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Stegiel's avatar

Good idea. We have a garden. It is a community garden. 12 plots. My wife prefers flowers. I want food. This summer the plot I control is growing lettuce, and shortly more edibles. One block from home in a very urban part of town it is our haven. Try to be in it for 3 hours each day. I work to become a green thought in a green shade. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44682/the-garden-56d223dec2ced

How vainly men themselves amaze

To win the palm, the oak, or bays,

And their uncessant labours see

Crown’d from some single herb or tree,

Whose short and narrow verged shade

Does prudently their toils upbraid;

While all flow’rs and all trees do close

To weave the garlands of repose.

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Jul 12, 2022
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Stegiel's avatar

We have a tiny studio in a once flourishing downtown neighborhood. The garden for ten years our oasis. 9 year wait list for a plot. Locked gate and fenced. In 1984 an alley leading to a parking garage. In 1987 best garden in SF.

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Jul 12, 2022
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Stegiel's avatar

If you visited SF say around 1980 it was bad downtown but not at all like now. Even in 1987 it was bad with homeless camped out in UN plaza. Today after Covid filthy, tents can be seen South of Market, homeless in doorways, open drug dealing in a City run site for druggies where if your passed out they administer Narcon to wake you up. Mumbling about affordable housing but never building it. We are on good terms with our Supervisor and I talked about 3-D printed buildings being cheap. He was intrigued but "Earthquake" safety naturally shut the talk down. Labor unions would never allow 3-D buildings.

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Rick Larson's avatar

I am breaking away, I started by planting a garden.

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Stegiel's avatar

The countryside, up by Eureka, is Redwood country. Just South of Eureka is a tiny Victorian village called Ferndale where a Steven King flick was shot. The Mendocino coast is very nice. Urban California not so nice now. Actually come to think it, Meth is a big problem in the Northern part of the state. If you come again do Monterey county, Carmel is very nice. Clint Eastwood once was mayor.

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Stegiel's avatar

I saw Kurosawa's RAN opening night in LA. I wish I had seen Blade Runner in LA instead of Sacramento. Hmm. The best cultural experience for me in Southern California was in San Diego county. In the Spreckles theater I saw Angels in America 1 and 2. In La Jolla Randy Newman's Faust. And in downtown San Diego Art Museum a fine German Expressionist exhibit. Kathe Kollwitz well represented.

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