Ventura
Here, John D. restrains daughter Kiely from plunging her arm into the birthday cake Samantha made for him—a four-layer mixed berry shortcake.
Photo: Laura Josephs
Laura and I landed at LAX and drove an hour and a half north on the Pacific Coast Highway to Ventura. We passed through Malibu, a town of homes costing as much as $30 million—even in this era of economic meltdown. You can’t mortgage a multimillion dollar house, so Malibu homeowners aren’t under water like so many other less fortunate people.
We are staying at the Ojai Retreat, a lovely group of restored cottages set in five acres of rolling grassland studded with live oaks. They still grow oranges in this part of California. The air on our private terrace is scented with jasmine and orange blossoms.
Sometimes I have a hard time remembering why I left this place.
Ojai has attracted spiritual seekers and healers for decades. The New Age is alive and well in this town that is chockablock with spas, retreats, holistic health centers and meditation retreats. Meditation Mount is one such; a particularly beautiful and restful place to visit. Laura and I drove out there to spend a couple of quiet hours.
Besides a meditation center, Meditation Mount features a peace garden, with wandering paths and breathtaking views of the Santa Ynez Mountains.
A sign at Meditation Mount summarizes the philosophy of many who live in this pristine part of the world: Don’t smoke, don’t throw rubbish on the ground, and turn off your cell phones. The owner of the Ojai Retreat boasts that his lodgings are telephone- and television-free.
Ventura Harbor is home to a small fleet of commercial fishermen and an armada of pleasure craft. My family met at a seafood restaurant here for lunch. It’s always good to buy fish where it’s caught.
On the last day of our long weekend, we drove a half-hour north on the Pacific Coast Highway to that Shangri La of the Americas, Santa Barbara. This view of Mission Santa Barbara, backed by the Santa Ynez Mountains, was taken from the tower of the county courthouse, less than a mile from the beach.
When winter weather conditions are right, sunbathers on the beach can view show-capped peaks just a few minutes’ drive away.
Mission Santa Barbara was founded by Father Junipero Serra. He advanced Spain’s claim to the California Coast by building a string of missions from San Diego all the way past San Francisco to my old wine country home, Sonoma. The missions were spaced about forty miles apart—a day’s ride by horseback.
Father Serra is famous in the Mexican state of Querétaro for founding four missions in the Huasteca Potosina. All four have been lovingly restored and are well worth the six-hour drive from San MIguel de Allende for a visit.
The sanctuary of the Santa Barbara Mission church remains unmistakably Spanish Catholic, but somehow seems more warm and inviting than churches I’ve visited in Mexico. But then again, everything in Santa Barbara seems warm and inviting.
Although we did a little touring, the main reason for this trip was to visit with family. Here, daughter Samantha poses with eight-month-old Henry. He is rapidly making the transition from infant to little boy.
Photo: Laura Josephs
Living in Mexico has many pleasures. But a major disadvantage is traveling distance and the cost of seeing my family. Grandchildren grow faster than seems possible. My kids, now all forty-something parents, were teenagers only yesterday.
Many of my expat retiree friends complain that they miss their grandchildren. Mexico has become home for us. Moving north of the border seems to be out of the question. But we all long for the families we left behind.
Houston Economics
Someone is investing in Houston’s future. In the financial centers, I can see little trace of the Wall Street crash. Houses in River Oaks remain elegant and exquisitely maintained. The Galleria is jammed, the parking valets hopping. There’s money here. I imagine bankers hunched over piles of mortgages, tucked away in their JPMorgan Chase fortress, their elegant building near the historic center.
Financiers of probity have left marks in Houston. The motto on the State National Building reads,”FRVGALITY IS THE MOTHER OF THE VIRTVES.” Indeed. The kind of sentiment that breeds confidence. Trustworthy hands guide Houston’s economics.
More signs of growth—the old part of town is undergoing a renaissance. Marvelous historic buildings are being renovated, finding new life as restaurants, cafés, and professional offices. Dr. M. M. Henderson, Dentist appears to be the first tenant in this spruced-up space, his 1930s-style sign stenciled on the window.
Look closer, though, and you see cracks beginning to appear. Dr. Henderson won’t be practicing here after all. Looks like the bank—JPMorgan Chase perhaps—has repossessed the place, and they’re hoping to unload it fast.
I saw these things all over town: boarded up storefronts, closed restaurants, homeless hordes riding the MetroRail without paying fares—taking small revenge against financiers who awarded themselves record bonuses while their companies tanked. I wonder whose IRA contains the securitized loan on Dr. Henderson’s building? Is 1014 Prairie Street one of mine? It was all done on easy credit. For a while, everyone was tapping their home equity, wearing out their plastic, flipping retirement condos in Arizona.
Not for a minute am I swayed by arguments that no one saw the crash coming. Get real: we all saw it coming. But so many were playing the game, hoping to get off the speeding train just before it hit that sharp, unbanked curve. Those whose motto should have been “Frvgality is the mother of the virtves” busied themselves mixing toxic loans in with the good ones until no one knew what they were getting. Stewart Parnell, owner of Peanut Corp. of America, mixed salmonella infected peanuts into his shipments. Stewart declined a request by Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon to eat some of his company's own product. Good move, Stew. And you can bet executives at JPMorgan Chase would decline to take their bonuses in securitized bundled loans if someone asked them to. The downtown is beginning to look careworn. The smaller developments are feeling the crunch first. But southward along Fannin and Main Streets, high rises still sprout up at a blistering pace. Are they real? Is there actual money behind them, or some kind of tricky derivative? When they’re finished, will they fill up with businesses? Would you bet your IRA on it?