Opposite sides of the coin on life in the Golden State

Had a houseguest this month, a Jersey boy who’s spent most of his life on the East Coast. On his sole venture in West Coast life, he lived in Ventura County from 1986-96 before tiring of California and heading back home.

He’s not so tired of it now. Ensconced in Princeton and a man of 55, he’s looking westward again. As it once did, the Golden State beckons.

That is not earthshaking news. People have been lured to California for as long as it’s been here. And I’d filed away my friend’s California dreaming until rereading an e-mail I got recently from a reader who, lo and behold, sounds like he’s sick of California.

What struck me in these neatly timed expressions was the contrast between one man’s growing disgust of what he sees here and another’s sense of the state’s appeal.

With that in mind, I asked my friend to e-mail his reasons for wanting to come back to California.

But first, excerpts from the guy who’s losing his West Coast mojo. He described himself as a 36-year-old Caucasian who’s none too thrilled with the state’s ethnic shifting. He begins by saying he’s not racist and has friends of diverse ethnic backgrounds. He doesn’t want to leave California and doesn’t want to feel “I should be forced out.”

But he goes on at length about the Latino influences that he believes have come to dominate the Los Angeles he grew up in. He notes a Coke billboard in Spanish. He thinks his old neighborhoods are less tidy nowadays. He doesn’t like the fact that store signs and intercom messages are in Spanish and English, as is the announcement of the fireworks show at Disneyland.

“Corporate America and our communities are selling us out, the English-speaking Americans,” he writes. “They are conveying that, ‘It’s OK to be un-American, don’t assimilate, don’t speak English, we will cater to you even if it’s not in the best interest of the American culture.’ ”

He eventually gets around to mentioning illegal immigrants, but adds: “A person like [L.A. Mayor] Tony Villaraigosa doesn’t represent the best interest of L.A., California or the U.S. He represents himself, the Spanish-speaking and illegal immigrants. If people like him continue to obtain power, it will be a continual demise of communities and eventually our entire nation.”

An unhappy camper, to be sure.

His words will disgust lots of people -- and I’d take exception to his analysis -- but I won’t censor him because I know he reflects the feelings of lots of you.

But if the state is on the road to ruin, why would my East Coast friend -- fully aware of the state of the state -- want to stick his foot back here? I sent him this man’s e-mail but said I didn’t want a point-by-point argument, merely his reasons for entertaining thoughts of coming back.

“Lots of people my age want to go to warmer climates,” he writes. “I can’t stand Florida, the usual retreat for Northeasterners. It’s flat, humid, boring and homogeneous. I love California’s diversity, geographic as well as human and cultural. I love how different Orange County is from L.A., [how different] L.A. is from the Central Coast, and so on.

“Weather, climate, ease of living are important factors. Yes, the traffic is terrible. It’s also terrible in New York and Boston and Denver and any big city.”

But now he gets to what I consider the heart of the matter between people like him and my upset e-mailer: “I felt when I was out there two weeks ago a renewed sense of possibility. Was that real? Who knows? But I felt that energy I had 20 years ago.”

He acknowledges “the sort of shallowness of some of the people, the silicon-implanted women, the tanned guys. I don’t know how long I will feel this way, but that appeals to me. I’ve used my brain for 50 years and used it often to little effect. People in California use their brains, of course, but a little shallowness and a lot of attractive people hold a strange appeal at this point in my life, for which I will not apologize.”

I won’t ask him to, at least not today.

He concludes: “At this age, I suppose I want the excitement of possibility more than the assurance of being around people just like myself that I might get in the retirement mecca of Florida. California’s problems are many, and I don’t know how I would feel in a year or two of being there. But right now, the sight of the ocean, the knowledge that the mountains are nearby (Sequoia has always been a favorite place), the carefree aura that of course is in reality not so carefree, all seem like they would be a welcome respite to cold winters, overly driven people and an over-hyped cultural environment that 85% of the people back here talk about but never take advantage of.”

Take your pick: We’re either going to hell in a Spanish handbasket, or offering a palate of beautiful people and places and the chance to live the good life.

Safe to say we’re in no danger of getting too richly philosophical with these guys. So let’s wrap up by saying it’d be a neat metaphor if these two gentlemen were to pass each other one of these days on Interstate 10. Going opposite directions and wondering what awaits up ahead.