"We Choose the Myth over Reality Every Time"

"I have my own California dream now, much humbler in comparison. It's not a dream of gold-lined shores but a hope—foolhardy, perhaps—that the state will be able to look after my children's basic needs. Not long ago, my daughter's elementary school, one of the best in the city, was forced to squeeze its fourth and fifth graders into a single classroom. This is the new reality, they told us. Reality never really interested my father, or the California fortune hunters of the past, and I can't help blaming them—him—for the mess we're in. Read about the S&L crisis that spelled my father's ruin and you'll feel an uncomfortable prickle of déjà vu: unregulated bankers, reckless loans insured by the government, a federal bailout that cost taxpayers billions and spawned a nationwide recession. If one goes to Southern California to see the future, as Alison Lurie once said, then it's a future that's been showing the same movie for some time."

Eric Puchner in GQ recounts the story of his father and California.