The Bad and The Ugly

Abandoned, boarded up and empty was “a first” in our experience of looking at campgrounds today.  In fact, initially we could not even find our destination.  Pulling through another park in the same area which fronted a river and harbored only two camping vehicles we found an individual who suspiciously assisted us.  He informed us his “park” was not the one we were seeking once he ascertained that we were benign visitors at his location.  The park we were supposed to be in was “down the road and over the bridge” he informed us.  I could only think while he spoke, “How sad this potentially pretty location along the side of a rarely seen flowing river in this part of California is instead overtaken by the dredges of humanity.”  But even worse was yet to come… 

Over the bridge and through the trees and we arrived at site number two.  Devoid of any campers, we found an office where the managers were packing up and moving out.  Adjacent to the “park” was an empty mobile home community with every unit boarded up; trash was piled along the streets and here and there we saw an open front door to who knows what inside.  Presumably there is a story behind this sad state of affairs, but we were told the campground had been sold and no one knew what this former campground and mobile home park were going to become.  Happily, we won’t have to visit there again unless things turn around.

Heading back toward Fresno after going down the road a short distance, we stopped at an inviting vegetable/fruit stand and the clerk told us both parks were known for “drugs” so that explains the deterioration.  It was sort of like visiting a Hollywood set for the TV series “Breaking Bad” except this was a reality show for us.  And yet you can imagine that once this might have been a nice place where people enjoyed their lives...

Well, so it goes.  Each day is different.  I guess my point in sharing this with you is to comment that it is sad that this happens in the U.S.A.  I naively wish that everyone cared enough about themselves that somehow this sort of human romance with drugs in our society would just disappear.  Unfortunately, I fear I won’t live long enough to see that happen.  I can only hope that as a group we could eventually see a mutual desire to eradicate this sort of blight from our communities.

On the TV program 60 Minutes last Sunday, a segment talked about an attempt to overcome homelessness by helping street people one by one to get into a safe and decent place to live.  It is called the “100,000 Homes Campaign” and was established to get people off the streets and into a place they could reliably call their home.  Maybe something similar can be done to clean up properties like the ones we encountered today by slowly rebuilding one property at a time, until the problem disappears. We've seen two other areas recently where the citizens took a stand, cleaned things up and reclaimed their neighborhood.

As Martin Luther King said, “I have a dream.”  Well, so do I...