Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call someplace paradise
Kiss it goodbye
-The Eagles
Up at 5:30 for a run through the Cove, with temperatures already pushing 80, and 94% humidity. A half-hour of that nearly broke me.
Along the way I encountered a scene that seemed like an allegory for the last nearly four years since the storm.
Alas, poor chimney, I knew your house well. It was on Watson Bayou, directly across from the Sudduth ballfields where the boys played t-ball and then, in Jim's case, little league baseball. It was an unlovely, 70s vintage "modern" rancher if memory serves, apparently too far gone after Michael to save. Now the owner apparently lives in a travel trailer, one of the last such unfortunates who's on an extended campout until code enforcement figures it out and makes them do something else with the lot. Wonder what went wrong with their insurance company, or if they were one of the foolhardy few who didn't have a mortgage and decided windstorm coverage was an expensive luxury?
Thinking this morning about an article I read after my run, documenting the flight of Americans in increasing numbers to Europe's relatively inexpensive housing and lack of political discord.
On the one hand, I sort of admire folks who have the temerity to venture across the Atlantic and build a new life. Our Jim's done it; our Issac and Olivia don't seem far behind, with Greece the likely final destination. They're comfortable navigating a world in which a brick-and-mortar office feels like an anachronism, that allows them to wake up wherever on this planet they choose. It's one of the few things that makes me wish to roll back my own odometer by a couple decades and live that adventure.
On the other hand, the article shows that a number of these migrants are Californians. It is documented that we (I'm as much a Californian as anything else, I guess) ruin every place we encamp for any length of time. Just ask the natives up in Idaho and Montana, who've been forced to deal with latte bars sprouting there along the Great Divide to service ex-pats from Malibu and Brentwood.
Texans are virtually apoplectic watching their state gradually turn purple as the disenfranchised black and hispanic population is supplemented by the information elite fleeing to places like Austin. Texas thought it was welcoming kindred spirits, wealthy folks who'd play along with the imposition of a plutocratic theocracy. Instead the Golden State transplants brought a political ethos more libertarian, socially freewheeling, and aligned with the interests of a productive class that relies on their own brains instead of leveraging the misery of the peons. They just wanted no income tax, and cheap real estate. The Texans hoped the immigrants wanted Gone With the Wind with a side of Jesus, but the newbies are looking for Gault's Gulch.
I guess "ruin" is the wrong verb. Maybe just "change", in a way that doesn't make the locals all that happy.
So, will this influx of Americans ruin/change the Greek Isles, or Sicily? The optimist in me thinks probably not, at least at this point. Our innocents abroad won't speak the language, and will be busy at their jobs in front of a computer most of the time. The opportunity for mischief as the first of them sets up shop in their waterfront stucco house in a little village overlooking the Med should be minimal.
Where things might change is if word gets out that this arrangement is quite manageable, and a critical mass of Americans working remotely settles in a particular city or region. You can't add thousands of folks to a community, all making several times as much as their neighbors, and expect stasis. Rents will go up, certainly, but you may also see retail follow those dollars in a way that makes the place feel like San Jose, or Boston. Is Santorini still Santorini with a Chipotle nestled among the cliffs? Either way, the locals may feel a little resentment.
It'll be interesting to watch all this unfold, to see if the time difference or internet connectivity or a wave of heavily armed Slavs in armored personnel carriers thwart this quest for paradise. And if the kids pull it off, maybe a rickety old fighter pilot and his beautiful bride will make the same leap of faith.
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