Category Archives: California Story

A Native Son Recounts His Tale…

November 9, 2011

Video: Pioneers! O Pioneers! by Walt Whitman

Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love.

Pioneers! O Pioneers!

A Promise to California

A promise to California,
Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon;
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain,
to teach robust American love,
For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you,
inland, and along the Western sea;
For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will also.

Walt Whitman – Leaves of Grass

October 3, 2011

California Story

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California Story by Mark Stradley

A Native Son Recounts His Tale …

To begin my story I record that I was born in Southern California in the late 1950′s. But this California Story isn’t just about me. It’s about friends, family and those Californians who came before us and those who will follow.

“The flashing and golden pageant of California,
The sudden and gorgeous drama, the sunny and ample lands,
The long and varied stretch from Puget sound to Colorado south,
Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air…” ~ Walt Whitman


My Brother and I amongst the California wild flowers….(Early 1960′s.)

Over time, here in this blog, in bits and pieces, one post at a time, I shall tell the California Story.

To give you some idea of the California I experienced as a young child, I present the following videos:

1950s

1955

1956

1960s

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet