The Things I Carried

The Things I Carried

After seven years away, I can say this: The continent is nothing like Hawai‘i. In my first week in Southern California’s Orange County, a drunken driver crashed into parked cars in front of my apartment building. It was a fiery end to a multicity car chase, like the ones you see on TV. A few days later, a school shooting erupted across the street from me, or so I thought. Turns out the school was conducting a drill that included someone shooting…