Letter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednMotel CalifornianFolks keep asking me when I’m going tonwrite about California. (They generallynlick their chops when they ask it. Theynseem to think I’m going to trash thenplace. I wonder why?) Anyway, yeah,nit’s true that I’ve been living in thenGolden State for several months now,nand I haven’t said much about it.nThere’s a reason for that.nYou see, I came here intending justnto lie low, do my work, and try to benunobtrusive. I took up volleyball andneven bought some Birkenstock sandalsn(what my students back home call “AirnJesus”). I resolved to keep an opennmind and a closed mouth. Guests don’tncriticize their hosts. It’s only polite.nBut Californians keep asking what Inthink about their state, and saying that Inhaven’t been here long enough to havenan opinion usually won’t do. Thesenpeople like their state a lot—folks in thenBay Area, especially, love it where theynare — and they want to hear you agreenwith them.nWell, no Southerner should criticizenfolks for liking their state. It’s right thatnCalifornians should like California. Butnelsewhere people don’t always expect orneven want outsiders to agree with them.nYour average New Yorker, for instance,ncouldn’t care less whether you like hisnstate; in fact, if he thinks you’re complainingnabout it, he’ll try to top younwith some horror story of his own.nSoutherners do get angry at outsiders’ncriticism, but we tend to believe youncan’t expect much else from Yankees.n(Besides, without ignorant criticism tondefend the South against, being anSoutherner wouldn’t be half so muchnfun.)nAnyway, when Californians insistnthat I tell them what I think, sometimesnI can get off the hook by raving aboutnthe restaurants, the climate, and thenscenery — all of which are truly won­nCORRESPONDENCEnderful. But I don’t like to lie outright, sonwhen someone asks me point-blanknabout the people and their folkways, Inhave to tell them that I find California anstrange place. I’ve told enough of themnby now that I might as well tell you, too.nBesides, I should be safely back homenby the time this sees print.nRegular readers of this letter willnknow, of course, that California has nonmonopoly on strangeness, and also thatnI have nothing against strangeness, asnsuch. But California is strange innstrange ways. Almost every day bringsnsome bizarre new observation: an agedncoot roller-skating in the shopping mall,na photograph in the Stanford Daily of ancoed shower in a Stanford residencenhall, a flying squad of San Jose evangelistsntrying to exorcise San Francisco onnHalloween, Ron Dellums’s politicalnopinions being taken seriously — Incould go on and on.nWhat really lets me know I’m in andifferent culture, though, is that mynotherwise normal California friendsndon’t find these things remarkable. It’snnot that they’ve lost their capacity fornwonder or shock—I can produce eithernwith stories about the South. It’snjust that my friends and I are used tondifferent things.nBeyond that, I think there really arendifferences in what we could callnregional character. It’s hard to writenabout this without gross generalizing.nSure, there are all kinds of exceptions,nand I may be wrong, anyway — I didnsay that I just got here. It’s also hard tonwrite about this without taking cheapnshots — I mean, coming to Californianand writing about rootlessness and narcissismnis like going to England andnwriting about the food and the weathern—but that’s what I notice.nAnd it’s not just me. R.W.B. Lewisntells about William James’s impressionsnof the Bay Area. James got here inn1906, just in time for the great earthquake,nwhich impressed him considerably.nHe was getting five thousand dollarsnfor a short series of lectures atnStanford (on, among other things, thenmoral equivalent of war), and he hadnevery reason to be happy. Like me, hennnfound the climate ideal, and the landscapenstunning. In fact. Professor Lewisnreports, James found everythingnpleasing, except the “social insipidity”nand the “terrible ‘historic vacuum andnsilence.'”nWell, I don’t share James’s sternnNew England view of insipidityn(Southerners do their best to be pleasant,ntoo), but I do know what henmeant. California is, after all, a statenwhere “judgmental” is a bad word. Mynbuddy Don, visiting from Michigan,njokes that the license plates here oughtnto say “I’m OK, you’re OK.” (NewnYork plates, he suggests, could say,n”I’m OK, You Can Go F Yourself”)nI haven’t actually heard thenword “mellow” since I got here, butnthose Doonesbury cartoons a few yearsnago were right on the money.nTake the way Californians deal withnhostility. It’s not what I’m used to.nWhere a Southerner would respondnwith counter-hostility, a Californiannmay want to help you work through it.nIn any case, the object of your hostilitynis likely to see it as your problem. (Annessay in the American Spectator anwhile back talked about a good example,nthe passive-aggressive response ofnCalifornia salesclerks to irate customers.)nWhat this means is that hostilityndoes no good at all. It doesn’t evennmake you feel better.nIn any case, and for whatever reason,ngive credit where it’s due: the levelnof civility in casual public interaction isnthe highest I’ve ever experienced outsidenthe South. It’s remarkable hownseldom you hear voices raised in anger,nat least at strangers, in public — atnother drivers, say. When you do, it’snlikely to be some out-of-stater whondoesn’t care about bad karma.nJames’s “historic vacuum and silence”nis real enough, too. Any buildingnfrom before the First World War isnancient. When images of the mythicnpast turn up — say, in advertising —nthey’re from the Gold Rush days. ThenSpanish era seems to survive only innplace names, their original meaningsnlong since forgotten. How else to explainn”Los Altos Hills” or “LakenMAY 1991/45n