The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Californiacs, by Inez Haynes Irwin

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Title: The Californiacs

Author: Inez Haynes Irwin

Posting Date: January 23, 2009 [EBook #3311]
Release Date: July, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALIFORNIACS ***

Produced by David A. Schwan

THE CALIFORNIACS

By Inez Haynes Irwin

California, which produces the maximum of scenery and the minimum of
weather; California, which grows the biggest men, trees, vegetables and
fleas in the world, and the most beautiful women, babies, flowers
and fruits; California, which, on the side, delivers a yearly crop of
athletes, boxers, tennis players, swimmers, runners and a yearly crop of
geniuses, painters, sculptors, architects, authors, musicians, actors,
producers and photographers; California, where every business man writes
novels, or plays, or poetry, or all three; California, which has spawned
the Coppa, Carmel and San Quentin schools of literature; California,
where all the ex-pugs become statesmen and all the ex-cons become
literateurs; California, the home of the movie, the Spanish mission,
the golden poppy, the militant labor leader, the turkey-trot, the
grizzly-bear, the bunny-hug, progressive politics and most American
slang; California, which can at a moment's notice produce an earthquake,
a volcano, a geyser; California, where the spring comes in the fall and
the fall comes in the summer and the summer comes in the winter and the
winter never comes at all; California, where everybody is born
beautiful and nobody grows old--that California is populated mainly with
Californiacs.

California, I repeat, is populated mainly with Californiacs; but the
Californiacs are by no means confined to California. They have, indeed,
wandered far afield. New York, for instance, has a colony so large
that the average New Yorker is well acquainted with the symptoms
of California. The Californiac is unable to talk about anything but
California, except when he interrupts himself to knock every other place
on the face of the earth. He looks with pity on anybody born outside
of California and he believes that no one wh