David's Walla Walla

Like many of you, I am driven by my value for Freedom. For years this manifested as a bit of escapism. I would leave town with no plan except my initial direction, knowing that hours of driving would give me plenty of time to decide on a destination. Sometimes I’d find myself far afield in the Southwest or Mexico. I would frequently land in Montana, a place I always considered to be the US Freedom Capitol. Everywhere I traveled I met people whose company I enjoyed. In those rural landscapes, painted in red, the salt-of-the-earth rural conservatives I met along the way were welcoming, tolerant and non-judgmental.

The Mutuality of Economic Life

There is very little actual economic activity in our urban lives. By economic, I do not mean financial but, rather, the work of producing the goods and services that sustain our bodies. Our urban lives are steeped in cultural juices and our preoccupations are typically self-oriented. This is the fundamental difference between us and our rural compatriots. Communities like Prineville, Yakima, Butte and Lakeview are imbued with the impulses of economic life – farming, forestry, mining, etc. The all-pervasive forces of division of labor teach the economic citizen that none of us can do for ourselves and that all links in the chain must be intact in order to thrive. The baker complains about the miller who complains about the farmer and they all complain about the customer, but if one of these does not show up, they all fail.

Caught in the Crosshairs

Visit these communities and others like them. Note the condition of the schools, the public buildings, the meager medical facilities and the missing young people… the missing jobs. For the most part, the citizens of these small communities did not break the chain that would sustain them. Have you visited Lakeview, or perhaps Paisley? The mills sat fallow while diseased and dying forests crisped at the edge of town. Those who wanted to harvest that pulp were vilified and held back from doing so due to the “never give an inch” methods of the day. Now those sickly forests lining the eastern foothills of the Cascades are up in smoke, the mill is still idle, the kids are still gone. Meanwhile, the Feds send down edicts directing the school board how to gender-label the doors on the ill-maintained public restrooms. To me, this “crossfire” describes drivers of the Red State phenomena. These are wonderful, hard-working people who know how to do things. They are our friends, our family and our heritage, and we have abandoned, even vilified, them.

Doing Well by Doing Good

It wasn’t long ago that Walla Walla was in similar straits. The downtown area showcased some plywood and a few second-hand shops. Things didn’t fully hit the skids, but there was definitely a failure to thrive. Then came the wine, brought to you by farmers. Who would make the wine? “Why, the children of course!” How would they learn to do so? “We will build a school to teach them.” Because Walla Walla is fundamentally a farming community its folk spirit is imbued with the philosophy that a rising tide floats all boats. In a farming community, if Jed has a barn and Jake does not, Jed doesn’t wring his hands with glee because he is ahead of Jake; he puts those hands to work with his neighbors to build Jake a barn!One usually needs to be willful to succeed in economic life. It takes will to cut the furrow, buck the hay and irrigate the fields. In our urban lives, our will forces are chopped into tiny pieces by distractions and the urgent trivialities of our day. The light that shines on the robust willfulness of those who plant and harvest typically casts its own shadow. Yet the pervasive sense of our mutuality that imbues economic life brings folks to the table despite their differences. They simply figure out how to make it work, to get things done. The Walla Walla Valley has always been bountiful. Growing wheat and onions in the miracle soil covering the hillocks and coulees in the region generates abundance. But wheat and onions are not great for creating value added activities. Not like grapes. The value-added opportunities associated with growing grapes are vast. In Walla Walla, this has made all the difference.

Intact Multi-Generational Living

One can raise and educate their children in Walla Walla. The parks are well-maintained and safe. The medical facilities are adequate. Children grow up and find jobs. The grandparents help with childcare. There are concerts, plays and festivals. Of course, there are challenges aplenty and people disagree. But getting along in spite of disagreement seems to be the way of things. As more and more useless people like me settle into Walla Walla the scales will begin to tilt more toward cultural life and the realm of the self-serving individual. We who can overwhelm markets with flush cash from selling overpriced houses in Seattle, Portland and New York stand to price native young families out of the market. There will always be challenges.

Home Sweet Home

For now, Walla Walla stands as a demonstration project on making life work. I feel free in Walla Walla, though it does not occur as “freedom from” - don’t dominate me, don’t tell me what to do, etc.  Rather, it seems to me that in Walla Walla one can readily connect their impulse for freedom to corresponding responsibilities, or boundaries, creating the space for “freedom to” - to create, to produce desired outcomes, to quiet enjoyment. Given my proclivity for dilatant social economics, I find Walla Walla irresistible.See you there?