I know I’m haunting the coffee shop a little bit too much when the perky staff turns to me once every counter has been left slightly damp by a casually passed cloth. “So what do you do?” comes easily, because in our world people are defined by their job. “I’m a writer,” I tell them, casually letting it fall around what I really am as a person. “Oh,” comes the response, as if to say, “Duh!” Dunn Brothers Coffee on West Seventh is one of those places where people who need a step back from their life sit in the middle of it all – a good place for writers.
Specialists
There is no single, widely accepted definition for an Economic Depression. The most common call is a deep recession, a GDP loss of about 10% or unemployment above 15%. Some will tell you that it’s a long recession, 6 quarters or more of loss. I’ve argued that it’s nothing more than the unusual event of a sudden and dramatic drop in money supply, an event that has now happened about 5 times in the history of the USofA (1812, 1857, 1893, 1929, and 2008). A few people insist that there is only one Depression, The Depression, starting around 1929.
What if we’re all wrong? What if the best definition of all has little to do with money or other numbers in a table, but with people – what they do and how it all connects together?
Two Years On
It was a dark and stormy night …
That’s how I started writing Barataria two years ago today. Like many of my small acts of humility, the reference to Bulwer-Litton was simple and funny and ultimately unnoticed by many of my readers. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 43 years of life, it’s that I usually require a little more explanation than I am willing to give. Please forgive my indulgence as I look back at what I was trying to accomplish with this blog over the last two years and what has actually gone down.
Ghost Story
The house is dim and dirty. The paint is peeling from the clapboard sides. The only sound is the wrought iron fence gate, swinging in a wind that runs through your spine. As the image sinks into your memory, you notice one more thing – up in the tower something is moving, pacing the floor as if they have a century’s worth of worry worn deep into the path on the floor.
From there, it’s pretty much as expected. Screams, murder, mayhem, and an unnecessary trip to the first floor later, it all winds up in ninety minutes. But aren’t these stories for Fall, not Spring?
Transit Planning
We’re strangers who know very little about each other, but we greet each other much like friends. What passes between us is a familiarity gained from a few moments every day on the 74 bus in Saint Paul. Yeah, I know that guy, howyadoin’? That is ultimately the best description of the key characteristic of any good urban transit system – dependability. It is the best possible description of it because it is on terms that are in the hearts of the people who ride it. But what else does a transit system need, in these terms?
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 