Snow On the Hollywood Hills

Another false memory?

Stephen Jay Morris

Last Day in February 2023

©Scientific Morality

When I was living with my parents on Martel Avenue, in the City of Los Angeles, I used to look at the Hollywood Hills in wonderment. With my vivid imagination, I would try to picture what it was like up there. I thought there were exotic animals wandering around, waterfalls, and a lush forest between the valleys. I frequently dreamed about the area. As the years went on, those rolling hills got dotted with more and more houses. I hated that. I wanted the hills to remain as they were, in their natural state. (You should see my old neighborhood now—it looks like Century City! The once Jewish neighborhood is gone.)

Once in 1965, it rained for two weeks straight! On one day, we had a hail storm. Our front lawn became completely white! It looked like there’d been a snowfall! My sister and brother and I ran outside and made snow balls, and then we threw them at each other. It was great fun! I noticed how the Hollywood Hills looked like the Swedish Alps for a day. Within four hours, however, it was all melted.

Yesterday, following an historic winter storm, I watched a YouTube video clip entitled, “Snow on the Hollywood Sign.” Tourists were all excited over an almost invisible dusting of snow on the ground. The news reporter was all giddy, like I was when it hailed at my house in 1965. I remember that my mom told me how it did snow in L.A., in January 1949. Otherwise, the weather was always perfect, bright and sunny, every day.

The sub-tropical weather had compelled my family to settle down in what is known as “The L.A. Basin.” Los Angeles, a very widespread city bordered by mountains and hills in all directions, can be likened to a crater on the moon. Imagine if terrorists were to hold the city hostage with nuclear bombs, all they would have to do is block the major freeways of the city with gunmen, and millions of people would be defenseless and terrified. Then there is the fear of a major earthquake. With all the usual pollution, high density, and poverty, the one outstanding thing about L.A. is the weather. There are only a few bad days throughout the year, and I mean very few. Every Christmas I spent there was framed by blue skies and a balmy 76 degrees.

Now the city is plagued with homeless encampments and ultra high, real-estate prices. You have to be rich to live in L.A. I saw another video of homeless people in tents, enduring a rare rainstorm. Some reporter asked one of them why they were tolerant of the rain, to which he laughed and said, “It’s better than being homeless in New York City!” He was so correct about that. If I were without a home, L.A. would be the place for me.

A lot of wealthy people lived in the Hollywood Hills when I was a child in L.A. Believe me, it was not a Utopian life there. There were brush fires every summer. I remember witnessing one, when my family was on an outing, visiting the Griffith Park Observatory. We were about to leave the parking area when I saw smoke coming from the adjacent canyon. I ran to the railing that surrounded the parking lot and saw the biggest flames I’d ever seen, blazing about 25 feet from me! I hurriedly jumped into the car and could hardly contain my excitement as I told my family about what I’d just seen. My dad replied sardonically, of course, “Why don’t you jump into the fire?” We silently drove off. My dad always did that to me; whenever I was excited about something, he’d figuratively throw water on me. Oh, and yeah, the Hollywood Hills always had mudslides and landslides following the rare rainfalls.

Bob Seger, the Detroit rock star, wrote a song that took place in the Hollywood Hills called, “Hollywood Nights.” It was about a girl. Of course, it was! But the song made the place sound romantic. For a day, it was.

By the 1970’s I realized that the Hollywood Hills was just some hills covered with weeds that turned brown in the summer. The only good thing about the place was its view of the city. Otherwise, yuck! But the fantasies I had was worth the illusion. To this day, I still dream about them.