My Community Standard

A few minutes before 11 yesterday morning, as I was walking the campus, past the 200 classrooms again, I thought back to the Panorama Mall in Panorama City, a no-frills mall that was there for service. No huge banners for movies or TV shows, no soda vending machines with credit card slots, very few stalls across from various stores selling Pillow Pets or cell phone cases. What you see is what there is, and there's also the two-floor Walmart that looks nothing like how the corporation is setting up other Walmarts, with slicker operations.

Across from La Curacao, the Hispanic electronics store, there were tables with chess boards and timers on them, and people playing chess. There was a quiet, thoughtful feeling in this area, and that's my community standard, with people sitting close together, a mutual game between them, enjoying the strategy, the concentration, working to think three moves ahead. Everyone was equal in these games. This is what there was. And it was honest, most important to me, unlike here in Santa Clarita, where you can't get a solid read on anyone. I don't intend to seek out chess games in Henderson, since I don't play chess, but I get that same feeling there.