Trucks And Neighbors

Over the years I have seen the natural features surrounding the entry to our driveway deteriorate. A trucker apparently lost control of his truck a few years ago and backed down into a natural outcropping to one side our driveway entrance. On the other side a Joshua tree, showing repeated signs of having been sideswiped, ultimately died.

Last year, I decided that since I own the road on that corner I can pretty much do as I please with it, just as neighbors a block west of mine had gated their roads. I thought about a gate, but did not want to block passage to the two 5 acre properties south of mine. I had never met the owners but that is beside the point. It is true that they could enter from the opposite direction, as I and other neighbors had done from time to time, but the road is a bit rough that way. Regardless, I did not want to shut them out.

Instead of blocking the road, I just made the corner narrow and sharp enough so that approaching truckers would find the turn unappealing from either direction, while still allowing water and delivery trucks to pull into our place. I did this by projecting a short stone wall out into the road, leaving enough space for a standard vehicle to turn the corner slowly. I also added a reflective "No Trucks" sign on a steel post. I tested it with my car and with my long van and they made it around, slowly.

In the past, the only strangers I had seen turn that corner were people apparently exploring the countryside and the occasional lost service vehicle. I have noticed since I installed the sign that every unfamiliar vehicle that does approach this corner stops, turns around and goes back the way it came. That is okay with me.

I have also been concerned about potential thieves casing the place, wondering if they could break in and/or remove our solar panels, etc.. This should make our place just a bit less attractive to such visitors. I also have a security camera clearly visible to anybody that might be looking our place over.

On March 12 this year, I noticed an unfamiliar SUV towing a vintage teardrop trailer stopping at my corner. To my amazement, a guy got out of the SUV and began to disassemble my new wall. I quickly jumped off the deck, ran out there and told him to stop what he was doing, NOW. He began to argue and I repeated myself and he did reluctantly stop. Still disbelieving that anybody could be so arrogant, I told him that he was on private property and would do well to remove himself.

Then I noticed that there was a woman in the passenger seat, so that maybe this was something more than just the inexplicable vandalism of a lunatic. I calmed down a bit and somehow a hesitant conversation began to develop. I discovered that I was finally meeting one of those missing neighbors to the south, Jill Fraser, and her friend Douglass Baldwin. They decided to give it a try. They made it around the corner, though I did have to pull back the sign to keep it from scratching their newly renovated trailer.

I had not thought of allowing room for a trailer. Other than the stone wall, I had also selectively placed a few large rocks on the other side of the road to make it even less attractive to trucks, though still negotiable for smaller vehicles. I removed those, and the dead Joshua tree sections that had fallen partially into the road, thereby making a little more room for their trailer to pass.

I than removed the sign from the steel post and bolted it to one end of a 10 foot white 2" PVC pipe. I pounded that down over the post. This served to raise the sign high enough to clear the trailer roof. The round PVC also offered a smoother surface for the trailer to bump against. However it was still too stiff, so I dropped a 4 foot length of a flexible white 4" PVC drain pipe around the 2" pipe. Now if it were bumped, it would be loose enough to turn with the passing trailer, minimizing the possibility of a scrape. I added a few reflectors to make sure it would be visible at night.

On their return trip a few days later, they were able to pass with ease. Later, I received an email from Jill thanking me for the effort. We had connected again while they were camped on her property and exchanged information. Googling her name, I discovered that she was an accomplished composer of various advertising sound tracks, such as the background music for Lexus, BMW, Carl's Jr. and other commercials. Jill Fraser's website is real nice, simple and quietly to the point. She created it.


A month later I met another new neighbor, Judy Haft. A couple of weeks later I met her husband Jonathan. They purchased Jean & Dick's home a block west of us, a 5 acre parcel adjacent to Bob & Neena's 5 acre parcel. The place had been vacant for a couple of years since Jean had to move to an assisted living facility and her house went on the market.

I was chatting with Neena out in front of her place when I noticed some activity next door. Neena said that the place had sold and that Bob had met the new owners a few days prior, reporting that they were good people. I went on over and said hello to the crowd of people cleaning the place. A young attractive woman turned and greeted me. The rest were just a cleaning crew that she had hired. We had a good chat. I told her who all of her neighbors were and she took notes. I also got her email address and we proceeded to communicate through our Blackberry's over the next few days as she worked out the locally available phone and internet situation.

A few weeks later a late model vehicle pulled into my driveway. I believe it was a Mercedes-Benz SUV. Out of the vehicle came Judy, her husband Jonathan and their daughter Rachel. They were dressed to kill, not the usual desert garb, perhaps on their way to a Governor's ball, or maybe they just wanted to look good while meeting their neighbors. It was nice to meet the family, though I don't recall their 2 dogs being along for the ride.

Jonathan Daniel Haft is a senior VP of business affairs for Hollywood Records, a subsidiary of Disney, Inc.. The vehicle was their gift to him. An attorney, his job, if I understand correctly, is to make sure that the company's interests are properly represented when dealing with the recording artists that publish through Disney.

Judy Kathleen Haft is a makeup artist who has touched the faces of such luminaries as our Boston home boy, Ben Affleck, and others of note such as Nicolette Sheridan and Alec Baldwin.

These are down to earth people; low key. They did not toot their own horns; I gathered most of the above information from the internet. Regarding horns, I did later hear the pristine sounds of a master trumpet reverberating across the valley. I believe it came from their direction.

08/01/10

I went to a talk by Carl Hiaasen the other day in the Sandwich High School auditorium. We discovered it by accident. We were driving by the local high school at about 5:30 when we saw the hand-painted sign leaning against a post saying "Carl Hiaasen, 7:00". On the way back, we pulled in and took a look. They were indeed setting up for a presentation. Suddenly, all plans for the evening were changed. I returned at 6:40 and bought the $3 ticket. The place was nearly packed, but I found a single seat down in the 2nd row. He talked about his life as an author, journalist and commentator.

It was a nice interesting presentation, though it had nothing to do with our stay in Joshua Tree, except that is where I read his books, or those that I can find in the local thrift shops. I am cheap; I cannot stomach paying $8+ for a paperback. I don't even want the more expensive hardbacks because they take up too much space. I know authors need the money and I do feel a tinge of guilt. Carl Hiaasen is one of my favorite authors, easily the legitimate successor to John D MacDonald.

What comes to me as I recall that evening, is a certain amount of sorrow for the guy. Here is somebody that loves to write. He is not an extrovert, not a salesman, not one who would find public events all that attractive; I could clearly see him holed up in an inner sanctum typing, with absolutely no interest in doing anything else.

And yet here he is meeting the obligations of his contract to travel endlessly from one gymnasium to another, repeating the same story over and over again, wearing his right arm to the bone signing his name repetitively, being nice to everybody no matter how silly or obnoxious some may become - all that just to make the books sell. This is about as far from an inner sanctum as one could get.

I wish him well, wish him a safe trip home, whenever that may be, and I hope the home he carries in his heart is still there when he returns. But then he has a message, an urgent message that needs to be told, that can be found in every book he writes, as did J D M. So perhaps these visits are another way of conveying that message.

Regardless, I don't think I could handle being an accomplished writer. I have a good life, as I think I convey in these Journals, and would not want that to change too much.

Bye.

Copyright © 2010, Van Blakeman