California Girl

(an old post, reposted from 2017)

Ecrits Blogophilia Week 40.10 Topic – The Method to the Madness

Hard (2 pts) Use a song title from the 70’s “Seasons in the Sun”

Easy (1 pt) Use the word “Bodacious”

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Not sure I am, or ever have been the typical California Girl…never had a bodacious bod to flaunt at the beach. Even in my teen years we were huddled in the Santa Cruz sand wearing giant sweatshirts with hoodies to ward off the wind and chill.

Most of my Seasons in the Sun would be gladly exchanged for the pleasure of a Thousand Autumns. I love the crispness and color the fall brings and usually shun the sun, being I have an allergy to it, or so the doctor says.

But California is in my blood, as a fourth generation native. My Great Grandmother Mary O’Leary was born in San Francisco and her parents ran a stage coach stop up on Skyline Boulevard overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

I know I need to live on an edge, near water…less claustrophobic that way. I love our rainy seasons and I love being close to Big Sur and Lake Tahoe, Napa and Carmel. I’ve even lived in Hollywood a time or two. So California is who I am, even if I don’t fit the stereotype. I love our Redwoods, and our Poppies, our endless blue sea and all those quail families scurrying about.

I love the history of this place and it’s people. Sarah Winchester, for one, who in all reality was more philanthropist than spiritualist. She owned most of my town before it was a town and my Great Uncle said he use to see her riding around in her buggy back in the day. And Percy Morgan whose mansion still stands, a perfect replica of Speke Hall towering over our community with it’s ghosts, Trinket and Cosmo.

From the Hearst’s and the Getty’s we’ve moved on to Wozniak and Jobs, Zuckerberg and Musk. All movers and shakers, shaking things up and moving through the California timeline here. I grew up with greatness all around me, whether I realized it or not. I was busy making California my own little world.

My world of golden hills and grassy slopes, big eyed doe and quick coyotes. My world of garage bands and kegger parties, my world of celebrities in the grocery line, and fancy cars at every stop. My world of libraries, bookstores and borrowed mansions to curl up in by the fire with a book….dreaming of far off places, while all the time there was no place like home.

I ❤ California

Written By Christine Wichman c. November 26, 2017