Asides
Thoughts on Stockton, CA
Last weekend the family and I trekked out to Discovery Bay for some fun in the Sun. A great time was had by all. We helped set a world record for the most manned paddle boats assembled in one location, in fact.
What I love about road trips, even weekenders, isn’t the destination so much as the trip itself. On this particular trip my family and I were reacquainted with Stockton, California.
Stockton, to me, is a post-apocalyptic port city, divorced from coastlines and headwaters by 70 miles thanks to a thousand years of global warming and nuclear fallout. Stockton is both California’s future and past mashed into a hapless way station alongside the blur of commerce and industry that is Interstate 5.
If these United States ever see another civil war, my money’s on Stockton, CA as the powder keg that sets it all off. Stockton’s the new Mason-Dixon – the line in the sand where out-of-work Mexican agricultural workers from the south collide with out-of-work white supremacists from the north.
There’s a nervous energy in Stockton that’s literally palatable. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. Next time you’re out along I-5 in Central California, be sure to stop for gasoline, or even lunch, in Stockton. Look around – and listen…
Discussion
3 comments for “Thoughts on Stockton, CA”
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Um, OK. Sounds like a place I’ll rush right to visit.
Put up a fence! It gives the white supremacists something to patrol, and it gives the unemployed Mexicans something to get under, around or over when they are bored.
just wanting to know if you graduated from clark. I used to hang with a guy by your name and was wondering if you are that person?