You, Too, Can Become a California Saint
Rule Number One: Don’t Bother Being a Nice Guy
Let’s say your New Year’s resolution is to be not just a better Californian, but a truly great one. You seek to be a secular California saint, so revered that people put your name on parks and squares and schools. What should be your path?
As it happens, three of the best books I read last year were biographies of such secular California saints—the bestselling socialist adventurer-writer Jack London (1876-1916); the championship-winning UCLA basketball coach John Wooden (1910-2010); and the farmworker organizer Cesar Chavez (1927-1993), whose birthday is a California …