California Dreamin’

In case you didn’t know it, he name “Iowa” is derived from the French word “Ioway,” used for the Bah-kho-je Indian tribe that lived here when the first European explorers came through. The name “California” supposedly comes from a mythical Spanish island ruled by a queen named “Califia.”

I know better. “California” is actually derived from two Spanish words; “caliente,” meaning hot or burning, and “infierno,” meaning Hell.

Thus “Cali-fierno,” which became the English “California.” Or “Col-ee-forn-ee-ah,” if you prefer Governor-elect Shwartzeneggar’s pronunciation. To-may-to, to-mah-to, anyway you say it, it’s a hot burning hell, especially right now.

Roses in January and lounging by the pool in February is one thing, but what many of my friends and former students are dealing with lately is quite another.

The Associated Press reports that more than 522,000 square acres has burned in this year’s wild fires. That’s around 815 square miles for those of us who don’t farm. To give you some perspective, the entire state of Iowa covers only 56,276 square miles.

Sioux City and Council Bluffs are barely 100 miles apart. Los Angeles proper and San Diego are getting close to 200 miles apart. So imagine if the ring of fire Johnny Cash sang about was covered the entire Loess Hills, from the Minnesota border, all the way down to Missouri! Yikes. No wonder the smoke is visible from space.

More than 1,100 homes have burned down and dozens of people have died.

At this point if we wake up tomorrow to hear that Arizona finally has the ocean front property that George Straight sang about, I’d believe it.

“We've been breathing in smoke and ashes,” said Diane D’Agostin, one of our friends who lives in Camarillo, north of L.A., “they're not too close to us, moving away now. Although I heard a new fire started in Fillmore which is northeast of us.”

We also know a couple in Porter Ranch. Anne Beirling, who is originally from Wayne Nebraska, told Bethany that while their home was safe, the fires came just blocks away in the foothills. She compared it to a cross between ‘Armageddon’ and ‘M*A*S*H,’ because they could see the glow of the flames and heard a constant whipping of helicopters above.

One of my former cheerleaders is a Sophomore at UC San Diego. Remember San Diego? Sea World, the Zoo, the Wild Animal Park, the Tijuana Trolly? It used to be one of the most lush, beautiful parts of California. Much cooler and greener than L.A. Now, the Chargers had to play in Arizona because their stadium is being used as an emergency shelter.

“They are crazy! They are all over Southern California! San Diego is being burnt to a crisp! We haven't had school in three days! The air is pure smoke,” Jeraldin Kuerbiss told me. “It looks like it is finally clearing, though. There were four BIG fires in S.D. One was over 30 miles long at one point. Another has burned into Tijuana. It was pretty scary and close on Sunday, when they started. It was a little too close for comfort. Just the night before (Saturday) a bunch of us went to someone’s house right where one of the fires were!”

I for one wanted to leave after we lost our apartment in the 1994 Northridge 7.1 Earthquake. My fellow “Angelinos” and I used to scoff at “those darn rich people” who were “so stupid to live in the Malibu canyons. If they managed to survive the brush fires in the fall, then they’d lose it all in the mudslides come spring.”

But now what things hath God wrought?!
• Earthquakes
• Mudslides
• Wildfires
• Remember the energy crisis? Last year they put up with “Rolling Brown-Outs” because since they deregulated power companies Californians were gouged by high prices for electricity.
• A recall which left them with an action-figure governor-to-be who plans on repealing great sources of revenue (the $185 per vehicle per year car tax- do you know how many millions of cars there are just in L.A.?) in the face of a $38 billion state deficit! (Mind you, I’m glad I no longer live there to have to pay it, but still, why not quit your job in order to pay your bills? See my point?)
• Okay, MASSIVE, oppressive taxes, especially on cars and on gasoline.
• A mass-transportation workers’ strike. Granted, most everybody in L.A. drives an SUV, but thousands of people started trying to use the trains and the busses after the ’94 quake. Believe me, this is causing almost as much congestion as the smoke (on top of the smog.)
• A grocery store workers’ strike. Did I forget to mention that?

“They are picketing all day and night,” our friend Diane emailed me, “all about lost or decreased benefits -- which we're ALL facing! But to be supportive we've been shopping at Trader Joes (a small heath food chain that’s not among the stores being stuck against) -- the first week of the strike John went to buy milk and they were SOLD OUT!!! Even Target was sold out… I'm going to have to go to the store again soon. So, things are crazy here in CA!”

And yet my students are amazed that I ever wanted to leave L.A. “There’s nuthin to do around here,” they whine. Don’t get me wrong, I love California and have plenty of fond memories. It’s just that it’s a nicer place to visit than it is to live, although right now, even looking a mean Iowa November in the face, those California dreams are all nightmares.