A Lake, a Mall and Us

Notes from a California tour:

HUNTINGTON LAKE, Aug . 28 : This High Sierra lake is one of California’s great secrets. Located about 70 crooked miles east of Fresno, about halfway between Mammoth and Yosemite, it is blessed with big pines, blue waters and relatively few people.

Huntington Lake is man-made, created in the early 1900s by Southern California Edison as part of a vast hydroelectric system. Building a lake in those days wasn’t easy. A twisting railroad bed was hacked straight up through the Sierra to haul workers and material to the site. It took years to finish the huge dams needed to detain Big Creek on its journey to the San Joaquin River.

Like so many pieces of California infrastructure, Huntington Lake would not be possible today. If economics didn’t kill it, environmental concerns surely would. And I suppose that’s as it should be. There are better ways to create energy now, such as conservation. Still, adrift on the lake in a canoe, watching the smoke from morning campfires curl over the water and the sun rise over Kaiser Ridge, I’m struck by the beauty of this compromise between nature and engineers. And part of me is thankful there was a time in California history when these sorts of projects got built.

FRESNO, Sept . 1 : Way back in the 1960s, my hometown received wide acclaim for turning downtown into a pedestrian mall. This was the future of the American city, we were told. Boot out the automobile, check suburban sprawl, revive the heart of the city. We were told wrong.

In a pattern familiar to Californians, the city did not grow back toward its middle. Everyone wanted to live in nice new houses at the far end of town. The outward growth proved uncontainable, gobbling up fig orchards and vineyards and anything else in its path. Today the downtown mall is deserted, a bad joke. Forget pedestrians; it’s news now when the city planners dare to ask developers to put sidewalks, please, in their subdivisions.

The trouble with this Manifest Destiny approach to urban planning is what gets left behind. Once-classy neighborhoods toward the middle of town crumble. Once-quiet streets become noisy commuter arteries, lined with Golden Arches, strip malls and other forms of modern ugliness. I still have a soft spot for Fresno, but I can’t help but wonder if this is how Los Angeles looked, not so long ago.

LOS OSOS VALLEY, Sept . 10 : We roll through a picturesque valley toward San Luis Obispo. Fresno’s native son is asked to identify roadside crops for the in-laws. At first, it’s easy--pumpkins, lettuce, beans and . . . something yellow. “Mustard,” I bluff. Next, a strange white plant. All I know is that it’s not cotton. “Mayonnaise?” my sister-in-law quips. Everyone laughs, and I make tracks for more familiar foliage.

Now the scenery requires no explanation. To our left, cattle graze on buckskin-colored slopes. To our right, houses march in columns up a hill. To my eye, the animals are more pleasing than the stucco, and I wonder again why California farmers and environmentalists remain such bitter enemies?

Yes, I know about overgrazing, water-guzzling and pesticides. Those are big problems, and farmers can’t clean up their act fast enough. On a broader front, though, the state faces a fundamental question: Leave land in agriculture, or subdivide it. I have a hard time believing environmentalists prefer bulldozers to farmers. I’d say there’s opportunity for new alliance here, but then I’m the fellow who can’t tell a mustard bush from a mayonnaise tree.

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1: I waste an hour stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge, a not atypical experience. It gives me time to ponder San Francisco’s environmental smugness, how it lords its clean, green image over Los Angeles, the smog devil.

I submit that when it comes to the automobile, San Francisco is as messed up as Los Angeles. The difference is that prevailing breezes here push the smog south to San Jose. This leaves San Franciscans with a sparkling sky and a clear conscience. A theory.

Anyway, the larger point is that no one comes to the question of California’s future cloaked in virtue. The purity of the state is compromised every day, if only by our simple presence. Something to remember as we stumble along.