I reached the outskirts of Lompoc. The town is flat and compact, a one-story panorama of wide streets and small houses. A constant wind blows off the ocean, funneled by the rolling hills that cradle the town. Three miles to the north is Vandenberg Village and beyond that, Vandenberg Air Force Base. The entire valley is given over to horse farms and cattle ranches, much of the agricultural land planted to fields of commercial flowers, many of them grown for seeds. Though I had no idea what I was looking at, I could see stretches of bright yellow and vibrant pink. Beyond them were acres of what appeared to be baby's breath. Many farms were being sold to real estate developers; the sweet peas, poppies, and larkspurs being crowded out by crops of three-bedroom houses in neatly planted rows.

The town itself boasts the Lompoc Municipal Pool and a substantial civic center along with all the standard businesses: the Viva Thrift Shop, banks, attorneys' offices, automotive and plumbing supplies, retail stores and gas stations, coffee shops, pharmacies, and medical complexes. Lompoc is a base town with neighborhoods of temporary residents whose military careers will always move them from place to place like pieces on a game board. It was hard to see what people did for amusement. There wasn't a bowling alley, a concert hall, or a movie house in sight. Maybe local culture consisted of everyone renting videotapes of last year's money-losing movies.

Q Street wasn't hard to find, coming as it did between P and R. The address was on the left side of the street, and I slowed as I approached. The house, resting on cinderblocks, was an oblong wooden box covered with sheets of asphalt siding imprinted to look like dark red brick. A porch, stretched across the front, sagged in the middle. Two white-washed tires served as makeshift planters from which pink geraniums spilled. An old white claw-foot tub had been upended and half-buried in the yard. A blue-robed plaster Madonna stood in the shelter of the porcelain rim. I pulled in at the curb and got out.