Life and Times in the Inland Empire

My job takes me to various exotic locales. Places the likes of which you have only seen in the movies or in your dreams. Where the plains are vast and at times expansive and the very air you breathe feels like you could be drinking water instead of breathing because it’s so humid. Places where a once proud business is now a vacant building or an empty plot of land unused and untouched by human hands in more than a decade, where the weeds have turned brown and have been ground into dust and the lone speck of green is from a wrapper from the Green Burrito. At times there is hope, as it does spring eternal (or so they say) as a majestic oak rises out of the barren dust bowl-like parking lot that was once connected to a grocery store. But more often than not, the cracks in the asphalt signal what has truly become of the neighborhood. Unfilled, and spreading further and further apart by the day. Shopping carts are left on the side of the road or in empty parking lots. Cars are abandoned next to the train tracks, windows rolled down so you can get a better look at that blue vinyl interior. A moon bounce sits unused behind a warehouse. It’s red and yellows contrast with the tope and beige walls filled with streaking cracks. Men, and sometimes women, wait in front of the Home Depot waiting for a job that may never come. Then, further down the road the streets are clean, the asphalt is fresh and the paint is just getting dry. Where the houses are gated and the cul-de-sacs are a plenty and the sidewalks are filled with verdant life that creates actual shade. The homes are many and the cracks are few. Empty plots don’t last long here, as someone is bound to snatch it up for another housing development. It's a part of life, it's a part of community, it's a part of a whole damn mess of things that don't seem to make sense. It's night and day, rich and poor, love and hate, Napster and Metallica, The Bride and Bill - opposition. It will always exist.

I see this and much more as I journey through the Inland Empire, as it’s called. I see this in Pomona, Chino, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Upland. It’s a strange part of the world this San Bernadino County because I’ve usually never spent more than five minutes there before my job – on account that I had no reason to go out there, ever. My Thomas Guide didn’t help me because it was only Los Angeles and Orange county so every street I had to find I basically guessed and asked my way to, and it was a pain in the ass. I don’t know why so many people live out there, they’re secluded, backed up into the hills and mountains like the people of Rohan at Helms Deep – and we all know how that turned out. It’s hotter than just about anywhere else – except for the desert communities and places further inland and the stores I go into have storm doors. Storm doors? Really? You know the kind where you walk in and there’s a space in between you and the next door that actually lets you into the store. The only reason I see it as being necessary is to keep out the smell of the nearby horses and dairy cows. Yes, the smell is so pungent you can smell it through your car fans. Why does Chino smell like the aftermath of the Rose Parade? They do have a prison nearby so I guess it’s a good way to keep the inmates inside but for the regular people, it’s got to suck.

I can’t say I hate the place but I can say it’s never truly been boring. I accidentally ran a red light I thought was green and went through about eight lanes of traffic – luckily no cars were coming at me and I survived. Other than that I tend to pass the time by listening to the radio while I drive and thinking about what I’m going to do once the day is over – and I’m out of the Inland Empire. I’ve seen some strange and not so strange things during my travels but I wouldn’t count it out for having a few more surprises in store for me as I venture deeper and deeper into the heart of the Inland Empire.