Gumballs and Lemon Drops: The Pre-HOA Era
January 31, 2009 by Afshin Yaghtin
Filed under Essays and Commentary
Once upon a time … it was a time of gumballs and lemon drops. Before Blagojevich, Edwards, and Spitzer. Before OBL.
Children (well, high schoolers) listened to Def Leppard and Metallica while the Christian Right dubbed it “devil-music”; Ferris Bueller eluded convicted sex offender Jeffrey Jones (the principal) while Molly Ringwald and Emilio Esteviz captured our hearts and youthful lust for independence in The Breakfast Club.
Yes, we are discoursing on the Pre-HOA era of our lackluster youth.
Life was good here on earth (at least in the Western half just this side of the Prime Meridian).
Although Homeowners Associations did not actually gain much traction in the Land of the Free until 1964, most middle class communities lived at peace with one another all the through the 70s, 80s, and perhaps early 90s, without the astute and sage assistance of HOA board members (or as the natives call them in their mother-tongue: meddling fascist bastards).
I remember growing up in an appropriately landscaped neighborhood in the slightly wealthy suburb of Encino, California. At 16, my girlfriend was a slightly younger beautiful JAP–no, not a girl of Japanese descent, but a prominent Jewish American Princess who happened to be a cheerleader no less), and we all lived at peace with one another–Jews, Gentiles, and the like.
Sure, every now and again we might drive by a pink house that was blue the day yonder, or someone might leave the trash out an extra night; but so what? We were happy.
Americans did not yet know that in about a decade their duly elected representatives would be training their future nemesis, a small group known as, quote, “The Taliban”, to fend off the Russian invasion of a small landlocked country called the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (oh, with the aid of great American allies, Saudi Arabia and the Pakastani secret service). But that’s neither here nor now.
The point is, all great empires are built upon the shoulders of great men and women who came before them; our great and honored HOAs owe their incendiary success to such great leaders as Stalin and Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched.
