By Pat Orr
Has anyone but me noticed that the Halloween decorations went up in the retail stores for about a minute and a half so they could clear those out and start putting up Christmas stuff?
What happened to fall, harvest festivals and Thanksgiving? In the High Desert, fall is usually about three days long. A cold snap comes, then a heat spell and a windstorm, and every leaf on the block is now piled up in your driveway. That is fall in the desert, but still it would be nice to at least give it a glance on the headlong rush towards the Christmas shopping season.
I am pretty sure no matter what the weather, there will be a semi-permanent chill around Apple Valley after Nov. 8 as we sort out the winners from the sore losers. The water issue has been a “bone of contention” as has the race for president. Nothing quiets a table full of friends more than someone declaring, “Well anyone who votes for Trump is an idiot.” No matter how things turn out next Tuesday, most of us won’t move out of Apple Valley unless forced to by circumstances or economics. Hopefully as Christmas rolls around, a spirit of forgiveness and charity may overtake us all.
There is always hope.
Yes, the craft fair is back
One absolute harbinger of the holidays is the number of craft fairs that spring up around town.
Each year, I throw away a few items from some long ago, forgotten craft fair to lighten the load of Christmas junk I have to return to the rafters, and each year, I find myself wandering through another craft fair thinking, “Oh, that is so cute, I need something to fill that two-square inches on the piano I cleared last year.”
If you’re a closeted craft fair shopper like me, you will want to attend the Gianormus Holiday Craft Fair at the Town Conference Center this Saturday and Sunday. It was expanded to two full days just to handle all the extra snowman-crocheted toilet paper cozies — you can’t miss this. It runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Go to the town website (www.applevalley.org) to look at the event flyer for more details.
If you are a Conservative in California, do you matter?
It depends on your level of engagement. Certainly on the national level, California has been in the “bag” for liberals since we first staked claim to the term “left coast.”
You won’t find any 'R's after the names of winning candidates at the top of the California ballot, but it is down ballot that matters most here. Keeping enough Republicans in the state legislature to stop a “super majority” of Democrats from forming is what we need to strive for. There will be no “advise and consent” were a super majority elected.
We would truly be a one-party state. The Democrats would see a problem, tax us to raise the money and then waste that money before solving the problem. And the process would start again, over and over.
This also has some carryover to county and local offices. We have been reasonably successful in battling back the self-involved narcissists who routinely run for county offices, and have usually gone for political or business experience types.
Running for office because “you want to be somebody important” is a sure path to a crummy public servant. In the town, we have been lucky to beat back the few crazies that seek office on agendas only decipherable if you speak a language from the galactic brotherhood.
Few run on what they would do to make things better and only focus on what the other guys have done badly. This is not to say that all Town Council candidates are crazy, although many who have served, believe it helps if you are a little bit nuts and have an iron butt to take the incoming slings and arrows. We do tend to vote on the conservative side here in Apple Valley and many people find comfort in that.
Some also believe that makes us a target for change. New demographics, voting patterns and the ethnic makeup of neighborhoods are changing the face of California.
There are those who would visit that on Apple Valley sooner than later. Whom we put into office is one determining factor of how fast we wish these changes to overtake our community. It seems to me we still prefer the western “stand up and fight-for-our-rights” work ethic that has always allowed Apple Valley to brag about being a place with “a better way of life.” Every election is a new chance to either redefine or reinforce our values as a community.
Yes, even if you are a teeny bit conservative in California, you have to vote.
— Pat Orr is a local business owner, community volunteer and political junkie