Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Mr. Howard!

Anne and I had a great time celebrating Dad’s birthday with him and my two brothers this holiday weekend, but yesterday we left Monterey and flew back to the Lou. It is hot, hot, hot here. We venture down to Cherokee St. for an art fair and to support a former colleague of mine, who is also a potter. Cherokee St. is known for its antique stores and Dan has talked about renting a truck, loading it up with antiques, hauling them all to NYC and selling them for a profit there. However, Cherokee seems to have gone considerably more upscale than I remember it being. There was a sign there for a fixer-upper apartment and they were asking $200K for it, which seems expensive no matter how you look at it.

It was good seeing my Dad and my brother Chris again, but since I’ve become the retired guy, I’ve been seeing them quite frequently these days. I hadn’t seen my other brother Frank for some time. In 2016, he ran for county supervisor and has been a very busy politician public servant ever since. In addition to dealing with the perennial county issues of roads and fire prevention, he is wrestling with increasing homelessness and how to deal with legalized marijuana.

The Bay Area’s sky-high housing costs are driving more and more homeless people east and into his very rural county and while, the state has legalized marijuana, a lot of the work of regulating it falls upon the counties. He was participating in a panel charged with examining issues associated with legalized pot, when one of the other panel members brought up the idea of infusing THC into water. Frank, who has a chemistry background said that that would never work. He explained to me that THC is basically a long polymer that would be more soluble in oil than water. Another panel member who has a background in law enforcement quipped that that was a very Breaking Bad kind of comment.