Los Angeles herald., 1907-01-20
GOOD TO BE HERE

Los Angeles is again DaCk aJ tne Olu
stand as a winter resort. After short
period Of very wet and disagreeable
weather the sun once more shines out
in all its glorious splendor and the air
is balmy and clear. The roses bloom,
the oranges glow in golden beauty and
the palms spread their branches above
the streets to shade the pedestrians
from the rather overwarm sun. The
mountains, white with snow, look down
on a paradise of warmth and lowell
ness and are the only reminders that
elsewhere there is cold and bitter want,
and freezing and bllzzards.
There were some perhaps who reached
Los Angeles for the first time within
the last couple of weeks, who were
disappointed at the brand of weather
handed out to them. They came ex-
pecting sunshine and found rain they
looked for smiling skies and found
leaden ones; they craved summer and
found a chill April of the back east
variety. Naturally they were disgust
ed; who can blame them? And per-
haps some were so sore that they Inn
mediately went home, without giving
the climate a chance to right itself
No one is foolish enough to claim
that Los Angeles normal climate Is alb
solutely without flaw. We have rains
here at this time of the year; hard
chilly winds and even a bit of frost
now and then. And in summer we
have some heat and dust. All these
we admit.
But we do not have snow and ice
and wintry winds and bitter blizzards
and frozen earth and stinging sleet and
all the discomforting things that make
an eastern winter terrible. No one was
ever lost in a snowdrift here save in
the mountains; no one ever froze to
death; no one broke limb falling on
sleety Streets wire or rail communi-
cation is never interrupted by the drifts
or the blizzards or the ice. All that
makes winter a terror to the east is
lpo0llI IlSLSs II 10 IL ottiSOll VI
occasional rain and of much sunshine ;
of few chill days and many full of
glory; of flowers and fruit at the ut
most perfection and of the finest and
most exhilarating air that exists any
where. These things people we'll in
formed are cognizant of, and these
things they come here to find-not gol-
den streets and perpetual balminess and
never-fading blossoms and paradise on
earth.
Times come, too, when Los Angeles
has abnormal spells of weather; one
has just ended. The rainfall SO far this
season is three times what it was last
year and lacks three inches of being up
cold has been greater and has lasted
longer than is ordinarily the case; the
snow on the mountains has reached
the greatest depths yet recorded, and
this proves the assertion. The mud is
deeper than ever before; the lack of
provision for such a case shows it's
rarity. Los Angeles has had nothing
to boast of in the weather line for
two weeks past until now. But Los An
geles, while admitting that this alb
normal spell is unattractive to the last
degree, calls attention respectfully to
what the rest of the Unied States has
had and begs to shine by comparison.
Take the Sound region; it has been
hn1pXty in nI
complains that the oysters are all dead
because of the intense cold, in which
plants Seattle joins. The entire north
west has been terribly afflicted. Ii has
been 40 below zero in Montana, and
people are burning their houses to keep
warm. The entire middle west is shiv-
ering beneath three successive sleet
storms and is blanketed with ice; trains
are held up and wire communication
is interrupted. The northeast is buried
in one gigantic snowdrift. The Ohio
valley is washed away by chilling
flood in the Ohio river and Cincinnati
and Louisville are inundated. The
boasted charms of Florida were early
hiliSu Wy 81 ScNSlS llcSHS anu tlle orange
business there is dead. Cuba and the
entire gulf coast has been swept by
repeated hurricanes and Jamaica is
blotted out by earthquake.
And so the story goes.
Yes, we have had abnormal weather
in Los Angeles and we don't like it.
But, compared with anywhere else, it
has been pretty good to be here, after
all.