Change

On new views and taking our time

The route to the kids’ school used to have big hayfields on one side, old wooden barns standing guard, looking for all the world like grizzled men with tall tales to tell. One such field even boasted an American flag, dancing proudly in the breeze from the top of the pivot line.

Now, those open fields are open no more, but filled with houses, as alike as boxes of cereal on a grocery-chain shelf. All sugar and no substance, they give us what we need: affordable housing, a quick and cheap first meal, but, like a bowl of Fruity Pebbles, probably not what they replaced.

I know, I know. I hear the other side already, the people who have longed for a home of their own and finally have one, those who say that cheap and abundant is the American dream, the reason so many come here with their hopes in their hands. I got quite angry at anyone who said that the Los Angeles residents who lost homes should have never had one, that wildfires are inevitable in that part of the country (true) and ther…