So much sadness.
I wrote yesterday that I was born in Southern California — San Diego, to be exact — and while I never really lived there as a child, I spent the first half of my life dreaming of returning to California to live someday.
I lived there from 1990 to 2010, and the reason we left then was our money would go a lot further in retirement in a less expensive part of the country.
While there are things I don’t miss — cost of living, overcrowding and eternal summer to name a few — Los Angeles was a wonderful place to live.
What’s wrong with eternal summer?
Nothing, I suppose, unless you enjoy the change of seasons. I awakened this morning to something we rarely see an hour south of Atlanta — snow on the ground.
Not a lot, as you can see, but there is enough ice on the streets that people are being told not to leave their homes unless it is absolutely necessary. We may get as much as three inches, or what they call flurries in places with real winters.
Meanwhile, on the other coast, the various fires in Los Angeles County are in their fourth day and very little has been done to contain them. One or two of the smaller fires are no longer a danger, but the two biggest — the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire — are still going strong.
Both have caused incredible damage. The upscale city of Pacific Palisades has been all but destroyed, and cities like Altadena north of the 210 Freeway near Pasadena have been devastated. My former hometown of La Canada Flintridge was evacuated, but the Eaton Fire hasn’t gotten that far west.
It has been 17 years since I commuted to work, but my drive to and from Ontario would have taken me right past the Eaton Fire on the 210 Freeway. But I can still see it in my mind.
Most of my friends in Southern California don’t live in the places that were hit hardest, although I do known people living in Pacific Palisades whose homes burned to the ground.
Many of the people I know just rent, anyway, so if the fire gets near tbem, it becomes a question of how much they can get into their cars when the time comes.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is trying to make political points at the expense of suffering California families. He says the reason the fire has been burning out of control is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s refusal to send enough water from Northern California to the southern part of the state.
I don’t believe we ever had a president before Trump who tried to make political points out of horrific suffering.
Of course, I don’t think we ever had a president — at least in my lifetime — who worked so hard to make Americans hate other Americans.
The one silver lining in this massive dark cloud is that I don’t think Trump will serve his entire term. He’s 78 years old, morbidly obese and showing signs of dementia. And if J.D. Vance, aka Hillbilli Vanilli, has to take office, he should have two advantages over Trump.
First, he is smarter than Trump.
Second, I don’t think he hates America the way Trump does.
I don’t think he would be a good president, but I don’t think he would try to buy Greenland, annex Canada or take back the Panama Canal.
I hope I’m not wrong.