You don’t
have to invert 2018 to 2081 for the title of a modern version of "1984" written
in 1948, because the political horror story is going on everywhere in USA today, it's not
futuristic fiction.
*
So many
things are so different now from when I was a girl growing up in L.A., it's
hard not to slip into endless nostalgia. You could smell the Pacific Ocean and
feel it in the breeze as far away as Pasadena in the 1950s.
Orange
County was named orange county because of the orange groves, miles of them. As
you came over the hill on La Brea or Brookhurst Streets and drove the two-lane
highway towards Santa Ana, everywhere for miles around you saw perfect rows of
lush blooming orange groves. Often the smell of orange blossoms blended with
the mist in the air blowing in from the ocean. You'd feel it as you drove,
windows open, getting to know other drivers on the occasion of a red light or
stop sign. Everyone was a newcomer, everyone was curious about who else was
moving to California.
It's hard, looking at the mass of concrete and CO2 that is Los Angeles today, from Santa Barbara all the way to San Diego, with the only breaks of greenery in areas with golden gates to keep out the rabble, it's hard to imagine that the Los Angeles I grew up in was thought of then as Paradise.
It was paradise.
*
Approaching age seventy, in my mind often is the memory of driving down to Knott’s Berry Farm for lunch on a weekday with my mom, breezing in her brand new Ford Thunderbird with the windows down through orange groves. Knott’s was then a family business, a berry farm, where with the onslaught of people moving to California, they'd added one or two Wild West attractions- a jail where you peered in a window at a mannequin prisoner who made jokes on a recording, a slanted building with a metallic floor that pulled you into the ground, a gift shop, a restaurant. So Knott's Berry Farm was a place to drive from Pasadena on a leisurely afternoon for lunch.
When we took these day trips, my mom and I wore gloves and hats, I always wore a dress, my mom likely wore a suit. Middle class women in Pasadena went to Bullock's or Robinson's to buy suits that were then tailored to fit them, which you then wore with gloves and hats. Then you carried yourself the way one does when wearing a tailored suit with heeled shoes, and gloves.
It's hard, looking at the mass of concrete and CO2 that is Los Angeles today, from Santa Barbara all the way to San Diego, with the only breaks of greenery in areas with golden gates to keep out the rabble, it's hard to imagine that the Los Angeles I grew up in was thought of then as Paradise.
It was paradise.
*
Approaching age seventy, in my mind often is the memory of driving down to Knott’s Berry Farm for lunch on a weekday with my mom, breezing in her brand new Ford Thunderbird with the windows down through orange groves. Knott’s was then a family business, a berry farm, where with the onslaught of people moving to California, they'd added one or two Wild West attractions- a jail where you peered in a window at a mannequin prisoner who made jokes on a recording, a slanted building with a metallic floor that pulled you into the ground, a gift shop, a restaurant. So Knott's Berry Farm was a place to drive from Pasadena on a leisurely afternoon for lunch.
When we took these day trips, my mom and I wore gloves and hats, I always wore a dress, my mom likely wore a suit. Middle class women in Pasadena went to Bullock's or Robinson's to buy suits that were then tailored to fit them, which you then wore with gloves and hats. Then you carried yourself the way one does when wearing a tailored suit with heeled shoes, and gloves.
*
Do people
realize that the phrase "sunny San Francisco" did not exist until
about ten years ago?
just saying...
It Never Got Sunny in San Francisco, my entire life going back to 1955 when we moved to California from Illinois, it was always Bone Cold weather in San Francisco, except for two or three days a year around Labor Day. That was when several black widows would drop dead each year.
Okay that's a bad joke but it was a joke when I was a little girl all the way up through the hippie invasion of the 1960s there was a joke in San Francisco.
There were a lot of Italian widows in The City, and they wore black all the time, even decades after their husbands had died. Then every summer the one weekend when the sun came out, several of the widows would drop dead on the street. Because they were so used to the weather Always Being Cold And Overcast in San Francisco that those two or three days that the sun came out, they would not take off their black mourning clothes.
So every year around Labor Day, several Italian widows dropped dead on the streets of San Francisco because they were wearing black mourning and would not take it off and dress lighter because it Hardly Ever Got Sunny in San Francisco.
It's not a funny joke, but it was a phenomenon that people commented and joked about, back when I was a kid growing up in California.
When Lizzie and I went to live in the Lower Haight in the 1990s, all of a sudden there were sunny days all the time, even in the winter. I even said to a friend as we got off a bus and were hit by the steaming heat, “Wow, maybe thanks to global warming San Francisco will stop being cold and dreary and become a sunshine-y place.”
She said to me, “Hmm, is that ever a way to put a positive spin on something negative.”
Apparently I was right. I see pics and footage of people in San Francisco today and they are wearing shorts, sleeveless tops. That Never Happened until the 1990s.
Just saying, climate change is real...
just saying...
It Never Got Sunny in San Francisco, my entire life going back to 1955 when we moved to California from Illinois, it was always Bone Cold weather in San Francisco, except for two or three days a year around Labor Day. That was when several black widows would drop dead each year.
Okay that's a bad joke but it was a joke when I was a little girl all the way up through the hippie invasion of the 1960s there was a joke in San Francisco.
There were a lot of Italian widows in The City, and they wore black all the time, even decades after their husbands had died. Then every summer the one weekend when the sun came out, several of the widows would drop dead on the street. Because they were so used to the weather Always Being Cold And Overcast in San Francisco that those two or three days that the sun came out, they would not take off their black mourning clothes.
So every year around Labor Day, several Italian widows dropped dead on the streets of San Francisco because they were wearing black mourning and would not take it off and dress lighter because it Hardly Ever Got Sunny in San Francisco.
It's not a funny joke, but it was a phenomenon that people commented and joked about, back when I was a kid growing up in California.
When Lizzie and I went to live in the Lower Haight in the 1990s, all of a sudden there were sunny days all the time, even in the winter. I even said to a friend as we got off a bus and were hit by the steaming heat, “Wow, maybe thanks to global warming San Francisco will stop being cold and dreary and become a sunshine-y place.”
She said to me, “Hmm, is that ever a way to put a positive spin on something negative.”
Apparently I was right. I see pics and footage of people in San Francisco today and they are wearing shorts, sleeveless tops. That Never Happened until the 1990s.
Just saying, climate change is real...
*
The first of our current homeless population were old women. They were called “bag ladies” because they carried everything they owned with them in bags. I saw my first bag ladies in the 1980s when I'd be on my way home from my job at a PR firm in Beverly Hills. In that park going east along Santa Monica Boulevard you'd see some of the first homeless people in USA, aging women, bag ladies.
Now I feel like I'm part of a new era of American humans falling through the cracks in 2018 and, again, it's happening to the aging women first.
*
The first of our current homeless population were old women. They were called “bag ladies” because they carried everything they owned with them in bags. I saw my first bag ladies in the 1980s when I'd be on my way home from my job at a PR firm in Beverly Hills. In that park going east along Santa Monica Boulevard you'd see some of the first homeless people in USA, aging women, bag ladies.
Now I feel like I'm part of a new era of American humans falling through the cracks in 2018 and, again, it's happening to the aging women first.
*
By Kay Ebeling
Producer, City of Angels Blog
Not Just L.A., the city of angels is everywhere
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