The Southerner’s view of Southern California

 I am from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It is a medium-sized college town with fairly homogeneous culture. There are white and black people, a few Hispanics, and negligible number of Asians. My wife’s hometown, Santa Monica, California hosts a more colorful palette of people.  Here you will see folks going about their life in every imaginable conveyance and raiment.  Just today I have seen skateboards, bikes, tandem bikes, motorcycles, wheelchairs, Range Rovers, classic Broncos, sports cars, German sedans, American cars and pick-up trucks, and the ubiquitous Japanese hybrids. Los Angeles probably has the same concentration of Toyota Prius as Hong Kong does of Ferrari… flocks of them!

On clothing, one senses the immediate casualness of Santa Monica.  In fact, I have yet to see anyone other than my bank teller wear a necktie.  There is a profound lack of respect as far as removing hats indoors, wearing a belt to keep pants at the waist, and so forth for anyone under the age of fifty-five. Some men dress up in surfer clothes with baggy shorts, hooded sweatshirts, frayed caps, Vans shoes, et cetera well past fatherhood and into their forties. In Alabama, most guys trade that in for khakis and Polo shirts around twenty-two.

I can’t imagine what it must have been like as a resident in the 1940s or 1950s seeing it change so much. From my observations, most of the neighborhoods were constructed as postwar “spec houses” to meet the need of America’s baby boom.  Many homes still bear the “spec” image of a small cottage, whilst next door sits a very modern behemoth mansion.  My cousins in Coronado complain that this phenomenon of literally razing an old structure, then building from edge to edge of the property blocks out the sunlight for the smaller neighbor. It is a pity but the reality of the situation.

Another thing that amuses me about these coastal Californians is how they take great strides to ‘conserve energy.’ We live in America, the land of Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Samuel Colt and other brilliant inventors whom I shall leave out for brevity. These men did not put so much effort into making our nation the best in the world to have a society that refuses to produce more energy to match growth. Do you think the Chevy Volt or the Nissan Leaf would be the car of choice for Franklin? NO! He would enjoy only the best… Mercedes, Lexus, or maybe Cadillac, but would scratch his head in confusion over why we don’t drill for oil where we know we have it (ANWR, Pacific Coast) or build more refineries and nuclear reactors to accommodate our growing population’s thirst for energy (LED bulbs alone won’t get us there). I digress.

One most amusing display of ‘conserving energy’ was the Venice Community Garden’s “Solar Cooking Day.” The idea was to harness energy from the sun to cook some organically grown veggies in a foil covered box. While the idea is more than plausible (I’ve seen it done at a Boy Scout Jamboree), the community gardeners failed to reduce their carbon footprint as a charcoal grill was substituted for the foil box. So not only was energy wasted, but also time. The moral of the story is that while solar cookers work great in the summer sun of a place like Phoenix, charcoal or propane is a much more efficient and reliable heat source in breezy cool Venice and Santa Monica.

One must never mistake reducing one’s quality of life automatically equals environmental stewardship. Humans were given skill to convert raw materials and natural resources into modern conveniences. Stewardship is having the wisdom to cleanly extract and ethically utilize these gifts. My Dad always told me "lack of preparation on your part doesn't constitute crisis on my part." Having regular gasoline at $4.99 per gallon would be an epic lack of preparation. While searching for an answer to this problem on energy.gov, one senses a huge disconnect from those of us who feel the pinch at the pump for our daily commute and those who make policy decisions for our nation. Nowhere on the main page is there mention of petroleum products. Wind farms in the Great Lakes and solar panels in Nevada seem more important to our president than issuing drilling permits. So we'll see how $4.50 gas affects poll numbers in November.

Let me sum up. Many folks here in California make complaints similar to the above paragraph about the high cost of living, overcrowded freeways, lack of freedom for gun owners, overprotected condors & cougars, and so on. This was my attitude for about a month. Then I realized what an amazing place California is. If it were so terrible why do people continue to move here? Pleasant weather. That is reason number one. Other reasons are 'people watching' in THE melting pot of America, catching glimpses of movie stars, and shopping at the most exclusive boutiques on earth. Southern California has towns that boast 325 days of sunshine. There are some really beautiful towns. San Diego and Santa Monica come to mind. Who wouldn't want to spend a week, month, few years in an ocean side paradise?  

Loma Linda and Redlands are two of my favorite towns in California. Located 50 miles from Big Bear and 50 miles from L.A. they are close to mountain snow or sunny beaches. Oh yeah, Joshua Tree is less than two hours away as well.  These are the reasons people love California: pleasant weather, and abundant outdoor activities. Hike, surf, ski and eat fish tacos all in the same weekend. I will delve deeper into the tasty foods in a later post. 

God Bless.