In defense of California

[mnaz]

I've crisscrossed the American Southwest lately and I'm starting to get the feel of it. But California is another matter. California has little to do with the Southwest...

But there is a road toward its eastern reaches.... from drizzle-green toward slabs of tan. From heavy, pregnant air toward arid seasons of resolve, thoroughly connected by dust. From watered and mapped havens out to where the road should give out, or give creeping comfort. I'm addicted to that road, though it's a long, long drive, lately.

Some of the best road signs bleed hundreds of miles well out of the gate-- a trucker's dilemma. Classic. And when mountain passes start to add up, I should seek out the Buddhists, those who never look too far forward or backward. But I'm stuck behind a semi on the last summit before my promised land. Dear God how I patiently wait to see the sun again, with appropriate haste. I've tried to get there for some time now. There is no more noble destination.

It isn't much of a destination. I aim to sit squarely under the powerlines on a pointless desert track, not sure which one, mired in swelter. High noon will be forgiven, in principle. Am I off-course? Likely. But less so when conceived from within a damp evergreen shiver in late October. These are the times in which I live.

I seek the Mojave Desert, in the quieter heart of Southern California. I want to study its malleable frontier legends, create one of my own. But I soon run up against government fences; akin to hitting a "go-to-jail" card on the verge of a big score in Monopoly. Vast quadrants of the desert are roped off for vital affairs of state, generally with the words "bombing", or "weapons", or "dump", attached to their titles. Oh how these noble toxic preserves destroy and protect the realm, far and wide. Scores of forgotten trails wander through, off-limits. Do the officers venture out there? What do they make of it?

So I push farther south, into recesses where I write opinions on the above, subject a stand of Joshua Trees to my sermonizing, none too pretty, like any sensible game. I love that space, how I lose my mind in that way. Or in other possible ways. But the Mojave Desert compresses with each new foray, it seems, like the free world itself, like photochemical haze creeping up the Kern River canyon toward Isabella. I might cross one too many ridges west, lured by a smog bank of purpose.

I sense when I swerve toward the coastline. The pressure increase.... Air pressure, fences, traffic. One too many ridges west might subject me to a greased, grooved concrete freeway like an old Hanna-Barbera scenery loop, under overpasses, past repeating cypress and slender palms. It could take awhile. There is enough grooved California concrete and road signage to reach the moon, give or take. Seven-million people in L.A. and nine-million cars. How is that possible? How did it come to that?

It comes at me in shifts. Overpasses recede, yield to two lanes across lower San Joaquin Valley in heavy Bakersfield smog, across irrigated checkerboards and utter flatness. I approach Taft and the pace ramps up. I notice my alert level, that edge, a perma-stream of vehicles each way, rhythmic oncoming whoosh, jockeying for the pass; a great campaign, out of scale with its simple country road. I expect the first generic suburb to come on innocently, and a dozen more to follow. That might expain the odd country-lane traffic. The freeway loop might resume....

Instead the road bypasses most of Taft, opting for spare and familiar scrub hills. But they are carved up. They are framed and wired. They are bisected, dissected, confined against their will. Not far beyond, I pass a sign.... "Oilman's Club", then a crowded oil field. I watch a thick hydrocarbon haze embrace its roots across a vast tangle of grasshopper oil pumps. I swear I could make out a procession of Chevy Suburbans and Lincoln Navigators filing into the heaviest pump thicket to pray-- petroleum pilgrimage. Good and honest supplication for good and honest Christian industry, if nothing else.

But coastal mountains lie before me, posed as priceless jewels, if I will persevere awhile longer. They are slowly converting to green. Maybe I'll catch the eye of a coastal storm, the crush. Of course all might be forgotten if I were to work up enough nerve to brave the eternal concrete of L.A., in a warm shade of taco-stand paradise, where it's always seventy-one degrees, give or take, and one needn't concern himself too much with the weather. I suppose I'll end up living there some day. Most everyone else does.




edited for grammar, etc., plus revised intro.

[Zlatko Waterman]

Magical, incantatory polemic . . .

(paste)

"I swear I could make out a slow procession of Chevy Suburbans and Lincoln Navigators filing into a thicket of pumps to pray; good and honest supplication for a steady up-and-down hammer of good and honest Christian industry, if nothing else. "


Hold onto your Joannafina's tamales, mnaz . . .



--Z

[abcrystcats]

One too many ridges west might subject me to the rigors of California, put me on a greased, grooved freeway like an old Hanna-Barbera scenery loop, under overpasses, past repeating cypress and slender palms for the duration of scene, which could take awhile. There is enough grooved California concrete and road signage to reach the moon, give or take.

Yes.

Maybe one day I'll go back. It's possible.

The only part of California that I really miss is north of Santa Barbara and south of Santa Cruz. I love the gold country as well, but just haven't been there enough times to get it under my skin.

You can keep your barbed wire and deserts, thank you.

And L.A. and the urban chaos stretching a 100 miles north and 150
miles south of it.

There used to be a state park close to my home that I walked in, regularly. When I started, 25 years ago, I could walk all day without seeing people. I saw bats, and coyotes and mule deer. I saw foxes once. I saw a bobcat once, and a real live mountain lion one time. Now, it's not possible to walk any of the main paths without hearing "On your LEFT!" every 30 seconds or so. It's not possible to escape the sound of human voices except in the extreme hours around dusk. The airplanes from the naval station zoom overhead, making lots of noise. Sometimes they even break the sound barrier, which is deafening. Happens occasionally. Used to be birds. Used to be that I could pick up hawk's feathers there.

California is too crowded. 36 MILLION people live there. That's about 84 people per square mile, compared to Colorado at 16 per square mile, or Washington at 34 per square mile.

Yech.

[mnaz]

Thanks Z.... guilty as charged. I miss that sun-kissed soft ocean breeze already....

Laurie.... I'll take the desert, but hold the barbed wire....


Confession: I sorta "ripped off" the format here from Edward Abbey.... his "In Defense of the Redneck" chapter (from the book, "Abbey's Road"), in which he essentially 'skewers' rednecks.... he was such a smart-ass in that book.... anyways.... That's my story and I'm sticking to it....

Thanks for the replies!