Welcome to Venture Island North State
Tough times bring out our resilience
By Silas Lyons, Columnist, Record Searchlight
Sunday, October 19, 2008
It was a slick day on a rainy mountain road near home and I was about six years old.
My mom’s ailing Chevy Luv pickup had brake problems. Somehow, we ended up flipped over on the edge of a steep embankment, passenger side down. The whole truck rocked as Mom boosted me out through the driver’s side window, then gingerly followed me out.
I still have the scar on my stomach from leaning into the exhaust pipe as I climbed down the Luv’s underbelly. But the truck held. It could have been much worse.
Will this be how it turns out for our economy? Never in recent memory has it felt so uncertain. From Wall Street to Pine Street, the fog of mixed messages obscures the future.
As I write this, I’m sitting with a laptop in the new Yak’s coffee shop downtown. It’s mid-afternoon, and the place is full of locals more than happy to pay $4.39 for a latte. The manager says business is great.
Then again, my laptop is connected to the Internet, so I just finished reading dozens of comments on Redding.com by loyal customers who are devastated that Mervyn’s will have to close. It joins other businesses, like McMahan’s Furniture, that have been around long enough to become part of the landscape.
“Man is the whole city of Redding going to close up shop?” asked one commenter, who goes by “Emerald.” “I can’t believe the number of stores that are closing their doors for good. My grandfather was 11 when this country went through the Depression, is that going to happen again? Too scary.”
Indeed, the signs are everywhere. Unemployment is way up. Nonprofits’ donations are down. Most people in real estate have been hurting for some time. Those who bought at the peak of the market (me, for example) have lost sickening chunks of equity.
A hair salon owner told me recently his revenue is down 30 percent, primarily lost business from professional women who aren’t getting hair colorations or other high-end services.
But there’s a stubborn resilience that runs counter to all this. Even a brash sense of adventure, in some cases. It’s what makes me wonder if the teetering will really lead us off the brink.
My column last week talked about openings and expansions - from a Washington Mutual branch to a company that could employ up to 100 people in a few years.
Last weekend, Mom was in town to baby-sit and Kristen and I spent Saturday evening in downtown Redding at Art Hop. Between people browsing art installations at local businesses and participants in town for Big Bike Weekend, the downtown had that buzz of vibrance and activity that everyone’s been talking about needing for so long.
On Thursday night, I helped judge the third round of the entrepreneurial competition Venture Island at the Cascade Theatre. Seven entrepreneurs pitched, and three moved on toward a $25,000 grand prize (final round is Nov. 6).
If we’re going off a cliff, these folks haven’t gotten the memo. They have the ideas, passion and good old-fashioned orneriness to be chasing risky dreams right now.
Crystals that help project cell-phone screens onto a wall. An electric motorcycle. Sophisticated elements that help measure things like the true contents of water. A slick Web-based tool for making health insurance decisions. A purveyor of pre-made meals. An undergarment for women after childbirth. Socks that soften your heels.
How many of these will fly? Who knows. Is there significance to anecdotal evidence that people are still willing to spend money and take risks? Who knows.
But it leaves room to hope that we’re resilient enough to squeak by this time. That we might climb off thiswreck; burned, wet and shaking - but OK.
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