Find “˜salvation,’ large mouse down in O.C.

Handler is a fifth-year English student. E-mail him at [email protected].

By Ben Lee Handler

Richard Nixon once said that “only if you’ve been in
the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on
the highest mountain.”

I have dwelled in the deepest valley of human civilization; I
have survived for more than four years the noisy, cluttered and
crowded slum that calls itself Los Angeles. I have eaten its rotten
fruits, bathed in its polluted waters and slept in its
scabies-infested sheets.

And every night I dream of a place a few miles down the coast, a
beacon of purity, cleanliness and salvation. Every night I dream
and I marvel at the fantastic heights of culture and society to
which this community has soared, and I know in my heart this place
is my home.

Orange County is “the greatness” all communities
should strive to shadow.

O.C. is God’s territory, you see, because only Christ
could possibly have built a community so righteous and so pure.
I’ll be damned if he didn’t play a hand in securing the
land for the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s chapel/television
station off the 405 in Costa Mesa.

The structure’s energy-crisis-defying sea of white
Christmas lights on display year-round can overcome the most
sinister blackness on the darkest of nights; an electrical
testament that even the blackest of souls will be cleansed and
whitewashed in or driven out of Orange County.

And although TBN televangelist Jan Crouch’s coiffe may
fall considerably short of divine, O.C., like J.C., thrives because
its people are so quickly forgiven for their faults.

The legions of Christian Bible-study virgins more than willing
to fornicate on the first date are allowed to remain virgins and
Christian because in the County of Orange, people are forgiven for
lust.

The masses of gawky, puberty-stricken student-athletes are
forgiven for releasing their sexual frustrations on smaller
teammates in group showers and steamy sweat boxes because, hey,
kids will be kids.

And O.C. forgives El Modena High School for attempting to
decline government funding for all student clubs in order to thwart
the continuation of a Gay-Straight-Lesbian Alliance group on campus
because, well, there are no homosexuals in Orange County.
Forgiveness is the pillar of morality that sets the O.C. apart,
forgiveness is what makes it great.

Yes, forgiveness and Disneyland.

Surely Los Angeles, the Bay Area and San Diego were on Mickey
Mouse’s short list of places to locate his first theme park,
but he chose Orange County. Why? Because when one is looking for
somewhere to construct the happiest place on earth, he better find
a city or a collection of suburbs worthy of that title.

And Orange County is darn happy, dog-gone-it.

Happy because we have 94.3 KOOL (that’s right, with a
“˜K’) radio broadcasting not sad songs but happy music
non-stop, twelve hours a day, every day from the Block in
Orange.

O.C. is happy because we have the Block in Orange, the Irvine
Spectrum, the Tustin Marketplace and countless other
multiplex/outdoor malls where we can spend all of our free time and
money.

Oh yes, who can forget, O.C. is happy because we all have lots
and lots of money. But then how else would we buy our track homes,
SUVs and Abercrombie and Fitch wardrobes? The greatness that
abounds in Orange does not come cheap, but all who live here will
tell you it’s worth the price.

Having lived in the trenches of Los Angeles ““ home of the
body bag ““ I know what it is to suffer. But the pain has
allowed me to realize that perfection rests just a few miles down
the freeway.

Birthplace of presidents, home of the happiest place on earth,
foe of frugality in consumerism. Orange is the only county for me,
a dream come true.