On Smiling Through the Big Four-O

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.

--Mark Twain

*

Someone I know turned 40 last week. He was baffled by this passage. A 40th birthday, it seemed to him, should be reserved for dour souls ready to settle down, buy a sensible Buick, practice archconservative politics, rake in large dollars. He was none of the above.

To turn 40 meant it was time to surrender boyhood dreams. Now the only sports heroes left to feed his fantasies would be wily old knuckleballers, place-kickers and senior golfers. Now he would never be described as a hot young writer or hot young anything. Anything he accomplished from here on would raise the question: What took you so long?

This milestone, he figured, might force an end of his native optimism, if only for professional appearances. “The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much,” Twain had written. “If he’s an optimist after it, he knows too little.” And yet, this new 40-year-old also recognized that the last thing California needed was one more pessimist--especially someone employed in the business of writing columns about the state.

Here, he decided, was an opportunity to fight the clock. His hair already was gray. His own children mocked him, chanting “forteee-forteee” whenever he entered the room. Nothing could be done about that. What he could do, though, was resist the role of career pessimist in a place and time filled with pessimism. If optimism was a mark of youth, he could boost the Golden Land like no one had boosted it before--at least for one column anyway.

*

He could begin with the weather. No matter how many factories fold, no matter how many military bases close, no matter how noxious the air, or overtapped the aquifers, or high the murder count, Californians can count on the weather to brighten their days. Unless of course it’s flooding or something.

The fall is best. It’s more than the warm days of amber light, the crisp nights, the intoxicating smell of freshly cut football fields. Autumn in California is like spring everywhere else, the season of anticipation. Soon it will be winter, and winter is when Californians saunter outdoors in short pants to thumb browned noses at a shivering nation. Winter is what makes Californians smug. Winter is why so many Minnesotans become Californians.

Next he could describe favorite out-of-the-way places. He could list dozens, from Templeton to Lone Pine to Ft. Bragg to Joshua Tree. He could offer up main street Sonora, in the Gold Country. On that street can be found living proof that Twain’s California stories were not the products of pure fiction. For instance, there’s this tavern where across the bar they still sell both whiskey and guns. But both, to be sure, in moderation.

And then on to the San Joaquin Valley, with its wide, flat spread of vineyards and fields and its rich mix of rednecks and middle-class suburbanites and immigrant pickers and agricultural royalty. Those who don’t understand the valley--”the other California,” as the writer Gerald Haslam calls it--cannot possibly understand California. It is the unspoken counterpoint to all those overdone caricatures of wacky California.

*

Not that California is devoid of weirdness. It does have weirdness, and it’s good, vintage stuff. Dr. Demento is good. The UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs are good. Moonbeam was good. In fact, if he were in a pessimistic mode, he might complain that something--perhaps the trend toward mean, sober-sided politics--has repressed California’s weird streak. Everyone takes themselves so seriously these days. It’s boring.

And of course he could mention the beach. Most Californians make it to a beach maybe once a year at best. Still, just knowing it’s there is enough--a happy reminder that our people didn’t quit pushing once they reached Utah or Nevada. And there’s the economy, which predictably has come bouncing back. And the immigrants who, rather than a societal drag, offer the best evidence that California remains a place of dreams. And the state college system, the basis of hope for most of California’s schoolchildren.

And Los Angeles. Yes, he could offer up even L.A. If the post-O.J. commentary was to be believed, Los Angeles invented the racial divide. He could argue the opposite: With its incredible and often volatile human mix, L.A. is about 30 years ahead of the nation in dealing with race. The answers might not be formed yet, but at least the right, albeit uncomfortable, questions at last have begun to be asked.

There is so much more. He couldn’t tell it all in a day. He’s 40 now. Pace is important.