The intrepid Chuck Gullett and his trusted steed. Er, scooter.

Hey y’all, I ran into old pal and real estate agent extraordinaire Chuck Gullett a few days ago. Chuck’s guest posted here before, and when he told me this story I encouraged him to share it with our blog readers. So I get the day off and you get Chuck’s heartwarming work of staggering genius. See you next week.

Summertime barbecues are my favorite! I love getting together with family and friends, enjoying great food and reconnecting. When my aunt invited me to her backyard BBQ in Arlington Heights, I couldn’t wait.

The only problem… it’s in Arlington Heights… on a Friday afternoon. Sitting on the Kennedy for 2 hours in Friday rush hour traffic isn’t really my idea of fun. But, problem solved. Zipping by the gridlocked drivers on my new electric scooter while heading to the train station is definitely the way to go. The train ride to Arlington Heights was great! For six bucks, you get a smooth air-conditioned ride with office dwellers starting their hard earned weekends by cracking open a beer on their trek back to the burbs. I folded up my scooter and tucked it as far under the seat as I could so the conductor wouldn’t ask about it.

Glancing out the window in-between rounds of Words with Friends on my phone made for a very quick trip. Upon arrival, the station in downtown Arlington Heights is outdoors and adjacent to the downtown area. I just unfolded my scooter, figured out which direction to go and zipped off. Wow! With these smooth suburban roads, the scooter will hit 16mph! It is only supposed to go 15.5 mph, so I feel very proud of this bonus one half mph.

It is a really pleasant experience cruising down treelined streets flanked by perfectly manicured lawns and cute houses versus dodging cabs, Ubers and busses in video game fashion when riding in Chicago. Helmet on, I made it to my aunt’s house just fine. She popped out to welcome me and check out my new toy. These scooters are pretty new and kind of a novelty right now (although, I’m convinced that scooters are the wave of the future and will forever change the face of transportation. Plus people stare at you when you are riding it, and I kind of like that). Anyway, my uncle took it for a spin down the block as did my cousin. Riding the scooter makes you feel like a kid, so they both had big grins when they came back.

My aunt’s back yard is as serene as it gets. A cute patio of alternating pavers locked tightly together topped with a group dining table under the cool cover of an umbrella swaying with the breeze. There are two wicker chairs with bright red cushions in the corner under a tree and a rustic bar cart complete with Irish whiskies, a bright green Tanqueray bottle and assorted glass wear. A lattice archway leads into the backyard with a lawn of neatly crisscrossed mower tracks and surrounded by greenery and blooming flowers. Apparently retirement affords you time to hone some impressive gardening skills.

My uncle took me over to a spot in the garden to show me the lamb’s ear plants that were transplanted from my neglected garden in Peoria over a dozen years ago. Then he pointed to a neighbor’s yard that also used some of the same plantings. Those lamb’s ears are thriving. With some loving care, they took on a whole new life after moving up north. Sounds oddly familiar.

The evening was really great. I got to sit down with my cousin, Fr. Chuck. He is a retired 80-year old Catholic priest sporting a flat brimmed White Sox hat, sipping on an Irish Whiskey and relaxing in one of the red cushioned chairs. Since he is surrounded by Cubs fans at this party, the big question came up… how did you ever become a Sox fan? It was a 1948 game that his father took him to at Comiskey Park. They drove all the way from Rantoul to see that game. He quickly rattled off Sox stats and highlights from the years since. A true lifetime fan.

He scoffs at my Cubs affiliation, although he did once admit to me that Wrigley is a pretty good outdoor bar. Great conversations, reconnecting, catching up with the cousins, their significant others, new careers, a new baby, a baby on the way, the president, the mayor, taxes, food, dessert, and then its time to rush back to the train station. Great nights go too quickly. I did some quick hugs and hopped on the scooter to retrace my path back to the train station. I got to the platform with 4 minutes to spare.

As I’m folding the scooter to prep for the train, I see a flat brimmed Sox hat at the far end of the platform. I heard “Chuuuck??” Sure enough, Fr. Chuck was driving by the train station and wanted to make sure I got home  OK. Twenty minutes passed as we chatted. No train yet. Someone else on the platform checked the schedule and the next two trains were canceled. Last train is 12:44 a.m. Ugh. A brief thought of riding the scooter back to the city went through my head. A quick calculation, 10 miles of battery left, that could get me to the Blue Line at O’Hare. Or I could just take a cab. That’s a better plan. Then Fr. Chuck blurted out, “I’m driving you back, let’s go.”

So, I stowed the scooter in his trunk and proceeded to clear off the passenger seat, which was covered with CDs. I heard him say, “Oh geez” when he got in the driver side. There was an empty shopping bag on his seat. Apparently, someone broke into the car and went through his stuff. Being a very trusting soul, he had left his window down and door unlocked at the train station. Somebody got in and went through the bag looking for something valuable and dumping out the contents on the passenger seat. We got a big laugh when the contents of the bag were all still in the car. How disappointed were these casual thieves when all they found was a 24 CD set about the Resurrection. I had to laugh out loud. Sorry suckers!

The ride back was traffic free and relaxing with Brahms playing on the radio. I appreciated the rescue and I’ll definitely have to pay it forward to the next Sox fan I run into.

Mike gave you his view of the California wildfires in his last Mondays with Mike post, and now, in honor of the Smelling is Believing writing workshop I’m giving this weekend at the Northwestern Summer Writers Conference, let’s see if I can describe scenic Mendocino County without using my sense of sight.

It was love at first breath. The short walk from the plane to the jetway gave me enough time to take it all in. Cool, fresh air. Even at the airport. Inside, the walk to baggage claim was quiet. Nobody barking at each other or shouting into their smart phones. Carpeted floors. Civilized. We weren’t in Chicago anymore.

Mike narrated our drive through the city – “There’s Alcatraz.” “A farmer’s market – beautiful!” “Golden Gate Bridge!” After we’d crossed, he found an Oakland A’s game on the radio and we settled in for the drive north on Highway 101. The closer we got to Mendocino, the more emergency announcements came through the car radio. Highway closures. Mandatory evacuations.

Mike pulled over once to let a faster car pass us by, and I opened my window. Smoke wafted in. I shut the window, put my palm to the glass, and felt heat. We got back on the road and continued driving north.

I kept my window shut until we got to our destination, and when I opened it then …not one whiff of smoke. Mendocino itself is so close to the Pacific that ocean breezes fended off the scent of fire. I stood still for a moment, breathing in pines. Ocean. Clean, cool, fresh air.

The radio station we’d been listening to during the drive had mentioned an acoustic set at a local coffeeshop. We headed there. The 12-string guitar sounded sweet, and the North Coast lager was cold. We made it.

The talk at diners and taverns during our four-day stay on the Mendocino Coast centered on the wildfires, which direction the wind was blowing, how many evacuees were staying with people here, what percentage of the fires were contained. In our hotel parking lot I heard a young fire fighter telling another guest that he’d been sent there by the fire chief, told to rest overnight before heading back in. But ensconced in a writers womb at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference (MCWC) every morning along with 100-plus screenwriters, novelists, short story writers and poets, discussion was more on words than wildfires.

Mike picked me up for lunch each day, and sitting outside at a picnic table slurping down crab chowder at a waterfront sea shack for lunch is one taste of Mendocino I’ll never forget. The local radio station played constantly during our post-lunch drives to dog parks and hiking trails. Taking in all that beauty and fresh air while on the edge of wildfire catastrophe? That’s a feel of the Mendocino Coast I’ll never forget, either.

I was treated to a whole bunch of this.

Our trip to Mendocino, California, occupied us so fully and so well that I’m only just now writing this post today (Monday) on a 737 flying home.

Only last Wednesday we were on a 737 to San Francisco. On our flight out, a young man with long blonde locks took the aisle seat of our row. Beth and I usually sit together center and window to keep a two-seat wide space for Whitney in front of us. We take window-aisle so that we don’t have to roust Whitney when our row mate gets in or out.

Eventually the young man opened his laptop and navigated to a long NY Times Magazine story called “Losing Earth, the Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change.” It’s an exhaustive and, to my mind, painful account of  how we missed the opportunity to stop climate change, even though pretty much everyone—the fossil fuel companies, Republicans, Democrats, and policy makers—knew it was a problem decades ago.

I’d read the story and eventually, I tried to engage him. I told him I thought it was well reported but also somber. He just looked at me like I was an alien. When I saw the sticker on his computer: “D” for “Dartmouth,” I got it. I’ve never met an active student or alum from that place that didn’t act like he or she had a broomstick shoved up their ass. OK, it’s a small sample size, but it’s my bigoted view and I’m sticking to it.

We landed at around 3:30, but it took forever to reach our rental car and we headed north in the midst of the Bay Area rush hour. The Golden Gate Bridge sure helped break the drudgery—its magnificent and impossible self, in golden sunshine, no fog.

I’d been tracking the California wildfires all week. Fires are burning all over California, but the three of concern to our route were called the Mendocino Complex Fire. Since we were headed to Mendocino, well, I thought it was worth checking. In fact, the Complex fires were and are concentrated in eastern Mendocino County and east of that, in Lake County. That’s a good distance inland from coastal Mendocino-Fort Bragg, our destination.

But.

Our drive would begin on U.S. 101, we’d head north, and then cut west. We had two choices—cut over early and end up on a stretch of the famed California 1 north through Mendocino and on to Fort Bragg, where we would be staying.  Or go farther north on 101 and then turn west, a half-hour shorter ride. That made more sense—we’d get there faster at night, return in daylight on the more scenic route.

The only hitch: The shorter route took us closer to the fires. But at the rental car counter, I asked whether I should be concerned and they shrugged it off.

As we got nearer the fire area, it started getting hazy. Eventually we smelled it. Coming out of San Francisco, Highway 101 is a ten-lane commuter monster. Up in the hills, it’s four lanes, and it runs twisty and up and down. As we approached a blind right-hander, a sign said the right lane was closed ahead. I heeded, and as we rounded the turn, I saw why the lane was closed. Four fire trucks occupied it. Fire fighters were chatting with one another—I looked up at an enormous black patch that ran from the road up around 80 feet high. There was a thick cloud of smoke. I had a brief moment of panic and figured I’d really made a bad choice. But then I realized they’d just extinguished a brush fire. You know. Just a brush fire.

Our car passed through the smoke and I sped up again, relieved. Then two cars in front of me suddenly pulled to the shoulder. Then a third. I looked right and saw this eerie, giant halo of flames high on hillside. I don’t know how far it was—safely afar, but it was mesmerizing and terrifying.

Maybe a half mile later, what looked like the biggest thunderhead cloud I’d ever seen (and having lived in Central Illinois, I’ve seen some) rose behind some peaks. But it was a scary dirty color—it wasn’t a cloud, it was smoke from the big fires a few miles east.

I made haste and we headed west. By then it was dark, and this road—route 20—was a roller coaster, serpentine ribbon of a ride. Tired and in a rental jeep that handled, well, like a Jeep, I took my time, taking the occasionally available pullout shoulder to let faster traffic pass. On top of that, there were three deer en route—that I saw, anyway—one partially in my lane.

We slept really well that night.

After that, I shuttled Beth to her workshop every morning and back again each afternoon. In between I hiked and took in the half dozen state parks, reserves, beaches and overlooks along the drive from our place to the Mendocino school where her workshop met. The scenery around Fort Bragg and Mendocino…I can only describe as gaudy. Beautiful. More beautiful. More beautiful but now with crashing waves. Now add wisps of fog and white caps.

Our young bartender, weaned on iPhone playlists, gets a lesson in how to play a vinyl record. First time for her.

Each drive was like a flip board of picture postcards. And the air always crisp. Windows down. Chilly in the morning, fog burns off, warm sun and cool breeze.

Other impressions:

• There is no place like California. Of course, state designations and boundaries are arbitrary. But the range of terrain, climates, microclimates, crops, livestock and cultures we experienced—just from San Francisco to Fort Bragg—was dizzying. What a remarkable place, regardless of all the fruit and nuts stereotypes.
• Lots of really good coffee and really good beer. They have great, funky coffee shops, plus drive-thrus in re-purposed old Fotomat booths or other little shacks. We made it to North Coast Tap Room and sampled some wonderful brews, including not-over-hopped IPAs.
• The area has long harbored alternative lifestyle communes of one sort or another, and those folks are still around. As are what appear to be young homeless people with dogs. We see them during the summer in Chicago; maybe this is where they come from to get away from the tourists.
• More restaurants and bars do not take credit cards than those that do. They make that clear up front, and they point to the ATM in the corner. We asked a friend who grew up in the area whether that had anything to do with the long-standing illicit marijuana business up there. He said probably, but that it also had to do with lots of people scratching out a living who couldn’t qualify for cards.
• We were treated kindly—but not obsequiously–by friendly down-to-earth people, everywhere we went.
  

  You know you’re eating fresh crab when….

• If you ever get to Fort Bragg, drive down to Noyo Harbor. There’s a little corkscrew of a road that takes you down to this little village of fishing boats, seafood shacks, charter boats—it’s a little world on an inlet from the sea. Go to Princess Seafood. Order from today board at the cash register and they’ll bring it out. We got a crab roll that was to die for. And we learned why: As we sat on the patio and ate our crab roll, we watched a woman send more Dungeness crabs to their ends in a big steaming pot.
• At one local tavern, we struck up a conversation with a vivacious 20-something bartender. The jukebox had gone quiet and one of the few other customers said something about vinyl.

  Jacqueline the bartender told us she’d lost her phone a few days ago and with it her playlists.So she made her way to our end, where behind the bar were shelves of old albums. She bent down with a flashlight and looked at them like museum relics.She pulled a pile out, laid them on the bar and started lifting each, looking at each with a kind of fascination. Beth asked her to read the names aloud. She did, and we voted yay or nay. Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Cliff. Tom Waits came up—she looked at us for help. “He’s great, but it might not rev people up.” She uncovered “Songs in the Key of Life,” and didn’t recognize it. “It’s great,” we said. She said she liked Stevie Wonder. Then “Gene…Kruppa,” she said. It’s pronounced “Kroopa,” Beth said. “Great jazz,” I said. “I’m not crazy about jazz,” Jacqueline replied.

  She disappeared for a minute, and then returned with a heavyset guy with an apron who looked like George Wendt from Cheers. They huddled with their backs to us around the turntable on a ledge. He was giving her a lesson in playing an LP. He was kind and soft-spoken. “This is the best way to take it out—pull the sleeve out with the record in it,” he demonstrated. He then let her remove the record and hold it by the edges. He helped her place it on the platter. “Each band is a new song,” he said to the enrapt young woman, pointing to spaces between cuts. Finally the tone arm, and Jimmy Cliff rang out.

• They have the best radio station ever. Ever. Ever. KOUZ. Nicknamed The Coast. I’m serious. It’s like all the best music geezers like Beth and I love, plus new artists, plus great DJs who are selecting the music.
• The best thing about that radio station and the whole area? Constant concern and monitoring of the fires and the well being of those affected. The DJs broke in with updates from local authorities—they’d get choked up some times. They had constant updates about shelter sites for evacuees, and useful information about things like getting FedEx shipments that couldn’t be made—“Come to the Safeway at so-an-so between so-and-so and so-and-so.” I learned more about containment percentages and fire fighting techniques than I thought I ever would.
• Living with these monster fires is a way of life for Californians. And it’’s clearly getting worse, scientifically and anecdotally. The people we spoke to and the DJs on the radio were astounded by the size and the earliness of these fires. There is a state department called Cal Fire. It’s an enormous statewide fire department. Our roadside motel was an R&R stop for those who needed a break from the front lines. Cal Fire trucks were parked at our place every afternoon and they were gone by dawn.
• For lots of Californians, climate change isn’’t a theory or a political football; it’s an existential threat.

We had a great trip. I’’m looking forward to getting home. But amidst all the nonsense going on right now and our inability to rise above it, I can’t get that old saw ““While Rome burns”” out of my head.

Note: Thinks have only gotten worse. Hot weather and high winds have made the Mendocino Complex Fire the second largest in California history, and it looks like it’ll be number one soon. 

Here’s a post I wrote for the Easterseals national blog before we left for the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference.

An opinion piece about the banning of plastic straws in different businesses and municipalities published in the Washington Post earlier this month caught my attention. Written by disability advocate Karin Hitselberger, the piece was brilliant at describing what the word “access” means in a pretty short sentence: Access is about the quality of life, and being able to have the same experiences and opportunities as a nondisabled person, with some adaptations.”

Karin Hitselberger lost me, though, when she claimed the efforts of businesses and municipalities to help reduce ocean pollution by discouraging the use of plastic straws is an accessibility issue. “This isn’t about straws,” she wrote. “It’s about access”.

I’d say it’s about both.

You regular Easterseals blog readers know that I’m a huge fan of the word “reasonable” when it comes to reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities, but in my view, the “reasonable” part applies to both parties. How about we work together on this one so everybody wins? It doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask people who need plastic straws to bring their own. I have Type 1 diabetes and need insulin to be able to eat, and I bring it along when I eat at restaurants. I am blind and can’t tell if the packets at a coffeeshop are sugar or artificial sweetener. I suppose I could demand that packets be Brailled for those of us who can’t see, but so few of us read Braille that this would seem an unreasonable request. So I just bring my own packets to make sure I’m getting what I need. People who need straws to eat and drink and bring their own along when they eat out will not only ensure they have what they need, but also know their efforts can help the environment by cutting down the number of people using straws when they don’t absolutely need to.

In her article, Karin Hitselberger points out how complicated life with a disability can be:

Living with a disability means having to worry about things on a daily basis that never cross other people’s minds. It means worrying about whether somebody will come to help you get out of bed in the morning. It means a morning commute completely derailed by an elevator outage. Living with a disability means only being able to travel to cities where accessible transportation is an option. Living with a disability takes a lot of planning and energy and learning how to exist in a world that is not made for you

I agree. Living with a disability takes a lot of planning and energy. Accessible transportation is a necessity. Accessible jobs, technology, education and civil rights are necessities. I also agree that learning how to live in a world that is not always made for people with disabilities can be a challenge. But asking us to bring an insulin pen or a packet of artificial sweetener or a straw along when heading out? That just doesn’t seem so challenging. To me, it doesn’t qualify as an unreasonable request.

One of the reasons I was able to sound so well-informed during my short radio interview last month about potential changes to the Air Carrier Access Act was because I’d been hard at work on an article about that very thing for The Bark magazine. Editors there liked what I wrote, and now you can read my article Viewpoint: Traveling While Blind in the Summer 2018 issue.

In this Bark piece I go into great detail about each task a guide dog does to get a person who can’t see from home to an airport, through security to the gate, down the jetway and onto a plane. Which is exactly what Whitney will be doing for me this afternoon: we’re off to the Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference today!

Whitney knows what to do on an airplane.

Having work published in Bark puts me in extremely good company: the magazine’s impeccable pedigree includes publishing many of today’s most acclaimed authors. Like Ann Patchett, Augusten Burroughs, Rick Bass, Amy Hempel, and Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver. From the magazine’s web site:

Bark is the magazine of modern dog culture—it speaks to the serious dog enthusiast. Bark is the indispensable guide to life with dogs, showing readers how to live smartly and rewardingly with their canine companions.

When The Bark first came out in 1997 it was just a newsletter in Berkeley, California. The magazine quickly grew into a glossy award-winning publication that now boasts more than 250,000 readers. I’ve had a few stories published in the four-color “glossy award-winning” version of The Bark before, but it’s been a while. Sure feels good to be back, and the honor comes just in time — Now I’ll be able to claim to all the new writers I meet at the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference that I write for a magazine that also publishes work by Ann Patchett.

But first things first. Off to the airport.