Word: cabazon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...pulsating glow of Los Angeles fills the night sky 75 miles to the west, and the velvety oasis of Palm Springs is only 16 miles away. But Cabazon, Calif, (pop. 855) is a seamy, sun-seared desert slum. A drab procession of beatnik churches, hamburger stands, service stations and motels, Cabazon straddles the confluence of three major highways. The blast-furnace winds of the Colorado Desert roll in through San Gorgonio Pass, and on winter nights the temperature drops to subfreezing levels...
...sordid development, Cabazon got more than its share of human tumbleweed, and with it on the hot desert winds came unbridled avarice and violence. The town is stonily accustomed to all sorts of trouble. In Cabazon last month, a Four-square Gospel preacher and a gun-toting bandit-who was shot to death by Los Angeles cops the next night-fought a grim, barefisted battle for the right to buy the festering town dump. In Cabazon last fortnight, two octogenarians battled over a woman...
Promised Land. The man who rules Cabazon is an incredible person, even in California politics. His name is L. D. (for nothing) Tallent. He drifted into town from Oklahoma eight years ago. His past is murky. His body is tragically misshapen: he was born without legs, with a right arm that ends at the elbow, a left that withers into two malformed fingers. But the face of L. D. Tallent, 41, is alertly handsome, his mind razor keen, his ambition huge...
From the first, Tallent saw dismal Cabazon as a promised land. He bought a dilapidated parcel of land, divided it into lots, became publisher of the local weekly and president of the Chamber of Commerce. Then he waited. In 1954 came the sort of man that Tallent had been waiting for: Jerry Kosseff, a glib, messianic promoter from Hollywood. On the speaker's stand Kosseff was a Bible-quoting spellbinder. Recalls one Cabazonian: "Kosseff told us, 'Look around us. This is the Sinai Desert. All we have to do is stretch out our hands and the manna will...