Continued from Part 6 …
In my late 40’s it was looking like I might be spending the rest of my life in Syracuse. I had a great job, a parish where I loved to help out and a wonderful circle of friends. Perhaps it was time to put on my slippers and settle down in front of the fire …
Something drove me on and I found myself asking my Provincial (the “big boss”) if I could move to Los Angeles to work as a producer of religious videos. I don’t think I truly expected him to agree, so when he told me to go and give it a try, I nearly fell off the chair.
I loved my new job and found the Loyola Marymount Jesuits a great group of men with whom to live, but I never could get my head around Los Angeles. I don’t want to offend anyone from Southern California, but there was something about the sprawl and traffic of Los Angeles that got to me. I know it’s completely illogical, but something kept telling me that an Irishman didn’t deserve that much sunshine and all those cheerful people around him all the time.
People kept telling me to give it another year and I would come to love the place, but it didn’t happen and so I leapt at the chance to move to Loyola Press in Chicago.
Stay tuned for the next chapter of the long and winding road …
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
David Loftus 12.22.08 at 12:08 pm
I chuckled to myself as I read this entry in an uncharacteristically wet and dreary Los Angeles. Truth told, today’s weather is more like the West of Ireland than Southern California.
I moved here from the West of Ireland a good number of years ago. While I physically began the move 15 years ago, it took me 7 years before I considered myself as haveing a place made for myself in LA. But to the point… at this stage, I don’t think I’ll ever live anywhere that doesn’t have ocean and palm trees
It was the ocean and the mountains that made it possible to move here from Ireland and Mayo’s Atlantic coastline, and still today they remind me I am well rooted in the soil of two distinct and vastly different West Coasts. My own coping mechanism for the vast sprawl and the traffic was simply to take each small part of the city on its own terms… the same as I would with every small village in rural Ireland… No difference really
Eric 12.22.08 at 6:04 pm
I was born and raised in L.A. After I left to go to college, I only returned for visits to family. The smog and the traffic are awful. My wife, born and raised in Long Beach, and I will never move back there.
I assume you met my uncle when you were at Loyola Marymount, Fr. Dick Vaughan, S.J.
Paul 12.23.08 at 10:59 am
David & Eric,
I haven’t figured out how to leave separate comments, so forgive me for joining you both up in this response.
First, David. I’m amazed you found the blog and I understand how you like being in L.A. Not being from the North of Ireland, you have a lot more flexibility of character than me. I think that if I’d been told that my job required me to be in L.A. for a long time, I would have made more effort to adapt but, remember, I was commuting to and from Chicago the whole time I was in L.A. and so I never really had to commit in the same way as you.
Eric, of course I know your uncle. We lived together in the same house for a couple of years. He’s a former Provincial of the California Province of the Jesuits so is – rightly – seen as one of our Wise Men. Next time you’re in touch with him, please pass on my fond regards.
Meanwhile, a blessed and joyful Christmas to you both,
Paul