Ghost towns of the soul
I just realized that the Los Angeles area, where I was born and grew up, is a very real ghost town.
Not, mind you, in a physical sense. Rather, the place I once knew and loved so long ago doesn't exist any more, thanks to all the development and rezoning that has occurred there since I was a child. Beautiful, quiet neighborhoods there have been eviscerated and reworked by developers and CalTrans until they are completely unrecognizable. Whole neighborhoods have been condemned so that they could be taken over by developers or CalTrans and reworked as housing tracts or freeway interchanges that resemble nothing so much as bowls of concrete spaghetti covered with moving metal insects. Old railroad tracks and their rights-of-way have been torn up and turned into freeways. Lovely woodlands, dark and deep, have had their trees and low growth cut down and been paved over or converted into housing tracts. Everywhere you look today there are malls, malls, malls. And everywhere traffic whizzes along, filling the air with noise and stench and presenting serious hazards to wildlife and human beings.
Is there any beauty left there any more, any places of peace and silence where you can relax, hear yourself think, feel the loveliness of the day or night, and know something of the world as it originally was? Once there were vast fields filled with yellow and purple mustard plants so tall that a child could easily get lost in them. There were meadows where fruit trees grew, large, gracious estates with gorgeous landscaping and floral gardens, sweeping lawns that became dew-traps at night and provided wildlife with sources of pure water, snow-capped mountains that retained at least some snow year-round, and something of the old Spanish settlements in the form of the Alhambra mission and lovely buildings with red tile roofs and adobe walls. There were parks everywhere, some of them world-famous because of the huge variety of trees planted in them. There were spectacular fountains, such as the one in front of the Santa Anita Restaurant, and places such as Anokia, the estate of "Lucky" Jim Baldwin's daughter, not to mention the Baldwin Estate, where old man Baldwin himself had lived. There were suburbs and developments, true, but even those inhabited by people who weren't all that well off tended to be neat and well-tended, with white picket fences around their yards. And everywhere there were palm trees, avocado orchards, and citrus trees, the latter giving off a lovely scent every Spring.
But the Los Angeles Basin has changed drastically since I was a teenager, and not in a good way. Life does move on, and if anything, the Basin is even more lively and populous than it was when I was a child, filled with activity, changing day to day as real estate is bought and sold, neighborhoods are rezoned for new uses, and people move in and out of and across the Basin. It's just that the Basin that I once knew has long vanished. It is now a ghost town of the mind and soul, and only I hear that mournful wind blowing across what once was:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkXwnXSEmbw)
Not, mind you, in a physical sense. Rather, the place I once knew and loved so long ago doesn't exist any more, thanks to all the development and rezoning that has occurred there since I was a child. Beautiful, quiet neighborhoods there have been eviscerated and reworked by developers and CalTrans until they are completely unrecognizable. Whole neighborhoods have been condemned so that they could be taken over by developers or CalTrans and reworked as housing tracts or freeway interchanges that resemble nothing so much as bowls of concrete spaghetti covered with moving metal insects. Old railroad tracks and their rights-of-way have been torn up and turned into freeways. Lovely woodlands, dark and deep, have had their trees and low growth cut down and been paved over or converted into housing tracts. Everywhere you look today there are malls, malls, malls. And everywhere traffic whizzes along, filling the air with noise and stench and presenting serious hazards to wildlife and human beings.
Is there any beauty left there any more, any places of peace and silence where you can relax, hear yourself think, feel the loveliness of the day or night, and know something of the world as it originally was? Once there were vast fields filled with yellow and purple mustard plants so tall that a child could easily get lost in them. There were meadows where fruit trees grew, large, gracious estates with gorgeous landscaping and floral gardens, sweeping lawns that became dew-traps at night and provided wildlife with sources of pure water, snow-capped mountains that retained at least some snow year-round, and something of the old Spanish settlements in the form of the Alhambra mission and lovely buildings with red tile roofs and adobe walls. There were parks everywhere, some of them world-famous because of the huge variety of trees planted in them. There were spectacular fountains, such as the one in front of the Santa Anita Restaurant, and places such as Anokia, the estate of "Lucky" Jim Baldwin's daughter, not to mention the Baldwin Estate, where old man Baldwin himself had lived. There were suburbs and developments, true, but even those inhabited by people who weren't all that well off tended to be neat and well-tended, with white picket fences around their yards. And everywhere there were palm trees, avocado orchards, and citrus trees, the latter giving off a lovely scent every Spring.
But the Los Angeles Basin has changed drastically since I was a teenager, and not in a good way. Life does move on, and if anything, the Basin is even more lively and populous than it was when I was a child, filled with activity, changing day to day as real estate is bought and sold, neighborhoods are rezoned for new uses, and people move in and out of and across the Basin. It's just that the Basin that I once knew has long vanished. It is now a ghost town of the mind and soul, and only I hear that mournful wind blowing across what once was:
Click to view(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkXwnXSEmbw)