The World Around Us

California, the State Where I Live

California, My Home State by Shaara

         I was asked to write about California, the state where I live. That’s no fun. Everyone in the world already knows about my state. Or at least, that’s what I thought until I visited a school in another state. When I talked to the children there, they turned California into an elephant!

         Remember the blind men who touched the elephant? It’s a great story, and I hope you read it again because my memory sometimes swats things around (like my kitty with her ball!) But the way I recall that tale is that each of the men touched a different part of an elephant. One man met with the elephant’s tail.

         “Oh, I know what an elephant feels like,” he said. “It’s a snake with a broom at the end!”

         “No,” said his friend, holding onto a huge foot. “An elephant is a drum that goes up and up and up. Only a giant can play it!”

         “No!” said the third. “An elephant is a big wall,” he told them, laughing as he leaned against the side of the elephant.

         “You’re all wrong,” announced the fourth blind man. “An elephant is a fireman’s hose.”

         Of course, the last man was probably tickling the elephant’s trunk and got sneezed out of the country!

         And as you know, that’s just a silly story anyway because people who can’t see are much better at figuring out the shape, texture, size, and description of something by touching, listening, and hearing it than a sighted person is, but I put this story in because all those students in Kansas reminded me of it. You know what they said about California?

         A second grader told me that he’d been to California, and there were movie stars on every street! Hollywood is in California, and it is the place where lots of movie stars film TV programs and where they make movies, but all California isn’t King Kong or Back to the Future! (Although, I honestly did see the entire cast of Star Trek, one time!)

         A fifth grader told me that California was all desert! His friend started arguing because he said it was all beaches! The truth is that neither of them were correct.

         As you can see in my illustration, we do have beautiful beaches -- lots of them!

         Some of you probably have seen a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a very famous bridge. I've seen pictures of it even in a lot of social studies books because it’s one of the Wonders of the Modern World.

The Golden Gate Bridge is in the city of San Francisco where there are cable cars that are really fun to ride on.(San Francisco is also the scene of one of the Star Trek movies – for all my sci-fi friends!)


         As you can see in my map, the beach borders one whole side of California. There are hundreds of miles of ocean and sand (remember California is a big state, bigger than any other state in the USA except Texas and Alaska!) so we get to see islands, boats, and water skiers, and think how awesome it is when we are lucky enough to view dolphins, seals, and even whales swimming out in the ocean! I love to watch the sea animals, but I honestly see a lot more surfers than whales!

         At the school where I teach, sometimes I get to hear the sound of a fog horn. Imagine! There are days when my students look out over the playground, and they can’t even see the slide because our fog is so thick. I love days like that!

         Anyway, remember the Kansas boy who said that California was all desert? We do have deserts here in California. That’s true, too! Did you know that Death Valley, one of our deserts, is the lowest point in the whole United States, (and California’s Mount Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous United States – that means all those states that touch each other, so not Alaska.) Can you believe one state can be the lowest (282 feet below sea level) and the highest place at the same time (14,491 feet above sea level)? Pretty cool, huh?

         Now, lots of those kids I was telling you about, also, told me that they’d seen California on TV on New Year’s Day. Did you ever watch the Rose Bowl Parade and see all the floats filled with flowers? My favorite is always the one from Cal Poly (since that’s where I went to school.) A few years back they made a dinosaur float that spit bubbles out at the people. That was my favorite float ever!

         Of course, most people know that California is the site of the first Disneyland! That amusement park is a really great place to go, the Happiest Place on Earth, or so Mr. Disney always said. I sure know I’m happy when I go there, but I do get a little scared on some of the rides. (Don’t tell anyone, but I’m a big coward. Sure, I’m ready to blast off into outer space, but don’t ever put me on the bob sleds which dash around the Matterhorn because I have to keep my eyes closed, and when I finally get off, my legs are awfully shaky! But that’s a secret, remember?)

         Once I traveled all the way to Germany -- that’s very far away in the continent of Europe, anyway, when I told people I lived in California, they said, “Oh, then maybe you know my cousin, Jason.” You see, people always forget how big California is! It has more people than any other state in the whole United States, and I sure don’t know all those people. I don’t even know everyone who lives in my neighborhood!

          I haven’t begun to tell you all the cool stuff about California. I should have told you about how we’re the artichoke and garlic capital of the world, but who wants to know that?

         I could have told you about the 30 million legos® they used to construct Legoland®, or about how we have the tallest and largest living organisms in the world in our forests (the Sequoias and redwood trees.) OK, so you’re not impressed by that last thing. Well, let me tell you that when I was in London, England, they had a slice of one of those trees, and everyone from all over the world was oohing and ahhing about it, so it must be pretty fantastic. I bet you didn’t know California has the largest tree in the whole world, either, did you?

         It's obvious that you are very impressed by all the wonders of California now, but I just have to add to it! I bet you didn’t know that the first McDonald’s restaurant EVER was located in California! And that’s not all. This last fact will you blow you over onto the ground! This one is really, really a cool piece of information to know. California has the world’s largest yo-yo. It weighs 256 pounds, and I saw it once!

To see it, you can go to this address: http://www.nationalyoyo.org/museum/index.htm

         I bet you’ve got lots of things to share with me about your state or country. Could you write me about it? And don’t forget to visit me. You’ll find me (when I’m not in California) at Outer Space Bound.


Bye,
Shaara