Red Oak Community Center: Fill & Download for Free

Thanks for the A2A.Cali has an unusual problem. It’s the worst state for income inequality; everybody’s either making 500k+ a year or on welfare while doing landscape work on the side. The middle class is being squeezed out completely. And even the tech sector isn’t doing as well as they’d like, at least in the early stages. There are stories of new hires out there making 200K and up who are sleeping in their cars and showering at the gym because they can’t get housing. (How true this is, I dunno; that’s why I said “stories”.)But the answer to your question is simple: people are leaving Cali for anywhere else at all because they don’t want to live in Cali any more. There are different reasons why, I suppose, but that’s the bottom line.I used to take customers and partners and so forth around in Houston when I lived there. A lot of them were from California and New York. H-Town is a boom town, and looks like it. One of the things getting built as fast as possible is housing. There’s a new development on every street corner, it seems, in a production mode real estate developers call “green side up”. And they all have big billboards advertising their open houses and trying to sell the product. They all read something like El Rancho Grande de los Milagros (something like that, this is Texas we’re talking) and advertising “From the 130s…”Now these are nice houses. Three or 4 BR, in a nice little middle class or upper middle class subdivision. Six foot trees in the front yard, planted last week, that will be 60 foot oaks in their grandkids day. Community center, swimming pool, tennis courts, the usual. Nice enough, but nothing special; average square feet, two car garage, yadda yadda.And these New Yorkers or Californians are absolutely stunned. They’re all like “you can really buy those houses for 130 thousand?” And I’d say “all day. I know the developer; if you’ll buy two or three of them, I can get you a better deal than that.” Of course, where they come from, 130k wouldn’t rent you sleeping bag space in the garage for a year. Those houses— I think of them as “average, nothing special”— are double the size and 25% of the cost of anything they have available, not to mention brand new instead of being built 70 years ago.And it’s pretty simple: you don’t have to make too many trips to Texas to figure out making a third of the money is a pretty good deal if you only have a quarter of the living expenses; especially since the tax bite pretty much goes away at the same time. I know people who live in Texas and work in NYC or LA. Every Monday, before dawn, they’re out on the red-eye; back late Thursday evening. That way they get both: the NYC salary and the Texas living expenses. And they don’t have a 3-hour commute by train from Connecticut twice a day. They can buy a round trip plane ticket every week and live in a hotel 4 days a week, and still make money. And they have the advantage of not having to raise their kids in Jersey.That’s why California is deflating.

Good question. I just graduated in May, and I’m still trying to figure it out myself…The answer, as with most schools I’d guess, is that there is no standard “Harvard party” because the social scene is so fragmented. The highest-level fragment is freshman vs. sophomores/juniors/seniors, then the twelve upperclassmen houses, then extracurricular groups (some of which, like WHRB, the Crimson, the Advocate, and the Lampoon, have physical spaces) and formal social groups (final clubs, frats, sororities, other groups like the Oak), then friend groups. Depending on where you fit in with each of these fragments, your experience will vary considerably. So Harvard parties come in many flavors, from humble dorm-room hangouts to ostentatious ragers. I’ll describe a few categories:-Dorm: A very common party at Harvard (and the ones I attended most). Pretty standard college party fare. Consists of 10–20 people crowded into a semi-large dorm (usually centered in the common room but sometimes has offshoots in personal rooms and bathrooms). A pong table is set up at one side with couches/chairs at the other. Most people are standing, chatting excitedly and spectating pong every now and then. Speakers blare loud music that people sing and dance to, especially the former; I’ve experienced enough sing-a-longs of “Mr. Brightside” to last about fourteen lifetimes. Small groups leave briefly to smoke and return with red eyes, grinning. These are generally a great time, if a little constricted. All sorts of groups throw them, from smaller friend groups to large extracurricular orgs, so you’ll get a lot of variation here as well. (As an aside, dorm parties are central to Harvard’s ongoing debate regarding social spaces. Most students feel like there are not enough communal party spaces for students and that, as a result, final clubs with enormous mansions and extracurricular orgs with large social spaces, like the Lampoon, have disproportionate power/influence over the social scene, driving it toward exclusivity and elitist tendencies. Harvard is currently renewing many of the upperclassman houses, and students’ foremost demand is that the new rooms have significant private space for parties like these. More on this debate in a bit.)-School-sanctioned: Lots of different parties are sponsored by the school itself. Upperclassmen houses throw frequent “steins,” which are just pretty much more inclusive dorm parties in a larger space within one of the houses. Big mix of people at these, as they’re a microcosm of the house community (which was randomly chosen by Harvard’s top-secret sorting algorithm). Regarding bigger events, the end-of-year house formals can be a lot of fun. Each house has its own character, so the set-up and spirit of their formals vary quite a bit. These formals have a large dance floor set up, sometimes outside, sometimes in the dining hall, sometimes in third-party spaces (Lowell, for instance, held a dance in the Harvard Art Museum). A ticket grants you access to a generous open bar, and everyone is dressed up—mostly black tie but you can get away with a regular suit/something slightly less formal. If you’re plugged into the house community (which I regrettably was not so much), these will be an incredible time for you.-Extracurricular: Like I said, some of the EC groups have physical spaces (pretty much the groups that have been at Harvard the longest). The two main such spaces are the Advocate and the Lampoon (the Crimson has fewer parties that welcome non-members, I believe, and I never went to The Hasty Pudding). (I neglect to mention the frats because I assume you know what frat parties are like.) The Lampoon castle is a particularly crazy, Harvard-unique building, and I highly recommend checking it out if you can get inside. I entered for the first time in May and had a great time exploring the multifaceted, often deliberately confusing rooms; the walls are decked with posters and pictures and notes that you can spend hours reading. That “if you can get inside” reservation demonstrates the problem, though - both organizations are notoriously exclusive, so you usually have to know someone to get in. Sometimes even that won’t do it. The people who belong to the Lampoon and Advocate have a bad reputation for being aloof and elitist, too - though I’ll say I know really great, kind members of both, so the generalization only gets you so far. These parties can be tons of fun (making it even sorer for those who aren’t allowed in), though they’re a little crowded for my taste. The Lampoon during senior week (the week at the end of the school year when only seniors remain on campus) was a riot, with people dancing on tables and just generally going crazy. The Advocate allows smoking indoors, so people are often chainsmoking and there is a distinct haze in the air. These parties are a lot closer to what you see in, say, The Social Network than either of the former two categories.-Final clubs: Lastly, I’ll touch a bit on the most notorious, influential, yet thankfully avoidable aspect of Harvard social life: the clubs. To give you a sense of scope, about 10% of the upperclassmen male population belongs to a club (significantly less for women, since only some clubs have recently become co-ed and there are fewer female clubs). There are eight historically male clubs that have spaces on campus. And not just any spaces—these are ornate mansions, worth millions, located smack dab in the heart of the upperclassmen river houses. Their presence is felt on campus every weekend and many weeknights as well; you hear tunes blasting from their expensively-furnished interiors and notice long lines of dressed-up girls and guys waiting outside whatever clubs are hosting something that night. (I should note that if you live in the quad, though, you can avoid the clubs entirely.) These clubs have rigorous, very selective admissions processes (called “punch”) centered around social prowess/connections; as a result, the clubs (along with the Advocate and Lampoon) represent the Harvard social elite. Naturally, they’re the subject of significant enmity from a lot of undergrads; to many, these clubs stand for the worst aspects of the Harvard experience: elitism, privilege, wealth, exclusivity, social-climbing, and so on. So why are they so popular? Well, as I mentioned, Harvard is quite lacking when it comes to social spaces, so the clubs—with their enormous interiors and gated outdoor spaces—are a natural draw. And, to be honest, the parties can be a lot of fun. They’re not nearly as crowded and messy as frat parties and have a bit of a classy air to them, both because people dress up and because the buildings are historical relics with fancy schmancy adornments. You can feel the wealth emanating from the walls, and I suppose people enjoy that sort of expensive air. Furthermore, because the clubs are so wealthy, they provide copious (and usually good) alcohol and even other perks like entertainment—I once went to a Spee party that had a (really great) live jazz-funk band from Berklee. So, yeah - they’re the biggest social spaces on campus and throw frequent, decadent parties that are attended by a who’s who of the Harvard social elite. And they’re controlled by very small groups of (mostly) men, which of course is unpalatable to a large portion of the class. There is no exaggeration in The Social Network in its depiction of the clubs as these very rich, hedonistic spaces—in fact, it’s probably underselling the ridiculousness a little bit. Still, even objectors usually attend club parties every now and then, if only for the novelty of the whole thing.Well, there you have it. Probably far more detailed than you anticipated, but I’m bored and figured I’d just provide a breakdown of the Harvard social scene. Hope you learned something!

When I first moved to the area where I now live, about 23 years ago,I did not know anyone. This place is in the mountains of Southern California and the scenery is beautiful. So, out of boredom in my free time I started hiking. One day, surprisingly close to my house, I came across a single grave. It had a headstone with the markings “Rosalee Moses . 1914–1937”I thought it a bit unusual that a grave would be in such a place, but there it was. Then I noticed that all the trees and bushes in a circle 50 feet across, with the grave at the center of the circle, well, they were all dead. Blackened from some blight, I imagined. Outside that circle, all was normal. The area has a lot of Pinyon trees and scrub oak, red shank and what we call Wait a minute bushes. So called because they have claws on them and if you get too close, they grab you, as if to say, “Wait a minute”. Others may know them as cats paws.Anyway, all the other foliage around the place appeared to be healthy and normal. Just around the grave was the blighted section.I began making this a regular stop on my daily hikes. I would usually sit there by the grave for 10 or 15 minutes and rest. After a couple of weeks, I found myself speaking out loud to Rosalee. “How are you today, Rosalee”? I would say. Then I would chat about whatever came into my head, the kind of nonsense you will say when you are talking to an invisible friend, I suppose.After about 6 months of doing this, I noticed an amazing thing. The dead foliage around the grave was becoming green. A couple of the trees were too far gone and remained that way, but most of it was showing signs of life.!I did some research and was not able to learn much about Rosalee, but what I did find out was that she was an Indian girl, known for her beauty, that had died either from an illness or as a result of complications from a pregnancy. One story said that she was pregnant from a well known local, a founder of the community back in the 30’s. He was a married man, so there was a bit of a scandal,I still hike over to see Rosalee now and then, just to make sure the grave is undisturbed. All the foliage is still green.