Counting Ghosts

We've all seen and heard the incessant commercials on television and radios extolling the virtues of filling out our U.S. Census forms accurately and in a timely manner.  After all, failing to provide the much needed data to our Federal Government promises dire consequences for our communities:  Buses will become overcrowded, traffic will gridlock, schoolteachers will be overwhelmed (as if that hasn't been a consistent problem pretty much all of my life), government services will be underfunded (tell me how government services can be properly funded in a nation that is already broke?), the creeks will rise, there will be famine, pestilence, the moon will become as blood, etc. etc. etc.

I'm all for the U.S. Census.  Every decade we should count heads, see who's moved where, which areas are gaining population, which are losing, figure out where we've been wasting money on services for a population that's vacated an area, and figure out where our money could be put to better use helping an area that seeing much more growth than in the past.  All this data could be put to good use by our Federal, State, and Local governments in properly planning our nation's future...if our governments were interested in properly planning anything, that is.  It seems our governments current "modus operandi" is to not plan for anything, but rather govern by crisis.

I lived in the New Orleans, Louisiana area for a couple of years about a decade before Hurricane Katrina devastated the area.  During my residency in "The Big Easy", we had several hurricanes blow by, thankfully not doing much harm.  Despite the common knowledge that for the most part, southern Louisiana appears to be about a foot above sea level, the extent of hurricane planning went like this:  Watch T.V. and see what the talking heads had to say about the incoming weather.  Then, take their advice and head down to Schweggman's, Winn-Dixie, or my favorite, the Piggly-Wiggly about two miles up the highway, and utterly decimate the canned goods, bread, and bottled water aisles.  Clean out the battery section in order to keep the flashlight and portable radio going.  That is, unless everyone else got there before you, then all you could do was think:  Yessir!  I'm going to get the jump on them next time!  Then head back home, hunker down, and hope for the best.  Don't pay no mind to all those pumping stations and pipelines you passed by on the way, that you know are charged with continually draining the lowlands, pumping the water uphill and over the levies into the Mississippi River.  And don't mind those levies, folks.  They're made of dirt, and dirt's been around forever.  Anyone who's ever tried to scrub the mud stains out of the knees of denim jeans knows that dirt is one tough substance (Except when compared to the ocean, I guess).  Don't worry about the fact that there is only one major highway that heads due north, inland, and to higher ground, in a couple hundred miles!  Or that half a million people might need to get on that highway pretty danged quick if the bread, canned goods, and portable radio happened to be getting wet because there wasn't a roof on the building anymore.  Or walls.

But I could ramble on about hurricane planning, or the lack thereof, for quite a while.  Most of us know what eventually happened to New Orleans when the "big one" hit.

But wait!  There's always our nation's energy policy to look to for a fine example of proper planning!  Uh...  Wait.   Never mind.  Our nation hasn't had an energy policy since, what, the Kennedy administration?  Or was it WW2 and Roosevelt?

How about an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?  Surely, our government would have a contingency plan in case a platform exploded and underwater pipelines began leaking hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude into the crystal blue waters around Pensacola Beach, Florida.  Or threatened to wipe out the Gulf's seafood industry.  Surely our leaders would know what to do, after all, we had the the environmental disaster of the "Exxon Valdez" spill in Alaska to learn from,  surely we would never allow something like that to happen again.  Right?  Right??

Along the lonely, open expanse of the Nevada/California border, perhaps one hundred and fifty miles northwest of the gambling mecca of Las Vegas, and not too far from the northern end of Death Valley, lies a little, vacant group of broken down stone walls.  Dotting the hillside overlooking the scene are a few ruined remnants of the mining era gone by:  A couple of long-abandoned headframes standing guard over the tops of empty holes in the ground, holes which plunge hundreds of feet below the surface into underground workings once populated by miners long since departed to that great gold mine in the sky, where they have hopefully finally found that next "big strike".

Here lies Stateline, Nevada.  Once a comparatively thriving little place out in the middle of nowhere.  It's a long ways from anywhere today, imagine what it was like at it's founding in 1881.  Today, it takes hours and hours of desert driving on dusty and little traveled dirt roads to arrive on the scene.  Imagine traveling there by horse, stagecoach, or on foot in 1891, ten years after the towns founding, only to find the glory had already passed.  The mines had already played out, as was often the case in those days of limited technology with which to get the gold from the rock, and difficult conditions in which to ship the mined materials to somewhere they could be profitably used.  By the year 1900, Stateline, Nevada, was entirely abandoned.  The stone walls, built of the abundant local rocks, stood silent, already stripped of anything made of the much more scarce wood, which could be recycled into the building of the next "boom town" on the desert.

There is one standing, fairly complete structure on the western edge of the old townsite of Stateline, Nevada.  A two room cabin built much later than the rest.  I'm told it was the house of later caretakers of the Stateline mines, who attempted to once again open the mines using "modern" technology (compared to the 1890's), only to find the stubborn rock continued to hold it's riches...if there were ever really any riches there in the first place.

This building, too, is now long abandoned.  However, it's been spared the fate of the rest.  Volunteers maintain this cabin as an emergency shelter for the infrequent passer-by who might be exploring the area.  It is quite inviting to the traveler, who, miles from anywhere, might be caught in a sandstorm, deluge, or even snowstorm in winter.

I visited Stateline, Nevada, in the middle of April, 2010.  Perhaps three weeks prior to writing this.  I took refuge in the shelter of the four walls and solid roof, intact windows, heat generated by the wood stove, while the wind, sand, and even snow raged outside overnight.  It would not have been a good night in a tent.

On a nail, next to the front door of the isolated, single cabin in the "town" of Stateline, Nevada, which hasn't resembled anything even close to a town for well over one hundred years, was a familiar white bag with the red and blue lettering.  Inside the bag, left behind by a dedicated government worker, was a blank census form, apparently to be filled out by the ghostly permanent residents of a long abandoned community who's one-time inhabitants long ago traveled on horseback, stagecoach, or on foot, away to the next great gold strike across the desert, and who long since have abandoned the earth itself, leaving it to living.

It's heart warming to know that our Federal Government, master planners that they are, have kept Stateline, Nevada, in their hearts, and wish to see to it the ethereal spirits inhabiting the vacant structures that dot the old main street get their fair share of the public services afforded by the largess of deficit spending.

I'd hate to see the buses become overcrowded.  Or traffic come to a standstill.