ead High If There Ain't Nothin' In It! Let me play a little game here. As a fairly recent Valley Rat, I'm getting to know the unusual sort of individual that inhabits this unique part of the Stalag. Gag me with a spoon!
No, they're good people, many of whom have never known want or real frustration, beyond the difficult but critical choice of the best gown for the Prom.
The woman of whom I speak is probably a beautiful woman. She's 31-years of age. She put in her time in the government's children's prison system and, I'm sure, earned a degree at (I'll make a wild guess) UCLA. She probably has a pretty lucrative career in a non-technical profession and she's married to a successful professional man, and they have two young sons.
She has never had to be responsible for any difficult personal decisions in her life. She's unable to put together a chain of probabilities to try to make a life-important decision. The connection between actions and their consequences is very tenuous with this person, as such teaching is very poorly carried out both by parents and the government's children's prisons, in recent years.
She never realized the following could happen (to her).
As detailed in Steve Lopez' column in the LA Times, she grew up in the Valley wishing she lived in Beverly Hills. Recently, she spent $3 million to buy a house in 90210.
In April, wildfires "came too close for comfort." In July, she heard about a burglary ring in the area. Last month, a coyote ate her miniature beagle.
Her home is on a hillside just below famed Mulholland Drive, abutting an undeveloped canyon with plenty of brush, grassy and wooded space between the multi-million dollar estates in the area. When asked whether she'd thought of the possibility of coyotes in the area, she said she'd have no problem with the occasional deer, "But we didn't know coyotes lived here."
I live on the flatlands less than a mile from the foot of that very same ridge, and I've seen coyotes, raccoons, possums, squirrels, hawks, and a fox in my yard, and in and near my street, for cryin' out loud. You don't leave your pets outside (unless they're big dogs).
This poor woman's taking a long time to grow up, and still has a ways to go.
To top it all off, and to add insult to injury, while she was complaining to the city of Beverly Hills about their shortcomings in their wild critter control department, she learned that her home isn't actually in Beverly Hills. It has the coveted 90210 zip code, but it's outside the Beverly Hills city limits in an area of El Pueblo de Los Angeles we fondly call Beverly Glen--still a posh and exclusive area but, alas, not Beverly Hills.
Into every life some rain must fall.
Warm regards,
Col. Hogan
Stalag California
5 comments:
And she'd probably be one of those fools marching to ban guns and might even be open to the idea of banning all war to bring world peace!!
I'm often amused at people who cringe at the sight of a wild animal killing for its food, once a bunch of us were watching a video of a lion hunt in Africa when some people complained of the gruesome nature of the thing.
You gotta shake your head at the 'kumbaya' nature of some folks, maybe she thought lions and wild dogs in Africa also get their meat from the supermarket like her.
Just to add to that, sometimes when i happen to catch some of these new Disney touchy-feely movies like Lion King and Brother Bear and what not, i honestly hope parents tell their children that Lions really aren't vegetarians and are not friends with pigs or weasels. Oh and bears aren't all that friendly either, i don't know if they'll always eat you, but they'll most likely kill you.
I love Walt Disney and most of what he's done, but it's both funny and sad, the distorted ideas about animals he's given to those of us in the Boomer generation (and younger). It's also reflected in the way some park visitors treat bears (as you say) and other large wild animals.
Recently, someone who was visiting Catalina Island was killed by a bison. He apparently thought it was as tame as a milk cow. Wrong!
Wow, Colonel. One would think it quite difficult to live in an area for a lifetime and not bother to look outside. Too many video games? I've heard such talk.
I guess there aren't many coyotes in the shopping malls.
Post a Comment