322. On Luck and mid-century houses

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Dwell mid-century homes

Since I got on Dwell’s daily email list I get notices of so many mid-century modern houses that are either on the market or that have been either brought up to date or restored to close to their original appearance. While these houses are much nicer than anything my family ever lived in, there are aspects that are stunningly familiar. One recent house, both available online and in the current issue of the magazine, even preserved the electric stove and oven we had in Boulder -- the kind with two ovens at eye height and stove burners in a drawer that you could close to free up more room and hide the burners. Why isn’t there a modern version of this? (I looked and there seem to be only some survivors on the market.) 

The ‘60s were hardly the best of times for me, but seeing these old houses takes me back in a positive way. That Boulder house, that we built in 1960, was the best house we ever lived in. Though the crawl space under the main level of our split level was a terrible idea. And, since I was still the smallest, it was my job to access that storage area. I wonder if anyone has DIYd an automated storage system for those spaces?

Dwell also covered a show about the Eameses that is currently at the Oakland museum. Along with Richard Feynman, meeting the Eameses is something else that would have been possible for me when we lived in SoCal if only I had known about them. And I was already interested in both design and particle physics, so it wouldn’t have been impossible. I could at least have visited some of the Case Study houses, which would have included the Eames house -- the least glazed of them all, I believe, and the one I really like best.

On luck

I do believe in luck, though I prefer the Roman concept of Fortune. Sulla, one of the best and most successful Roman commanders, was so aware of the importance of Fortune that he built a temple in honor of that goddess or concept. And he added Felix to his name. He came to the same conclusion Clausewitz would arrive at centuries later, that being lucky was essential to success in war.

My belief in fortune, and in my good fortune, is on a less grand and less bloody scale. And it has a very odd side -- in general I seem to be unlucky. But that’s fine with me as I seem to be lucky with the bigger things. I’m thinking about this because I’ve been having a rather spectacular run of bad luck in little things. I could choose any one of three pharmacies to get a prescription filled and I randomly chose the one that is not open on holidays. So I have to wait a day, not a problem. When booking tickets for a trip I randomly chose one of even more options for where a bus could pick you up and take you to the train. When the software wouldn’t accept that option, I assumed that they were not doing the bus anymore, for some reason. It turned out they had just limited the pickup options and I had picked the wrong one. I called in and got the reservation revised to include the pickup point they still service. Again, puzzling, but no real problem. 

My near constantly bad bus luck is the most regular example of my bad luck. It takes on the appearance of a cosmic joke when I arrive at my stop only to see the infrequent bus pulling away.

And yet I do see myself as fortunate. My draft lottery number kept me out of prison in 1970. My being freakishly ill in 1997 resulted in my buying the place I now live. If I had had the energy to find another place to rent, I would not be able to afford to live in SF today. 

I have problems with one of my eyes as a result of a car accident I was in, also in 1970. The driver in the other vehicle died and there were two different instants during the course of the accident -- we hit ice on a four lane mountain highway and crashed into the K-rail at the precipice before bouncing off, into oncoming traffic, and finally ending up against the hillside on the other side of the road -- when I acknowledged that I was going to die. But I didn’t. So having some annoying problems with one eye almost fifty years later seems like good fortune to me.

Of course I like the illness in 1997 best because who else would view the only time I’ve felt ill for more than a day or so since I was a child as an instance of good fortune. There were no symptoms to speak of and it ended as abruptly as it began. I didn’t have a doctor at the time -- since I never get sick -- and the doctor I found (in the building out my kitchen window) didn’t know what to make of it. I could hardly get out of bed for over a week and then, suddenly, I was better, but it took time to regain my strength. And that was when I became a condo owner. The best financial decision I only sort-of made.


Of course writing this makes me recall a great James Thurber story “The Luck of Jad Peters.” That projectile may be heading for me even as I type this.

The WPA San Francisco Model and Muni

One of the many local WPA projects was a model of the city in painted wood. It was displayed briefly and then went into storage. Now sections are being displayed in most of our library branches, plus Main and SFMOMA. I friend is blogging about the model and I've been in charge of getting us to the branches by public transport. When you bring someone unfamiliar with Muni onto Muni buses and trains, you can't help seeing (and smelling) it with their senses. It is not always pleasant.

Since I don't have a car, I don't have any option but to ride Muni, but I also think the experience is valuable for a local citizen. You can't hide from the city's problems or from the reality of what many of our fellow citizens are like when you are riding the bus. I'm convinced that people with naive, liberal ideas of how all our problems can be solved with just the right mix of laws and program funding, do not ride the bus regularly.

I think the same is true for most of the people who are opposed to the ride share companies -- the remainder of the opponents either drive taxis or can't afford even the reduced cost of ride shares and want the rest of the world to share their lot. Ride shares -- especially the kind where you share the ride with a number of people -- are simply a better form of transportation that society should be helping to support rather than fight against. 

Which is not to say there aren't some problems that need to be addressed. Uber and Lyft are contributing to increased traffic here because so many of their drivers are on the streets. 

I'm still waiting for the app that will finally compel me to buy a smartphone, and there's a chance it will be a ride share app. (Though I'm still hoping for that hearing protection/hearing aid/phone/music device that will do everything at once.)