Dreaming about Southern California

Nov. 27, 2008

Dear Adams family,

I still find myself Southern California dreamin' once in a while. Not about the endless traffic or summers but the uncommon people. When asked about living in Southern California I sometimes say everyone there is on the make, but that isn't true or close to the whole story. Many of the people I knew there were just trying to figure things out like the rest of us are. You Southern Californians just think you have forever.

The perspective of 20 years has shown me that the Daily Pilot was an unusual newspaper to work for. The Newport Beach readers were the main reason. Southeast Missouri doesn't have a Newport Beach. We have bass boats, not yachts. Newport Beach has private enclaves. Some of our more upscale subdivisions here have cul de sacs.

The newspaper here once had "women's" editors in charge of weddings and engagements and writing about women's organizations. At the Daily Pilot, Vida Dean was a transplanted Southern belle who wrote about fancy, themed parties. She wrote about who attended (astronaut Buzz Aldrin and his wife were often the star attractions) and what they wore. Of course, readers saw what they wore in the dozens of photographs on the society page. From week to week, same people, same toothpaste smiles, different clothes.

The Daily Pilot also had a boating page. An old salt who could barely see informed readers about the local sailing races. His blurry photographs of boats made me seasick. "What's the name of that boat?" I'd ask because it was illegible in the photograph. He'd think a few seconds and, I suspected, make one up.

I don't miss spending half an hour to drive the 12 miles to work from Laguna Beach. I don't miss hanging out at beaches where 18 is old. I do miss how much fun Southern Californians have being alive.

I also miss the diversity just in your own family -- gay, straight, black, white, business owners and professors, musicians and artists. I loved Toodie's 50th birthday party, when you gave her roller skates and we ran next to her on the sidewalk as she tried them out. It's difficult to imagine Toodie being 70 now. No one in Southern California is supposed to grow old.

I loved being around Duke and Patrick. They reminded me what being a man is about at a time I still felt like a boy.

I loved being around all you beautiful women, of course, from Toodie down to Critter. Men are no match for beautiful women. Inwardly we are always bowing to the goddess in you.

I loved the Thanksgivings, when, sated with food and conversation, everyone collapsed in a dog pile on the living room carpet. More dog piles, better families, I think.

Actually, most of my dreaming is about Northern California. There is a there there, if not in Oakland. Finding the there in Southern California takes longer. The there is you.

Thanksgiving blessings to everyone.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.