Cell towers

In retirement, we tend to hold smaller accomplishments more dear, like getting out of bed before 10 am., building the perfect BLT and using a cell phone to make a call.  In LA, cell towers reigned; so ubiquitous and so well designed that it took a third look before a tower could be discerned from the prosaic surroundings. Then again, I suppose lackluster described the LA surroundings. Billboards, graffiti covered retaining walls, brown mountains, beige air; not much for a cell tower to uglify. Well, that’s not entirely true. The fake palm trees lining Santa Monica Boulevard were lovely in the springtime. And I suppose there were beautiful areas of Beverly Hills, not that we mortals were ever allowed to tread there, but so I had heard.  Here, there has been much discussion, heated and otherwise, over the look and placement of a cell tower. After years of rancorous argument, the about to be constructed cell tower has everyone talking, albeit by land line since it is impossible to have a cell phone conversation. Argument against the cell tower? It would spoil the virgin country look and pristine views; sun dappled waters, clear blue skies, white puffy clouds, verdant fields. God's green acre here on earth. Argument for the cell tower? We could more easily call the sheriff when we hit a deer. With all that taken into consideration, the look of the cell tower has finally been agreed upon, which made it somewhat confounding and contrary that the locals, again, living in an area that is covered with flourishing forests, rows of lush tree lined driveways and leafy conifered beltways should decide, rather than putting up a camouflage tower to look like a tree, would agree to put up a tower that looks like a bell tower; white clapboard and brass edging rising 300 feet into the sky and topped with a bell. Why yes, that will blend right in to the neighborhood.  In a solemn moment of ‘you can take the girl out of LA, but you can’t take LA out of the girl’, I could only say “WTF”? Then again, since my Morse code is rusty and smoke signals have been outlawed, personally, I don’t care if a mountain of galoshes is used to give birth to a cell tower as long as the freakin’ thing goes up sometime this decade. All I want is a reasonable form of communication with my husband to remind him to bring home a quart of milk.