Money

 Nothing worried me more about retiring than money. I went to the workshops, I met with the representatives. I called Social Security. No one could give me the answer I wanted. Would it be enough?

As I walked out the door it seemed like my money worries had reached a crescendo. Could I afford to live on what was going to come in? The week I left there was enough in my accounts to live for the month.  Then the State’s parting paycheck was an unexpected 3 months of salary with vacation and back overtime.  We weren’t going to be on the streets for at least three or four months. It certainly gave us a cushion for the beginning. In December my Social Security deposit and the one for Paloma arrived in the checking account. And then the CalPers deposit was more than I expected. Four months later they caught their own mistake, they hadn’t deducted medical insurance and I had to pay it back over the next year. But that initial oversized deposit was nice to have for a few months.

Is it enough? 10 years after retirement the answer is definitely yes. Social Security, CalPers State Pension and savings, I’m not rich but I have enough.

Before retirement I heard the hardship stories about old people barely living on Social Security and often it involved cat food.  I knew Social Security payments were reduced according to how much I got from CalPers.  Just before I retired I learned from Social Security that since I had 30 years of paying the tax there was no reduction.  I was surprised when my checks (automatic deposit) started arriving. They weren’t that small. In fact they seemed pretty large to me.

The check I got looked good enough for one person to live on frugally. If it was my sole income I’d reduce my expenses considerably and move out of Oakland to somewhere with lower rents. For me Plan C was to move to Mexico where my Social Security would be a comfortable income.

Of course, I have Paloma and one person living frugally wasn’t the real plan. My financial advisor Karimah Karah told me before I retired to make sure I apply for Social Security for Paloma as my underage dependent. Who knew? I was surprised to receive a monthly check that was half of my own Social Security and increased our income to nearly comfortable.

Add CalPers Pension and I was there. After I paid back the overpayment it settled into enough to pay my Kaiser MedCare and Dental Insurance for Paloma and me and still net $1,000 a month.  I told Kaiser I wanted a plan that was equivalent to the care I had been getting before I retired and that’s what I have. The only difference is the minimal copays are less. Through CalPers I’m paying a rate negotiated to its minimum, $325 a month.  Paloma and Suzette’s medical insurance is part of her benefits package at her employer.

Suzette has a full time job with a reasonable salary and benefits. My mindset has always been to pay my own way and that seems to be Suzette’s attitude, so we split the household expenses, mortgage and utilities in half and then the substantial private school tuition.

Without the tuition I’d be OK, so I take that out of my savings. And Bob’s your uncle, that’s how we live.

Housing expenses in the Bay Area are among the highest in the country and what we pay in mortgage and taxes would choke people outside of New York or Los Angeles. And private tuition at a very good school is only slightly less than college tuition at the best schools in California.

And there it is, most of my life I’ve never made the big bucks, but I’ve always been comfortable. I never admitted to anyone but it always seemed more than I expected.  And now in retirement the same is true. We’re not rich, but we’re comfortable and it’s a lot more than I ever expected.

Half my savings was from my mother’s estate. My father didn’t have anything to do with money. He just earned it, like me his whole life, he wasn’t rich but he earned enough. My mother saved. It’s given me a comfortable cushion and let me make a substantial down payment on an Oakland house. The rest is money I paid into, Social Secuirty, IRA contributions, savings, retirement from the State that was part of the pay package.  

After all is said and done I have an income that covers expenses and I don’t work.  It feels like free money to me.

Retirement - Over the Cliff

I retired 10 years ago. As my college roommate Tony Cole said, “This is the job I was cut out for.” I don’t have a boss. I don’t have tasks to do. I’m retired, jubilado as they say in Spanish. It’s great. I don’t do anything I don’t want to do or at least that's the idea.  

Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have to keep up with my own life, do the shopping, take care of my daughter, meet my obligations as a parent. Life is complicated and the daily tasks fill in and spill over the space once taken by a job. But did I say, there are no bosses.

Just as retirement was getting close I had a heart attack in 2010. After that I began to let go of some of my previous ideas. I gave up the daydream of going to law school and becoming a public defender or going to college and getting a degree in science or math. Taking it easy seemed an attractive alternative after that. 

I spent the last seven years of my working life as a Park Ranger trying to keep up with people half my age. It was a gift, working so hard to learn a new job.  It made me feel vital, not like old bankers I had known daydreaming of the day they would drive away in their new RV. And then there was the surprise baby at age 63. Fatherhood was going to take some time.

So November 2nd, 2011 I turned sixty-five and on November 5^th I retired. That day I took off my badge and turned in my gun. The first thing I felt was relief.  I no longer had to wear a gun every day and be a target for anyone out there.  I had sworn to protect the public. I had done my duty and now I was not required to put myself in harm’s way. It was exciting and satisfying when I did it, but I didn’t have to do that anymore. I was proud to have been a police officer but I was done.

That unexpected sense of relief was there but at the same time I had just jumped off a cliff into a world I didn’t know. I’ve done that a few times, leaving solid ground and hoping I would land safely. My plan was to enjoy the flight. I would take the first three months as vacation. In AA I had heard the cliché, “When one door closes another door opens,” and the speaker added, “but these hallways are a bitch.” I was going to enjoy the hallway and let the next door open, not force it.  

Two months into retirement I started a blog and that quickly became my long postponed memoir/biography. Some twenty years before a friend had quoted his father’s biography.  I was impressed a published author.  "No," my friend said, "he just wrote it for us, my brother and me."  

Like most English majors I have always been a wannabe writer. My friend Richard’s remark gave me permission to write an autobiography. I didn’t have to worry about publishing it. I could just write it for my family. My target audience were my great great grandchildren, a written record of who their great grandfather was.

My grandfather in the summer before he died told me Lashley stories.  It connected me back to my great great grandfather Thomas Lashley and the American Civil War. It was a thread that took me back 140 years. I barely remembered the details of everything he told me, but it was wonderful. I could tell my grandchildren I had spent time with my grandfather learning the family history. What if Thomas Lashley, born 1817, had left a journal?

And so I began my blog, Stories I Tell Myself. Writing is communication and without someone reading it, it’s only half done. Captive readers are few and easily worn out.  For me there’s the internet. My readers are mostly anonymous.  It's just out there. It’s there to be found if anyone wants to look for it.  It surprises me when my blog gets any “hits” at all.  A high school classmate, I didn’t know very well in high school, claims to have read the whole thing. But people I don't know read it too, And my grandson Caius said he read it in one night after I told him about it. Every month it gets 30 hits or so. It’s Bulgarian tractor programs plowing for data but a few I imagine are actual readers.

And so that’s what I did. I got up in the morning, made coffee, did the things that needed doing and sat down and wrote. Every week or so I posted another piece for Stories I Tell Myself. I lived the writer’s life. I worked on a daily basis, I forged ahead. Each day when I wrote I accomplished something. It made going out and enjoying myself in the afternoon easier to do. At the end of two years I had finished it, my entire life up to retirement. Or at least I had a first draft.

It was inconsistent, lacked cohesion, but it was there. I had done it. I have to say, the next task seemed so daunting I gave myself a break, stopped writing for my blog. Every so often I’d write something, an opinion piece, but even that was rare. After enjoying it so much, I just stopped. Writing is hard work. I knew I needed to finish it.  The next step is to stitch it together, to polish it, make it cohesive.  I took a break but since then the urge to finish it has never been enough to go back to it.  

Eight years later I realized I've been retired almost 10 years, a big chunk of my life and I needed to record that.  And that's what this is, the next chapter.  Of course, it's still part of the first draft and I still want to stitch the whole piece together, polish it, make it a finished work.  The urge is still there.  

The Worst of Times

These are the worst of times. Often quoted to describe “these times” is the Charles Dicken’s opening to Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” This week in December, 2020, I think is the worst of times. The quote I think resonates with so many of us is because even during the worst of times we see the seeds of a brighter future germinating. This last year and the previous three years, it has been hard to be optimistic. The seeds of our destruction as a nation are all too obvious and they’re not going away. In the past we’ve been fortunate even during the worst of times we’ve survived to continue our slow progress toward the American ideal.

As I write this we are in the 9^th month of a worldwide pandemic in which the United States is faring worse than most of the world, more infections, more deaths. We have inconsistent leadership and instead of a unified nation Americans are choosing who to believe between left and right, elite and populists, establishment and anti-establishment. We just had an election in which Donald Trump, the worst president in the history of the United States was turned out of office. Before the end of this month there will be a vaccine against Coronavirus SARS 2 that is 95% effective.

Seemingly the end of our double catastrophe is in sight. I have a hard time being optimistic. President Biden will enter office probably without a Senate majority and the prospect of a government that can’t legislate. There are plenty of villains during these times, but one of the worst is Mitch McConnell and he will continue in power as Senate Majority Leader for at least another two years. And Trump the leader of the Republican Party, not yet out of office. has already begun to mount the opposition.

During the pandemic Trump demonstrated a characteristic incompetence and when he might have insured his reelection by making an effort to defeat the epidemic he did the very opposite. He made ignoring the epidemic policy. He tried to pump the economy up when people were afraid to go out. He succeeded in keeping the financial markets strong and whether it was intentional or not he made Social Darwinism the national policy against Covid. He politicized the worst health crisis in the last hundred years and the Republican Party was complicit.It seems that nearly half of Americans think the pandemic is not an issue and that 265,000 dead Americans are a hoax or not that important. And for now a significant number of Americans won’t accept a vaccine. To defeat the virus as soon as possible will take leadership and national unity. With Trump and a large number of Americans already set against the new administration American unity is a long way off, if ever.

The divisions in America are rooted in slavery and the War we fought over it. The neo-Confederacy and Populism are fighting the establishment and common sense. During national crises in the past we have overcome our history and pretended to national unity. That’s not even remotely possible in the coming year.

The two vaccines will probably be approved shortly and are 95% effective. The vaccine should work if people take it. Or it can drag on into 2022 and we’ll see an end to the pandemic when it follows its natural course to extinction, in a year or two, or three.

This is the worst of times. Maybe they’ll get better. When I think about it I can be optimistic but in my gut for now I’m not.

Covid 19 Journal

I am 73 years old and a white male. Over 10 years ago I had a minor heart attack and had 6 stints put in. My medical records say coronary artery disease and hypertension.  Nonetheless I feel healthy in general. I collect social security, a small State pension, and I have a 401k that I can draw on.  My 401k is the usual senior paradox, if I live a long time it may not last and if I don't it's a lot.  I am married and Suzette works full time from home as a personnel manager for a charter school regional office. We have a comfortable income. We own our home in a good neighborhood. I have Medicare and private medical insurance.  Suzette and our daughter are also insured. Our daughter is 10 years old, healthy and growing, and is enrolled in a private school. They did very good online instruction until June. Since then she’s taken a writers’ workshop online and next week will start an online summer camp.

I describe my days staying at home as good. I get up, I enjoy my coffee, read history, read a couple of newspapers online, take the dog for a walk, take care of Paloma, do dishes, cook meals, go bicycling and watch TV including taped football (FIFA) games that were played a long time ago and some recent SuperLiga Danish games, talk to friends and family on the phone and do a once a week porch visit with a friend. My days are like a lazy Saturdays where I don’t do much but relax and enjoy, day after day after day after day. It feels like being under house arrest. I am aware that we are very fortunate and unlike many people around us have everything we need.

I have been keeping a journal for the Covid-19 Pandemic. I write it for history, a digital file to be stored in a digital library, maybe useful one day or not.

June 27, 2020 Day 103

LA Times 6/27/20 4 Suburban California Counties fuel dangerous rise in COVID-19 hospital-izations

“It’s like we’re cheating on our diet, and angry or baffled that we can’t lose weight,” Dr. Robert Levin, the Ventura County health officer, said Tuesday. “There’s all those times that we’re not cheating. But [in] the few times we do, all that effort is for naught. So what is the price we pay? Where are we headed? More cases of COVID-19. More people hospitalized. More people in our ICUs. More people dead.” 

“Like cheating on our diets” – and then – “More people dead.”

It feels like things are spinning out of control. San Francisco is stopping it’s scheduled reopening moves and talking about backing up. It seems small things. We’re talking about how we will go out today. We’ve decided to go to a beer garden in Uptown Oakland. Last week at Jack London Square we felt safe. My friend Gordon said they went to Capitola and it didn’t feel safe. It’s hit and miss. Yesterday I came back from my bike ride and there next door was Angela a couple of feet away from Rita sitting on her front steps, she was leaning in to talk to her. Neither one was wearing a mask.

Angela is my best example of someone well meaning who for her own quirks needs to push the limits of distancing, neighborhood events, getting together, visits and so on. But Rita is as old as I am and seems older. Angela is past 60 and not in the best of health. I don’t blame her at all. In fact, it’s not what anyone of us does but our behavior overall. If 300 kids attend school at EBI in September we will probably be lucky, none of them will get very sick, but if 10,000 start school in OUSD two or three are going to die and one or two may be debilitated for life.

I think the powers that be, the Wall Street money managers, the Washington powerbrokers, not a conspiracy but a consensus know that reopening means people will die, but the economic gains are worth the price and besides it’s people of color and the elderly and immigrants who are replaceable, marginalized people and people who are past contributing. Social Darwinism. Like Jane Austen characters over 200 years ago, the gentile people live comfortable sophisticated lives while living on the income from people like coal miners who die in the mines leaving destitute families.  

I don’t think the push to reopen is wrong headed so much as it it hard headed, practical and pragmatic. It’s like how much do we spend on auto safety until road deaths go down to an acceptable level? It isn’t just at the top it goes from the Board rooms of Citibank, Bank of America and Chase down to the local nail salon owner. Just like auto safety that went from board rooms and engineers and legislators to the willingness of auto buyers to pay for it. How many deaths are acceptable?

So my family will wear masks, are careful of the environment we are in, like General Milley says, "maintain situational awareness" and we try to model good behavior, doing what we can. And yet instead of controlling the virus, the virus is in charge.  It's better in California than Florida but not by much.

Postscript

We went to Drake’s Dealership a beer garden in Uptown, the old auto row, and again felt quite safe. They were taking the pandemic quite seriously and carefully explained the rules and then followed them. The tables outside were spread apart, we ordered our food on our phone and paid by phone. The servers were all masked, polite and careful. We enjoyed ourselves again. On the way out I had a coffee at a coffee stand behind a plastic shield, no cash.

I've always liked Biden

March 4

I’ve always liked Joe Biden, maybe not always always but close enough as the general election looms nearer. Last night Biden performed in a way no one has ever seen before and no one really expected. Sanders did take California, but Biden showed well and won delegates here and Texas as well as 9 other Southern states. It looks like he will be our nominee for President in the Fall.

I’d rather a younger and stronger and less vulnerable candidate than Joe Biden but if Joe Biden is going to be the candidate, then I’m going to get behind Joe Biden period.

I’ve started reading his biography more closely. It turns out he did grow up in uncertain family economics. His family was below mine on the scale. We went through a few hard times. Joe went through some hard times too.  Most of my time growing up we were solidly middle class. Biden’s father was a car salesman not a dealer, so that’s better. He has a good voting record considering the times. His heart is obviously in the right place. I would like less dwelling on his hardships, which are quite real, and more on holding the plutocracy accountable.

I’m not an Obama Democrat, I’m more a Warren Democrat, not so in favor of protecting the financial status quo, but Biden was a good vice president, served the president well. Obama was a good president just frustrating that we made so little progress. Sure McConnell stalled it, but Obama was soft on the banks and hard on immigration, not positions I liked. Obama care is half way there but not all the way. Insurance Companies and Pharma still do very well and in my opinion they are responsible for high health care costs with lowered results.

But Biden versus Trump, a good man versus an evil man. It’s not even a contest. I’ve always liked Joe. And I’ll like him more if he chooses the right Vice President.

March 6

I keep hearing the good pundits and Elizabeth Warren say vote your heart and your beliefs not who you think is going to win.  I still like Sanders better than Biden, Booker better than all of them and Warren a lot.  So I'm not in the Biden camp yet.  I'm very interested in how well he does going forward.  Can he sustain the effort it will take to be the candidate?  

I still think there is a good chance that the country will overwhelming reject a second term for Donald Trump, whether the candidate is Biden, Sanders or my dog.  I think normal people are disgusted with Trump and the first real crisis that will personally affect all of us will only illustrate his incompetence and inability to run an organization.  Bankrupt as a businessman, bankrupt as a politician.  But I'm not sure and that scares the hell out of me. 

Sanders or Biden and all of us who care need to work hard to save American democracy and the credibility of our government supporting whoever runs against Trump.  .  

Undecided Voter

I am an undecided voter. Not undecided for the national election. My dog runs against Donald Trump, I’d vote for Bella.

In the California Primary tomorrow I will vote for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Do I vote for the candidate that I was originally leaning toward, Elizabeth Warrrn, or the candidate who can win the nomination and could well beat Donald Trump?

Buttigieg dropped out of the race yesterday and this morning Amy Klobuchar dropped out, both victims of the South Carolina primary. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is barely alive and even in California she is polling more than 16 points behind Sanders.

I’m not considering Joe Biden. Joe is a good guy. I like Uncle Joe. But for all of his talk of being a man of the people, he is not a left wing Democrat. He has been an establishment Democrat all along. He voted for Clarence Thomas. He voted for George Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He voted for Clinton’s Crime Bill. He has been around a long time and people change but Biden is the Establishment and the Democratic Establishment is why we are still in the Reagan Revolution. Enough small government and pro-Wall Street legislation.

And all this bullshit talk about knowing how working people feel, his father owned a car dealership. That’s like John Edwards whose father worked in a mill, yeah his father was the manager. It’s just disingenuous.

I like Bernie Sanders. I like what he stands for. Ideally I am a left wing Democrat and a Democratic Socialist. So if it’s a contest between Joe Biden I vote for Bernie.

Another problem I have is with old white guys, even Elizabeth Warren is over 70. Isn’t there anybody younger out there we can vote for? By the way I’m a 73 year old white guy and a retired banker.

So do I vote for Elizabeth Warren because I think her policies are very similar to mine?  And she would make a better President than Bernie Sanders, though the bankers and the establishment will fight her tooth and nail for that very reason in a general election, not to mention it is still a misogynist electorate, some women included.

Bloomberg ---of course not.  Bloomberg another good guy is a billionaire former Republican who has spent his way into contending for the presidency.  I vote Democratic.  

I really think Bernie has a good chance of winning in the general election. Ross Perot voters will vote for Bernie along with young people, genuine populists and people who want change Democratic or Republican. Hell I think some Trump voters, ones who wanted a change but have had enough of his blatant incompetence and self serving egomania, will vote for Bernie. Though it is amazing to me how few Republicans are disgusted with this worst President ever, but that’s a problem for the Republican Party not me. I don’t think we need Republican votes and while I enjoy listening to Joe Scarborough I don’t need him or David Brooks to tell me which Democrat to choose.

Bernie is the 77 year old white guy who is honest and authentic.  I worry he is a rabble rouser not a team player. I think the President needs to know how to govern not stir the pot.

Do I vote my heart or do I vote with an eye to November?

As I finish this I think I'm going to vote for Bernie because it’s come down to him or Biden and Bernie is certainly the better of the two and Bernie has a better chance of winning than Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden.

And in November I’ll vote Democratic because I think it’s time and because Donald Trump is the worst President in the history of the United States.

Update March 3.  I voted for Bernie.  I guess by the time I finished these notes I had made up my mind.  But even as I filled in the bubble on my ballot I still had second thoughts.  And by the way, I'm thinking a Bernie Sanders/Stacy Abrams ticket.  

Paloma the Lifesaver

April 20, 2019

Yesterday on the way back from LA, my 9 year old daughter Paloma saved my life.

We had gone down to stay at my son’s property in the Mojave Desert for Spring break. Paloma loves the desert and after three wonderful days there we drove to Los Angeles and spent time with my eldest son and his fiance. We went to dinner, stayed overnight and had a nice long breakfast at an LA coffee shop.

It had been a good week and at 11:30 am we started the long drive up Highway 5 to Oakland and home. Traffic was heavy in LA as usual. But once out of LA County it moved pretty well. We stopped in Canyon Country and then again and again. We had our dog Bella and we stopped every hour or so, so Bella could stretch her legs and run around for a bit. The last stop we made we were lucky to find a Baja Fresh and have tacos for lunch that weren’t that bad. Bella got to run around and we had a break.

But a few miles further down the highway my eyes began to droop. I fought it a little bit but at 72 years old I need my naps, particularly after lunch. I pulled over at an off ramp that was just a two lane road going off in either direction from the interstate. We parked in an area, flattened by farm equipment and the big tractor trailer trucks using it as a quiet rest stop. I parked our car about 50 yards in from the road. It was all weedy around us. There was an irrigation canal that ran parallel to the road a further 75 yards from where we had parked. It was a good space for the dog to run in.

The dog took off running through the weeds and Paloma chasing after her. I put the windows down on the car and put the seat back a little. It was warm in the Valley, there was a nice breeze and I thought after a few minutes I’d probably nod off. Paloma would be fine, she knew to wake me if she needed me. I started to play solitaire on my phone. I’d didn’t fall asleep so easily and we were there for awhile. From the canal I could see water splashing up above the berm, a pump or something.

I looked around, Paloma was playing in the weeds and I didn’t see the dog. I got out of the car and asked Paloma where Bella was. We both started calling Bella and she didn’t come. I remembered the splashes I could see just over the canal berm. Oh no, I thought. Bella loves water. A year ago we got Bella as a rescue dog when she was a year old, a ¾ size German Shepherd shaped mixed breed. I have no idea where her love of water came from, but she ran every creek she crossed and once even started swimming out into the Columbia River chasing ducks.

I ran to the canal imagining the worst, that she had floated away and out of sight and hoping she would be there. Paloma and I got to the top of the berm at the same moment and there was Bella splashing to get out, but the canal had a thick plastic liner that came up and over the berm. She couldn’t get any traction. The splashes had been her struggling and she had been in there for at least ten minutes and probably more. I’m not sure how dogs look so expressive but the look on Bella’s face was pure panic turning to relief at our arrival.

I laid on the berm and tried to grab her, the current was very strong and she was paddling as hard as she could to get to me, but her paws kept slipping on the thick plastic liner and she floated in and out. I reached down to grab her and I could touch her nose but I was a few inches from being able to get a grip on her collar. She tried and I tried and I reached out just a little further and slid into the canal.

The water was cold and I had to swim to stay where I was. Like Bella I couldn’t get any traction on the plastic liner. It rose a good 2 or 3 feet above my head. I tried to push Bella up on to it but she just kept sliding into the canal. Where I was at the bank I think the canal was about 6, 6 ½ feet deep and it seemed to be deepen a little more toward the center. A few feet down the side of the canal there was a metal plate about 2 feet by 2 feet half submerged. It was secured by small screws with heads that I could just barely grip one between my thumb and forefinger.

I held myself against the current that way and grabbed Bella by the collar and tried to push her up the plate. The traction wasn’t much better than the liner but on the third try she was able to get her paws on the top of the berm and Paloma pulled her out. Now I’m in the canal, the water is cold, I have to tread water to stay in place and I try to scramble up the plate but finger grips are just not enough and Paloma is too small to pull me out. I tell her to go to the car and get something to pull me out, a shirt maybe. I don’t know if that’s going to work, but at least we can try and she won’t come so close she might slip down the liner. Paloma said, “How about the dog leash?”

“Yeah get the dog leash.” That will be better, but I don’t know how a 75 pound girl is going to pull a 215 pound grown man out of the water, but we’ll try it.

While she’s gone I look around and there doesn’t seem to be any break in the bank and liner. The canal goes into a tunnel about 150 yards west of me. If I can’t get out in the next few minutes I’ll send her back to the car to call 9-1-1. Paloma came back and dangles the leash down to me. I tell her to sit down on the ground off the berm and hold on to the leash. She gives it to me and I pull a little bit, but even a little bit and she starts to come up.

I tell her, “No, lay down flat on the ground and hold the leash as hard as you can.” I really don’t think it’s going to work and I certainly don’t want to pull her in. She gets the leash to me one more time and I pull and try to leap out of the water at the same time and I get just far enough to get an arm on to the top of the berm and a little more with my torso mostly out of the water and get my fingers to the edge of the liner and pull myself out.

Paloma, Bella the dog and I are excited together; I’ve been rescued. Not so hard but I didn’t think it was going to work and I was pretty surprised and relieved to find myself out of the canal. It was probably going to be OK all along, but I never knew that for sure until Paloma got me out. I looked down the canal and there were yellow painted steel poles four of them in front of the tunnel. Maybe something there might have been enough to scramble out, maybe not, was there going to be downward suction? On the other side of the road in the field somebody was working a tractor and moving dirt. There was a house on the other side of the road a few hundred yards back and after I was out a truck came out and passed on our side of the road. I waved to the farmer.

I realized there were probably a number of ways I could have gotten out of the canal. But I couldn’t do it myself. And Paloma had done it, had saved me, gotten me out of the canal.

I’m a retired first responder and this situation was just the kind of thing I responded to and saved people from their own mistakes, that moment when you realize you’ve reached too far and you slide down the berm into the water. I was sure everything would be OK as I kept my head above the water in the cold canal, but I also knew that when things start to go bad sometimes they can go very badly and this is the way tragic accidents start. But it didn’t become a tragic accident, it probably wouldn’t have gone that way, but it didn’t because Paloma saved my life.