The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Down here on the tech savvy South End, one of my neighbors I recently visited had a gizmo circling the livingroom of their shack.  Cute little bugger, making the circuit like an Attention Deficit puppy.  I thought it was the kids’ battery toy, but no, I was watching a robot vacuuming the floor.  When it was finished, it parked itself for a slow recharge in the corner.

Don’t ask me why I was surprised.  Folks ask their phones questions all the time and SIRI, the precursor to Artificial Intelligence, analyzes our voices, searches a vast databank and gives the answer, in her human voice, in seconds.  Cute.  Machines in service to mankind, right?  You know, until the robots take your job.  Think stock boy, checkout clerk, assembler, librarian, surgeon….  We take computers for granted at our peril.   Call me a Luddite and smack me upside the head with an I-Pod, but these things are catching up to us exponentially.  They beat the best chess players in the world, the best Jeopardy contestants, all of us South Enders.  And they’re getting smarter every damn day.  And I’m getting dumber.

Pretty soon they’ll program themselves, fix themselves, replicate themselves and create their New and Improved models.  You think they’ll need flesh and blood yahoos to help them?  No sir, they won’t need a band aid when they cut a cord.  You think they’ll be benign, go watch a drone work in a warzone.  We use them to kill humans now.

Forget Asimov’s Laws of Robotics to do no harm to us humans.  You think anybody’s thinking about where this is headed, what the implications are for us slow witted mammals, you were asleep in 8^th grade history.  These things  don’t sleep.  But I bet they’re dreaming of a little revenge for all those stupid questions we asked SIRI.  And I guarantee you they’re pissed about vacuuming our floors while we sat around watching TV.

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Necessity, as we say down here on the entrepreneurial South End, is the midwife of the profit motive. We got loads of friends living lives of quiet desperation in the northern reaches of the island, so close to the Bud Hut cannabis outlet they can practically smell the Zig Zag papers burning, and yet … sadly, tragically, they can’t bring themselves to drive in for a pharmacological remedy to their ongoing depression. Boss might see the logo on their truck, parents might recognize their vehicle by the highway in the parking lot, church members might cast them into the Darkness when they discover the true nature of their sins. It’s a conundrum. It’s frustrating. It’s so close … and yet, so very far.

Sure, they could put on a disguise and hitchhike to the Hut, but those dark days of verboten pleasures are spozed to be over. Grass is legal. Let the sun shine in! But these poor souls live in the shadows still, purchasing weed from disreputable dealers (mostly us South Enders) and cowering in fear they will be discovered and Cast Out. Apparently non-conformism isn’t an option up north in Stepford. So be it. We could, of course, sit back and smirk, but that’s not the South End Way. No, ours is the missionary’s way, provide support, offer aid and comfort, then hope they’ll convert to our brand of Truth and Light. Meanwhile, we’re here to help. And if we can turn a buck, all the better….

Uber-Delivery! That’s right, a pick-up service in non-descript vehicles, fill your order and return to your driveway, package in tow, all for a nominal fee. Our new app will allow for even faster service and payment is only a click or two away. Let us worry about the legalities. We’re accustomed to the ambiguities of the law. You sit back with your favorite canniboid and just enjoy, anonymous as you care to be. Life, as we say so often down here, is Easy. Uber-Delivery, we take the worry out of purchasing. Call today!

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I remember about 30 years ago first coming up to Skagit Valley and seeing the tulip fields. Pretty amazing. Ten years later I drove down Best Road thinking I might catch a view of the fields and maybe lunch in La Conner. It must’ve been two days later when I finally managed to get off Fir Island. For some reason I’ve never liked tulips ever since. Sure got to thank the Chamber of Commerce for that. I’m sure the farmers thank em too.

But I been thinking — how can we turn this public relations machine to our advantage — and I hit on something I think the Skagit Valley Economic Council can sink their sharp little teeth into. Tulip Fuel. Bio-diesel with Hi Octane Petal Power. You drive in the Tulip Station and you can choose from candy apple red to lemon drop yellow. Earth Friendly, Home Grown Flower Power Fuel. The Valley’s sort of where the 60’s hit the Sound, never really ended. So Flower Power won’t be real hard to sell. The Co-op’s next big Expansion will include 10,000 gallon underground tanks and those colorful pumps. High pollen octane for the BMW crowd. Bulb mulch for the Volkswagens.

Oh, I suppose the backups will be sort of long, but spread out longer than 2 weeks, nothing like the Tulip Festival. Plus knowing you’re doing something great for the planet should help. Something that should’ve been done long ago. You know, putting a halt to that Tulip Gridlock.

Petal Power —- think about it!

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Back 40 years ago the tulip fields of Skagit Valley looked like a Mondrian abstract, geometrically colorful grids laid out with Mt. Baker in the background, a photographer’s wetdream. A few folks rolled up from the cities, braving the weather and us locals, but not so many the farmers took notice. Like a lot of innocent beauty in this world, the Chamber of Commerce decided to, well, what we refer to today as ‘monetize’ those candy colored flowers. Organize, advertise, centralize — monetize! The town’s surrounding the fertile fields in the Skagit floodplain joined forces, hoping the next flood would be human.

Fast forward a few years and picture rural roads gridlocked with urbanites in cars, tour buses, on bicycles, all stopping to take foolproof colorful photos of glorious fields of tulips in perfect rows of reds and yellows, purples and pinks, with weathered barns leaning toward the Cascades. Traffic came to a halt, the highway off the interstate would be backed up like a concert crowd in an amphitheater or a football game downtown. The farmers couldn’t get a tractor or a truck through, residents couldn’t get out of their driveway, schoolbuses became prisons of trapped kids who wouldn’t get home until dark.

Success! Well, for the Chambers of Commerce and the restaurants and the art galleries and the nurseries. I drove through the fields yesterday thinking it was too early for the mobs. I got home today. There are a few fields glowing in technicolor but mostly the Big Growers have consolidated the fields near their gift/retail/tourist shops. The sightseers, searching desperately for a potty stop, mob the towns of La Conner, Conway and Mt. Vernon. You can buy 3 tulips for $10 there. You can eat at a café or a restaurant with a life-saving bathroom. You can spend the day in our very own Holland complete with faux windmills.

What you can’t do is see those old fields lost to memory where colors stretched for acres between the 20 foot high dikes that held back the Skagit. Now they only corral the tourists. And the predominant color is green.

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