PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Remember that song by one of my favorite bands – Credence Clearwater Revival – “Stuck in Lodi Again.”

Well, the words came rolling through my mind a couple days ago when my wife and I (along with our faithful dog, Callaway) traveled north to Salem, Oregon from our winter sojourn in La Quinta, California.

The town of Lodi is about halfway home so we often stay there to make the full, 16-hour drive in two days, not one.  For some years, we stayed in an Interstate-5 roadside motel and, thus, didn’t know anything about the quaint town five miles inland – Lodi – which also is fertile wine country.

This time, again, we stayed in an AirBNB, having a total house with garage, abutting a pomegranate orchard.  Unfortunately, the pomegranates weren’t ripe yet.

While “Stuck in Lodi Again” and on the way north, I thought of some of my impressions of trip, most of which is along I-5.

• Amazon trucks:  The number of these trucks in incredible, more than double the kind you see with any other brand.  Makes one think about the incredible work Amazon does to deliver on-line requests almost anywhere in a day or two.

• UPS and Fed-Ex trucks:  To repeat, not so many.

• The word “logistics:”  As you drive by huge numbers of big rigs, many of them announced that they are involved in ”logistics.”  That is a word quickly becoming the norm.  Transportation?  No.  Hauling?  No.  Call carrying stuff “logistics.”

• Major hiring:  All along the way, on many trucks we passed, as well as buildings near the highway, we saw “we are hiring” signs.  So, they are jobs awaiting those who don’t have them or are dislocated by the pandemic.

• California roads:  Long sections of I-5, as well as feeder roads from La Quinta north, are in dire need of repair.  The bumps and holes may be one result of so much truck traffic.  But, if you give California credit for having so many lanes of traffic heading north through major cities such as Sacramento and Stockton, other side of the coin is road disrepair.

• Big rigs transporting Tesla vehicles to Oregon:  During our five-month sojourn in the California desert, we noticed a large number of Tesla vehicles.  Then, on the trip, we noticed a few big rigs transporting Tesla vehicles to Oregon.  Must be a growing market here.

• Farms along the way:  As we drove, my wife Nancy had a good idea — this:  Ask farmers to put signs on their crops visible from the highway so we know what we are seeing.  Sometimes it’s obvious, as with rice in the paddies or oranges on the trees.  Sometimes it’s not.

• Cows in dirt fields:  My wife also moans – as I do – when we see so many cows lying around in dirt fields.  Better to see them munching on green grass.

See, nothing major here.  Just impressions along the way.