August 6, 1999

Perspective is everything. Aunt Bev sent us Grandfather Hare's diary from 1958, when he and Grandma visited my parents, my sister, and me when we lived in Chula Vista. Neither of them had ventured far from the town where they were born--let alone flown--and they were both seventysomething, so this was a major trip. It was bitter cold with snow piled up in banks when they left Michigan, which heightened the delight of stepping out of the plane and into the lush greenery of a San Diego winter.

Grandpa kept a diary of general events, the weather, and domestic expenses all through his life, but two topics dominated these vacation jottings. Since he was tight beyond Jack Benny, naturally he recorded the prices of everything even more thoroughly when on an excursion.

Even though the inflation rate of the consumers price index shows a five-fold increase since the late fifties, entertainment attractions have eclipsed that rate scandalously. His Disneyland entries read: "Parking--25 cents, admission-90 cents, rides--35 cents." Completely in character, he added, "Five cents to get in the toilet--got out FREE."

The other subject dominating his visit entries was residential construction. Grandpa was fascinated by the workmen who labored like a well-oiled machine in laying new roads and building new houses at an incredible pace. He couldn't have known that in the next two years five thousand houses would be built and occupied in the open fields around our house.

Obviously, those tracts are now forty-plus years old, which is ancient in suburban California. They're the houses where my boomer generation played, learned, grew up, and forged childhood memories. It wasn't perfect, but I fondly remember my mother sewing curtains, landscaping, and decorating our humble rancher and how cozy we felt in the light of the fireplace.

It was our little middle-class piece of the American dream. So why do so many Californians want to deny others the same opportunity? Many of us had ours as kids, are buying ours as adults, yet are determined to stop landowners from selling their property for the very growth that allowed us the neighborhoods where we've been living our lives. These are the same people who freak if the city exercises eminent domain to stick a cable box on the edge of their yards. Perspective is everything.

© 1999 Cynthia Hahn