In
the memoir holy land by d.j. waldie,
we learn more about Southern California life and cities through personal bits.
Waldie shows us, through the text and pictures, the building and the secrets of
the ideal city, Lakewood. Every aspect of Lakewood, to the public eye, was
ideal. Houses were rarely empty so there was a big community. Also, the whole
city had a look of perfection with a grid plan for the houses and a similar
look all around in order to keep uniformity. With all the hype about this
“ideal city”, it was hard to look at in any other way, but waldie explains the
imperfections that others just ignored. Even the perfect place has its bad
secrets. With Waldie’s interest in cities from a young age, he managed to
obtain a city job and that certainly made it so that he knew almost everything
that went on there. So if there are so many imperfections, is Lakewood really
the ideal city or just an overpublicized idea? In Waldie’s journey discovering
that answer, we can see a detached change in his personality, which makes me
wonder if he was just too invested in the city.
Waldie tells us, “as a boy, [he]
made cities in the dirt behind [his] house,” (131). With such interest in
cities, he went on thinking highly of well built ones. Lakewood was the perfect
well built city to work for, or so he thought. When his brother was young, he,
“jimmied open the aluminum window screen in his room, jumped out, and wandered
wearing only a diaper,” (157). Having a 2 year old be able to do that must mean
that parts of the house were poorly made. While looking more into the safety of
these houses, Waldie interviewed Dr. Hutton. One concern was about how these
California houses would handle earthquakes, and Dr. Hutton quickly, “talked
about houses sliding off their foundations and the dangers of flying glass and
falling bookshelves,” (137). With houses like that, one would assume they would
not want to be in them during an earthquake. However, in Lakewood, since
everything is so close that houses can slide into you, “…these houses were
about the safest place you could be,” (138). It is unfortunate that what is supposed
to be the ideal city is extremely dangerous, just not in an obvious way. Since
the danger is not obvious, that makes it easier for the public to ignore. Additional
danger is brought to our attention when Waldie explains the flooding and how,
“[a] week in 1953…it rained with no letup,”(157). The city was not built to
handle that type of rain so, “when it rains hard [there], flood channels fill
up quickly,” (154). The scariest and saddest part though is when he tells of
how the poor little boys would sometimes, “be caught in the suddenly rising
water…Once a boy drowned in one of the channels; another boy drowned in a flooded
sump,” (154). This is only where the sloppiness of the city begins. Lakewood
was just able to hide all of its mistakes through positive publicity.
With the public being so exposed to
only positive publicity, it must have been hard hearing the other side of the
story. Waldie was constantly having to listen to residents complain but,
“before they complain, callers often begin by telling [him] how long they have
lived there,” as if that makes them more trustworthy or a better source (88).
In a situation where a resident calls to complain, the city officials can then
look into it and try to find something more serious, such as danger or
something illegal. They even found a suicide that, “was first reported as a
murder – a man had been stabbed to death, his body dumped into the city’s wildflowers
and the body set on fire,” but later, they found that he had, “murdered his
stepdaughter… then killed his wife… then got into his car and began to drive,”
(53) In a position like Waldie’s, where he gets to hear the good parts and all
of the bad parts of the city, I feel like it made him more depressed. All the
bad got to him and that is why he seems very unconnected at some points. It’s
like he is writing about his parents to feel better about everything but he
remains detached. Waldie starts off with more optimistic bits about his family
such as, how his Father, “was a good Catholic,” (110), and how, “he was a very
good driver,” (128). Although he described some good of their life, he often
went on to tell of their deaths multiple times in the memoir. His, “mother died
in 1979. Before she died, she lived through five years of increasing disability
from heart disease,”(115). More description and care seemed to be put into the
thought of his father but he still seemed like he talked about it too much, as
if thinking about this was just his way of coping with his depression. Waldie
knew his, “father’s heart was unruly. The beats only flickered through the
monitor,” and he said he was quickly dead (31). The bit that I noticed his
depression in the most was when he said, “Both my parents died before they were
seventy, as did my mother’s sister and my uncles Jack, Frank and Ken. I am forty-six,”(115).
He goes on giving the feeling that he is very close to death and has no hope. The
corruptness of Lakewood made Waldie this way.
The amount of corruptness in
Lakewood would at some point become too much for positive publicity to cover.
The number of deaths increased and the safety decreased. When looking at a
city, one could originally think it is extremely safe because of how well
planned it was. The mistakes were made in overpublicizing and slacking in
construction. In Lakewood, “walls are a thin, cement skin over absence... the
brittle exterior of these houses is a little more than an inch thick,”(42-43).
So although the idea was there, they prioritized time ahead of quality.
The idea, however, was the golden
concept here. Hopes of an ideal city brought excitement to the public. The
excitement brought in so much revenue that the city of Lakewood didn’t have to
attempt to waste time making high quality houses here. All that mattered in
order to seem perfect was the unity and the illusion of perfection. Even though
they were ideal then, as the world changes, so does our ideal. The standards of
a society as a whole get higher, and focus is constantly shifted to different
areas. Yet even an idea that sounds absolutely flawless can have its bad
secrets or imperfections, much like Lakewood has. The only way to solve these problems
is to notice them and take action rather than just sitting back and letting the
flaws control your life. If the people of Lakewood had not been so oblivious to
mistakes, then they may have been able to petition for improvement. We can all
create our own ideal if the public takes action.
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