Why Alicante?

Back in 1981 I had just graduated from law school. I planned to load my (at least) 15-year-old Pontiac Star Chief and drive to Southern California. I didn’t know a soul there and had no prospects. I was moving to Southern California for one reason only: Its Mediterranean climate.

Mild winters and long summers. Palm trees. Flowering bushes all year round. Never, ever, ice on the streets or sidewalks. Southern California looked like paradise to my 25-year-old self.

I was carrying my meager belongings to the Star Chief when my roommate hollered that I was wanted on the phone. Ray Pogge, a Council Bluffs lawyer, called to offer me work. This surprised me because I had not applied for employment at his office, or any other office.

I took the job because Ray promised that I would be doing litigation, which was what I wanted, and because I am not always and forever deaf to the Universe. He/She/It was telling me that five years experience would make me much more attractive in the highly competitive California market.

Long story short, I never moved to California. As I grew older, and perhaps wiser, I began seeing Southern California in a less attractive light. Los Angeles alone has four million people. Four million! That goes a long way toward explaining the smog, the long commutes in stop-and-go traffic, the crime, the homelessness, and the high cost of living.

I now live in Alicante, a city on the Mediterranean Sea, population 331,000. The climate is virtually identical to that of Los Angeles. However, Alicante doesn’t suffer from smog; its version of rush hour traffic is not all that bad (and doesn’t last long); you see very few vagrants; and you can live well for not that much money.

Alicante today is pretty close to how I imagined LA in 1981. However, if you have a time machine that can take you back to when Los Angeles was comparable to Alicante (population-wise), forget about the 1980’s. Heck, forget about the 1930’s. Set the Wayback’s dial to 1912! That was the last time only 331,000 people lived in the City of Angels.

Imagine for a moment you are in LA 110 years ago, back before its own popularity made the city unbearable; except you have high speed Internet, cable TV, and quick access to an international airport. That is where I actually live.

I’m not saying that my 1981 dream finally has been fully realized. It hasn’t.

I don’t have the Star Chief.