It was a fetching irony, and a situation that might do more than anything else to instill popular resentment toward the relentless incursions of the Surveillance State. In Portland, nearly all of the people charged with doing the searches were black most of us being searched were white.
(Nat and I were searched four times in four flights. By and large the pat-downs at the gate seemed to be dictated by a simple quota system-ten to twelve individuals per flight, roughly twice as many men as women. Having arrived bleary-eyed at PDX three hours early, I had a chance to watch dozens of searches and try to make sense out of who was being singled out and why. As it turned out, self-consciously liberal Portland conducted the most intrusive searches of the three cities, with the lines slushing forward at the pace of the Wisconsin Glaciation. The rest of the family, frequent fliers all, had already become inured to the groping searches, the demands to remove shoes (which in our son Nat’s case could, depending on the shoes, be noxious event in itself), the ceaseless checking for photo ID, the seizure of knitting (though not crochet) needles and nail clippers. I detest airplanes and this was the first time I’d flown since 9-11. We flew from Portland to Sacramento to Ontario, California. They were enthused for once and, ridiculously, I did nothing to discourage their fantasy. Apparently, when I said Twentynine Palms, our kids, aged 19 and 17, heard Palm Springs, that sprawling cancer of a city 50 miles to the south. I suggested this as a potential destination.
There was a spot on the map that had long intrigued me: Twentynine Palms, California, a small desert town at the northern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. I’ve driven across its basins and mountains many times, but always on the way to or from someplace else. This winter when we were all sitting around the table in our house in Oregon City, facing the prospect of six more months of gloom and rain, the four of us decided that an escape to someplace sunny, dry and hot in April might recharge us, making it possible to trundle on through the sunless Oregon spring.įor years, I’ve wanted to spend some time in the Mojave desert. It can be done, of course, but the consequences are bound to be unspeakably harsh. Let this be a lesson to you all: Don’t try to con teenagers when it comes to spring break.
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