Ta-ta, La-la Land

by Ora Shay

—Midland, TX. California-wise, the time’s come for plain speaking. Over the years, a lot’s happened on the "Left Coast" to strain American patience. The list is really long, including everybody and everything from "Hanoi Jane" Fonda to the "Free Republic of Santa Monica" to Harvey Milk and his ilk.

Probably we’d have gotten fed up before this if that darn state hadn’t come up with Ronnie and his beloved Nancy. Americans, always ready to forgive and forget, could forgive California a lot for giving us a new morning and new hope in America during those eight glorious Reagan years.

But—how time flies—it’s many years since blessed Ronnie left office, and since then it’s pretty much been downhill again for the state that raised him to national dominance: O.J., the prosecution of the Rodney King officers, the University of California’s wide-open acceptance of students of Asian extraction solely on the basis of suspiciously high SAT’s and too-too-perfect grades, etc.

Now here comes this uppity San Francisco court telling us (it pains me even to write the words) we have to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Given the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings re religion, I don’t think we have to worry about such nonsense for long. Justices Scalia and Thomas (truly, a judicial marriage made in heaven!) will do doubt lead their usual sensible majority to restore God to His centrist place in American life and the much-hallowed Pledge.

My point here is I’m plumb out of patience with and tolerance for California. How plumb out am I?

This plumb out: As you may be aware, Midland has more than its share of oil persons, including of course geologists and the like. The other evening I happened to be standing in line for the shrimp dip at the Permian Basin Country Club (a lovely Philip Johnson design reminiscent of Versailles in its heyday), when I heard a familiar voice behind me talking about sediments and seismic readings and other things geological. I turned, and sure enough it was Bud Stanley Harken III (no relation, as far as I know, to the Bush Harkens), whom I went to second through fifth grades with before his family moved to Bahrain where they did very, very well in the financial sense.

I don’t want to bore you with too much local color. Suffice it to say, Bud Stanley (yes, he was named in honor of two great Texans: Bud Adams, fabulous Houston oil entrepreneur and now owner of the Tennessee Titans; and of course Stanley Marcus who I don’t need to identify any further) and I re-struck up our old acquaintance and before you know it we were discovering all sorts of shared upsets about the direction some people want to take this country.

By this time, you understand, we were seated and through with our mound of shrimp and into I don’t know our fourth or fifth margarita. I remember I said to Stanley, "What ARE we gonna do about California. First they vote for that floozy from Tennessee and her pompous know-it-all husband, and now they wanna rape the Pledge of Allegiance!"

"Ora, Ora," Stanley said as he let his left hand settle lightly on my upper thigh under the table, "great minds do run in similar tracks. I been giving the California problem a lot of thought lately. What it comes down to is, when you really get down to it, the country would just plain be better off WITHOUT that effing state. Get rid of it. Be gone, California! Out, out damned state!"

Here Bud Stanley squeezed my thigh and winked at me to see if I got his reference to the immortal Bard of Avon. I smiled, patted his hand, and said, "Course you’re right, Bud Stanley, but what can a couple of harmless Midlandites like you and me do about big ol’ California?"

During the following discourse, which led to so much trouble farther down the road, the reader must understand I was operating under duress, because not only did fresh margaritas keep appearing but throughout his explanation, Bud Stanley was kneading my upper thigh most vigorously. By the time I was able to get a waiter to bring a large pot of coffee I was pretty far gone and Bud Stanley had laid out his plan in very loud detail, so loud that it got the attention of the entire Permian Basin Country Club dining room by the end, including a couple of Bush family members, which meant his creative but startling idea fell also on the ears of the attendant Secret Service guys which, I suppose, is how the FBI etc. wound up getting involved.

Excuse the digression. I need to tell you what he said, don’t I, that got everybody so upset?

Bud Stanley had it all figured out, geologically speaking. We all know how shaky California is, earth-wise, all those faults and quakes and so on. After the abomination of the Pledge decision, Bud Stanley said he sat down at his computer and started figuring out how many dynamite charges of what size needed to be placed and set off simultaneously along the San Andreas fault that would finally let the whole state of California just slide off into the Pacific! Turns out, if Bud Stanley’s right, to be a lot less than a person might think.

Bud Stanley had even created a lovely PowerPoint presentation of his proposal which he proceeded to show me as he pulled out his laptop and ran the presentation right there in front of toute Midland. I have to admit it was pretty impressive, ending with a very convincing computer graphics image of big chunks of land and freeways and such falling into the ocean.

The more chunks that fell, the faster Bud Stanley talked and the faster his hand kneaded. It was quite a climactic moment but one that was alas and alack spoiled by the arrival of the aforementioned Feds who came sauntering over to inquire what was all this talk about dynamite and explosions in California and so on.

Needless to say Bud Stanley and I then spent a few uncomfortable hours at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Midland but eventually, with a few calls to the various Bush hangers-on that I’m best friends with, it all worked out. Bud Stanley agreed to erase the PowerPoint presentation and never show it to anyone, not even Southern Baptists or guys from Karl Rove’s office again. And I agreed to do 40 hours of community service in Midland’s Tibetan refugee community (you can imagine the adjustment problems for those people coming from the Himalayas directly into the West Texas desert).