[Melting_Harps]

> The 80s were a crime paradise.--drug gangs, mafia, wall st white collar crime, informercial scams, televangelist and cult scams --you name it, it all thrived in the 80s.

All of which you saw in a 30 min episode of CHIPS, which aired in the 70s to the 80s, right? I'm not proud of these seedy days, in fact its something I think most of us are ashamed of entirely and would prefer to be solely known for tech, beaches and sunshine. But it isn't true, and it baffles me as a person who lived through that to see many people claiming this the worst CA has ever seen. It's definitely bad, and perhaps underscores why California should be its own Country in my opinion.

But we've been here and done that and to a much worse degree then proceeded to make a place for outsiders to come when it all went well, and they then jacked up the cost of living and made it a worst place to be and raise children only to flee in hard times so many times we should be used to it, but it still sucks to see California like this after all we did.

I've lived and worked all over the Western World, but California in the 90s was a magical place despite all the crazy stuff that actually would instill resilience and problem solving skills out of necessity in me since I was a child just to survive. Skills that I know I would have gotten if I grew up in Zurich, Vienna or Bavaria or some other placid place.

I just hope we get to see it once more as every time I go back it looks further and further away from the place I knew and loved.

[toyg]

I guess you’re a subscriber to the famous quote (from Orson Welles, I believe) that goes something like “Italians saw centuries of wars and pestilence, and produced the Renaissance. The Swiss lived peacefully all that time, and only produced the cuckoo clock.”

[Melting_Harps]

> The Swiss lived peacefully all that time, and only produced the cuckoo clock.”

No, mainly because I lived in Switzerland and they have a long history of warfare and starvation as well; most don't realize the Swiss Pikemen/Mercenaries were the best of the Western World and were recruited for many other foreign militaries.

They were so well known for this craft in warfare that they still guard the Vatican to this day. Furthermore, up until WWII Switzerland has been a poor, mainly agrarian civilization that lived hand-to-mouth and were mainly made of of hardy, tough 'mountain folk' until the 19th Century. I lived in the Bernese Swiss alps in what I called my 'unabomber shack' during the Spring and Summer to prepare to move the cows up the Alps that only had a small oven, no running water, no electricity and no insulation. All it really was is just a single room attached to a barn; it was built really well and had been there for over a 100 years old, no one knew for sure, but what struck me is that this is how entire multi-generational families lived for centuries there. There were no lofty lives as Welles, and many like to think, for the majority of Swiss History until recently, and now youth suicide is a massive issue there, but I won't get into that now.

Orson Welles, like so many who have only read or stayed for short visits, took a very ignorant and narrow view of Swiss History if really believed that. I also lived in Italy which I could go even further in depth about, too.