On Being Queer in Homestead

On Being Queer in Homestead

(Quoted from my desk dictionary) "queer – (adj.) – deviating from the
expected or normal; strange." THAT, according to a Certain Person (CP)
occupying a certain position of trust and responsibility for the County of
Marin, is what I am implied to be.

A while back, CP got wind of my penchant to complain about Measure "A"
2009, the Homestead Parcel Tax that automatically increases every year for
eternity, and telephoned me at home to explain that this curious and
unusual legal maneuver is not curious or unusual at all and has often been
used throughout California, and that in CP's circles it is regarded as a
wonderfully creative financing tool.

Even though the creative minds among my neighbors who conceived Measure
"A" 2009 Homestead are probably still brimming with admiration for their
handiwork, I still cannot bring myself to share in their mutual
satisfaction. But I am grateful for this opportunity to explain in public
why I feel that it is an unabashed triumph of Long Fingered Economics and
should never be spoken of approvingly in front of children.

Even if I were to shake my head and someone nearby would claim to hear
peculiar noises like pebbles rattling around in it, I would still be
irrevocably convinced that the spirit which so warms my creatively
inclined neighbors is the same spirit that sustains Certain Newcomers
(CNs) and their determination to have their way here, (so secure are they
that somewhere at Big Pink there will always be a CP to deal with people
like me.) And who should argue with them? After all, the entire Board of
Supervisors didn't blink an eyelash or miss a heartbeat when a delegation
(all three of them) speaking for the entire population of Homestead
testified at the public hearing in favor of Measure "A" 2009 Homestead,
the new parcel tax on Homesteaders which automatically increases every
year for eternity.

So, Old Ray became that queer duck who paraded himself around Homestead
Valley with a sandwich board protesting Measure A. Everybody laugh now,
on three: "Queer Duck! Queer Duck! Old Ray's a Queer Duck!"

Old Ray bore up under it all pretty well though, and now points in silence
to the aphorism at the bottom of his sign, "Tough Love."

Here and now, in this public place, I figuratively embrace them all, each
and every one of them who had a hand in bringing us Measure "A" 2009
Homestead, and whisper, "I love you," then turn away sadly, returning to
the discomfort of my abiding conviction that their beguiling arguments for
always more of a good thing is the recipe for the end of the world. We are
ALL joined today as being queer in Homestead: I as a queer duck; they as
Queer Ostriches with their heads in the sand. (Imagine if you can all
those wagging rumps.)

Stay tuned the next edition of Ray on the Beam, entitled, "Out of the
Closet."
Quack, quack.