I see great beauty in a curve on the newly built section of State Route 52, which connects freeway 15 and the city of Santee. To fully appreciate the scenic splendor of this turn, it is necessary that the viewer be a transplant from a different country and not a native.

Being an immigrant from the East who arrived in the United States in my 30s, my perception and perspective is different from someone who has lived here all his life, and makes me the ideal person to appreciate this landscape.

During the early years from 1976 to 1977, I was afraid this country would soon be overrun with moral decay and stop functioning as a civilized society. In the very least, I thought it would fall to communism due to blatant lawlessness and excessive and uncontrolled personal freedom.

There was an incident which made me even doubt the voting process which formed the basis of this democracy, the one for which I planned to live out the rest of my life.

The civil authority(I don't remember whether it was federal, state, or city) decided to change the name of a street from Market to Martin Luther King Jr., in honor of the civil rights leader.

San Diegans, comprised of a fairly large number of conservative whites, strongly opposed this change, and there was quite an organized effort on the part of other like minded people to prevent the renaming. The local media entered the debate by broadcasting rumors of questionable activity perpetrated by Dr. King. There were also concerns raised by residents and businesses located on Market street who feared that this tribute would have negative financial ramifications. For example, such a name change would force things such as business cards, receipts, advertising, and other legal records to be redone at considerable expense.

The Say no to name-change committee, in an effort to put the decision-making power into the hands of as many whites as possible, collected signatures from the predominantly white population in that area. Ultimately, the issue was settled by vote from this same population.

The inevitable result was victory by the Say no to name-change contingent, and Market Street remained Market Street.

I do not live in that part of San Diego, and at the time, I was not eligible to vote. I followed the matter out of curiosity. As the two sides debated, I bet on the opponents of the name change to win. I saw this issue as a chance for many San Diegans to express their hidden resentment against Blacks. Since it was just a name, and one is as good as another, the only reason to be against calling the street Martin Luther King Jr. was because they were racists who wanted to provoke Blacks. This was what I believed.

And I was right. The Black community was furious with the outcome. They reacted angrily to the result and asked the rest of the country to boycott San Diego. They marched and demonstrated against the vote, and the woman mayor of San Diego joined them. But the "NO" vote stood, and so did the name.

Later, in an attempt to appease the Black community, the locals decided to honor Dr. King by naming State Route 94 after him. This was somewhat successful in appeasing the demands of the Black community.

Being very naive about politics at the time, I felt disappointed by what I considered to be a misuse of the right to vote. I suspected that if there were a vote to banish all people of color from San Diego, that too would pass. Of course, it could never get enacted. But if such an opportunity were to present itself, could anyone resist expressing his or her hostility toward another race when safely within the total privacy of the voting booth?

Sometime later, another ballot issue was brought before the voters. This one concerned the raising of the sales tax for the construction of new freeways. Americans, like everyone else on earth, are very careful about their money, and are weary of giving up any bit of it, especially to the government. I expected a "NO" vote.

To my surprise, I was wrong. There was a majority which supported the project, and dug deep into their pockets to put up the funds necessary for the extension of State Route 52.

Being a resident of Santee, I would benefit directly from this addition to the highway. It would save me from the nightmare traffic coming off Freeway 8 and reduce my commute to and from work by about 6 miles. I was therefore quite upset when I learned there would be a problem which would significantly delay the project.

The obstacle was a few birds!

Environmental specialist had announced that these birds were on the endangered species list, and were protected by federal environmental laws. Their natural habitat was not to be disturbed, which a freeway cutting through this area would certainly do.

A specialist explained that there were two solutions to this problem. One was to build the freeway at a fair distance around this area. The other was to build another habitat for the birds. It may even be necessary to do both, and each at great expense.

Preparing a new home for the birds takes a lot of time and involves many things. The birds need time to adapt themselves to their new surroundings. They can't be moved easily, and it takes more than simply sending in marshalls with an eviction notice demanding that they vacate immediately. Since time is money, the time spent waiting for the birds to acclimate themselves is money down the drain.

The other solution was even more expensive though. In addition to the high price of constructing a freeway, making it longer would add the additional costs of extra time on the road and therefore, drivers would consume more gas. We wondered if the lives of a few birds were worth this headache.

Heated debates began springing up everywhere, with most people against the birds. The general feeling was that people shouldn't squander money to protect a few meaningless birds. They argued that the amount of extra fuel burned from the added miles going around the nests would add to the pollution problem and do harm to both people and birds.

Those who favored the protection of the birds remained silent. Their "quiet minority" wasn't heard much on the news, and they made few statements to defend their position.

On this issue, I sided with the majority and favored going straight through the area.

It wasn't that I was indifferent to the plight of the birds. The loss of another species is something to be avoided when possible, and it is selfish to think otherwise. On this issue however, I felt that the evironmentalists had gone a little too far. State Route 52 would cut through a hilly and unpopulated area. The north side of the freeway is mountainous and uninhabited. I anticipated that the birds, if disturbed by the noise of road-making equipment, would, of their own accord, move north where they could resettle without much difficulty. For humans to intervene and put their hands on every step of this forced migration would be a waste of taxpayer money.

Again, I guessed that San Diegans would use the ballot to decide this issue, and a majority made up of those favoring the birds-be-damned position would win big, with maybe 70 percent of the vote. And my vote would be with theirs.

I was wrong again! I made the mistake of speculating on this issue while ignoring the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the Federal Laws of the U.S..

There would be no voting on this issue, no city hall debates. The opinions of the citizens were irrelevant, and all appeals to the environmental specialists falling on deaf ears. The complaints about the birds adding significant additional costs to the project were moot, since Federal Law stated that an endangered species must be protected, regardless of whatever inconvenience it might bring.

The Federal workers assigned to this task then inconspicuously went to work. Sometimes, they made public announcements on the progress, such as when the new habitat was about to be completed, or that the birds were accepting the change, etc.

Finally, after a years delay, after everybody was sure that the birds were fully accommodated, the construction began...

If I still kept the mentality of a professional journalist, I would be elaborating more on the birds, giving out detailed information such as what type of bird it was, how many there were left in the wild, and what were the special conditions of its habitat. I would also tell you what their new home would be, how far away the freeway it would be from it, and a breakdown of all the costs.

But I am lazy, and I don't want to bore you with all this dry data.

I admit that even now, I still don't know exactly where the birds have been relocated. Maybe it is the wooded area running alongside the creek that flows towards the old dam at the base of Mission Gorge mountain. Or maybe it is the wooded area which surrounds the small lakes near the end of the freeway on the southern side. Or the bare hills in the middle among the short stunted bushes.

When the freeway was finally constructed, there was a curve near the entrance. After going eastward about a mile past the Santo Road Exit, Freeway 52 changes direction and goes north encircling a few hills. Is this curve due to the topology of the hills or was it for avoiding the birds? I am unsure and too lazy to find out, but I've decided to blame it all on the birds.

I wrote a lot in the preceding paragraphs so that I could fully describe the special moment I had one morning as I approached this curve.

There was a foggy mist which was just thick enough to slow traffic down. After entering Freeway 52, my car joined the mass of vehicles inching along to their destination at the pace of 5 to 10 miles per hour. To keep my mind off the terrible traffic, I took in the view from beyond the freeway peeking behind the fog. Not a lot could be seen, but it was still better than just looking at the rear end of the car ahead.

As I approached the bridge over a canyon, I noticed in front of me a bright light standing out against the white of the surrounding fog. As I drove near, I saw a large luminous stream of sunlight which looked like a transparent tube in which beams of sun rays shot through. As I got closer, I saw the sun being reflected off the million particles of water in the misty air. Then I got on the bridge which was totally clear of fog and awash in bright sunlight while the road in front of me, sitting between the hills, was hidden in the fog, leaving me, from within my car, spotlighted by the heavens.

I felt like I was entering a strange place that I had never seen before in my life. The familiar bridge that I drive on daily seemed to disappear. The small bare hills on both sides of the canyon became a deep lush forest. Below, the small deer crossing at the bottom of the ravine changed into a small stream which flowed up and away disappearing between the silhouettes of the two mountain ranges.

All the cars in front of me slowed and then stopped. But at this point, I was no longer in a hurry to go anywhere. I rolled down the window and caught the eye of the woman who was driving in the lane next to mine. Instead of a "Hello", I saw her mouth form the word "Wow". Her young face brightened. I knew she too was entranced by the wondrous vision before us.

We both were stunned, finding ourselves in an amazing small sunny morning, the tiny, cute morning encircled by walls of fog.

I was submerged in the smells of the dewy air, of the leaves and grasses, and of burning autumn logs. The sun rays warmed my bare arm and drove away the chill of the season until my body felt warm all over. It was a very peaceful moment, as if I was absorbed by the nature surrounding me and part of the magic of that morning.

(There have been occasions in my life where I have felt overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy. What triggers these moments can be a pleasant sent, a familiar aroma, or an image before me which recalls something from my past. These things may be very simple, like a pool of rain water, a blossoming flower in the summer, or the sight of a kite as it lifts away from the hand of a running boy. If I deliberately try to evoke those images, their effect on me is very weak. Memories which are forcefully drawn up are not very compelling, but those that come unexpectedly like accidentally running into a long lost friend acquire great intensity.)

That morning, when my olfactory senses were awakened by the scent of the leaves and the smell of the smoke, when my arm felt the warmth of the sun, my mind did achieve this heightened state of rapture.

Those moments filled me with an exhilarating sense of happiness about my life.

I suddenly found myself laughing at the pessimism and resentment over my first few years here in America. The excessive freedoms of the individual and the softness of the American law still exist, but otherwise this is a very strong country which has resisted the encroachment of Communism. It is Communism which is dying, with only a few pitiful communist countries remaining, eeking out the last breaths from its ideological corpse.

The threat to the world now is from all the nuclear weapons. There are more than enough of them to end the world. But mankind I believe, will prevail in spite of this, and triumph over his own destructive tendencies. We have made laws to protect the environment and the species in it, whether they are birds or fish or rare plants. Man is willing to give other species a chance to coexist peacefully with him until the end of time.

The bridge symbolizes this noble effort, particularly that curve to the north of Freeway 52 which detours around the birds.

A few moments later, the woman in the lane next to mine would speed off and leave behind this beautiful bridge she took a moment to enjoy on one beautiful morning. She would climb up the hill and head north like all of the other drivers. The normal, constant traffic of yesterday, today, tomorrow and for hundreds of years to come will do the same thing.

• Chapter 12

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