So. Granted. I’m terribly prejudiced. I’m forced to drive down the hill from Bouquet Canyon to reach the yawning civilization of Greater Newhall, what newcomers like to call, “Santa Clarita,” after the height-challenged St. Clare. Dear cripes. How I long to write, “… midget.” (As in, pickles …) 

There’s a problem. A whoop of not chimpanzees but developers and construction workers have been removing the hill on Bouquet Canyon. It brings a sneer to my upper lip because I love mountains, so especially in the spring when they’re dotted with uncountable wild flowers. Construction is necessary, but, it’s like putting rouge on a hunchbacked dowager. The birth of housing projects and strip malls comes with an essential and bland ugliness. But, they become not just houses, but homes, that build memories, some painful, some wonderful of children and blessed sanctuary. 

Still. I’ve got to motor down Bouquet and take an annoying detour that dramatic me grumbles that it leads to Greater Newhall via Frazier Park. I’m guessing developers already have penned a catchy albeit inaccurate name for the project. My wincing detour as I drive past Formerly Beautiful Hills Estates reminds me of the old Michael Keaton movie, “Multiplicity.” Hilarious flick and Keaton truly deserved at least an Oscar nomination for playing four, separate characters in his wonderful comedy. It was just a passing visual joke in a background scene, but Keaton portrays a construction foreman working on a new housing project named, “Vista del Nada.” Apologies........

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