This is a warning for all you folks who watched the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl Game, saw the Chamber of Commerce weather, and the beautiful scenery and have decided to move to California. Beware of all the people leaving the state because they think it’s the worst place to live. Have your head on a swivel; you know how bad California drivers are.
I moved to California in the 1980s for a couple of reasons. My mom moved out here to be closer to her family when my dad died. My wife and I would come to visit, usually in January or February, and realized that every time we left, we were going back to snow and below-freezing temperatures. One of the times we arrived back in the frozen wasteland known as Chicagoland, we talked and decided to make the move. It wasn’t easy, but we were glad we had made the jump. I love living in California. Even at its worst, the weather is far better than January in Illinois. I can play golf and softball all year long.
The beauty of the state is beyond compare. You can go to the desert to play golf and get heat stroke, then on the same day, head to the mountains to ski and break a leg or get frostbite. If you are game, you can travel to the beach to take a dip in the ocean and maybe get bitten by a shark. Where else can you do that?
Honestly, the state is a beautiful place. Places like the Sequoia National Forest, where they have the biggest trees in the world, or Yosemite National Park, may be some of the most beautiful places on earth. You can head to the pristine beaches along the coast for surfing, fishing, and other water sports. We have beautiful cities to visit, like Santa Barbara, San Francisco, San Diego, San Juan Capistrano…I guess any city with San at the beginning is worth seeing. Our central valley is the country’s breadbasket, producing vast quantities of everything from fruits to nuts. Funny fact: one of the locals who wanted to get out of this state told me one of the reasons was we had too many fruits and nuts out here. Did I miss something?
California is also the place to observe the migration habits of the elusive Canadian snowbird. They tend to start flocking to our Southern California Deserts in the fall, take up all the open rentals, and hog up all the tee times at the local courses. They then only leave when the Canadian Government has put a limit on how long they can be out of the country and still get their free health care. I wish I had that problem to deal with.
You may wonder why so many people want to leave California if it is such a beautiful place. There are a million reasons: taxes are too high, gas prices are too high, the state Government is too liberal, there are too many homeless people, traffic is horrible, and I could go on and on. I do understand. We have the biggest population of any state in the nation, which leads to a lot of problems.
What has led to this influx of humanity to our state is that every New Year’s Day, our beautiful weather is broadcast all over the country thanks to the Rose Parade and The Rose Bowl Game. Do you hear about people flocking to New York every time they broadcast the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade? No, because they have Al Rocker running all over the parade route, either freezing to death or being soaked by a downpour. Why would anyone want to move there?
Here, we have TV announcers wearing Hawaiian shirts and flashing their big pearly whites while floats filled with beautiful flours roll down Colorado Boulevard. Do you wonder where they get all those lovely flowers? This is California; that stuff grows here year-round. At the football game, all the college students have their shirts off and are painted in their team colors. A clarification: I noticed a bowl game in a freezing location where the student body was doing the same thing. We must remember these are college students who, despite going to an institution of higher learning, will do some of the dumbest things imaginable.
Lately, a big reason many people want to leave is because California is considered a Blue State. I will not delve into the politics of it all. Many of these Californians who wish to escape keep mentioning moving to Arizona. Arizona has some beautiful places to live, but most of the state is a vast desert. Its largest city, Pheonix, has been setting records for heat the last few years. If I want oppressive heat, I’ll head to California’s Death Valley, the hottest place on earth. I’m not going to do that because I’m not that stupid. It’s getting hotter where I live every year—no need to rush to unbearable heat.
While many of these people complain about our high taxes, they forget to mention the one thing that keeps many Californians here, Prop. 13. This is where we pay a low percentage of property tax based on what we paid for the house. With creative bookkeeping, that low tax threshold can be passed down to family members.
Most states use property taxes to raise the funds needed to run their states. I know one person who owns a condo outside California in a red state. He was notified that his property would be reassessed, and he received a property tax bill for the next year that was 25% higher than the previous year. This will probably happen again next year.
No matter how you try to escape what you think is horrible, there will be a different type of horrible where you head. That is the famous idiom, “The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.”
Of course, out here in California, the grass is actually brown and likely to burn soon—another reason to load up the truck and skedaddle. I’ll probably only get as far as Las Vegas. We might as well see a show on our way out.
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