From: st1ns@rosie.uh.edu (Ault, Russell W.)
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: Re: California is NOT represe
Date: 6 Jan 1993 09:47 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <25626.1065.uupcb@satalink.com>, vince.maiocco@satalink.com (Vince Maiocco) writes...
>AR>I dread the prospect of having to visit California.
>AR>I may have to establish a new detoxification program
>AR>Fortunately, I've already been immunized. 
> 
>Russell, this is not healthy.  People have been "living though" 
>the "moving to California" experience since the 1849 Gold Rush.  
>Well, I don't mean that the people who moved there in 1849 are 
>still living, I just mean that... well, you know what I mean.
> 
>Living in Philadelphia, wishing it were California.

What I'd like to find is a California in which the granola (both
the literal and the figurative variety) has been removed.  It
strikes me as odd that a number of the jokes that Norwegians tell
about Swedes seem to work equally well when changed to a Northern
Californian vs Southern|Urban Californian.  It would be a really 
nice place if the folks who don't have their heads in the clouds
(which REALLY annoys the clouds, and is probably a major undetected
cause of ozone deterioration) weren't being obscured and drowned
out by the ones who do.  The first time I saw the movie "LA Story"
I was appalled when I recalled just how many of the weird bits
were small extensions or minor extrapolations of things which I
had actually seen out there.  But it gets old after a while.  The
wierdness is a funny-once, for the most part.

Predictably, flamers re the original post have included a number
who seemed to have missed the curriculum item about Gratuitous
Criticism vs Actual Insult.

And so far, NOBODY has come up with anything to add to the Detox
Program Curriculum.  Oh, well...

As for the people who moved there in (almost) 1849...

(the following material contains truthful information of a nature
which is bound to draw fruitless flaming from offended Californians
who have an overdeveloped sense of political correctness (is that
a redundancy, and if so, on how many levels?) and any attempt to
read beyond this line by such persons is at their own risk.)

ObPrank:  Last year, my Exmas card featured two photos (B&W, I'm
too cheap to pay for 4-color process printing) of three people
in approximately 1840's garb standing next to a horse-drawn wagon.  
In the first, they look appropriately serious, as befits folk of
the era according to the present-day popular image.  In the second,
they have rather crazed expressions and are holding large eating
utensils.  The legend below the first picture was "In the winter 
of 1847, the Donner Party prepared to cross the mountains into
California."  The legend below the second said "Unfortunately, no
one thought to wish them Season's Eatings."

(Yes, obviously some of the people who survived all (or part) of
the moving-to-California process aren't alive today.)  

Recipients fell into several groups:  Those who got it (almost) 
immediately (invertebrate punsters all, spinelessly unable to
resist a joke); those who failed to comprehend until the joke was
explained (I except out the ones who got the joke immediately
upon having the history explained as belonging in the first group); 
and those who expected to see "Season's Greetings" and missed the 
visual cues resulting in their thinking that it was just cute.
And then there was the recently-transplanted ex-SanFran couple
who saw it, thought it was "just darling!", and immediately went 
into a lengthy explanation that they knew exactly where the 
pictures were taken up near Truckee (only about 1,950 miles off 
on that) and where the card could be bought in the town, in a 
little shop that was just full of things like this.  

Been there.  Looked.  Nope.  (I shot the pictures in Houston, and
had the cards printed at a Kinko's.  Go figure.  They didn't fool
anybody into thinking they were commercial except Californians.)

But that's not, by any means, the only example of "you can take 
them out of California and they'll still be Californians."
(And me, with relatives there yet.  I think I may have to buy
a pair of boots, get a Stetson, and acquire a drawl if it looks
like I'll have to move there.)

And now,

Adieu, mes amis.  I vanish from the net tonite for a while as
my current account turns pumpkin.  I promise not to post any
I-missed-the-last-cow-pics-mail-me-some messages if they foolishly
let me have another one in two weeks.  

  My wife went to Harvard and all I got was this lousy .sig!
      Russ Ault, aka st1ns@jetson.uh.edu