Road Trip Write-Up: Pennsylvania and Environs

What follows is the details of my week-long trip, sometimes in excruciating detail. And here we go:

The flight was direct, and fine – left around 11 pm on Wednesday and got into Toronto around 7 am. I changed into clean clothes in the restroom near baggage claim. Got my rental car, from Budget, a Hyundai Accent, then drove over towards the CN Tower. It was cool – they had just reopened the 360 degree view that day and I was among the first couple of groups to see it. Walked out on the glass, 114 stories up, and did the bubble as well. It’s a cool structure and didn’t disappoint. From there I walked over to the St. Lawrence Market, which was okay, and found a Chinese vendor inside (Yip’s) which was odd, and not super good. I saw St. Lawrence Hall and the park across from it, including the church. From there I walked back to the garage by the CN Tower, stopping into the Royal York Hotel on the way. I was tired, and it was not mid-afternoon. 

I drove over to where my AirBnB-style setup was, a Yorkville condo thing. Hung out in a trendy coffee bar, reading Sound of the Mountain, because I was beat. Once it was after 3, I checked in, showered, napped, and waited until dark. After dark I walked down Bloor St a ways until I got to a Smoke’s Poutinerie, and got a triple meat poutine. Took it back to my luxury condo thing. It was the solstice, and Pride, so the streets were abuzz. It was a gorgeous stretch to walk, and reminded me, with a small pang, of Berkeley’s Southside.

Friday I awoke, checked out, and got my car from the lot, proceeding to Niagara Falls, at the Table Rock visitor center. The sky was fairly grey. That said the falls were magnificent, and it was a pleasure to see them from the more majestic Canadian side. I got a grilled cheese and tomato at a Tim Hortons, ‘cause those are a Canadian thing. I drove on to the border, the guard seemed suspicious until I told him I was headed to a wedding in Erie. I got in to my hotel, which was fairly odd (under new management and, it seemed, construction. There was a switchblade on the bed when I arrived). The rehearsal dinner, in Erie proper (I was in North East), was set for 6:30. There was no real rehearsing (or maybe they did it before I came - I was 10 minutes late due to a confusion as to the start time), but there were tasty tacos and good company.

Saturday I went first to the bicentennial tower on Lake Erie. It may be the first actual Great Lake I’ve been to…As I came down from the observation tower it was just beginning to rain. I went to a restaurant called Habibi’s, back near the rehearsal venue, and had some tasty middle eastern food (hummus, falafel, baba ghanoush) but outside it began coming down in buckets. Realizing it wasn’t going to get any better I headed back to the hotel to change for the wedding, 25 min each way, but slower going do to near whiteout conditions. I eventually got back to the wedding venue, the Watson-Curtze Mansion, with time to spare, maybe fifteen minutes before 5, when the wedding was to begin. The wedding ceremony was lovely, and short, and like most weddings I've been to, they did they Celtic hand-binding. After the ceremony I looked around the mansion which was open to guests and then had a nice dinner. After a few more festivities I went back to the hotel.

Sunday I got up early to get to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It was not scenic, nor spectacular. I first went to the Boston Store, which is their visitor center. From there I headed to Brandywine Falls, which… is just a waterfall. An especially dull fall after Niagara. Then I drove to the Ritchie Ledges, which were kind of cool, but would not be a main feature at most other parks. Having so much time to kill I drove on to a small covered bridge. After this, all fairly disappointing, and fighting with my Google Maps, I went to the town of Peninsula, to a place called Fishers, and had some truly magnificent ribs – a full slab. That put me in a better mood heading to Pittsburgh. I got there early still, around 3:30 instead of 4, and met my friend at her house. It’s nice, and she’s done a good job on it - the rare Millennial achievement of home ownership. We did the Duquesne Incline, and then got ice cream at Millie’s (it started to rain – I got a peanut butter shake). From there we headed down to the river walk, and we crossed the Clemente bridge into downtown. It was getting dark – we moseyed around to the weird glass tower, and then headed back, stopping at the super creepy Mr. Rodgers memorial before heading back to her home.

After some dining table conversation in the morning I headed out, to make my tour. I actually got to Mills Run a bit early, and so they put me on an earlier tour of Fallingwater. The interior spaces are smaller than I expected, after the enormity of Taliesin’s living room, I suppose due to the cantilevered decks. Above the son’s bed was the Audubon print of anhingas I have as my phone’s background. There were also a couple Picasso and at least one Diego Rivera sketch. It was a great space, and a pleasure to be in. I was neither under- nor overwhelmed, which is peculiar in that I’m usually one or the other. I got my main big souvenir for the trip – a throw rug/blanket piece for the couch, based on the window I worked on for so long. I got lunch, a meh meatloaf sandwich at the café, and continued on to the Flight 93 Memorial. It was fairly moving, but very sparse. I spent a little longer there than expected – you can’t get very close, due to the monument wall being the edge of what had been the debris field. It was overcast, and I headed on to Harpers Ferry, passing through Maryland and Virginia (very briefly) to get there. My hotel was a little ways away, so I got food at the restaurant attached, the White Horse Tavern, and took it back to my room, where I watched Star Trek TNG. The food was tasty, but rich, and I felt ill.

In the morning I started exploring Harpers Ferry, which has more history to it than John Brown’s raid – I was previously unaware but Meriwether Lewis got his supplies there, and it was also important during the Civil War, which makes sense, as the site of an armory. The town itself was incredibly picturesque. I drove on to Gettysburg, getting there around noon. The main center verged on horrific, it was so commercial and tacky. I was in low spirits as I walked to the Soldier’s Cemetery, but treading the ground of the actual sites was restorative. I headed by foot over to the High Point, and the Angle - the turning point on the third day - and then walked back to my car. It was getting on, and I had a drive ahead of me. So after two hours of that (admittedly I bought a small bust of Lincoln in the gift shop) I headed to Bethlehem. I arrived just before 5, but of course there was still plenty of light. I spent around an hour going around the Moravian historic sites (the church closes at 3, apparently, so I unfortunately did not get to see the interior). I got a pumpkin milkshake, and headed to my hotel, the View Inn. After unloading my bags I moseyed out to a restaurant in a restored farm, the Road House of Hanover, I think. Got some pierogis and a Cobb salad. It wasn’t very good. Spent the rest of the night in the hotel, after buying more film, as I’d run out.

Wednesday, the final day, I got up very early to get to the Franklin Institute when it opened. Morning traffic was pretty bad, but I got there not too long after 9:30. I went in and took pictures of Benjamin Franklin’s National Memorial, and then left to go to Independence Hall. Again a parking garage fee, and with time to spare I moseyed to the cemetery where old Ben was buried. From there I got my ticket for the tour, went past the Liberty Bell (which you can view from outside and had a super long line) and then went to Carpenter’s Hall, which was small, before going in at 11:20 for my 11:40 tour. Our guide was great, and projected by shouting at us, but we all liked him. I recalled the grey room somewhat once I’d actually gone into it. That had been eighteen years ago… It was nice to be back, and see it as an adult. When I was 14 the main memory had been eating lunch, seeing the Bell, and buying a hat.

I drove to the Budget at the airport, they charged me $9/gallon, for four gallons. I’d not seen a station on my way, unfortunately, and the car was due back at 1 (I got it there around 12:45). Both flights, Philadelphia – Boston, and Boston – Oakland, were uneventful. 

So there you have it, a play by play of my vacation week.

Drugs (and Alcohol)

Eight years ago I discussed why I don't drink. Part of that story dealt with a high school friend, Avery, who died between our junior and senior years when he was hit by a drunk driver. A few weeks ago, this past May, another high school friend's death made international headlines when he died in a car crash a few hours after his wedding. They are still, as of posting, awaiting toxicology reports.

So I'm not really going to get into all that.

Now, unlike alcohol, where I've tried sips and tastes of pretty much everything over the years, I have never bothered trying drugs in any quantity. The risks are too high, the rewards too few. As I always tell people - no one tries something for the first time with the intention of becoming an addict.

Instead what prompted this renewal of reflection was reading yet another article about how Michael Pollan took acid and enjoyed it. The timing of Mr. Pollan's praise, and renewed academic discussion, just seems so... off.

Pollan, as every piece mentions, is Mr. Natural (in the Whole Foods sense, as opposed to the 60s and 70s counter-culture usage). Why would the guy who likes plants and grains, who has been exhorting us to live healthier lifestyles, go in for what is usually targeted as the most synthetic and unnatural drug?

The different articles make different claims attempting to answer those and other questions. I don't really care. The bothersome aspect for me remains the timing and context. Our country is in the middle of a deadly epidemic of opioid use. Quick terminology: Opioids are distinct from opiates - the plant-based precursors which had to be derived from Opium poppies (morphine, for example). Oxycodone, a common opioid, is synthetic - it doesn't come from plants any more than the lab-created Fentanyl which is dominating headlines as the new front on the war against opioid addiction. Fentanyl, perhaps not coincidentally, was synthesized in the 1960s, right when LSD was becoming popular (having been synthesized decades earlier).

According to the most recent data, from late 2017, about 64,000 Americans died from overdoses in 2016. One third of those were from Fentanyl and other opioids. (For context, around 88,000 people die annually from alcohol. But we're not talking about that.) 64,000 may not seem like much - it is literally .0001% of the population. It's only 1/5 the number of Americans who contacted HIV/AIDS at the height of that epidemic crisis in 1993. It's less than 3% of Brooklyn.

Is all of this hand-wringing, then, and talk of a national crisis, just getting the spotlight because it effects the Trumpian base? I doubt that's the only reason. The issue is vulnerability - rural vs. urban communities, the elderly, the poor - the usual victims of social ailments. This in turn raises the antennae of the liberals, who see the spread of opioids as harming our most vulnerable. That way it's not just the communities which overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump that care about the issue close to their hearts, but seemingly the nation as a whole.

Meanwhile, predominately liberal states like California and Colorado are going toe-to-toe with Jeff Sessions regarding marijuana legalization, and New York is set to soon follow. Of the states with legalization (California, Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Washington, Vermont) only one - Alaska - is identified as conservative, and tellingly Alaska's 'leave-me-alone' libertarian-extreme definition of conservative has long been regarded as unique in the national makeup.

So while rural and lower working-class communities from West Virginia to California's farming communities in the north, are dealing with addiction and fatality, the urbane centers are getting back into pot and acid.

If this all sounds familiar, like the 60s is back, I would recommend instead a comparison to the 1980s. The now infamous lies told during the decade regarding the discrepancies between cocaine and crack reflected socio-economic prejudices more than narcotic realities. Wealthy elites, liberals and conservatives, did coke, while poor communities, especially POC, in America's cities were arrested for crack. To be fair, the criminalization of marijuana was due to similar attempts of targeted social engineering, as of course, was LSD.

But the history goes deeper. The same decade that saw the synthesizing of Oxycodone and LSD was ironically the start of America's obsession with body image and health. The pendulum since the 1930s has repeatedly swung back and forth between 'body as temple' and 'body as receptacle' - Eat oranges from sunny Florida / put bacon on everything, achieve a glowing tan or gleaming smile / beautiful at any shape or size, exercise and aerobics trends from jogging to jazzercise / the late 90s/00s obesity epidemic. For around a century, since it first became possible to carefully control our bodies' looks and contents, we have as a nation had both our fad diets and our cheat days.

Drugs have traditionally straddled both sides of this debate: whether they are treats we know are bad for us, or part of our general well-being and health. Neurochemically we know that salt and sugar are addictive like drugs, not as much as, say, tobacco, but still. And sugar probably does more harm to us in the quantities we consume it than the toll marijuana may take on your lungs. But saying that is a guess.

Why Pollan, railer against the evils of high fructose corn syrup, is groovy with micro-hits of acid is beyond me. Oxy and LSD are about the same street price (or so the internet tells me). Is it due to availability? Oswald Stanley got to spend two years in prison for LSD, but he was a grimy hippie who toured with the Dead - Michael Pollan? Heaven forbid. He's allowed to write up a book about how it helped expand his horizons. I wonder if the Feds will come knocking on his door.

Our relationship to drugs as a nation is complex, ever-evolving, and reflective of wide disparities in socioeconomic status and cultural and ideological biases. The timing of Pollan's embrace of synthetic drugs comes right when vulnerable Americans are dying at the hands of synthetic drugs. It is not a new story - but it is a new, and dangerous narrative that the non-addictive drugs (pot, LSD) are for the liberals and elites, and the addictive drugs (opioids) are for the plebes. Liberals should take note that we have long-championed the counter-narrative, that addiction is not a personal failing, but instead a social issue that needs our compassion. With nearly 80,000 Americans living in the hell of the Federal Penitentiary System for drug violations, Mr. Natural's making money off of his story advocating tripping can't help but be seen as arrogant bragging that he is above the law. I wonder how his defense of drug use will go over in a place like Fayette county, West Virginia - or even Humboldt county, California - where opioids have claimed the highest toll. We have enough big issues and culture wars to deal with in 2018 before we bring legalizing LSD back into the mix.

Presidential Medal of... Social Sciences?

So one issue I have with the Presidential Medal of Freedom is that there is a whole field missing, namely: the social sciences.

As someone who majored in this field it's a little sad to contemplate. Surely our field is of some value to America?

That being said, there are a few categories which are and have been represented, namely History, Education, Politics, and Economics are all awarded, and full of famous inductees (David McCullough, John Kenneth Galbraith). So what we need is a grab-bag of the other fields: Anthropology, Geography, Linguistics, Psychology, and Sociology, under the heading of Social Sciences.

To get the ball rolling, here are ten posthumous and ten living candidates. All posthumous candidates would have been alive in 1963 when the award was first given (as is the requisite custon observed by all but one - Juliette Gordon Low - posthumous inductees).

Posthumous Inductees

WEB Du Bois - Sociologist, founder of field
Margaret Meade - Anthropologist, founder of field
Robert K. Merton - Sociologist, "unintended consequences," "role model," "self-fulfilling prophecy"
Betty Friedan - Sociologist, second-wave feminist
Erving Goffman - Sociologist, dramaturgy theory
Abraham Maslow - Psychologist, "hierarchy of needs"
Dian Fossey - Anthropologist, primatologist
Alfred Crosby - Geographer, "Columbian exchange"
Edward Said - Sociologist, "Orientalism"
Carl O. Sauer - Geographer, "cultural landscapes"

Living Inductees

Noam Chomsky - Linguist, modern founder of field
Cass Sunstein - Sociologist, legal and social connections
Jared Diamond - Anthropologist and Geographer, cultural geography
Albert Bandura - Psychologist, social learning theory
Kimberle Williams Crenshaw - Sociologist, "intersectionality"
Patricia Hill Collins - Sociologist, black feminism
Steven Pinker - Psychologist and Linguist, evolutionary psychology
Elizabeth Loftus - Psychologist, memory constructs
Henry Louis Gates Jr. - Sociologist, African American studies and genealogy
Francis Fukuyama - Sociologist, "end of history" and influential neoconservative

On a separate note - Has anyone else noted that Trump hasn't awarded any medals yet, now in his second year of office? How typical. Probably feels no one deserves one besides himself...