1001 Reasons to Leave California

I wasn't actually ever going to do this, but the state is going to hell in a hand basket, as my Baptist Preacher Uncle used to say, so now I have to say something whether anybody reads it or not.

I'll tell you only stuff that happened to me personally, or to people I know well enough to trust that what they tell me is true.

The other day, two young teenagers were shot dead in my old neighborhood. Another was wounded. Kids, walking along a street, not bothering anybody. Young Latin boys who were out on a dreadfully hot evening, probably on their way to buy a cold drink. They were accosted by guys in a car who asked what gang they were with. When they answered "none," they were shot. No time to run, no time to call out. Just shot.

I don't know if I ever met them. Maybe I just saw them walking down the street. Maybe they stood in front of me or behind me in the market or at the Arco station. I don't know.

In that neighborhood, there's a fifty-fifty chance they were anchor babies.For 10 years, I lived just above what we called "Taco Flats," halfway up the hill..When I first moved in, it was a little grim on the level ground below us. Lots of gang, and gang wannabe activity. One night I heard a 9 go off, eight shots, close enough to hear the brass hit the ground. Other gunfire on occasion, but it settled down in the last couple of years.

I lost the house (another post later) and moved, but I still work in the area, but since the "slowdown," there hasn't been much. I have one job there, so I'm back every week or so.

The reason I write this is that the killing of two kids.....kids just bugs me. Not as much as it hurts their parents, for sure, but this kind of random, senseless killing is so cowardly. It's terrorism. plan and simple. They were just kids.

We are told, here in Los Angeles, that the gang problems have subsided. If it weren't so serious, it would be a joke. Our Mayor, and the one before him, Chief of Police, and the one before him, the FBI agent in charge, still the same guy, have practically purred before us like they did when the Arab Limo driver shot up the El Al ticket desk: "There's no terrorism here. Nothing to see. Just move on." Like we haven't heard that before.

I've talked to cops. They are all on overload. all of them. There is no such day as a regular day in Southern California. And the people in power will not grace us with the truth.

That's almost reason enough to leave.