Readers Remember

In June 1978, I saw my first example of community activism while walking home from elementary school in Glendale. A pickup truck with adults sitting in the back was driving around my neighborhood. Through a bullhorn, one of the occupants was shouting “Vote yes on Proposition 13!”

Later that evening, while watching the local news with my parents, I saw a doomsday story about what would happen if Proposition 13 passed. Libraries would be forced to shorten their hours and schools would be forced to cut classes.

I did not understand much about taxes, and I assumed that most adults would not want classes for children to be cut. But when I reached 9th grade, our day was cut from six periods to five. I had to make an agonizing choice at the time. Should I take advanced science or world history? In the end, I chose advanced science.

Now that I am an adult, and I work for a local city, I have a better understanding of the complexities of property taxes and municipal finance. But my knowledge of world history still has holes in it.

LISA McMURRAY

Burbank

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My family moved to San Gabriel in the spring of 1955. One day, my mom packed up my sister and me, and we headed out for a walk to the mountains which, because of the clean air of the time, appeared to be at the end of the street.

After an hour or so of walking and not seeming to be any closer, she stopped someone. To her dismay, the mountains were in reality about 20 miles away.

No one would make this mistake with today’s air quality.

ERVIN NICHOLS

Big Bear Lake