Put Down Your Guns — We Are Surrounded and Outnumbered

I appreciate the little gray-haired man who overtalked by 10 minutes. He said he was 54 years old and that he stood to lose both of his jobs when this project passes. What will happen to him? he wanted to know? How will he be able to find work at his age? He is scared. He was furious because he thought the developer should either offer him relief or compassion. Civility took a detour several times across the evening. I didn’t realize there were so many accents in Culver City. I presume most neighbors were sympathetic to the college-age girl who said her family came here with nothing, and opened a business 11 years ago. The business has flourished. Revenues have introduced a gigantic world and a new lifestyle to them. She sobbed. She felt it slipping away. Mr. Champion, who endured more arrows than a Republican should have to absorb even in Culver City, told the girl he understood the prospective closing was an emotional issue for her. “No, it’s not,” she snapped back. “It is about facts.” Just as quickly, Mr. Champion concurred. “You are right,” he said. “It is about facts.”

Unintended Result

Unintentionally, I am sure, the girl exquisitely made the developer’s point. This is about facts. This is about modernizing, upgrading the community in a patch where it sags the most, resembling an elderly person whose exterior has gone south. To say it differently, the South Sepulveda span of more than 100 businesses resembles a dumpy dame trying to shake herself into a string bikini, sashaying down the boulevard, heaven forbid. You cannot live in the bosom of Los Angeles and pretend this is Oshkosh, Ala. It may have been once. But these days, such sentimental folks are outnumbered by thousands to one. The greater good, not one man’s lost job, is the subject. The activist Laura Stuart prefaced her sagacious observations by revealing a huge adjustment/recovery she recently was forced to make in her life. Then she warned resistant residents that they need to join up or they will be run over. That, Ms. Stuart, was smart counseling. I have fears and anxieties about change, especially for one with the sky-wide scope of South Sepulveda that will be in our faces every day for the rest of time. The truth is, we need to give up our horseless carriages and the rest of modern conveniences if we are as authentically traditional as we claim.