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There’s No Place Like Lancaster
"This transition takes place over a ninety minute car ride that ends in a town called Lancaster.
By Rebecca Bowden
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One hundred high school sophomores were assigned to write personal reflections as part of an essay contest at LA’s John Marshall High School. The winning entries were turned into audio essays through a collaboration between 826 LA, a writing program and Youth Radio, a youth media production company. Subjects ranged from multi-cultural identity, loss, relationships with parents to young love, reflections on the world, and teen idols. We're presenting some of these essays in our series High School Confidential. Today, Rebecca Bowden describes her weekend visits with her grandparents in the suburbs outside LA.
Almost every week,
I have the privilege of witnessing my beautiful, downtown Los Angeles dissolve into
a flat, yellow, barren landscape.
This transition takes place over a ninety minute car ride that ends in a town called Lancaster.
Lancaster is larger than LA, but with two percent of its population. This population prides itself on color-coordinated strip malls, identical stucco houses, and five Wal-Mart carts for every citizen.
To me, Lancaster is another world Where people spend their days buying “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers And debating last night’s PTA meeting.
My grandmother, or “Nana,” lives in a large one-story house the outside has the potential of being nice, if it weren’t for the grease-stained driveway and pieces of broken furniture in the front yard.
The stained magenta carpet is covered with broken bits of toys and dog hair. Shelves support dolls, quilts, And dozens of antique clocks which tick throughout the house. They constantly remind me of the valuable time being spent there Everything thing else in the house has a price tag,
My grandmother calls herself an “antique merchant.” She sells things on EBay. Things she got at garage sales. Or my favorite: stuff she once gave us as gifts that she’s taken back because “we weren’t using them anymore.”
I never know what might ignite one of my grandmother’s melodramatic, self-pitying speeches. She thrives on martyrdom and uses any opportunity to highlight the horrible acts of hatred her children have committed against her. Like how she thinks one of my aunts taught the dog to poop in the house just so she could step in it.
My step grand-father.
He has a chiseled nose and a thick black mustache that reaches the tip of his lip. So my mom calls him “The Seventies Gay Porn Star.” He is flattered by it. He often brags about being a police decoy for catching gay prostitutes. This disturbs me. My grandmother wants me to call him “Papa.” This disgusts me.
The products of this amazing couple are two Lancaster-Ian’s, born and bred. Their oldest daughter is 11 year old Samantha. She’s at an age where Lancaster’s narrow-minded and conservative influence is irreversible. It is embedded into every thought produced under her thin, blonde hair. There is still hope for 7 year old Emily, but opportunities to save her are few. Both already show symptoms of what could very well lead them to a long life of tract homes, mini vans, and Capri pants. For now, they continue their suburban cultural development. They sit on the couch for hours with a Game Boy in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. Both are unresponsive as “Nana” shouts curses and threats and begs for them to do the most minor of chores.
I leave these scenes of insanity because I know comfort will slowly return to me as I transition back home to Los Angeles. But Relief from the Lancastraic chaos is only temporary. Between visits, my next car ride to the flat yellowness never leaves my mind completely.
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