RESCUE, CA -- The SUV parked next to me at Home Depot sported a license plate frame reading: "Where the Hell is Rescue?" This must be a neighbor of mine, for "Rescue" is my new home town. For weeks I have been joking to my Beltway friends that I was returning to rescue California from my redoubt at "Rescue, California," a burgh in the Gold Rush foothill country so small that even hummingbirds miss it if they blink. I’d be tempted to say this is a commensurate metaphor about the difficulty of turning California around in the Age of Clinton, but ever since the Edmund Morris debacle, rescue metaphors have been ruined for everyone.

"Downtown" Rescue consists of a bridge over White Oak Creek and three buildings: a Post Office smaller than my wardrobe closet, a fire station, and the Rescue Junction General Store ("Beer and Wine On Tap,"¸ lb. Cheeseburgers--$3.95, and carpet and linoleum samples in the back room). The Postmaster says the town got its name because Rescue was the shortest name suggested.

I figure that if I am going to keep writing about sprawl, I may as well experience the cutting edge of the phenomena. Everyone on my rural route lives on a minimum of ten acres, which the anti-sprawl crowd disdainfully refers to as "ranchettes." Since I’ll be planting wine grapes on my acreage next spring, perhaps I’ll get off the hook by claiming my spread as a "vignette." Rescue is arguably beyond suburbia, since you can’t get cable TV here. You have to get satellite instead, which means as a practical matter I’ve quit watching TV, because who can figure out the 500 channels that come over satellite? By the time I find Chris Matthews, Geraldo is on. But at least now I can tune in Fox News, unlike the Beltway.

Sacramento is within easy driving distance, and there is even a place near here called Georgetown. But you won’t find a Dean & Deluca in this Georgetown. It is frequented by patrons of Mssrs. Harley & Davidson instead. Most of my neighbors drive pickups that look like starter kits for a monster truck rally, and look with mild condescension at my comparatively tiny Jeep Cherokee.

Last Sunday I dropped by the local meeting hall, which is attached to the Post Office, thinking I could meet some of the townsfolk. The packed parking lot suggested that it might be a church service of some kind, but it turned out to be the local grange meeting. When I explained that I moved from Washington, D.C., I was met with a blank look, as though I had landed from Mars. It got worse.

"I work for a public policy think tank . . . in . . .San Francisco."

Arched eyebrows. I am sure they think I deal drugs or something.

Then I spotted the bumper sticker on a nearby pickup: "If you like the IRS, you’ll love the Fish and Wildlife Service." Better not tell these folks I work on environmental issues. They might get the wrong idea. I switched tactics.

"Have y’all ever heard of the ‘Leave Us Alone Coalition’?"

--By Steven Hayward