The Lifestyle of Hidden Hills

Your writer did a splendid job of research and interviewing for the article concerning Hidden Hills Feb. 9.

Some cynics, albeit residents, refer to Hidden Hills as “The Gilded Ghetto.” I presume their definition of ghetto is “any area in which many members of some minority live.” In our case, the “minority” are hard-working, often affluent, family-oriented people.

When we moved here more than 30 years ago, I was high up the totem pole in my profession and drove from Michigan in a Bentley. We strained then, as many present homeowners do now, to make mortgage payments and handle myriad expenses involved in raising a young family. We made it and I still drive a Bentley. (Now, as then, more than 25 years old.)

The same community spirit of volunteerism and helpfulness of 1960 still prevails in 1992. As I write this, scores of volunteers, most VIPs in daily life, are giving disaster service to locals in “trouble” because of the torrential rains. Some are shuttling stranded residents, using their privately owned 4WDs, over flood-ravaged, washed-out roads. Others are staffing phones or filling sandbags.

When tragedy strikes families here, almost without exception, neighbors rush to help. After a recent single-family fire, several complete meals were forthcoming; one neighbor arranged free housing, another delivered a house trailer for the family to use while supervising reconstruction, all without charge.

When a midnight illness struck our family, a nearby physician padded over in his bathrobe and slippers, rendered emergency aid, arranged immediate admittance to a local hospital and then preceded us there to assure attention.

I’m proud of our dinky little city with its all-volunteer City Council, mayor, commissioners and community association, with all those nice people giving time and talent to make this the best place in the world to live. We count ourselves fortunate to have enjoyed it and contributed to it for more than three decades.

W. C. (BILL) WILKINSON, Hidden Hills