Our Town : Who Could Leave a City That Boasts the Mark Taper and Mariachi Bands?

ALMOST NO one who lives in Los Angeles cannot look back to the time when he could have bought a house dirt-cheap and sold it for a fortune.

I am several times a millionaire in lost opportunities. Once I saw an advertisement for a house above Echo Park Lake, with a clear view of the lake. It was only $7,500, but I thought it needed work, and I didn’t want to undertake it. It must be worth $200,000 now.

Another time, when I was in Avalon, I saw an ad on the pier for a house above the bay for $30,000. I rented a golf cart and drove up to the house. It was on the hillside, overlooking Avalon Bay; two stories with an incredible view. I decided that we already had a house in Mexico, and that we didn’t need another vacation house. I hesitate to guess what that house is worth today.

This phenomenon of escalating real estate values in Los Angeles is causing many homeowners to sell their equity and move elsewhere, where they can buy bigger houses with money left over. Many are moving into our metropolitan suburbs, into the several counties that surround us. Others are moving to other states, going back to a rural setting, or what’s left of it.

As I said recently, I’ll probably stay in Los Angeles until I’m shot, hit by a car or asphyxiated. That statement seemed to cause little anxiety among my readers, though Steve Gerhart, now of Baton Rouge, La., said he would hate to learn that I had suffered any of those fates.

Gerhart tried to explain why he left Los Angeles: “I myself was an Angeleno with impeccable credentials: a second-generation native, graduate of Occidental College, steadfast Dodgers/Lakers/Rams fan even in the lean years, and no friend of Frisco.

“But, with the clarity of Mt. Wilson on a smogless day, I perceived the fact that I had seen the best of Los Angeles, and it wasn’t getting any better. It remains an appealing place if you’re from someplace else, but why would anyone choose to stay where everyone else is coming? My present locale is not as delightful as Los Angeles, but it’s not supposed to be.”

Gerhart notes that he wasn’t the first in his family to move out. “My father had already retired to Portugal, and my mother to Penn Valley, Calif.; one sister had relocated to Yuba City, and the other to Fallbrook. It’s you I’m concerned about now. I would hate to learn you’d been shot, hit by a car or asphyxiated, even in ‘the freest city in the world.’ ”

I’ll have to take my chances. After World War II, Los Angeles was a hospitable town. My wife and I bought our present house for $8,425, on the GI Bill. I found work easy to get. We survived, though barely. Today we live in the same house, though it has been doubled in size and we have added a pool. Both of us resist retirement, but sooner or later we must accept it. Meanwhile, we have no thought of escaping.

We have the Music Center and its Mark Taper Forum, the Los Angeles Theater Center, the movies, the Dodgers, the Roma Gardens restaurant in Pasadena, the Konditori on Lake Avenue for breakfast, the Pasadena Athletic Club, the Lakers (next year), the Raiders (next year), the Rams (next year); we have heard Katherine Helmond expend an enormous amount of energy as Sarah Bernhardt at the Pasadena Playhouse; we have the zoo, the Universal Studios Tours’ earthquake; we have the voice of Charlton Heston, as Moses, parting the Red Sea, and we have Disneyland, which reminds us of our myths. Who says we don’t have culture?

How could one part with all that to live in a community where the only entertainments were a candy store, a McDonald’s, the annual high school play, a bridge club, the PTA and the girls’ drill team?

No doubt Los Angeles has changed for the worse. Much is blamed on the immigrants. In the long run, the immigrants will define us. Recently, as I have said, I hired a mariachi group to play at our anniversary party. I had paid them $60 in advance, not sure they would show up.

They were early. They were dressed in pretty blue coats and white pants. They played, as agreed, for two hours. I paid them $200, and they drank the last of nine beers.

I think we can work this out.