The Virginia Nomad: Nomads, Long Beach 2, CA (9/24/2023)

Welcome to my second posting that discusses our visit to the Long Beach and Los Angeles area. As of the writing today (9/24/2023), we finished with the trip to the aquarium and the yarn store (the Alamitos Bay Yarn Company). Donna was impressed by the wool store (they had some rare Dutch wool); and honestly the aquarium wasn’t bad. I have been to a few other aquariums and in my opinion the one in Baltimore is still the best; however, this one was absolutely good. The nice thing was that it concentrated its effort on the Pacific and had a lot of touch and feel stuff for kids. However, despite its great quality, it somehow conveyed its age (25 years-old).

We visited the Rancho Los Alamitos. This was a great place housing one of the oldest ranches on the west coast. We had a history talk and then wandered through the gardens. I was blown away by the Morton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla) trees. These trees were enormous and had an impressive root base. We loved walking from the rose garden to the vegetable garden. Eventually we popped into a desert type garden, ending up in a more native garden with an artificial stream. It felt that we eventually needed to be kicked out because it was nearing closing time.

It blew me away on how may restaurants there were in the area. So what did we eat? Indonesian, Japanese (ramen), (south) Indian, Chinese, Korean (tofu soup), Cambodian and of course contemporary American. Moreover, we had some magnificent donuts; there are a lot of Asian owned donut stores in the area. I mentioned in my previous post, that we encountered a few (13 or 15) between the home and the church where the ordination took place. The most exotic was the Cambodian fermented fish stew that I had for dinner. Our daughter told us that many people she talks with never cook, but only eat out. I can believe it. There are so darn many different restaurants in the area, that I think you can eat out every day of the year within a 10-mile radius of where they live and never visit a place more than once.

General impressions? The area where the kids lived is very ethnically mixed. But they spoke about Cambodian, Mexican and other street gangs. There are a lot of Taco stands (legal and pop ups, most probably entrepreneurs that run a taco stand without a health department permit), and indication to me that some folks are probably unemployed and are earning a living this way and that the area is thriving. Here I am only guessing, but a taco stand beats being homeless, which we were constantly reminded of. On both sides of the block where my daughter lives had a homeless camp or at least a place where two or three homeless were living. One group had a children’s play pen. I did not see a kid in it, but I did not look very long, not wanting to be accused of staring. It just reminded me that children can also be homeless, no matter what age they are. I wrote a little about homelessness in my previous post. Finally, the smog. We did not experience it or were not bothered by it, but only noticed it when we drove into and away from the area.

A little more about the homelessness. Of course we saw the occasional person who missed out on admission to a mental institution, maybe a few illegal alien, entrepreneurs who can make more money panhandling than holding a regular job, or what might appear as a drug addict; however, I am sure that I was also running into folks who had been kicked out of their rental home or apartment because they could not keep up with the rising rental rates, or lost their jobs. I find it difficult to distinguish amongst them all and it is therefore difficult deciding who legitimately deserves a handout and who is going to abuse it. In other words, it is so difficult to show empathy and compassion. I am therefore trying to do that in this blog and make you all aware of it and show compassion and love for mankind. I do not believe we are being overtaken by homelessness, but this is a sign of what politicians argue about but do not want to compromise to everybody’s detriment. I’ll leave it at that for today, but let's resolve to be a little bit kinder and understanding towards each other.