diverse categories from animals to plants), as well as local donations of all types. My favorite area is the fresh fruit and veggie table, which I have seen laden with the following good foods: lettuce and spinach (both bagged and fresh), diverse veggies such as peas, potatoes, onions, parsnips, greens of many types, beets, leeks, and more; and, fresh fruits, such as fresh picked strawberries, oranges, limes, and plums.

After a few hours helping shoppers, during a momentary lull, I found myself rocking on my heels, dazed by the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing: bumper-sticker stereotypes versus real flesh-and-blood people; small piles of food for the too many in need; faces of joy and of shame; etc. The food distribution coordinator, Ivy (who is a DJ on a pirate radio in her spare time!), happened by at that moment, and I muttered something like “This place is amazing!” while tears welled up in my eyes.

Ivy later confided that the first 6 months can be emotionally trying – for volunteers and staff alike – due to the desperate circumstances of too many ordinary Americans. Nonetheless, the overall vibe amongst the staff and workers is a cheerful, can-do spirit that is uplifting, not depressing. As with most other experiences in life, each volunteer brings their personal perceptions into this new environment, and over time perceptions change as new experiences change the person.

Why facilities like Food for People are needed in "The Land of Plenty" (and where food commodities are the nation's biggest export) will be considered in a subsequent post (and will then be linked to here), an editorial on how a globalizing "agribusiness" has turned food from a basic necessity of life into a commodity that requires access to cash to obtain.