I received the MoveOn.org announcement of community showings for Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. I RSVP'd for a local neighborhood showing, which you do by entering your zip code into their database, they'll provide you a list of nearby free venues and dates for watching the movie. Often, screenings are in peoples' living rooms, but sometimes commercial establishments host.

For fun, I went on and entered the zip code where I grew up, about 130 miles from my adult home in the Bay Area.

I found out the Cachaugua General Store will be hosting a viewing. This is about thirty miles from the heart of town, where I was raised.

You have to read their announcement, it will warm your heart. Or maybe it's the mood I'm in.

The Cachaugua Valley encompasses rural unincorporated land, and a few settled outposts like Jamesburg, in Monterey County. Growing up, I thought of this as the area 'behind' Carmel Valley, or approximately between Carmel Valley and Big Sur. The kids who lived out there were generally bused in to the Carmel schools, at onerous distances. If you had dire need for medical attention, heaven forbid, you'd need a helicopter. The roads just aren't that great.

What I always loved about the Cachaugua area is that it is totally shut-out of the tourist economy. It's lovely, rugged country settled by ranching families, and perhaps descendents of the labor that built the Los Padres Dam in the 1940s. There are no Bed and Breakfasts. There are no Starbucks. On no account is the place cutesy, or 'preserved'--Clint Eastwood-ified--or whatever.

My hats-off to the people of Cachaugua, and to rural Americans everywhere, for doing their part to stem the soulless tide of globalization.
11:43:54 AM    comment []