Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Getting Started

Inspired by Palosverdesblog here I go. I am once retired and back in the workforce with a new job and a business venture that will soon get me a second retirement party. After thirty-five years in Los Angeles (twenty-five in Palos Verdes), we were able to sell the million dollar house in PV which we couldn't afford to bring into the twenty-first century and have enough money left after cleaning up the debts to get into a new house in an upscale, planned golf course oriented community (with more deed restrictions than I knew existed). The new house makes my wife happy and that means a lot.
I am the one with PV longings and I havn't lived there for more than two days a week for two years. We didn't have an ocean view but all our otherwise ordinary trips included dramatic ocean views: Catalina Island, south bay beaches, LAX , the LA skyline, LA harbor and the mountains. Here the equivalent is looking down on the fog in Sacramento, the mud flats of Flosom Lake and a tease of the Sierra snowcaps. What I don't have to do is interact with 20 million people when I go anywhere on a freeway system which was just adequate thirty years ago.
There is a definite difference between southern and northern California but I can't put my finger on it. I am interested in identifying why northern Californians feel superior to southern Californians. They don't really make it explicit but you know they think it. I also know that they are wrong.

1 comment:

Bill Lama said...

Ralph,
palosverdesblog appreciates the plug. I've put you on my favorites list and will check regularly.

I'm quite interested in your analysis of the North-South CA difference and the rationale of the Northern air of superiority. My wife grew up in San Francisco and swore she would never live in LA. Now we are here, retired, and she does not want to go back.

What other topics will you cover?

I will not focus on PV life, but will do occasional pieces that relate to my other interests. I'm working on a reply to the PV News editor who is a confirmed leftist. Will call it "What Liberals Think."

Best wishes,
Bill