Some prime real estate on my desktop hosts a file named “BTW ideas.” My “BTW” has the same meaning as the text-ing term “btw”: “by the way,” which, if you haven’t noticed, is the title of this monthly potpourri of trivia, one-liners and vexations that seem to me to be sharable. 

The newest posting in my “BTW” file reads as follows: “Here’s how we’ll remember January 2023: It was a good day when we lost power only once and for no more than two hours.” Amen.

This past month has underscored the sorts of changes that have occurred since the Hollands took up residence in West Marin five decades ago. Back then there was no thought of the inappropriateness of using cedar shingles when we had the house reroofed. Who could have foreseen that room air purifiers would become an essential appliance? Even more astonishing is that we’ve “progressed” to a time when the well-stocked household must be equipped with a generator.

Or how about that we used to buy gasoline, go to a laundromat and get our car repaired right here in Inverness?

Getting back to my file of “BTW ideas,” here’s a head-scratcher I came across in the Trader Joe’s parking lot in San Rafael. Two men jumped out of a delivery truck with a small freezer unit in the bed. They  proceeded to unload what looked like packages of frozen food. Side-by-side on the truck were two professionally painted company signs. One read “Deep Blue Frozen.” The other read (incongruously!) “Big Guy Bailbonds” (with a 1-800 number). Perhaps Big Guy also delivers frozen fish to San Q. and has a side gig for getting clients out of the cooler?

The shrunken San Francisco Chronicle has become fertile ground for column ideas. For example, did you know that there are no longer any sports events being played in this entire country on Saturdays? No clashes of collegiate football rivalries, no fan din in basketball arenas, no weekender double-headers in the national sport’s stadia.

Really? Well, of course not, but that’s the way it is over at the Hearstian Chron. The venerable (sclerotic?) daily recently excised from its Sunday paper any reporting on Saturday games. Just nada, zilch, zip. Instead, they harness their (quite good) stable of sports writers to engorge the pages of the Sunday green with backgrounders, puff pieces and sports trivia. But nary a slug of type on what happened in the sports world the day before. They claimed that the scores and stats on Saturday matchups would be available in the Sunday paper’s online edition, but that was a lie. 

Does this tick me off? Yup. However, when I called to cancel my 50-year-old subscription, they countered with such an incredible discount offer that it seemed rude to not renew.

Lingering for a moment in the realm of sports journalism, here’s a more picayunish eye-roller: The use of “no-hit” as a verb. It was the usually better-edited Washington Post that headlined last fall “Astros combine to no-hit the Phillies and knot the World Series.” No-[s]hit?

Let’s follow with some bon mots plucked from the file. At the time of last basketball season’s Warriors’ roll to the championship, Draymond Green referred to the playoffs as the “Warriors Invitational.” Clever. I also got a chuckle out of “Twidiots” for people from the ends of the political spectrum who post on Twitter. Or how about “Trumpalikes” (can’t define it, but I know ‘em when I see ‘em)?

One more item, this time from the politics department. I’ve long been fascinated by Jared Kushner, and especially by his unnaturally honed and scrubbed visage. I finally figured out that he fits exactly my mind’s-eye image of the “proper boy” Pinocchio yearns to become. Wouldn’t you say?

Our main story this week (as John Oliver would say) concerns the lead article in a recent issue of this very Point Reyes Light. The reporting was about a commendable program to provide internet connectivity to West Marin families who do not have Wi-Fi capability. The principal beneficiaries are school children living in remote locations, many in ag worker housing, who find themselves out of touch when education shifts to remote learning from home.

This wonderful program provides eligible families with reliable satellite connection to the internet. But two things bothered me. First, in this day and age, shouldn’t the landlord (especially when the housing is essentially company housing) be ensuring access to connectivity as a matter of course? 

Anyone who owns rental housing already has an obligation to provide access to water, power, heating and wastewater disposal. Hasn’t the time come for Wi-Fi connectivity to be included as an essential utility, access to which should be the owner’s responsibility (especially when the owners live on the same property and have connectivity at their residence)?

I’m not saying that the landlord must provide the service, but I am suggesting that tenants should be able to assume that access to the service is available. This should apply to all forms of rental housing, not just ag worker housing.

Something else in the article bothered me, and was also a concern of the project’s organizers. The current program covers all costs of installing the satellite system as well as the monthly service charges—but for only three years! Then what? The article said the tenants would then have to take on the service charge, which currently runs $110 a month (and will probably be higher in three years).

So, will the child at West Marin School who benefits immeasurably from the program for the next three years be cast out into digital no-man’s land just when it comes time to start high school if the family budget cannot absorb a new monthly hit of $110-plus? 

I posit that there is a problem here that cries out for more than just a three-year solution, even though that three-year program is a commendable and very welcome first step.

Wade Holland has seen a lot from his home in Inverness since 1970.