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September 16, 2013

By Joan Praver—Board Member

At one time in my 65-year-old marriage, my husband and I moved cross-country from Baltimore, Maryland to Los Angeles, arriving on April 20, 1970. We had also lived in Flushing, Long Island, but left there in 1952 to build low cost housing in the outskirts of Kansas City after the Missouri River flooded the entire downtown.  Every May we listened to sirens warning us that a tornado had been sighted that was heading our way and to keep on the news to determine whether to move into the basement.  In 1957 our housing project was struck, killing 38 people and bringing 350 homes down to rubble.  So when we finally landed in L.A. we felt we had found not Oz, but paradise.

It amazed me when I heard people complain about the consistency of the weather.  They longed for a rainy day when they could stay at home, clean closets, put on the fireplace and cuddle up with a good book.

Our previous locations had bitter cold spells where we hibernated during fierce snow-bound weeks and didn’t take our cars from the garage unless it was necessary to take our children to school or to dash to the market to refill the refrigerator, and by then you were forced to use snow tires.

Having lived in places where the weather determined whether you played tennis, golf, went swimming, took a long hike or was able to go out to visit a friend in the hospital, I will always elect to live in L.A. and feel pity watching the news of Louisiana’s floods, Chicago’s wind and snow storms, Florida’s hurricanes, the Midwest’s tornadoes; even the threat of an earthquake will never change my mind.  I love L.A.

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