Falling Hard for a Place in the Sun

What does it mean to be a Californian? Heather Waite, like many writers before her, takes a stab at it in “Calling California Home” (Wildcat Canyon Press, $14.95).

The book is packed with trivia (Marilyn Monroe was Castroville’s 1947 artichoke queen; UC San Diego has a surfing team).

But what I liked most about the book are the short personal vignettes by ordinary folks that illustrate experiences unique to California living.

Pam Vectanacks of Huntington Beach recalls a 1974 “summer of fun” when she and another 16-year-old toured the state in a camper. Emilio Ramos of Alhambra recounts learning to “ollie” on a skateboard, and Jerry Machado of Santa Clara writes about working in the fields as a fruit picker.

A second-generation Californian, Waite, 42, was raised in Orange. She is a former Miss Orange County and model who is now a substance abuse counselor at UCLA. Writing the book “made me aware and respectful of the differences between us, rather than resentful,” she said. “I discovered that being a Californian can be whatever you want it to be. There is such freedom and beauty and wonder in that. Whoever you are, you can find a place here.”

The book inspired me to reflect on my own California moment, how I came to fall in love with L.A. and make it my home.

I grew up in Boston and New York City and first started yearning to come to L.A. in the 1970s at age 6. My mother was working for Jerry Brown’s presidential campaign and was a huge rock ‘n’ roll fan who helped squire Linda Ronstadt around New Hampshire when she campaigned for her then-flame. (That famous poster of Ronstadt on roller skates had a place of honor on the back of our bathroom door.)

As a kid, I knew the words to “Hotel California” as well as I knew the words to the “The Sound of Music.” I played with Malibu Barbie and loved my mom’s Stevie Nicks-ish buttery leather knee-high boots.

But in my teenage years, naturally, I came to resent all that my mother liked, including California. I gritted my teeth as she sang along to Fleetwood Mac in the car, turning up the Thompson Twins on my Sony Walkman to drown her out.

That phase passed, and I began borrowing her records again. I had never even been to California, but I already knew I wanted to live there. I began streaking my light brown hair blond with Sun-In.

When I was 15, my family spent three days in L.A. I loved the surfers in Venice, shopping at Fiorucci, the guacamole at Lucy’s El Adobe and crisscrossing the painted hills at sunset in a rented convertible, my father at the wheel. It was heaven, even if my little sister did throw up on my lap.

Nine years later, after college and my first newspaper jobs in the East, I moved to California. I shared my West Hollywood apartment building with billboard queen Angelyne. My boyfriend, who moved here with me, wangled his way into the world of network television and is now a writer on a game show. And I have the convertible I always wanted.

Still, L.A. is not the paradise I’d fantasized about. I wish the city had a center, I wish people weren’t so disconnected, I wish there were better public transportation, and more restaurants with ocean views.

But, for me anyway, all the city’s problems melt away at sundown, when that inimitable rosy light fills the sky and warms my heart.

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Booth Moore can be reached at booth.moore@latimes.com.