Many decades ago, when I was a teenager, I found my way to Santa Monica, California from the high desert of West Texas for a promised job. It was love at first sight. While the job never materialized, Southern California was a magical landscape — and at the time, a hotbed of everything that made the American dream the envy of the world. It was beguiling, charming, and demanding.
No one cared about you, your pedigree or background. They cared about your talent and drive. They cared about ideas and determination. Every waiter and waitress, every bellhop, and every kid like me was looking for the opportunity to plug into the sockets of power that promised success in return for hard work and responsibility.
The hills above the city were exotic and unique, dotted with beautiful homes both old and new, unique locations, ranches and estates – the chaparral landscape dense with the odor of plants and scrubs basking in the sunshine. The magnificent Pacific Ocean’s expanse was like the bluest crystal to the west, so inviting and yet so risky for those who mistook beauty for tranquility.
In the years since, though I never lived in California, I’ve traveled up and down her coast many times, into her cities and inland treasures – and only grew fonder of this spectacular land.
Now many of those stunningly beautiful LA hills are reduced to smoking rubble. Dozens are dead and 10,000 homes are gone in a horrifying, heart-wrenching tragedy. […]
— Read More: stream.org
