California sometimes reminds me of an old Mad Magazine novelty record, “It’s a Super-Spectacular Day.” Maybe you remember it. The song starts out as a jaunty little ditty: “It’s a great big beautiful, wonderful, incredible super-spectacular day!” All the bells are ringing and a little bird’s singing on your window sill …
Until . . . !
Some crazy calamity occurs. What made the record novel was that the second part of the song was different depending upon where you put the needle on the record. The mob mistakes you for a fink and “breaks your arm and does bodily harm.” A UFO abducts you. You die of some freakish disease. A freight train hits you. Funny stuff like that.
California is a great big beautiful, wonderful, incredible, super-spectacular state until some random calamity strikes. An earthquake destroys a major thoroughfare. A devastating wildfire wipes out half of Napa Valley. Somebody decides the state should secede.
Read the rest at the Sacramento Bee.