They Paved Paradise
Lou Ann and I just drove up from San Diego to Los Angeles to spend some time with our grandson Ganapatiye. We drove the freeways today and it took three and a half hours for a trip that used to take two hours. I remembered living here before the freeways. For a child growing up in the forties and fifties in Hollywood it was paradise. We would spend hours playing outdoors creating wonderful games where we would run and laugh and fall over. We went around the neighborhood and could eat endless amounts of fresh fruits hanging from the trees. It was almost always sunny and not too hot. I remembered then at Hollywood High school we had a central area where we would gather to eat lunch. It was covered with grass and had pepper trees in the center with wooden benches that we would sit on. We had clubs and other groups who would hold their meetings in this idyllic setting. Then, one year they decided to pave the whole thing?
Sometimes we make decisions that don’t seem to serve our greater good.
Remember Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi? She wrote the song about a time that she visited Hawaii back in 1969.
Big Yellow Taxi
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
Put ’em in a tree museum *
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Hey farmer farmer
Put away that DDT * now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Late last night
I heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Let us make sure that our local authorities make decisions that serve us; not just to save money! Let us stop paving paradise and putting up parking lots and freeways for that matter. Let us turn back the clock and spend more time chasing each other around outside in playful ways. Then maybe climb a tree or two and eat organic fruits and nuts till we fall asleep under the tree. Then maybe our lyrics may ring “Don’t it always seem to go that we know what we got. We saved saved paradise by not putting up anymore parking lots” From my playful heart to yours, Thomas