Iowa, There You Go? Let’s see. You’re looking for a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath family home with a two-car garage. Size: 2,200 square feet. You find a home of that description in Santa Barbara for $1,600,000. But wait. According to the folks at Coldwell Banker, you could buy a “similar” home in (yep) good old Bakersfield for $273,457.

But wait some more: If you packed the family into the gas-guzzling SUV or cranky old station wagon, headed east, and found yourself in Sioux City, Iowa, you’d be looking at a “similar” place of that size running you a mere $133,459, according to the Coldwell Banker survey. It’s the most affordable town in the nation, according to Coldwell Banker.

Think of the savings! And because Sioux City is losing population (down a couple of thousand from the 2000 census of 85,013) it might be a buyers’ market.

Folks who miss those wonderful four seasons will rejoice in this town. Summers are very humid, up in the 90s, and winters are cold and snowy, the temperatures falling below zero. (Remember zero? I recall delivering papers in Chicago’s freezing cold and have no plans to return to retrace the steps of my paper route in January.)

According to Coldwell Banker, the most expensive place in America to find that “similar” four-bedroom pad is right here in California. The 2008 average sales price in La Jolla was $1,841,667, according to the survey. To give you an idea of the impact of falling home prices at that end of the spectrum, last year Beverly Hills hit the top spot at $2.21 million. This year snooty BH fell to third place at $1,777,475. Santa Barbara, by the way, is in sixth place.

San Marcos Success Story: But it didn’t start out that way. It’s about a student who got expelled. Back in the late 1970s, I was tooling along State Street in my (now departed) 1963 Valiant. Bruce Platt just emailed to remind me of the occasion: I’d spotted a group of high-spirited kids hanging out the sunroof of a limo. “You pulled up next to us and asked who we were,” Bruce recalled. “I replied, ‘Robin Trower,’ who had just cancelled a gig at UCSB.”

Seems that I believed him and wrote about it in my column. “I called you,” Bruce said, “confessed and you wrote a follow-up article.” In it, I said something to the effect that Bruce was a San Marcos student. (Actually, he’d been expelled for smoking “something I wasn’t supposed to smoke in the parking lot or anywhere for that matter.”)

The principal read that column. “The principal knew I hated being at La Cuesta and knew I was remorseful. He allowed me to come back and finish the second half of my senior year and graduate with my class. He said he based his decision on the fact that I stated that I was a student at SMHS. I have you to thank for that.” (I’m guessing that the principal felt the pride in Bruce’s claim.)

There’s more. “I went to our 20th high school reunion in1998,” Bruce told me. “I ran into my high school sweetheart who I had not seen in decades. We were married in 2002 and now live in Cumming, GA. I now have five step-children.” He’s now a national account manager.

That story ought to warm your heart, even in mid-winter in Sioux City.

Free NP? “I cancelled my weekend subscription to the Santa Barbara News-Press,” reports Bob Genoways. “It stopped coming to my home on Mission Canyon Road for three or four days. Since then I have been receiving the paper seven days a week at no charge. I guess both The Independent and the News-Press are free.”

Who’s on Third? The New Yorker claimed that Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland got off the best line of the Demo convention when he said, quoth the magazine, “Unlike George H.W. Bush, who was born on third base and thought he hit a triple, George W. was born on third base and stole second.”

It’s the Law: Apparently, many drivers on Cabrillo Boulevard either don’t know the law or don’t care. I’ve been observing them zooming down on pedestrians without a thought that the vehicle code gives pedestrians at intersections the right of way and that cars must yield to them as they attempt to cross.

Sane, Single: T-shirt on a young woman at a traffic light on the Mesa: “Stay Single, Stay Sane.”

Arlington West Volunteers: The folks who have been setting up and taking down flags at the Arlington West Memorial next to Stearns Wharf desperately need volunteers. “Many people realize that Arlington West is one of the most powerful and persuasive statements for our need for peace in the world,” said volunteer Lane Anderson, 450-8420. He said volunteers are needed on Sunday morning, between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., or at around four in the afternoon.

Comments

Discussion Guidelines

Local Weather

Currently:
Clear Sky
Temperature:
57.0°
Wind:
3 ENE

Surf Report