No Place Like Bob's

April 26, 2006

Dear Editor,

Okay, I admit it's with envy that I read Frank Gruber's column "Grocery Store Urbanism."

I moved from Santa Monica to live in a tiny village called Pine Mountain Club, a mountain paradise in the Kern County mountains. I probably don't need to explain the upside. The downside is small businesses like grocery stores.

What's available here is a large convenience store for absolute necessities. You can imagine the prices. They make an attempt with a four foot section of rubbery "fresh" vegetables that you would disdain.

Or I can drive to Frazier Park, 15 miles away at the I-5, for a market much the size of Bob's with a butcher's section--but not like Bob's. No, not like Bob's.

It's a 150-mile round trip to Bakersfield--to Costco and someplace
like Von's or Trader Joe's. My group of friends is already banding together for trips like this. It now costs $25 in a Subaru to go back and forth to LA. I could go to Valencia and do a shop like you do to all the specialty stores. I hate Valencia and Santa Clarita.

There's a trade off to living here. So far it's worthwhile but another cold winter such as we've had here will drive me back to Santa Monica.

I've just read this book called "The Long Emergency." It's a very bleak futurist scenario about life after peak oil. I may have made a bad choice to move to the unsustainable far off suburbs.

Mar Preston