month was enough for him. The people there are so cold and formal and
conventional, and then, my dear, your climate!"

"Yes," another takes it up. "When I was in the East, a friend invited me
out to his place in the country. He wanted me to see his pine grove. My
dears, if you could have seen those little sticks of trees."

"I went to New York once," a third chimes in. "I never could get
accustomed to carrying an ice umbrella - I couldn't close it when I got
home. I'd come to stay for a month but I left in a week.

And so it goes. No feeling on anybody's part of your sense of outrage.
In fact, Californiacs always use the word eastern in your presence as a
synonym for cold, conventional, dull, stupid, humorless.

Sometimes it actually casts a blight - this Californoia - on those who
come to live in California. I remember saying once to a young man - just
in passing and merely to make conversation: "Are you a native son?"

His face at once grew very serious. "No," he admitted reluctantly. "You
see, it was my misfortune to be born in Iowa, but I came out here to
college. After I'd graduated I made up my mind to go into business here.
And now I feel that all my interests are in California. Of course it
isn't quite the same as being born here. But sometimes I feel as though
I really were a native son. Everybody is so kind. They do everything in
their power to make you forget -"

"Good heavens," I interrupted, "are you apologizing to me for being born
in Iowa? I've never been in Iowa, but nothing could convince me that it
isn't just as good a place as any other place, including California. The