Everything comes to California

Not many people will have vivid recollections of an episode of CHiPs called "Finders Keepers". It aired on US television on the 29th November 1981, and can be seen on my television most Saturday mornings, courtesy of my nearly-four-year-old CHiPs-obsessed son.

Anyway, in this opening scene of the episode we see officer Jon Baker (call-sign "seven-mary-three") appear at the median of the highway as he spots his partner, Steve McCleish, parked at the side of the highway. Although Jon will be forever spoken about as part of a pair "Jon and Ponch", in fact in this fifth season he was partnered by Bruce Jenner because Ponch (Eric Estrada) had fallen out with the studio bosses and was now trying to inch his way back into the series. The studio had hired Bruce Jenner, a former Olympic Gold Medal-winning decathlete to take over from Estrada.

I digress. So Jon sees Steve at the side of the road and pulls over, after checking that it was safe to cross the centre dividing line. Jon parks and sees Steve squatting down examining the brush at the side of the highway. Jon sidles up beside him and asks him if everything is OK. Steve replies by saying that he's OK, but that he thought he saw something that doesn't belong there.

Jon asks what he means and he says "oh, you'll laugh if I tell you". He was right. He goes on to tell Jon that he thought he saw a wildflower, not native to these parts, and then spots it. He points it out and then berates Jon for attempting to pick it, telling him that it's a criminal offence to pick the flower. Jon laughs and says that he was only going to examine it. He reaches in and takes it in his hand and duly examines it.

Steve tells Jon that the flower is a Toadflax. Jon disagrees and says it's a Yellow Lupin. They can't agree and Steve says "either way it doesn't belong here". Jon smiles and says "eventually everything comes to California".

It strikes me some 15 years later that maybe the reverse is true. Maybe eventually everything that is in California arrives everywhere else.

Some examples:
McDonalds - is there anywhere that this company does not have a golden-arched outpost. Founded in San Bernardino, CA in 1940 and snapped up some time later by the entrepreneurial Ray Kroc.

Apple computer - almost a household name and at that point now where people are buying iPods without actually knowing what they are. Founded in Los Altos, CA in 1976. Everyone knows what happened to Jobs and Wozniak but what happened to Ronald Wayne?

"When Steve worked out 30 days credit on parts like chips, and we were able to build and deliver Apple I's and get paid in that 30 days, it was the start of things. But Ron was worried that some day we wouldn't get paid and would owe thousands of dollars on the parts. Steve and I had no money and Ron had gold hidden in his mattress (or some such thing) and they'd try to get it from him. So he sold out for $300 or $800 or some such amount."

OK maybe limiting the concept to California is not such a good idea. I hear people moaning about the homogenisation of shopping malls and city streets, the same logos and shop fronts now present in just about every city you can visit in Europe for sure. But so what? Wasn't this always going to be the outcome once word got out that country A has better-made Jeans that country B, or that country X has better coffee than country Y.

A kind of social osmosis where the best ideas diffuse my means of frequent travel and increased disposable income. It was always going to happen.

A whole new genre of nostalgia books has started to appear, longing for the old days and harking after old-fashioned values and the days when people used to doff their caps at one another.

It's over. Toadflax or Yellow Lupin. It doesn't matter. We love them all equally and welcome them to the edge of town.