Impressionistic Writings Sometimes Fall Off Map

When my wife and I take trips by car, I usually drive and do not take notes along the way; thus, my later written reports on these journeys are impressionistic, dependent on an errant memory, and not always accurate. (It’s Carp in teria.)

Harmony (population 18) is south of Cambria, not north, where I placed it. “I find it distressing,” writes John Dunker of Ridgecrest, “that Harmony has apparently moved since my last visit to the coast. The move, however, does not seem to have changed the character of the place.”

My friend Russ Leadabrand, the author of the excellent series “Exploring California Byways” and who knows more about California highways and byways than anyone else, writes from his Cambria home that the true population of Harmony is only 2, not 18. “One couple, the guy that owns most of the property, lives there with his missus. The other folks come and go, rent their spaces. There is a happy little pasta restaurant, and the studio of one of our better artists, Dennis Dillow, around the back side.”

Well, heck, if there are only two residents, they could easily pull up stakes and move the town north of Cambria, couldn’t they?

As expected, I have received many letters, pro and con, about the supposed disaffection of San Luis Obispans for newcomers from Los Angeles and Orange County.

“Mr. Smith obviously did very little research for this article,” writes Jerry Bertram. “A number of years ago my brother became a professor at S.L.O. University (Cal State San Luis Obispo). He liked the area so much he encouraged another brother and two sisters to also move there . . . and needless to say . . . they all love it.”

But are they loved in return?

John Degatina writes: “I spent three days in San Luis Obispo in August. Thank you for explaining the reason for the grim hostility. I felt lucky to leave in one piece.”

Russell Kiessig of Dana Point observes that San Luis Obispo is the buffer zone (or “war zone”) between Northern California’s tranquillity and pastoral beauty and Southern California’s commercial magnetism.

He estimates that 50% of San Luis Obispo County’s residents are on the government payroll (state, county and city governments; schools and colleges; National Guard headquarters; prisons, and the state hospital). “Angelenos and their good will are very important. Even so, attitudes and fears persist. . . .”

I was most perturbed by a complaint from Mason Hill, a retired Whittier geologist, who recoiled at my description of the lonely road between Santa Maria and Maricopa: “We climbed through low mountains, skirting grotesque geological formations thrown up millions of years ago by an angry earth.”

“I object to the use of the words grotesque and angry ,” he wrote. “As a geologist who helped Richfield Oil Corp. to find oil in Cuyama Valley, I know that the geologic formations you saw are natural products of erosion, and they were not thrown up by an angry earth.”

Mr. Hill had given me his phone number. I called at 8 in the morning. He was in bed. He said he is 85 years old and likes to sleep in. I asked him to explain his objections. He said he thought everything in nature was beautiful. “I never saw a rock that wasn’t beautiful.”

I knew what he meant. I said I had used grotesque in the sense of fanciful. Grotesque art, I pointed out, is a fanciful treatment of nature. “Art imitates nature,” I said, “nature imitates art.” I wasn’t sure whether that made sense or not. “Cloud formations are sometimes grotesque,” I went on. “Trees are grotesque.”

As for the “angry earth,” I said I thought the earth had first thrust up its crust, and then erosion had exposed the tilted strata. Angry was only a metaphor. The earth, of course, has no emotions. But storms are said to have fury. The heavens weep.

“I stand corrected,” he said graciously.

He was, of course, correct. Nature is invariably beautiful (although I’m not too sure about the fruit bat), and the earth is never angry. Sometimes, though, the gods seem angry.

Another reader complained about my writing that William Randolph Hearst had “plundered the castles and ruins of Europe” to build San Simeon. He pointed out that Mr. Hearst had paid for every stone.

One can plunder with money as well as with arms.