Arrival

...and that's where the trouble started. Yes, I think the timing of the move could have made a difference.

After a half-hour or so we exited a freeway and started driving through an area with small, enclosed homes. (Sunnyvale, if you're familiar with it.) Okay, I thought, we're taking a shortcut -- until we pulled into a driveway and I started to learn about California's inflation of terminology.

A "ranch-style" house was just that: "style." Single floor and small. Ours was an Eichler. They say Eichlers came in two models, 5 and 10 second. That's how long it took them to build them. and that's how long they take to burn down. (Saw one go, once, and that's not too far off.)

There was a swimming pool in the backyard, sure enough, but it WAS the backyard. And all surrounded by a fence to screen off the neighbors -- no running through backyards the way we did in Midland (Except for the houses with such carefully-tended gardens).

"Avenue"? "Street" might have been generous, but at least it was wider than an "alley."

(Here I am kicking myself, because two weeks ago I was back there for a conference. I had time to go take a photo and didn't. Oh well.)

Oh, and the beaches? Soon after arrival I joined my cousins on an outing to the beach. Interesting drive up and over the mountains, then the long slow descent towards the coast. Accompanied by fog -- but in June? And a stench that just got worse as we grew closer and I realized was the Pacific itself. Oh, how I missed the gentle, warm waters of Lake Michigan, and even the fishier waters of Huron.

But all of that paled by comparison to the culture shock. The hippie/drug scene was in full force there, as I discovered that September, and there were huge cultural differences.

Folks regularly wore jeans to school! (Only the poor wore jeans to school in Midland.)

The whole teenage scene, pretended or otherwise ("Like I'm so absolutely cool in my counter-cultural paraphernalia, baby and I might even be doing drugs"), was not unlike winding up in an inner-city ghetto. Even my friends never quite understood me -- I came from the 50s, naive/innocent and or a hick. (Perhaps guilty as charged.)

But Midland itself had started changing, I learned from letters from my friend. It had gone from having the lone "weirdo" with long hair to a marijuana bust that amplified and implicated (memory says) many other students.

The "70s" tsunami had arrived from California, diluted, but I had skipped over it all to wind up stranded. California could never be "home" (I eventually left), but there was no home to which I could return.

So Midland remains a place of special affection, though I know it has changed too.