This past Friday night, like many Friday nights, I spent the evening singing a few songs at a local place that has karaoke.

I like to sing. An evening among friends and neighbors just having a good time and forgetting the cares of the week past. For me, that is a relaxing evening – and entertaining, too.

There was a lady there whom I heard sing more than a year ago. Back then, she had a bucket, and that is what she carried her tunes in. Unfortunately she had trouble getting the tunes from her bucket to her mouth, but she kept trying. Now, a year later, she is still singing and grinning, and she has found her voice. It is a pretty singing voice. You see, she didn’t stop trying. It took work and time – and some of us had to spend a lot of time encouraging her – and today she can sing with the best of us.

If we just keep trying, we can stop the expansion of a landfill too close to homes, businesses and schools. If we just keep trying, we can make sure Cemex never mines in the SCV. If we keep trying, we will do. No, I’m not Yoda from “Star Wars,” so we have to try in order to do.

Maybe we can stop the California High Speed Rail Boondoggle from cutting our valley in two. We just have to keep trying.

Maybe we can get a cross-valley freeway that connects the 5 and the 14 in the middle of the SCV and not on the north and south ends. We just have to try.

I never thought the anti-electronic billboard folks would prevail, but they kept trying, and we still have a lot of billboards but not many electronic ones. But time will tell on that. The folks who stopped the billboards just kept on trying. “Well done” to them. They had a goal and kept on trying until they achieved it.

To try, you have to be well informed – unlike the gentleman who keeps spouting off in a Facebook rant about how agriculture in the Central Valley is taking all of the water and wasting it. Nice try, guy. Guess he likes to eat dirt. If the farmers in California fail because of the drought, you can kiss the produce section of you supermarket goodbye. It might still be there, but we couldn’t afford to buy any of it.

There are a few things I would like explained. How about a real reason gasoline is so much more expensive here than in a state that has no refining capacity and imports all of the petroleum products it uses? If you take away the taxes, our gas is still 50 cents more expensive. Why?

I have followed a gasoline truck going from California into Arizona. It had just made a stop at a station on our side of the border. After we crossed, the tank truck stopped again at a station that advertised gasoline at least 50 cents cheaper. Same gas. Same gas formula. Subtract the taxes and it was still more expensive.

Why?

Can anyone figure out how we can keep building houses here in the SCV when we might not have enough water for those that already exist? Just curious. Once again, common sense is an uncommon virtue. We have some serious problems and we seem to gloss over most of them.

I was talking to someone about high-speed rail. She thought it would be a great way to get to downtown Los Angeles faster. She was shocked to learn that the nearest stations for us in the SCV for that railway will be in Palmdale and Burbank. “You mean it won’t stop here?” No, it won’t have a stop here in the SCV – but it will divide communities, demolish homes, churches and schools, and be a general pain-in-the-backside.

For all of the folks who voted for (partial) high-speed rail funding, it came from a lack of information. Sure, the travel time between L.A. and S.F. might be under three hours. But when you add in all of the places it will have to stop, the travel time is only a little faster than driving your own vehicle and slower than a plane flight.

Some good friends in Acton are watching the value of their home and property go down. They are nearing retirement and wanted to sell and move to a dream home in another state. They can’t do that now. Their home value is so low because the train could go right through their place. Maybe. Someday. Would you spend $390,000 on a home that could be displaced by a train you don’t want?

When are we going to stop voting for people based on race or gender? When are we going to stop approving projects we cannot afford but have to have because the folks in Europe, Japan, China and other places have them?

We’ve got to stop the train from coming through the SCV. For that, we’ll just have to keep trying. It worked for the billboards and Cemex and soon, we hope, for that pesky landfill in Val Verde.

We just have to keep trying like that lady singing karaoke in Acton the other night. She found her voice and entertains us well now. She just kept trying.

That is our lesson for today. Enjoy your Sunday. Come by Heritage Junction and pull that giant weed to get a valuable prize. (You can take that weed home with you). Above all, keep trying.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley, where he serves as executive director of the SCV Historical Society. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com. His older commentaries are archived at DManzer.com; his newer commentaries can be accessed [here]. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].