Golis: On the road in a corner of California few ever see

LONOAK

Chances are you’ve never heard of the Monterey County community of Lonoak, much less visited here.

These days, Lonoak is barely more than a wide spot on the road that winds through the rolling hills and valleys between Hollister in the north and Highway 198 in the south. There’s a handful of houses and barns, a windmill, the junction of Highway 25 and Lonoak Road and a creek lined with what once passed as erosion control. That would be rusting car bodies.

We traveled here after a friend said this area reminds her of old California, and after the sprawl of San Jose, we see what she means. Traveling north to south, Highway 25 serves up empty spaces in a bucolic ranch land.

Past Tres Pinos, Pacines, Bitterwater and the entrance to Pinnacles National Park, we see yellow mustard and orange poppies — California poppies — splashed against the brilliant greens of springtime.

Away from the rush of north-south traffic on the nearby interstates, this secluded landscape remains one of those corners of California few people ever see (which is why we came to visit). Highway 25 is sometimes called “the Airline Highway” because early pilots used it for navigation.

You know you’ve left the Bay Area when you see the tractor trailer alone in a field. On the side, written in big letters, it says, “TRUMP.”

We are reminded of the amazing diversity of California in all its forms, geographic and otherwise.

Just now, rural California is celebrating a milestone of sorts. For the first time in a long time, both leaders of the California Legislature — Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas of nearby Hollister and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire of Healdsburg — are said to come from rural areas. (With its upscale restaurants and boutiques, Healdsburg won’t be confused with Hollister, but you get the idea. McGuire’s district extends 300 miles to the Oregon border.)

Once upon a time, rural counties dominated state government, but then came a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared that state legislative districts should be apportioned by population, not geography. In the sexist jargon of the time, it was said to enshrine “one man, one vote.”

Extra points if you can name the case that transformed state government.

If you answered Reynolds v. Sims, you are correct, but you need to get out more.

“The reality is that most of California’s rural and agricultural communities have long been marginalized in Sacramento, so just having a friendly ear in a position of influence makes us hopeful,” State Farm Bureau lobbyist Alex Biering told Politico.

In current times, we seldom hear about rural California, except for the occasional story about a conservative takeover in one place or a farmworker town where water must be imported by truck in another.

In the rush of technology and urbanization, these are not the best of times in rural California. Visit El Centro or Needles, Madera or Alturas, and the story is the same. The population is becoming older and poorer. With too few doctors and nurses, hospitals are scrambling to survive. It’s difficult to recruit teachers and police officers, too. Downtown stores are boarded up. The population is shrinking because there are more deaths than births.

“Where is the nation's lowest job growth? Look no further than rural California,” the Los Angeles Times reported last week. Ten of the state’s rural counties are recording double-digit unemployment rates.

“The data suggest that although the state’s big cities grab headlines for mass layoffs and population loss, it is actually rural California that struggles most with unemployment,” the Times reported.

There’s a belief in these places that life would be better if they could do what they want — if they could cut down trees, dam rivers, dig for minerals, enjoy limitless water from somewhere else and pay less attention to regulations intended to protect wildlife and other natural resources. They say the rest of California doesn’t share their values.

This nostalgia for the old days fuels a sense of resentment. For some, it energizes the drive for secession. Some want to create a new state, the state of Jefferson, and others want to join with rural Oregon and annex to Idaho.

It doesn’t help that the more populous areas of California remain indifferent to what happens in the hundreds of small towns that now scramble to keep up with a changing world.

The troubles of rural California have even given birth to organizations, including the California Legislative Rural Caucus, that hope to bring attention to the problems and deliver solutions, too.

But it isn’t easy. How do you find the money necessary to bring broadband service to sparsely populated areas? Even with bonuses, how do you persuade health professionals to uproot families and move to a remote town?

Big town or small, mountains or farm valley, desert or ocean front, we’re all Californians, and all of us make our own contributions to this unique place. We should find ways to help these lovely, rural places trying to survive globalization and the passage of time.

Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat. Email him at golispd@gmail.com.

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.