Johnson added his wisdom to the deliberations.

While the committee probed, listened and digested, the grass finally
pushed its way across Hollywood Boulevard, resisting frantic efforts by
the National Guard, the fire and police departments, and a volunteer
brigade of local merchants, to stem its course. It defied alike
sharpened steel, fire, chemicals and explosives. Even the smallest
runner could now be severed only with the greatest difficulty, for in
its advance the weed had toughened--some said because of its omnivorous
diet, others, its ability to absorb nitrogen from the air--and its
rubbery quality caused it to yield to onslaught only to bound back,
apparently uninjured, after each blow.

One of the most disquieting aspects of the advance was its variability
and unpredictability. To the west, it had hardly gone five blocks from
the Dinkman house, while southward it had crossed Santa Monica Boulevard
and was nosing toward Melrose. Its growth had been measured and checked,
over and over again, but the figures were never constant. Some days it
traveled a foot an hour; on others it leapt nearly a city block between
sunrise and nightfall.

It is simple to put down "the grass crossed Hollywood Boulevard"; as
simple as saying, "our troops advanced" or "the man was hanged at dawn."
But when I write these words less than a generation later, surrounded by
rolling hills, gentle brooks, and vast lawns sedate and tame, I can
close my eyes and see again the green glacier crawling down the
sidestreets and over the low roofs of the shops to pour like a cascade
upon the busy artery.

Once more I can feel the crawling of my skin as I looked upon the
methodical obliteration of men's work. I can see the tendrils splaying
out over the sidewalks, choking the roadways, climbing walls, finding
vulnerable chinks in masonry, bunching themselves inside apertures and
bursting out, carrying with them fragments of their momentary prison as
they pursued their ruthless course.

Now the uproar and clamor of a disturbed public swelled to giant volume.
All the disruption and distress going before had been news; this was
disaster. "All same Glauman's Chinese, all same Pa'thenon," remarked
Gootes, and indeed I have heard far less outcry over the destruction of
historic landmarks than was raised when the grass obscured the
celebrated footprints.

Recall of the mayor was demanded and councilmen's official limousines
were frequently overturned