A Never Ending Dream

As a teenager my best friend and I sailed sunfish sailboats from Richmond to Angel Island in San Francisco bay. Returning before twilight, the wind died as we were halfway back, and we were stuck in the shipping channel dodging Chevron tankers...with no running lights. We tried in vain to get to Red Rock Island to hole up for the night, but for the ebbing tide we never made it.

Two months ago the same friend and I tried to get to the island but I was again thwarted by currents and wind. Last month, I finally made it to Red Rock on a dingy, some twenty three years after my first attempt. While walking on the shore, I pulled up several pieces of hardened bunker fuel oil off the rocks, remnants from the Cosco Busan oil spill in 2007. I keep two pieces on my desk at work.

That wreck caused $70,000,000 in environmental damages through the release of about 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel (oil). Incidentally, this is about the same amount released each day from the uncapped wellhead left in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion last week. I suppose I shouldn't have assumed that the Gulf of Mexico, as large as it is, could easily absorb such a "small" quantity.

But, as we are so beholden to our BMWs and our Elantras we should expect that these sorts of "mishaps," while tragic, are nothing more than ancillary costs to living the American dream. Yes, we will try to prevent them, but hey, shit happens. Besides, who in Elk Grove really gives a damn about what might happen to a handful of seagulls off Chandeleur Sound, so long as a gallon of gas is a nickle less than it was the month before? Not a single resident. Not one. We go about our perpetual motoring with blissful ignorance regarding the destruction of mangroves in Ogungbe, Nigeria, to fuel our recreational adventures. Elk Grovians would likely vote to station our troops permanently in Iraq if it meant that gasoline would always remain below two-fifty a gallon. Just another cost of living the American dream.

It is a dream, isn't it? Aren't you living in a dream today? As you exit your Elk Grovian housal unit in the morning (although you owe more than it's worth you're still deemed a homeowner), preparing to grind out another solo-occupied vehicular commute 36 miles to Rocklin for work, do you ever stop, take in a deep breath, smell the spring-time wisteria and think, "What a dream this is! A never ending, beautiful dream!"