I’ve been to California only twice, in 1978 and 2006, for no more than a few days each time.
Often it occurs to me that if things had broken a bit differently, and Europe not become my chosen motif for life, California might have sufficed. We all know that California is big and diverse in terms of people, landscapes, ideas and beverages for daddy to drink.
What’s more, California in the context of the American experiment is like an enormous storehouse of mythology, second only to the “American dream” itself: gold, Hollywood, wine country, surfing, the Bakersfield sound, national parks ― did I mention Hollywood?
My high school friend Mike moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry. Sadly he is gone, and our friendship didn’t survive into adulthood, so I never had the chance to ask him what it was like to spend the first part of one’s early life in Indiana, then migrate to LA.
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