California. The name evokes images of palm-covered hillsides; crashing surf; rollerbladers and skateboarders swishing their way down concrete boardwalks; muscle builders working out on the sandy beaches; and the girls of Baywatch cavorting pretty much everywhere. California: the land of milk and honey, birthplace of the free spirit, the hippie generation, movie stars, millionaires, surfer dudes, scantily clad sunbathers, dog walkers, muscle beaches, sand, song, surf, and endless summer.
If one buys into the myth of California, then one is required to believe that everyone there basks in the sunshine all the time; lives in a walled compound overlooking the lights of the cities where they splash in their pools during the day and relax in their hot tubs at night; and surfs. Then one actually comes here and finds out that, at least in the winter, it's rainy and cold most of the time -- even in "Sunny" Southern California. When the air temperature is close to that found inside the better Maytag refrigerators and the rain is coming down so hard that the cats and the dogs start to look worried, thinking they may be next, the promise of California starts to look like an empty one.
At least it did to me. I'd been in Southern California once before, in the fall, and at the time it had been pleasant enough. Just pleasant enough, in fact, to convince me to come back in the middle of winter, when the roof of my home in the Midwest was creaking beneath several feet of snow and the walls were trying to keep out some of the coldest temperatures Missouri had felt since the glaciers had retreated.
I thought, "Self, this here idea of yours to go off to Sunny Southern Cally is a purty durned good one." Then I thought, "Specially since tomorry it's supposed ta be ten degrees colder." And then I thought, "An' where're my swimtrunks at, 'cause I surely won't need no pants when I get to that there West Coast?"
Seventeen hundred miles later, I was stepping out of my car into some of the coldest temperatures California had felt since the glaciers had retreated. Snow in the mountains above San Diego was so heavy that CNN had to make up a new weather graphic just to show it on the weather maps ("And that new burnt sienna color represents 20+ inches of snowfall, folks. Ain't that purty?")
There was only one hope: Ocean Beach. Nestled in the gentle curve of the San Diego Metropolitan Area proper, Ocean Beach was a hold-out from the days when California really did mean hippies, free-thinking, surfers, and sunshine. If there was anywhere in Southern California that dared to defy the laws of meteorology, it was Ocean Beach.
I drove up. Fifteen minutes by car, just off of I-8, but several latitudes of difference in both mentality and climate. In fact, it had indeed stopped raining and the sun was shining. Surfers in full-body wet suits were carrying their boards toward towering waves (well, they looked towering to me, but I get freaked out when I see whitecaps, let alone eight-foot swells). Skateboarders were busy ignoring the signs that said, "No skateboarding on the sidewalks". Everyone seemed to be having a fine time.
Then I stepped out of the car and into some of the coldest temperatures Ocean Beach had felt since the glaciers had retreated. "Good heavens!" I thought, hugging my arms around myself and shivering, "How are these people traipsing around in shorts in this weather? Why, that woman is wearing a bikini, of all things!"
I shook my head and stumbled as quickly as I could to a little clothing shop run by a bead-wearing flashback to the 60s. Once inside the unheated store, I bought some pants as quickly as I could get my credit card out.
The author somehow managed not to freeze to death during his most recent trip to San Diego. But another cold front may be moving in and his luck may not hold.
