By Phil Barker
That these are troubling times is an understatement. One cannot turn on the TV, radio or computer, or pick up a newspaper, without being reminded that a shift has occurred in the way we will be looking at things for a while… maybe forever.
The sad convergence of corporate greed with a uniform policy of government malfeasance helped convince people that the “streets of gold” were right here in the streets of America. It turned out to be “fool’s gold” existing in the form of debt. We, The People, should have been paying attention, but in too many cases, were not. Now, many of us are upside down in properties and personal loans, and are thinking that bad news is what our life is about. We’ve gone into economic hiding, and have taken on a besieged mentality.
So what do we do? As a businessman, I have friends in the Redding business community. Without exception, they are saying that they have not before seen business as “off” as it is now. In thinking about this, my first inclination was to say: “Well, yeah! Folks are scared!!
But, as I thought about it, it dawned on me that while that may be true, it is sad, because fear cannot produce a very satisfying existence. Anxiety can be crippling at worst, very uncomfortable at best. The siege mentality is about shortages and deprivation… not much fun.
My bride of 41 years, Kathy, and I were talking about this. We’ve lived through tough economic times, first as married college students (really poor); later, as I struggled to get a business up and profitable (it took years); later, when a buy-sell agreement selling the business was violated in order to rip us off (three years of litigation and totally broke, we finally won); a few bad investment decisions, but “Oh, well!” Now we are OK for the moment. Watchful, but OK.
But the conclusion we reached for ourselves is that we are not going to let fear, resentment, anger or disappointments rule our lives. In the first place, we are Christians, and none of those emotions are compatible with faith. Secondly, we enjoy life, we enjoy our friends, we enjoy spending money to have a good time, and, insofar as we have the ability, we will not be deprived.
We also decided that the restaurants, boutiques, bookstores, etc., that we enjoy need us more than ever to continue with our lives pretty much unchanged by the bombardment of negativism to which we are subjected.
So, we are going out! We are inviting friends! We are shopping as we always did. We are going to support the businesses in Redding because if we don’t, they are going to disappear, and the owners and their employees will suffer, as will we because they are no longer there!
We can’t do much about the national course of events and the bailout of our financial system, our auto industry, etc. (by the way, buy cars if you can afford to, but I am not talking about the kind of spending that produces debt). We can’t do much about government’s policies except voice our opinions and hope they register with someone. But we can do much in our town to mitigate the impact of these hard times. We just have to look inside ourselves, as well as outside ourselves, and proclaim:“We will enjoy ourselves to the fullest extent, and become a blessing to those businesses that have risked much to bring blessings to us – as well as profits to themselves and the community.”
Maybe we’ll see you out there!
Phillip Barker is retired from a chemical engineering company he co-founded. He and his wife, Kathy, own a small cattle ranch in Surprise Valley, Modoc County, that they bought in part “to teach the kids to work hard for low wages.” Their son and two daughters are all successful and happily married. (The ranch lessons paid off.) The Barkers tried to retire to Redding while they also kept and maintained the ranch and Kathy developed, owned and managed the former Oregon Street Tea Company. These days the Barkers help care for both their parents, their ranch and the Oregon Street building, and make as much time as possible for their grandkids.
