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.

A Bushel of Thanks

I’ve written on this page before about a cherished tradition my family once had of putting up a Thanksgiving Tree on our living room wall in mid-November each year. My wife is uniquely gifted when it comes to creative handicrafts (and cooking, too, but if I follow that train of thought we'll be here for a week!).

Every year, she would somehow transform a stack of brown paper grocery bags into a whimsical tree trunk and branches. Then, using yellow, orange and red construction paper, she’d cut out dozens upon dozens of autumn leaves about the size of your hand. We would put those blank leaves into a basket on the dining room table. As Thanksgiving approached, any family member with something to be thankful for would take a blank construction paper leaf from the basket, write their name and that particular sentiment on the leaf with a marker and tape the leaf to one of the brown paper branches on the Thanksgiving tree.

By the time Thanksgiving Thursday rolled around each year, our “tree” was in full Autumnal bloom with yellow and orange leaves of thanks from every member of our family and relatives or friends who may have stopped by to visit. The tree was always a thing of beauty – each year similar to others, yet with distinctively different thanks given from each of us.

Today, our “kids” are scattered from Kailua to Missoula and from San Diego to Santa Clarita. That, plus the reality that two of them have their own young families, in-laws who not-surprisingly also want time with them, the miles between us all, our busy lives (and throw in a shaky economy to really mess things up) – it all combines to create a situation that simply doesn’t allow us to gather together for Thanksgiving these days. Life happens, right?

I miss those days. But while our wall may not have had a tree on it on recent Thanksgivings, I’d like to take the opportunity to express my thankfulness in a slightly more public way. And so, with your indulgence, I’ll pull out just a few of my “leaves” from this year’s bushel, namely:

I’m profoundly thankful for the privilege this year of celebrating 25 years of marriage to my beautiful, patient, talented and devoted (among her many other qualities!) bride. In a rapidly changing culture that increasingly discounts the foundational importance of strong marriages, I don’t take our cherished union for granted and pray that I never give my wife a reason to think that I do. I am a blessed and grateful man, indeed.

I’m thankful that our four kids have grown into responsible, thriving persons who love God, love life and love this country.

I’m thankful for four beautiful, healthy, happy and growing grandkids. God willing, we’ll be blessed with many more in the coming years (along with the time, energy and resources to visit them all often!)

I’m thankful for cold and rainy days, dry firewood, a good roof and a sleepy old dog.

I’m thankful for contemporary technology like Facebook, Skype, IM’s, emails and smartphones. With the airline industry and Homeland Security teaming up to make travel costlier than ever (in terms of both finances, time and personal dignity), today’s technology has been a godsend for staying in touch.

I’m thankful that the nearby bucolic burg of Montrose, CA is still the same sleepy, home-town place it was when my mom would drop me off in front of the old, long-gone single-screen movie theater on Honolulu to catch the latest double-feature with my best-buds.   

I’m thankful for Robin Goldsworthy (Publisher/Editor) and her tireless CV Weekly staff, its loyal and growing multitudes of subscribers, advertisers and supporters who have made the publication of this paper possible each week for well over two years now.

I have many more leaves, but no more space. So I’ll close by wishing you and yours a day to surround yourselves with the warmth of food, friends, family and faith.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 11.24.11, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.