VIEWPOINT / JOHN M. GLIONNA : Finding the ‘There’ Here--a Newcomer Ventures Into Valley

I met The Valley like I would a blind date.

No expectations.

When The Times closed its edition in San Diego late last year, I was offered a new job here. Smack dab in the San Fernando Valley.

The truth? I had to get out a Thomas Bros. map and find out just where the place was.

Like many of my fellow transplanted East Coasters, I always thought The Valley was this sprawling, smog-laden megalopolis that lurked somewhere east of downtown LA, someplace between Lincoln Heights and Las Vegas.

Boy, was I surprised.

You guys are closer to Beverly Hills than Blythe. And, while you’re surely sprawling and smog-laden, you’re north west of LA, on the way to Santa Barbara and the way cool part of Southern California--The Coast. Heck, you’re even part of the city itself.

That seems to be the problem with The Valley and its image--or lack of the same. Few outsiders--and not everyone on the inside--have a clear sense of what really defines the place.

Oh, fer shur , we’ve all heard of the air-brained Valley Girls and their uttered-at-the-mall DumbSpeak. We’ve heard of sizzling summer days, consistently 10 degrees hotter than the rest of L.A., when Del Taco burritos could cook on the sidewalks.

And let us not forget that dirty, brown smog-soup of an atmosphere that can shroud the majesty of the looming San Gabriel mountains, grabbing you by the throat like Mace.

But you’ve heard all this before. You’re probably sick and tired of it. Like old ladies in Burbank or Buffalo who got wigged out over Johnny Carson’s incessant put-downs. Or those people who live in places like--yech--Fresno--and write letters to foreign travel guides to complain that there really is a reason to visit, say, Clovis.

Yeah, right.

So, I’m wondering then: Where is the there in The Valley. Among the three-bedroom ranch homes and easy-to-memorize streets, convenience stores, gas stations and horse stables, is there really a there out here?

Do you guys really prefer to live here? Or are houses just cheaper? Are the schools any better? Does crime hit home less often?

The Times recently did a poll asking Los Angeles residents whether, if they had a choice, they would remain here or leave the city.

Of Valley residents who responded, 56%--a larger percentage than any other area in the city--said they would leave.

That’s higher than even South Central, a neighborhood wracked by riots. Higher than downtown LA. Higher than anywhere. Period.

The poll also asked people whether they live where they live out of choice or because they had to. Forty-three percent of Valley residents said they lived here because--you guessed it--they had to. Only 56% said they preferred it here over other places within the city.

It’s a far cry from the city’s Westside, where 80% of residents actually like where they live.

In South Central LA, by comparison, 54% said they lived there unwillingly.

So, folks, as they say in The South, why do y’all live out here in The Valley?

I mean, The Times recently did a story soliciting new names for this place, The Val. Among your suggestions were “Beige Air” and “Hellish Pit O’ Despair.”

The other day, a Valley veteran took me on a tour of my new territory. Now this is what was considered the area’s must-see spots: For starters, my guide drove me out on the 210 freeway, to Osborne Street, to that infamous gravel lot where those cops beat the living daylights out of Rodney King, setting off an ugly chapter in this city’s history.

Next, we hit downtown Tarzana. We cruised down restaurant row in Northridge. And along the commercial glut that is Ventura Boulevard.

Then we veered north through the Santa Clarita Valley, to beeyooteeful Palmdale.

We drove through badlands and high desert plains, along lonely, two-lane roads where the telephone lines accompanied us like a friend, pointing the way west. We zipped past Magic Mountain and the breathtaking mountain passes of the Grapevine.

I saw the foothills in the east Valley pass like a lush shag carpet of greenery. “Damn,” I told my guide. “This place isn’t all ugly. Some parts are downright pretty.”

As we drove past the revered Vasquez Rocks, looking on as the Hollywood crews filmed yet another Western epic or some new Star Trek episode at the site, I was actually beginning to get impressed .

So, this self-defined urban sophisticate said to himself, this isn’t Downtown LA with its skyscrapers and hip-hop feel. Even if it was the Way Out Here, it was cool--in a suburban sort of way.

From Studio City to Edwards Air Force base, stuff happens here. People live out the dramas of their lives here. And, folks, that just turns a journalist on like a light switch.

Finally, as my tour ended back at my new office just across the way from the Winnetka Drive-in, I figured I could even make a professional home here, find stories that were worth telling, not just for the people who lived in The Valley, but for the rest of The City as well.

So far, it’s been one heck of a blind date.