Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Life at the university was strange to the Dawsons at first, but they soon adjusted. After moving into their small quarters in married student housing, they established where everything on the campus was located and who their neighbors were. Mari was living two blocks from the campus in a small apartment, working on her Master’s degree in Botany, so she and the Dawsons soon began spending a lot of time together, both on campus and off. Lizzy adored Mari, who often agreed to watch her free of charge, taking the little girl by the hand and leading her around, trying to teach her everything she knew.
Jack and Rose soon settled into the routine of school and work. Rose was a double major in political science and music, while Jack had decided to major in psychology and minor in art. They crammed in as many classes as they could while still having time to work. Life was busy, but they still found time for each other and for their daughter, often studying together in the evenings and making a point of having breakfast and dinner together as often as possible. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, when Jack didn’t have to work, they would meet for lunch as well, bringing Lizzy with them. Mari watched Lizzy when both parents were at work or in class, and on Friday nights, which Jack and Rose had long ago established as an evening to spend together, with or without Lizzy along.
At the same time, Rose was beginning to establish her career as a singer and political activist. Majoring in both music and political science, she took what she learned and applied it to her ideals and her work. On Saturday nights, she often sang on campus, either as a student or as a volunteer, and began taking occasional jobs singing in small, eclectic nightclubs, local theaters, and community events. Jack came to listen to her sing whenever possible, bringing Lizzy along if he could. Lizzy loved her mother’s singing, often repeating what she heard, though both parents occasionally cringed at Lizzy’s interpretation of Rose’s favorite songs, many of which were not written with small children in mind.
*****
Rose sat in one of the front desks in her Local Politics class, a new course that didn’t have many students. Unlike many classes at UCR, this one was held in a classroom instead of a lecture hall, with twenty-five students instead of two hundred. She tapped her pencil quietly against her notebook, listening to the debate taking place.
The topic of the lecture was population issues in Riverside city politics. In Riverside, as in many Southern California cities, development and expansion were constant sources of contention. The city and county officials approved heavy development of the area, often forgetting that vast ranges of tract houses and shopping centers weren’t all that people needed. The roads were congested and the air smoggy more often than not. Well-paying jobs in the area were scarce compared to the number of people who needed them, leading to massive commuting each morning and evening and almost constant gridlock on the freeways. Schools were overcrowded with students, invoking the wrath of parents and politicians, neither of whom seemed to recognize that they were part of the problem—the parents for insisting upon moving to a congested area, and the politicians for allowing the problem to grow worse by approving further development without adequate new schools.
Rose understood the problem, both from an intellectual point of view and from personal experience. In spite of the fact that Jack was only about twenty miles from his job, he still had to leave an hour before work every day to be sure of getting there on time. In three years, Lizzy would be ready to start school, and placing her in a private school was out of the question. There just wasn’t enough money, and Rose had never cared for the snobbish attitudes of many private schools. Of course, there was no telling where the Dawsons would be in three years—Jack and Rose would be finished with their Bachelor’s degrees in only another year or so—but the problem was widespread. Rose was concerned, not just for her own child but for the society as a whole. It wasn’t a healthy situation.
The lecture turned to the environmental issues of over-development, and one student, who believed strongly in continuing progress and development, added his ideas to the debate.
"We no longer need to worry about lack of water or energy," he spoke up, receiving a raised eyebrow from the professor, who often clashed with this particular student. They had differing views, and neither was shy about expressing those views. This class was much like the other political science classes Rose had taken—the most interested students sat in the front and debated each other and the professor, while everyone else sat in the back and avoided confrontation.
"Explain your viewpoint," the professor told him, as he often did when a student made a sweeping statement with nothing to back it up.
"It’s pretty straightforward," the young man explained. "Water is no longer an issue because we’ve had good rainfall the past few years, and energy hasn’t really been a problem since the Enron fiasco a few years ago."
Rose couldn’t resist. "California goes through cycles of rain and drought," she pointed out. "A few years of good rain—most of which runs off, by the way—won’t help in the long run. We may have enough water at the moment, but I really don’t think so, seeing how there’s always articles in the paper about smaller snow packs in the Sierras and arguments over who has the right to the water from the Colorado River. And if energy is no longer an issue, why is gasoline so expensive, and why is there so much debate over global warming and the human contribution with our energy sources? Something isn’t working right."
The professor nodded, agreeing with Rose’s statement, but before he could speak, the other student refuted her words.
"The reason that we can’t store water is because we don’t have sufficient reservoirs. Two were lost and another damaged during the earthquake of 2003, and you liberal environmentalists haven’t allowed them to be rebuilt."
"They were seismically unsound," Rose argued. "That’s why they collapsed. And as to the biggest one, Diamond Valley Lake, it was nothing short of idiocy to construct it between two towns and within a few miles of several earthquake faults. To be sure, Lake Perris could be rebuilt, and the Lake Hemet dam was repaired within a few months, but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s too many people for the resources. And what we do have is too often polluted or wasted. I’ve seen water running down the streets from people’s yards, where they use hoses to clean their sidewalks and driveways instead of sweeping, which is easier and cheaper anyway."
"It’s their water to waste."
"But we all have to suffer. And what about the energy? And don’t give me that bull about nuclear power plants being the solution. This is earthquake country, and I well remember what happened to the San Onofre plant and the surrounding area. Maybe solar or hydroelectric power would be a solution, or even geothermal, but not fossil fuels—there’s enough pollution already, and definitely not nuclear power."
"It’s liberals like you that cause the problems and pretend the world is getting hotter to mess with business—"
"Would you stop it with the liberal-bashing already? This country is hardly liberal, and hasn’t been in decades. And those so-called liberals that you complain about are responsible for what safeties we do have. People like you would gladly tear everything apart—the people and the environment be damned—in your quest for power and profits!"
Rose was about to add more, but the professor interrupted her. "You’re getting off-topic here. Does anyone else have any comments to add?"
Rose ducked her head, writing furiously in her notebook, her mind working. Politics were fascinating, and she loved a good debate, even if she did conflict frequently with other opinionated people. But she couldn’t just sit back and watch things fall apart. She had to do what she could when she thought it right, no matter how much she aggravated some people. She had always been that way, questioning the status quo and expressing herself, and her years of studying and watching the world around her had only strengthened that trait.