If the coast of California is
“postmodern,” as its residents like to say, we in the state’s interior are now
premodern. Out here in the San Joaquin Valley, civilization has zoomed into
reverse, a process that I witness regularly on my farm in Selma, near Fresno.
Last summer, for example, intruders ripped the copper conduits out of two of my
agriculture pumps. Later, thieves looted the shed. I know no farmer in a
five-mile radius who has escaped such thefts; for many residents of central
California, confronting gang members casing their farms for scrap metal is a
weekly occurrence. I chased out two last August. One neighbor painted his pump
with the Oakland Raiders’ gray and black, hoping to win exemption from thieving
gangs. No luck. My mailbox looks armored because it is: after starting to lose
my mail once or twice each month, I picked a model advertised to resist an
AK-47 barrage.
I bicycle twice a
week on a 20-mile route through the countryside, where I see trash—everything
from refrigerators to dead kittens—dumped along the sides of less traveled
roads. The culprits are careless; their names, on utility-bill stubs and junk
mail, are easy to spot. This summer, I also saw a portable canteen unplug its
drainage outlet and speed off down the road, with a stream of cooking waste
leaking out onto the pavement. After all, it is far cheaper to park a canteen
along a country road, put up an awning over a few plastic chairs and tables,
and set up an unregulated, tax-free roadside eatery than to battle the array of
state regulations required to establish an in-town restaurant. Six such movable
canteens line the road a mile from my farm. For that matter, I can buy a new,
tax-free lawnmower, mattress, or shovel at the ad hoc emporia at dozens of
rural crossroads. Who knows where their inventory comes from?
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