Warming Up - Exercise 13

I'm from Minnesota; She’s from California

I'm from Minnesota. In the last week of 1969, I left Minnesota for the one place that had always meant magic to me, and on January 2, 1970, I arrived there - California.  California.  Where Walt Disney created a new world in Orange County.  As kids, we put all our extra coins in a glass piggy bank to put together the money for a trip there.  During all those years, we never raised enough to make that trip.  But in 1970, I finally made it there - California.

There is not much in California that seems like Minnesota.  I had to relearn what is normal and even what basic words and phrases meant.  In Minnesota, grass is green in the summer.  But in California, the grass is green in the winter.  In Minnesota, back east means New York or Washington, D.C., or at least Chicago.  But in California, back east means Nevada, or maybe Kansas.  In Minnesota, down south means Louisiana, Alabama, or Georgia.  In California, it means Los Angeles.  In Minnesota, an invitation to a party at 7 p.m. means the guests are expected to arrive just a few minutes before 7.  In California, an invitation to an event at 7 means guests aren’t expected to arrive until 8:30 – at the earliest.

I arrived in California in January, so it wasn’t a surprise to me that Californians had a different idea about what cold weather was like.  In January in California, it seems to rain at least part of every day.  And that’s what Californians call cold weather.  But after 22 years of living in Minnesota, my blood was so thin that I barely needed a sweater to go outdoors.

I wondered how long it would take before people would say "she is from California" about me.

There is a scene in Robert Altman’s film, “Nashville” where that phrase has special meaning. A character played by Keenan Wynne was at the Nashville airport, waiting for his wife’s sister’s daughter to get off the plane.  Wynne’s character’s wife was in the hospital, seriously ill, probably dying.  He was wearing a rumpled suit, probably the result of his sleeping in a chair at the hospital as he waited for his wife to speak.  His mind was clearly on his wife, not on anything else around him – until his niece emerged from the jet way.

The film was made in 1975, so back then friends and family could wait for passengers right there at the gate.  And that meant that Wynne’s character could greet her as soon as she got off the plane, and they could walk together through the long corridors down to the baggage claim area.  But when Wynne saw his niece, he made sure he remained one step behind her on that long walk.  His niece was wearing platform shoes that added at least two inches to her height, emphasizing her very long legs, all of which were visible from below the hem of her hip-hugging short shorts.  Her torso was also visible, from belly button to the bottom of her very skimpy tube top.  Her shoulders were also bare.  Her sunglasses had lenses nearly as large as her tube top.  As the Keenan Wynne character kept his distance behind her on their march to the baggage claim area, he couldn’t keep himself from explaining her appearance to those who passed them in the other direction who couldn’t help themselves from staring a little longer than was polite.  “She’s from California,” he said to those on his left, at which point he turned to his right to say again, “She’s from California.”

That short scene provoked one of the most heated discussions among the five of us Americans in Greece who watched the film together.  Two of our group – Dan and Jean – were from Los Angeles.  My roommate Annie was from San Francisco, where she and I met during the latter part of my six years in that state.  And the other one – Ken – was from Illinois.  My roommate began the discussion by asking just where in California the niece was from.  Dan and Jean immediately replied that she was from San Francisco.  That absolutely stunned me – the weather in San Francisco would never be warm enough for anyone to walk around with so much skin exposed – so I countered that it was obvious to me that the niece was from southern California.  Then Ken piped up with his observation, “Who cares?”

That sentence of just four words, “She’s from California,” conveyed both an explanation and an apology without insulting anyone.