Sublime

Now: the second-best of times.

Like most upper-crust Hong Kongers, Eddie also possessed what was perhaps the ultimate membership card—Canadian Permanent Resident Cards for his entire family (a safe haven in case the powers that be in Beijing ever pulled a Tiananmen again).

a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald’s and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald’s is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed.

By 1909, there were an estimated 160 oil wells operating in the area north of Wilshire Boulevard, turning many homeowners into small-time oilmen. Derricks sprouted like mushrooms in their fruit orchards, while mules dragged heavy drilling equipment across their once neatly trimmed lawns.

“Easiest job in America,” we were told.

In the East, well-populated farming communities grew up, and the small towns of American memory were created. In the West, the population had to be more widely spread, so as not to tap the aquifer too intensely in any one area, forcing wells to be drilled deeper and with far more difficulty. The farther west you went, the less likely there was to b