My Wide, Weird World of Wonders

As faithful readers know by now, I love to go a-wondering. For example:

I wonder … why we humans instinctively hunch our shoulders when walking through rain without an umbrella? Do we think our shoulders will somehow keep us dry?

I wonder … how many viewers quit watching last Sunday’s Super Bowl XLVII game after the kickoff-return-touchdown first play of the second half? For anyone who did, they missed one of the best second halves ever. I didn’t have a dog in that fight (a chip in that dip?) so I really didn’t care much who won – although it would have been nice for a California team to beat Baltimore – but good football is good football no matter who wins or loses.

I wonder … speaking of the second half of the game, how many of the big-spending advertisers were giving thanks Sunday afternoon to Entergy Corp. for that power outage? The way the Niners came roaring back after the half-hour-plus delay kept many hundreds of thousands of eyeballs glued to the screen who otherwise would have turned away from the blow-out that was the first half. My wife and I were seconds away from leaving a party and heading home when the power came back on both in the stadium and in the 49ers and suddenly, folks, we had a football game!

I wonder … still thinking about football, if the NFL officials give even a moment’s thought to all the kids in the broadcast audience for one of the most watched events in television history each year? From Janet Jackson’s “accidental” wardrobe malfunction in 2004 to yesterday’s national lap dance by Beyoncé – half time shows seem more and more about explicit content than entertainment. This is progress?

I wonder … if I’ll ever get the opportunity to spend a few hours behind the controls of a backhoe, bulldozer, skip-loader or some other big, yellow, testosterone-boosting, diesel-drinking machine that digs humongous holes in perfectly good dirt. Learning how to operate something with a massive metal bucket has always been on my bucket list.

I wonder … if the on-ramp to the eastbound 210 freeway at La Crescenta Avenue will EVER be repaved? I can feel the tread grinding off my tires every time I use that wretched stretch of asphalt. Pretty please, Caltrans?

I wonder … how President Obama can say with a straight face, as he did in a gun-control-related speech this week in Minneapolis, “… if there’s just one life we can save, we’ve got an obligation to try.” This, when just a week ago our nation marked the 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade which has resulted in the deaths of more than 50 million babies. To which I would respond using the President’s own words, “We don’t have to agree on everything to agree that it’s time to do something.” Agreed.

I wonder … how soon the act of mailing a letter will go the way of yellow pages, home phones and Thomas Brothers maps? I mean, it seems that as the cost of a first class stamp climbs higher, mail delivery is taking longer. Recently I’ve had mail take over a week to get to Montana, and a week-and-a-half to arrive from Maine. Any slower and it might be time to bring back the Pony Express.

I wonder … why so many guys can’t seem to flush a public urinal or toilet after going number one. I mean, water conservation is one thing, but laziness is something else entirely. I want to scream at the clods I regularly see who do their business, zip up and walk out without a care for the next guy in line. Yuck.

I wonder ... as long as I’m flush with curiosity; why no one has yet invented the glow-in-the-dark toilet seat? Wouldn’t that make perfect sense? And with that...

I wonder ... if it’s time to wrap up this visit to Wonder Land? Probably so. I’ll see you ‘round town.

My Not-So-Small Town

My son has lived in Montana for the past two years and came home to Southern California for a long-awaited visit this past week. This is a guy who was born and raised right here in the sleepy Crescenta Valley, although he has always felt like a misplaced soul – having a personality and passion for pursuits much better suited for wilderness and woodlands, lakes and rivers, wide open spaces and wild, wooly creatures.

God bless him, the boy has found his personal paradise in Western Montana.

That said, like most local teens, however, he learned to drive years ago on the uniquely congested surface streets and nearly-impossible-to-navigate freeways of Los Angeles County. (I still say Driver’s Ed classes should be reinstated as a vital part of the high school experience, but that’s a topic for another column.) I would bet there are some Indy car drivers who would stress out trying to get from point A to B on our stupidly complex and confusing streets and highways.

As a native driver, let’s just say my son was well practiced in the fine art of vehicular survival. He was so comfortable driving here, he would often park his small pickup truck and ride a motorcycle through the local labyrinth of near-misses, uninsured motorists, distracted drivers and motorized morons. For two years, in fact, his primary transportation to Pasadena City College about 20 tricky miles away was by motorcycle. (And yes, somehow his mother survived this phase.)

Beyond that, the boy was very much at home and comfortable living in “the big city,” even if that city is our so-called “small town” of the Crescenta Valley. So, imagine our surprise when – after being home for only a few days last week – he told us that he couldn’t believe how hectic and hurried it seemed coming back home this time. With a surprised and somewhat shaken demeanor, he said that this place he knew for twenty-some-odd-years as home, suddenly seemed depressingly crowded and stressful.

I’ve seen this same thing happen to other transplanted CV residents. A good friend and former neighbor of mine (a born and raised Southern Californian who was also on the coaching staff at CV High School) moved his family many years ago to the foothills of Southwest Colorado. After a couple of years away, he returned for a visit and was blown away at how seemingly congested our streets were, how aggressive are drivers had become, how crowded with storefronts and signage along Foothill Blvd. seemed and how utterly confusing our freeway system now was to navigate. It seemed hard to imagine that he had ever lived here.

When my oldest son moved his family from the Northern Los Angeles bedroom community of Santa Clarita to the island of Oahu more than six years ago, his first trip home to the mainland was a real eye opener. In spite of having thrived in the daily nightmare of traffic that is a hallmark of Saugus/Valencia area, after being away from it for only a year or so, even the once-routine 30 mile drive from LAX to La Crescenta left him in shock and awe at the pace of traffic and the high-caliber angst of the drivers around us.

So, what changed? Did our streets suddenly get busier since my son moved to Montana? Did local drivers turn into NASCAR knuckleheads as soon as my former neighbor left for the Rockies?

I think it’s primarily a matter of perspective. When you’re immersed in our environment every day, you become used to (or numb to?) to streets and parking lots overflowing with cars, trucks and motorcycles, crowded restaurants and the overall busy-ness of living here. But get away from the size and scope of our surroundings for even a little while and it all looks different somehow.  

As I took my son back to LAX for a ridiculously early flight back to Montana last Friday, we drove along an eerily empty Foothill Blvd. in the predawn darkness. My son said, “Dad, even the main highway through Missoula isn’t this huge!”

While we may be a “sleepy” by Los Angeles suburb standards, in comparison to true small towns a great majority of other places in the U.S., there’s simply no denying that we’re a big city.

I’ll see you ‘round (the big) town.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

What a week. I’m sure more than a few regular readers will think this week’s post will be about the royal pain in the … er, I mean …the royal wedding of last Friday. With the deconstruction of societal norms in full swing, I admit it was wonderful seeing such an unabashed celebration of traditional marriage, in the mother of all churches no less, between one man and one woman (how quaint!). Having said that, the fawning and slobbering mass of press corps camped out in London for days on end was nothing short of pathetic. It’s difficult to think of these folks as serious journalists when their “reporting” was more in keeping with People magazine or Entertainment Tonight. And to think that the major networks have closed a majority of their foreign bureaus in cost-saving measures. Yet, they certainly had the money to send Katie and Barbara and Matt and Al and Meredith and a first-class jumbo jet full of pampered news readers to London for a week or more of inane blather on everything from hats and dresses to exposes on the gardening shed where Kate Middleton’s mum began her online party favor business. Blimey. 

And for all of that energy and expense invested in the wedding of the decade (or at least since Lady Diana married Prince Charles in the farce of the century), the story was all but abandoned within two days as news from Pakistan commanded everyone’s focus. Breaking news was that Osama bin Laden – a truly evil man who had successfully hidden from the Western world for almost a decade, had not only been located, but had died from the sudden onset of lead poisoning courtesy of the US Navy SEALS Team Six.

I’ll only say that I’m torn between immense pride in our military’s special forces (who serve with the same unrivaled levels of excellence and sacrifice no matter who their Commander In Chief might be), and my gut reaction to the cringe-worthy, mob-like public displays of euphoria at the killing of another human – no matter how deserving of death that person may have been. As much as I love seeing crowds chanting “U! S! A!”, there’s something sobering and unsettling in many of those eyes. Patriotism is one thing. A lot of this celebration seems more like blood lust. I could be wrong, and hopefully I am.

Also, some of the loudest celebrants have been people I’ve seen adamantly opposing the death penalty for other, less-notorious crimes. What gives?   

The surprisingly powerful and sustained winds that blew through my community of La Crescenta this past weekend made me consider discussing the recent devastation and loss of life throughout Alabama. After all, with a tornado season that has already exacted a historic toll on thousands of our fellow Americans, I can certainly tolerate my trash cans being blown around the yard by Santa Anas.

 

Each of the subjects above has been covered ad nauseam, however. Besides which, I’ve already tested the limits of your tolerance for troubling topics with my column of last week. And by the way, I can’t thank you enough for your many heartfelt emails of condolence at the passing of my dog, Sierra. We have some wonderfully compassionate people living in these foothills.

In spite of all the major news stories of late, the events most on my mind right now are much closer to home. For example, next week my wife and I will drive down to Point Loma to help pack up our youngest son’s dorm and bring him back home after his freshman year away at college. When we dropped him off last August, this date seemed impossibly far away. Now it’s just around the corner and I like that. A lot. Unfortunately, his homecoming will be short lived. He’ll be leaving again the second week of June for a summer-long job at Hume Lake Christian Camp.

The same weekend we’re in San Diego, another son will be loading his pickup to begin the 1,200 mile drive home from Missoula where he’s been studying wildlife biology this school year. With our blessing, he recently decided to apply for official Montana state residency next year, so this will be his last summer home between semesters. Let the record show that we fully intend to enjoy every moment he’s home. He’s been in Montana since last August, so for the first time in years he and I didn’t attend the annual opening of fishing season (a belated Merry “Fishmas” everyone!) in the Sierras this past Saturday. We have a lot of catching (up) to do.

Just this week my wife and I also received our official wilderness permit that allows us to attempt the hike to the summit of 14,505 foot Mt. Whitney at the end of summer. The keyword here is “attempt.” Let the training hikes begin!

So, let the Royals celebrate, the U.S. military congratulate, and the people of Alabama commiserate. I’ve got my mind on our kids coming home, on a summer that’s almost here and a calendar full of challenge and adventure. Bring it! And if we’re not too busy, hopefully, I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a longer, edited version of my column first published yesterday (5.5.11) in the CV Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

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