From outside the box

When my daughter decided to take her daughter to Disneyland a few weeks ago, I advised her to try to go on a rainy day. The reason being that Southern Californians freak out over a little rain and like to stay inside. Turns out I was right. She went on a rainy day and there were no lines at all. To folks in the southern part of the state, when it's sprinkling it's raining and when it's raining it's storming. Having lived in both parts of the state, I can attest to the fact that they can say the same thing about us up here in the north when it comes to wind. We are wind wimps. That storm we had up here a few weeks ago, the one we will be talking about for years to come, would just be another windy day where I grew up.

The Santa Anna winds start out in the dessert and pick up force as they whip down thru the canyons of the Los Angeles and San Bernardino mountain ranges. I grew up in San Bernardino, right at the base of the El Cajon Canyon. I'm telling you, when the Santa Anna would come screaming down the canyon (and it literally screamed), eucalyptus trees would bow to her power. It wasn't uncommon to see the roof of a house caved in from a large eucalyptus. As a child I always enjoyed watching the tumble weeds racing along the side of our car. Fences everywhere were lines with trash from the constant winds.

As kids, if we wanted to go anywhere, we usually had to use our bicycles. Back then all of the bicycles were single gear, and a very high gear at that. I mean those old clunkers barely coasted down hill, much less went against the wind. To ride a one speed against the wind, you had to stand up and peddle. Now standing up and peddling could be very dangerous. Often the rubber part of the peddles were broke off and we were left with a slippery round metal extension. Since we could not afford to buy new peddles, we had to "settle to peddle on the metal". Often when you were standing up peddling against the wind, your foot would slip off of the slippery metal and your crotch would slam down on the bar that connected the seat to the handle bars (that metal bar that defines the difference between a boys bike and a girls bike). Any guy who has ever experienced this will agree with me that this was the definition of true pain. When women say that men don't know what it feels like to give birth, they don't know what their talking about. It would be easier to give birth to oversized twins than to slip off of the metal peddle when you were standing and peddling. When the wind was really bad we would just walk the bikes.

My deepest memory of the Santa Anna winds is the loneliness you felt on a windy day. The wind would isolate you and limit your activities. At night time it reminded me of a screaming banshee as it roared thru the trees and the attics and under the floors of the raised foundations. To this day I get instant deja vu whenever I hear the chains rattling on tether ball poles at empty school grounds. I actually miss that old Santa Anna, but I don't miss Southern California. The closest thing I have experienced in the north state that reminds me of the Santa Anna is a winter I spent living in the country out west of Orland.

There is something magical about the wind. On some deep level I think it brings up memories stored in our DNA, memories of living in caves and listening to the winds howling in the wilderness. It feels like God is talking or angels are whispering secrets. If it wasn't for all of the damage the wind bought during that storm a few weeks ago, it would have been a great day to just meditate, listen, remember, and enjoy. Confession: I did anyway.