Is This a Way to Treat Our Guests From Iowa?

I graduated from the University of Iowa in ’77 and moved to Los Angeles as soon as I got out of the cap and gown. My wife, my kids and I love it out here and we would never consider going back. Though I’ve chosen to live and die in L.A., I will root for the Iowa Hawkeyes until the day I’m an organ donor at USC.

I would like to comment on the UCLA fans.

On the walk to the Rose Bowl, during the game, and at a small California party afterward, my wife and I were assaulted with a litany of gibes and ridicule from persons dressed in gold and baby blue. Sometimes inane, sometimes vulgar, this verbal abuse was always rude and in mean spirit. I can only assume that out-of-town Hawkeye fans were treated the same way.

Now you may look on these people as merely suppliers of your sugar-frosted flakes while I view them as God-fearing, hard-working salt of the earth. I’m sure we can all agree that these human beings from Iowa were holiday guests in this community. This spoiled, churlish “Welcome-to-California-now-go-home” brand of hospitality is most unbecoming to a Metropolis that prides itself on its nouveau urbanity.

I mean, what are we? Dallas?

DON PUGSLAY

Los Angeles