LEONARD KRIEGEL
75
fun in the sun. Oil derricks mixed with the vast fields of lettuce, the dra–
matic twists of California One defied coastal fog and sun, the brown
Pacific rocks were wet with hope's lather. Big Foot wandered the red–
wood depths of imagination in a land filled with EST and Universal
Studio tourists and sour-breathed Hare Krishnas begging at the L.A. air–
port - and in that California , innocence protected us from tragedy.
In
the fat 1980s, its promise was our anticipation. Eager tourists
came seeking new sensations, as my wife and I did in the summer of 1993,
this time to explore the soft majesty of Yosemite. Colorado, Utah,
Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho - for years, we had searched
American space. Yet nothing we had witnessed elsewhere approached
Yosemite's grace. California stands singular even in its scenery. Mountain,
ocean, forest and beach kiss the needle in the American vein.
Only Californians themselves are now dark and morose.
In
the past,
people migrated here in fear and then moved toward a much-vaunted
optimism, which explains why cults and private religions were able to
flourish like wild mushrooms in a Russian forest. And now the landscape
is stalked not by fantasy or myth or a technology able
to
bring fantasy
and myth to life but by hard times and fear.
Even so, mile-high Denver goes into a provincial tizzy at the mere
mcntion of L.A. And we New Yorkers still echo Woody's disdain, try–
ing to rid ourselves of the suspic ion that California's revival is just
around the corner. The whiff of anxiety in our post-Cold War air sug–
gests that its heraldcd decline may yet prove one more song-and-dance
wink at the sun in a leg-kicking Busby Berkeley fantasy. [s that to be the
final surprise - the roll of drums and blare of trumpets announc in g the
cxtravaganza's end as muscular surfers ride the crest of the wave into the
Tcchnicolor sunset?
[n
the bizarre priorities of life in L.A., cars are still "detailed" as
earth and economy collapse. If the weirdness rumored to emanate from
shrinking ozone layers is not the golden land's alone, then that God
now sticking it to California is probably as baffied as the rest of us are by
what is really happening out west. Maybe it's time for a new bumper
sticker: "Don't Blame
It
All
On California!"
Odd as it may sound, our coastal empire is still alive and breathing.
Plumb its core and you find wackiness but little meanness of spirit. Even
the jackboot Aryans hiding with assault rifles in the Humboldt
Mountains aren't as mean-spirited as their Idaho and upstate New York
cousins. They understand why tourists still come to Big Sur and San
Francisco, seeking answers to the same questions that lured the Beats and
EST devotees. German, Japanese, Spanish - the languages change, the
