<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Why California Will Never Be Like Tuscany</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">There must have been huge oaks and pines, cedars,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> maybe madrone,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">in Tuscany and Umbria long ago.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">A few centuries after wood was gone, they began to build with<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> brick and stone.</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Brick and stone farmhouses, solid, fireproof,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">steel shutters and doors.</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">But farming changed.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">60,000 vacant solid fireproof Italian farmhouses<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">on the market in 1970,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">scattered across the land.</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Sixty thousand affluent foreigners,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">to fix them, learn to cook, and write a book.</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">But in California, houses all are wood —<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">roads pushed through, sewers dug, lines laid underground —<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">hundreds of thousands, made of strandboard, sheetrock,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> plaster —.</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">They won’t be here 200 years from now — they’ll burn or rot.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">No handsome solid second homes for</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Thousand-year later wealthy<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""></span><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Melanesian or Eskimo artists and writers here,</span></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 18px !important;"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;">— oak and pine will soon return.</span></p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Gary Snyder</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>