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Chapter 3. Uplift and Erosion: Together Along the San Gabriel Front
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c h a p t e r 3 Uplift and Erosion Together Along the San Gabriel Front b r a d l e y j o h n m o n s m a s c e n e o n e It’s raining. An environmental literature professor strolls from the Chandler-esque noir of the Pasadena street into the warm light of Vroman’sbookstore.He’sponderingonceagainwhythebooksandplaces he loves seem so little noticed by everyone else. Suddenly he overhears a clerk trying to maintain patience with a persistent customer. “I’m sorry, but there is no book called Los Angeles Against the Mountains . Nothing like that by McPhee. It’s not in the computer.” “But that’s what it said in the newspaper, and that’s what my friends said. I know it exists!” “Not in the computer.” Seeing an opportunity to save the day, Lit Prof interjects, “It most certainly exists, as the last chapter of The Control of Nature. I’ll bet the computer’s got that one. In fact I noticed there’s one copy left on that long John McPhee shelf. It’s a good read.” The customer smiles at Lit Prof with the gratitude usually reserved for firemen and superheroes. “Dude, you saved the day. I’ve been looking all 3 8 t e a c h i n g i n p l a c e over. My hip urban planner friends with square black glasses want me to read this. They tell me it helps make sense of all the rain and overflowing debris basins and all the weather chaos on the news.” Lit Prof smiles knowingly, confidently, like a hero or hipster, buoyant with the hope that McPhee’s environmental history is helping create a community more aware of its tenuous occupation of the border between the wild and the willed. s c e n e t w o Two weeks later. It’s still raining. Lit Prof and his botanist colleague sit at the head of a classroom. The lights are down and there are images on the screen of a sunny suburban foothill neighborhood on a steep hill. One image shows an oleander hedge concealing a large debris basin just across the street from the houses. “This is it,” says Lit Prof. “This is the neighborhood McPhee writes about. This is where the families were trapped in their houses by mud choked with boulders and automobiles ‘like bread dough mixed with raisins,’ page 185.” The two professors show a graphic of the erratic rainfall totals of the Los Angeles basin, talk a little about the burn cycles of the brushy chaparral hillsides, and then put up a map of the area. “You gotta to be kidding!” says one of the students. The professors smile at each other. It happens every year. “I grew up right near there,” the student predictably continues. “Nobody ever told me about this. Are you sure it really happened? Damn! My folks and my little sister still live there. Could all this shit happen again?” Wind-driven rain slashes against the window. A few students chuckle [54.226.222.183] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 04:37 GMT) b r a d l e y j o h n m o n s m a 3 9 nervously. The professors raise their eyebrows; they don’t even have to ask the questions. Why do we not read the signs all around us? Why do we all so easily forget the past once it has been cleaned up and hosed off? s c e n e t h r e e It’s sunny and green after all the rain, a perfect spring day. The professor and the botanist and twenty students make their way up Trail Canyon, one of the drainages McPhee mentions. The creek level has come down some, but it’s still flowing, and there are many sketchy crossings on rocks and logs. The nimble among them dance across; others still shake after the eighth crossing. Somebody finds straight alder staves and passes them to a girl and a guy frozen midstream on a log. The two cross with the crutches and pass them to the next person. Eventually the trail leaves the stream and climbs up into the chaparral. Some of the stronger hikers head up the switchbacks while a few hang back. “We’re going up there? You guys are trippin’!” The groups get strung out along the trail, and the...