“In America, if you don’t have an address...

you’re not a real person.”

Notable quote from Jessica Bruder’s “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” 

It was fitting that I read Nomadland before terminating six years and five months of a “Homeless by Choice” lifestyle. The book is a well-written account of the fringe members of American society who consider themselves to be “Houseless” although not homeless. Their domiciles are mobile. Ms. Bruder’s real life characters reside in vans, sedans, pick-up trucks and RVs. The author pens a not-so-glowing version of the stigma of the single man in the white van. Her description rates a Grand Slam. I know, I blogged about this one month prior to her book’s publication.

https://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-stigma-of-single-man.html

The houseless subjects in Nomadland, had all fallen off the main grid of normal society. Their lifestyle choice was forced upon them. They had no other options. Simply put, they had zilch money for a mortgage or rent. (One interviewee had her $40 life savings in her pocket.) The reasons for their economic plight were many: divorce, job loss, the Great Recession or drug/alcohol abuse. Many had just made bad choices. They “zigged” when they should have “zagged.” Somehow they survived by taking seasonal gigs at Amazon warehouses, sugar beet factories and being campground hosts. I wasn’t envying them.

The 100 Watt bulb glaring difference between me and them is this. I have money. I can afford to pay rent or a mortgage. I don’t have to eat a steady diet of hotdogs on Wonder Bread. As I’ve said to many people, “I’m not destitute. I just look and act like I am!” Most of my fellow Americans didn’t believe me. I became adept at ignoring the incoming hairy eyeball looks.

It was in the Southwest Spring of 2018, when my lifestyle choice began to, I’ll say it, piss me off. It was a colder, windier and rainier/snowier spring than normal. Veteran NPS Rangers at Death Valley National Park said the temperatures were running 10-15 degrees lower than usual. In the campgrounds my neighbors RV heaters were humming throughout the night. I huddled under four blankets. 

My season of discontent moment came at Panamint Springs, CA. I had just returned from a pleasant amble to a few old mining sites. I was barely in Barley the Van’s sliding door when another cold front sprinted in. Wind,  rain then hail slammed into the Van. I made a Lipton’s Cup a Soup to alleviate the sudden chill. Outside conditions hadn’t improved by the time I finished slurping the chemical concoction. “Maybe I should just go home”, I thought  Oh yeah, I don’t have a home. Then I shouted into my 66 square feet of living space. “This sucks!”  Soon thereafter, I began to weep.

It was then, I knew,  I was ready for my own address. I wanted to be a “real person” once again. 

I warned you this day was coming!

http://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2019/05/seeking-contentment-in-land-of.html

Last photo: Proof of my entry into adulthood. House and van keys. A Durango Library card and a set of hearing aids. If I like you, I’ll stick them in.

Next post! A Jackie Kennedy look at the Town House.

Cheers from Durango, CO,

Jeff

Put a fork in me...

I’m done.

This past month-long trip to the U.K. validated what I already knew. I’m burnt out on being a solo International traveler. The reason I ventured way east was for the love of NY Yankee pinstripes. The why of  being in London was crazy, (and expensive) but I knew it was my overseas Swansong. A last BIGLY hurrah. 

https://jeffsambur.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-yankees-made-me-do-it.html

I’m not joking. No mas! 

I’m tired of eating in the bar instead of sitting at a proper restaurant table. The reason: A solo senior citizen occupying a table for two is a pitiful sight. The same idea applies to B&Bs. That’s why I eat breakfast early before the couples of the World awake.

I’ve run out of cute answers to the one inevitable question. “Are you traveling alone?” Sometimes my frustration surfaces when I answer, “Do you see anyone sitting next to me?”

I miss the company of a copilot/navigator when I’m driving in a foreign land. I once drove three complete circuits in a Lisbon roundabout before sprinting out of one of the many exits. Luckily I guessed right that time. 

I’m no longer making the International connections I used to garner as a younger man. I know I’ve become more introverted with age. That being said, I think the same is true about the rest of the World too. If you don’t believe me, notice how many people wear earbuds/headphones,  stare at I Phones, prefer pet connections over people connections and  text away instead of talk when in the company of others. There seems to be an uptick of people making an effort to avoid people. 

At least I don’t wear earbuds. 

The invention of the selfie stick has been a bane to us old fashioned travelers. Everyone wants to post a Facebook photo of themselves with scenic, historic or iconic backgrounds. There’s tour companies who cater to this narcissistic crowd. Those I Phone wielding folks have to sleep and eat somewhere. The days of just showing up in a town and scoring a room are gone. One has to make plans. Traveling has become more complicated and stressful. A missed plane/train/ bus can throw a schedule into a free fall. 

I need a break from my international travel agent duties. 

Lastly, it comes down to Milton Friedman economics. I’ve been spending oodles of bread, cha-ching, £s, €s and $$$$$ on overseas trips. Once in those jet-lagged lands,  I walk all day by myself and eat and drink marginal beers alone. Lately, I haven’t been getting the fun per cost benefit from International tours. 

Truthfully, I can travel solo cheaper and easier by just remaining stateside while visiting my favorite western wild places. In between I’ll be at my new base camp townhouse in Durango, Colorado. Who knows? Maybe I’ll become a Home Shopping Network junky.

Does this mean I’ll never need another Passport? Not at all. I’d love to see the fjords of Norway, the Pyrenees of Spain, the Italian Dolomites and the southern Alps of Slovenia. I’d go through all those time zones if I could walk into a restaurant and say, “Table for two. Please!”

I don’t want to hide my aloneness in a foreign bar anymore.

From NYC to Colorado in a few days,

Cheers,

Jeff

“We Will Build a Wall...

and make the Barbarians pay for it.” 

was a quote attributed to the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 122 AD. Mr. Emperor went onto say, “Those Barbarians are nothing more than murderers and rapists. They eat haggis and carry diseases too. We’ll build a very, very BIGLY Wall. We’ll hire the best people to build it. We will conveniently place the Wall near airports, train stations and highways so all can access this UNESCO World Heritage Site. We will Make Rome Great Again!” 

Hadrian might not have said those exact words even in Latin, but as I walk his legacy through a narrow waistband of mainland U.K., I wonder. Why did Emperor Hadrian order the Wall built?

The answer is, no scholar knows for sure. Somehow, Hadrian’s Tweets were lost in the fog of history. 

Here’s what we think we know.

Hadrian was a hands on Emperor. There’s more than speculation that he designed the 73 mile Wall. His creation took about six years to build with 15,000 Roman legionnaires doing the heavy lifting. Once it was constructed, the Romans couldn’t just walk away from it. The Wall was manned by Calvary and Legionnaires brought in from across Rome’s far flung Empire. (Some from as far away as Syria.) There were forts, milecastles and turrets for the soldiers to live and work at. The members of the Roman Border Patrol slept eight to a tiny room. They spent a lot of time gazing north along a stark, barebones windswept landscape keeping a leery eye out for possible Barbarian intrusions. It wouldn’t have been a gig I’d want to have.

Photo below: That’s me pretending to be a Roman Legionnaire. 

Back to the question that’s on every wondering person’s mind. Why a Wall?  

Those in-the-know scholars have a Chinese take away menu’s worth of options to believe in. 

Here’s a few: 

It served as a defensive deterrent against those uncouth Barbarians. 

Hadrian might have been consolidating his Empire. He was setting limits on Rome’s expansion. The Wall is the Rome’s northern most boundary. Or as Hadrian claimed to say keep “intact the Empire.” Under Hadrian’s rein, physical borders were constructed in other regions too. The British version just happened to be Rome’s most ambitious and expensive project. 

Since there were gates, it might have have been a customs post monitoring the comings and goings of citizens and non-citizens. Maybe the Wall was an ancient toll and taxation booth. 

Another speculation is the Wall represented Rome’s might. Was Hadrian on an autocratic ego trip? Was the Emperor saying, “Dude! Could you do this?” to the rest of the World? 

No one knows for certain.

So... Did the Wall work?

From a military standpoint probably not. There were too many unmanned gaps. There were incursions from those Scotch Whisky guzzlers from the north. Another Wall (the Antonine) was built further north 20 years later. It’s primary building material was turf. (A nice way of saying grassy dirt.) . It didn’t work either. The Romans fell back to the comfort of Hadrian’s Wall, at least it was made of stone. 

Which brings up my final point. 

Walls don’t work. It’s human nature to figure out ways around them, through them or over or under them. These unnatural physical impediments cost a lot of dinarii (an ancient Roman silver coin, originally worth ten asses) to construct and maintain. In the long run, it’s more cost effective to build bridges of diplomacy between people and nations. 

Presently Hadrian’s Wall is a major U.K. tourist attraction, despite the fact only about 10% of the original Roman Wall is intact. (The rest was reconstructed). I believe the Wall is generating more wealth now than it did as a border. I know I’ve been dropping the £s since I began walking it! 

I still don’t think it’s a good idea to build a Wall though.

Last photo: An authentic high tech Barbarian device once used to overcome Hadrian’s Wall. 

From Carlisle, UK

Iubentium!

Cheers in Latin

Jeff