If you are just now tuning in, let me bring you up to date. This occasional little series has been a lively retelling of a trip across the United States in the Year of Our Lord 1998. (Just because slides are dead is no reason for you to not be bored to tears by my stories.) Cast your mind back to 1998, or allow Big Willie to help:
Feeling “Jiggy”? Good. It was hot in 1998. There was, in fact, a heat wave from Carolina del Norte out to El Paso. Fo realz, yo. Here, haters, read the riveting page NOAA report on the subject. Or not. Anyway, after a couple of days at a cooler altitude, I was not optimistic about staying fresh and clean in Southern California.
I should not have worried, because every day looks like this in Orange County. Yes, there are no clouds in the sky. Yes, it is about 73 degrees. Yes, all one wants to do is go outside and sit around. What else would you do? That’s what makes Californians lazy. They might tell you it’s called “being laid back” as if they have achieved something. That’s not true. Really what has happened is that the weather has been so good for so long that they never want to do anything. Except maybe walk across this viaduct which connected my boy Ted’s house to the beaches across the ravine.
Like this one. Now, were this beach and the Pacific Ocean beyond it within walking distance of my house, I would never go to work again. Nor would I complain. At least not for the first week. The second week, I might join everyone else in bitching about the steps or the size or whatever. It would give me something to do. By week three, I’d be walking to the other beach.
And that’s what I’m talking about. Where do you go from there? Right. Nowhere. Why bother. Herein lies the problem. You can do nothing in Orange County, especially if you inherit a little bit of money. You could cruise down to the beach, go for a little swim, wiggle your toes into the sand, have a coffee and a smoke, and head on home. You could do that everyday and not get tired of it. Except we do get tired of it. There is a place in us that gets tired of not being tired. We want to do go work. California just sucks that right out of a person. I had to leave while I still could.