Tributes Tell Why Valley Is Home

Couched as it was with reminders of the earthquake, the wildfires and the sagging economy, our question to readers was simple: Why do you stay in the San Fernando Valley?

In dozens of poems, essays and even a limerick, written on manual typewriters, computers or scrawled on note cards, you responded, defiantly defending your neighborhood, your strip mall, your Valley.

For some, it is the memories that keep you here: of orange groves, farmlands or the deer that once roamed the Valley floor. For others, it is as simple as the convenience of nearby malls or the endlessly sunny days. Others point to something less tangible, a collective spirit that rises in the face of each new disaster.

But we asked for your words, so we’ll let you explain. Here are some of our favorite remarks, illustrated with photographs by Brian Vander Brug about why there’s no place quite like the Valley to call home.

Crime Just One of Many Negatives

I’m proud to call Van Nuys home. We’re (arguably) No. 1 in the Valley. Not everybody can boast of being the most unsafe city in the Valley. We have the worst and most violent crime and the most dangerous gangs.

We have the loveliest shade of burnt sienna brown water from our taps. The DWP assures us it is not harmful to drink. A fun entertainment in our town is watching our new garbage collection trucks fly by. Without even stopping, they can hoist a huge garbage can, pass it lightly over the top of the truck, and fling more debris into the street than into the truck.

To keep us competitive in the worst air quality department, we have a gasoline bulk loading terminal releasing benzene and other toxic substances into our early morning air together with tar-making plants and the Tillman reclamation facility to guarantee we never remember what fresh air smells like.

Finally, to reward us for being (arguably) No. 1, the city of Los Angeles has plans to crown the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area “the home of the world’s largest truck toilet.” The Bureau of Sanitation will truck sewage to us from as far away as Malibu in the west and La Canada Flintridge in the east.

SHIRLEY COHEN

Van Nuys