California’s not my home anymore

[question everything]

COMMENTARY --

By David Allen Seaton

California’s a great place. I know, there’s too much traffic, too many people, too much smog and too many liberals. But it was my home for five years.

I grew to like Riverside – a sizable suburb about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. Riverside was home to American’s first navel orange tree. The dry, warm climate fertilized a booming citrus industry. Riverside boasted the highest per capita wealth by 1895.

(snip)

Last week, I visited Riverside for the first time since I moved back to Kansas six months ago. We arrived at night. The sky was clear and the air brisk and dry. It was a refreshing respite from the sticky Kansas heat. “This is why so many people move out here,” I said to myself. Thirty minutes later we hit freeway congestion. Construction had stalled traffic. It was midnight. “This is why so many people leave,” I thought.

(snip)

California keeps you young.

(snip)

We had a terrific time. My California friends are like second family. Several will fly here to attend my wedding in October. Shannon has relatives there. We’ll be back often. But as we drove back to the Ontario Airport Sunday at 4:30 a.m. – the freeways nearly empty – Shannon echoed my thoughts. She had come to grips with a fact of our lives: “California’s not home anymore,” she said. “It’s just a place to visit.”


http://www.winfieldcourier.com/w040717/Wed3.html

(I have no idea which publication this is..)