Life and Times in SoCal

Hello and welcome back. Well as the title of this blog states plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. This is a proverb meaning: the more things change, the more they stay the same. I think that this sums up 2020 so far. For every 1 step forward we all take we seem to take 2 back! It may be better to walk backwards, we’d probably get further!

Like the rest of the western hemisphere, our country’s management of the pandemic is about as logical as anyone else’s. We rely on politicians making decisions based on information given by scientist to a skeptical and scared public who have their own thoughts, and a media system that is geared to making money from adds whilst trying to stay impartial, it’s really no wonder that there is so much confusion and lack of clarity. I’m not criticizing all these decisions makers but each, including the public, has an agenda.

Like the majority of people I have family and friends who have been effected by this pandemic, and what it has brought with it. Whilst it's distressing to learn of the deaths and illness this thing has caused to people its the ones who are loosing their jobs and lively hood who are also suffering. Members of my family have been furloughed, have gone back to work in a limited capacity only to be looking at furlough again, to family who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, to ones who are staring down that same threat and may loose their lively hoods in the weeks to come, and school closures. If we as a people are not careful this will effect generations to come in ways we cannot understand right now. 

As you may recall from my last post Julie and I have applied for naturalization to become US citizens. Part of the process is to have an understanding of US history. During my studies I came across the speech at the first inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as President, best known for his famously pointed reference to "fear itself”.

He would further go on to say;

On reading his full speech it struck me of how much like what FDR and the US people (and the world population the time) faced back at the start of the 1930’s we face similar today. The difference is FDR was prepared to fight for his citizens to turn the tide on the issues of the day. I know the causes of the issues in the 1930’s are not the same causes as today but the atmosphere of fear is the same. Today we have a 24 hour news cycle telling us how bad things are, telling us what’s going wrong, telling us who’s going wrong, but never telling us what’s going right, how we are making progress, even small steps forward. 

At the end of FDR’s speech a woman by the name of Sarah Love said "Any man who can talk like that in times like these is worthy of every ounce of support a true American has.”

After listening to our elected leaders and the various opposition parties I struggle to see anyone who is prepared to lead our global village from where we are today. To me they are all looking to ensure they stay in their own jobs at the expense of others. 

In reality I do not know anyone personally who has caught the illness, I traveled from January until the end of September on packed planes across the US and have been tested only to find I have no antibodies, no symptoms, no illness! And I was classed as high risk due to the amount of travel I was doing. I’m not trying to talk down this pandemic, all I’m asking is have I been lucky, its because I’m wearing a mask, am I immune, or has god reached down and said “not you”? What I do know is that if I had fear then that would have stopped me working and potentially cost me my job. No I never felt threatened to have to travel, I decided that I would not be controlled more than necessary, but would also take precautions to protect myself and those around me. 

On a lighter note.

As I mentioned in my last post, Julie’s daughter my step daughter Abbie and he husband Brock welcomed their first born. Peregrin Robin Oak Horning, known to the family as Pip. He and his mum and dad moved from Bristol to Chester in September and all the family are now settled in. 

My eldest daughter, Dominique and her family made their now annual pilgrimage back to God’s own County in August just in time for her brother Jordan’s birthday. It is a great shame we could not have met them at the planned wedding but…. Well you know!

I am also proud to say that my youngest daughter, Megan graduated this summer with a Bachelor of Science Degree from Askham Bryan/Harper Adams collage in animal management. She is also now waiting for her postponed appointment at the US embassy in London to be granted her GreenCard so she can start the next chapter of her life as a US permanent resident.

Julie changed jobs back in July and now works as the Commercialization and Development Director for a company called Stir Foods. She is responsible for 5 plants making Hummus, Salad Dressing and salsa.  

I have also now stopped traveling backwards and forwards to Dallas as I’m now on another new project to build and bring on line a salad dressing plant in Ontario CA, around 16 miles from home. I shouldn’t really complain about all the travel I’ve done in the past 2 years as it has given me great status with Hilton hotels and Southwest Airlines to such a degree we have enough points for about 6 weeks in Hawaii and as soon as we can we are making the most of them!

You may have read and seen on the TV through the summer months of all the devastating brush fires here in California. We too had a small scare back in August when the hiking train across the road from us started to blaze. Thankfully it only lasted around 4 hours and only burned 1500 acres. The firefighting helicopters, planes and firefighters quickly got it under control and extinguished before it could be a major fire. Sadly that can't be said for other parts of the state where up to 4 million acres have burned this year. 

We also in late September had a swarm of earthquakes (that apparently is the technical term) approximately 150 miles south of us. In a 24 hour period we had over 160 quakes that were larger than a 3 on the Richter scale. We are overdue "the big one" apparently and members of my family ask why we live here with that possibility, that's one of the costs of living in such a beautiful part of the world, at least in my opinion. 

Thanks for reading and until next time

Ciao

Paul