I heard that a lot when I moved to Leucadia from Milwaukee in 1976 to start seventh grade. (I was born in Manhattan, lived in upstate NY for third and fourth grades, then moved to Wisconsin for fifth and sixth; the license plates on our VW station wagon advertised our status as new arrivals.)
I got a later start in SoCal than many of you, but I know I’m not the only transplant among our ranks. In fact, I believe our social scene was created in large part by the influx of young families that arrived in San Diego County in the ’60s and ’70s, literally reshaping the sprawling landscape and introducing a booster shot of youngsters to the region just as the nation’s post-war baby boom was giving way to Generation X.
Those all-ages clubs opened their doors to us for a reason, and our suburban anomie was prime territory for “Lord of the Flies”-style social experiments.