"Rural Country Living?"

Every so often I have to go back to La Habra Heights because a veneer of sentiment washes over me. The heights is an enclave of Los Angeles County, which in an issue of National Geographic written in the 1920's, listed it as "one of the three most beautiful spots in the world" next to one in Africa and another in Italy.

They still like to run this piece of old press by the newcomers. It's a speck of nostalgia that many still believe to be true. Never mind the original rolling hills owned by Pio Pico in 1829, subsequently lost and then bought by cattle barons, Basque sheep herders, avocado farmers, and later, a developer who was run over by a car, are now covered with houses and trees.

Most properties wouldn't even qualify in other states as "ranchettes," yet in crowded L.A. County, 1 acre of land feels expansive. The canopies from the avocado trees, the roughly paved narrow roads, give a feeling of country. That is, to everyone except those who really grew up around farms. I always knew when I was living there, that it was an L.A. version of "country." Which is to say I could get to the drug, grocery store and free way all within a couple of minutes. Life in the Los Angeles "country" comes with conveniences. It was slightly modified suburban life, albeit with funny roads, septic tanks, horses and well armed people who seemed not to fit in anywhere else.

Still, I loved living there, have some of the happiest memories of hiking in the hills, and made some of my very best friends --who are now, sadly, mostly passed on. They were older, the WWII generation who eagerly welcomed us --the young family when we moved there. We left when they started to die. All the class was slipping away.

So back to why I wrote this. Son, daughter and I were in the car as he was practicing how to drive. We decided to head into the old stomping grounds, and let him practice on the roughly paved and narrow hilly roads. He maneuvered the Subaru around the gently sloping roads, until we came to our old house. The neighborhood wasn't as nice as it was when we lived there. The houses look as though the new owners had borrowed heavily to purchase, but ran out of money to finish fix-it jobs. The saddest example was the late Mr. Robinson's old house, which at one time had boasted not one, but two large Magnolia trees, ivy, lawn and rows of Kafir lillies. These were all gone, and in its place was dirt, an unfinished vinyl fence, and one pinched looking Magnolia tree --a shadow of its former glory.

We stopped when we saw a former neighbor in the yard. He's been there for fifty years, and remarked that the new crop of neighbors have a much different idea of "country."
As we drove away, we noticed more missing trees, or trees that had been pruned so severely they resembled shrubs. We looked in amazement as we saw the value of the suburbs that most people from other generations had tried to get away from, now firmly entrenched. It was exemplfied in MacMansions, formerly colorful homes repainted beige, and horse stables bulldozed away to make room for cars.

On the way out, we pulled in behind a car. The license plate holder read: "La Habra Heights, Rural Country Living." Like the snippet of news from the 1926 National Geographic, another false sentiment on which to cling.