Kansas Crimson

I had an interesting weekend in Colorado. I met a woman who is retiring and wants to keep her family legacy alive. Her family was Lebanese, “was” because most of the siblings are dead and what progeny there is left, has moved away from the valley. They came to the US from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon and found a town that reminded them of where they came from and put down roots. In the 90 years they have been here in the US they started grocery stores (plural), clothing stores, a movie theatre, a drive-in theatre, appliance stores. They came with nothing and created a small business empire. The cornerstone of this empire was a matriarch whose husband died 13 years after they migrated from Lebanon leaving her pregnant with 7 children already in the household, and a business to run. Mom early on realized that the customer base was primarily Spanish speaking and few business owners spoke the language, so she set about learning the language and culture as a business advantage. The culture was similar to hers so she understood her customers and treated them as family. Sometimes good peopling skills are also good business skills; current business models sometimes forget that. Mom is long gone but the woman I got to hang with for the weekend was her last loving daughter. (I fat fingered my attempt at the word “living” in the last sentence, but the accidental is better than what I intended to write). The surviving daughter, Sadie, “retired” a few years back at about age 80, she is 83 now. She was accidentally run over by a car driven by her 83 year old sister three years ago and has trouble walking now due to lack of proper medical rehab at the time. This is the reason she is retiring. No husband or kids that I can tell, she has been too busy running businesses and making the town a better place. Sadie helped her brothers run the empire, it seems like these were all hands-on deck operations. A couple of the brothers lived/slept in the back of the grocery while going to high school and ran the store. One grew up and became an accountant because the empire needed an accountant. When they started the movie theatre business one ran the projector, two were covering the concession stand, they were ushers. They were carpenters, roofers, electricians, plumbers…..because the empire wasn’t going to repair itself on a daily basis. Back in the 1950’s Sadie “left” for college 30 miles away and came back a music teacher and taught at the local school for 40 years and started a community choir that included members (at one time 75 strong) from the surrounding towns and they traveled the valley performing several times a year at venues long gone.

The economic engine for this whole region is a fertile high valley where a lot of organic produce is grown. These are large operations but they seem to take pride in being able to say they are doing things the old fashioned way, with few chemicals. If you live in a sand pit surrounded by mountains on top of the largest aquifer in the State, it makes sense. Don’t piss in your well. Part of the reason this is possible is due to a huge migrant population that comes up from Mexico every year in the early summer and leaves for the south as the harvest is done. There are probably no more than 5,000 permanent human residents in the 3,000 square mile county, but 250,000 free tail bats come up from Mexico in June and take up residence in a mine on the north end of the valley. Every night at dusk they leave in mass and go about eating their weight in bugs. The bugs aren’t going to control themselves, so somebody has to do it. Soon there will 20,000 more migrants coming through the valley from Nebraska heading back to Mexico. When the sandhill crane fledglings are ready to fly they head south and stop at the valley wetlands. Y’all migrant tourists will migrate through and drop some change in the local cash registers to watch the spectacle.

The valley is a humming with harvest activity right now, when I was out there in June it was quieter. The huge potato sheds were empty and quiet, the parking lots around them were empty and so were the streets for the most part. A farmer and a few family members can plant 200 acres of potatoes and watch them grow for a summer without much assistance. But 50,000 pounds of potatoes don’t dig themselves up and wash themselves and bag themselves. Hard to say what the current population of the valley is while the potato harvest is going on but there are trucks of potatoes everywhere and the sheds are being loaded and packaging plants that looked abandoned in June have trucks lined up next to them as men unload potatoes onto conveyers at one end and at the shipping end, trucks are lined up and are being loaded, taking produce to grocers all over the country.

As an outsider it is interesting watching the balance of all of this, how migrants come in and out of an ecosystem. All prosper from the cyclical flow of migrating populations and their mutually beneficial relationship with the non-migratory population. The valley could not sustain itself as it does without the seasonal population influx of migrants. Some migrants like Sadie's mom stick and assimilate into the non-migratory population and make it a better place. Some are perpetually passing thorough as they have for generations.

I have been migrating through the valley for decades myself. After two days of conversation Sadie decided that my wife and I need to put down roots there in the valley as well. She declared that we were sent by God to help continue her family legacy. I told her this was an unusual revelation for me, previous consensus was that I was likely an emissary of Satan. We are currently working on mutually beneficial terms for both migratory and non-migratory persons.

That is the perfect description of Sarah and Abraham and the treatment of the traveler.

The empire does not have an attorney....have you ever run a concession stand, can you make change in Spanish?

There is only one word you need to know with regards to this region......latinas.

Maybe we should have lunch.

¡Muy bien!

japhy wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 6:18 pm The empire does not have an attorney....have you ever run a concession stand, can you make change in Spanish?

There is only one word you need to know with regards to this region......latinas.

Maybe we should have lunch.

And Main Street was packed with cuties on a Sunday afternoon.

Japhy- your story or some minor variation thereof is the norm not the exception in most places around the world, establishing our faith in the continued success of our species......until some a$$hole shows up and tells them that one group of people should hate the other. Fortunately these a-holes are somewhat rare but occasionally one manages to become the president

zsn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 10:18 pm Japhy- your story or some minor variation thereof is the norm not the exception in most places around the world, establishing our faith in the continued success of our species......until some a$$hole shows up and tells them that one group of people should hate the other. Fortunately these a-holes are somewhat rare but occasionally one manages to become the president

They arent rare enough. Another 40 years will polish off a big chunk of them. Evolution by subtraction.

zsn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 10:18 pm Japhy- your story or some minor variation thereof is the norm not the exception in most places around the world, establishing our faith in the continued success of our species......until some a$$hole shows up and tells them that one group of people should hate the other. Fortunately these a-holes are somewhat rare but occasionally one manages to become the president

Me thinks you give President Bonespurs too much credit. Where there are migrants, there is a small and previously quiet minority that doesn't like them.

All Bonespurs did was give them a bullhorn.

Good point. Yes, hate of the other is always present as long as there are the "other" - but it is not often that the haters get permission to vocalize their hate. I am really saddened that a sizeable proportion of the population approves of this behavior, at least tacitly by not speaking up. Unfortunately twocoach's "Evolution by subtraction" is too long-term and allows enough time to cause, and entrench, systemic damage.

Almost all the folks are good folks. Yes there are bad apples. But the good apples far out weigh the bad ones.

MICHHAWK wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 1:52 pm Almost all the folks are good folks. Yes there are bad apples. But the good apples far out weigh the bad ones.

^^^

Feral wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 4:32 pm

I can see why you moved to Florida. It looks lovely.

The Empire out in Colorado could use a doctor. Can you play a cumbia on a squeezebox? Do you know how to wire a light fixture?

japhy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 5:47 pm

Feral wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2019 4:32 pm

I can see why you moved to Florida. It looks lovely.

The Empire out in Colorado could use a doctor. Can you play a cumbia on a squeezebox? Do you know how to wire a light fixture?

Would I be paid in cash, or chickens, organic kale, and ganja?

I can wire a light fixture like a boss.

Which do you prefer? We don't have a lot of chickens and don't grow much kale. But the potatoes and cannabis from the valley are very good and of course cannabis is legal here unlike that sweatyassedfullofoldconservativepeopleshitstate in which you currently reside.

A doctor/electrician combo is very desirable. I will take your application to the board and you will be hearing from us shortly. If this was a package deal and you were married to a blacksmith or a tinker who was also an attorney I can pretty much guarantee that you are in.

LOL

HVAC and plumbing experience would be a plus, also.

the daily stormer, come on Count, up your game or go home.

Way to go Count, found a 12 year old girl lying to authorities.