Not long ago, maybe 46 to 48 years, I was a student at William S. Hart Senior High School in the beautiful town of Newhall, Calif. The only stress we had was making sure we had enough money to fill the tank with gas to go to “The Valley” and cruise. Hey, that could be stressful.

But at least we don’t live in the Antelope Valley today.

Someone with a whole bunch of nothing to do came up with a way to measure stress. It is based on money and work issues. According to the folks who studied all of the incorporated cities in California, they judged them in the five following areas:

1. Odds of being a victim of a violent crime;

2. Commute time;

3. Average hours worked per week;

4. Percentage of divorces;

5. Percentage of income spent on housing.

So here are the results for two of the cities in the Antelope Valley:

At No. 5 in the whole state is the city of Palmdale. Want to guess the No. 1 most stressful city to live in, in the whole state of California? According to this study it is Lancaster.

Now, I understand some of the stress comes from the commute if you have to drive both the 14 and the 405, to and from work. I just don’t understand the whole study. I think they might have been measuring the wrong stuff.

First of all, they are unrealistic items to measure. Commute time is a fact. I know of someone who learned a new language on the way to and from work. If you love your job and spend long hours working, is that stressful? I spent months on the job in between commutes.

In the two cities, did they consider that there is a large military population? That can usually increase the divorce rate in a geographic area.

One man’s stress is another man’s relaxation. So what does that measurement mean? Stress is a subjective thing to attempt to measure. Objective measurement may not be possible.

How about that “number of hours worked?” Looking at the list of the 10 most stressful cities, there wasn’t one that averaged more than 40 hours of work per week. Before I retired, I would have loved to have a 40-hour work week. Mine was usually around 60 hours a week, except at sea. Then it was 168 hours of work per week.

I guess I just don’t understand the folks trying to measure this stuff.

I’ve had many people ask if I was “stressed out” when I was underwater on a submarine. Simple answer: No. I was usually too busy to be stressed out. Actually, I enjoy being underway on a submarine. Especially in a hurricane or typhoon. Many others couldn’t stand being in a sub and would be under a lot of stress. I like to think those are the folks who passed a psychological evaluation and didn’t get submarines. (Yes, you read that just like I wrote it.)

I don’t think those two cities in the AV are any more stressful than any others in California. You can still see stars at night to relax. There is always wind enough to fly a kite … a very large kite with heavy rope to attach it to a car.

Those two cities have plenty of sunshine and maybe a little snow in the winter, too. There is plenty to see and do.

Folks used to call the SCV “Hicksville” and “the sticks.” We lived through it. I think Palmdale and Lancaster will survive this stupid report just fine. I’m still not sure they will survive the words of John Boston concerning the AV. Time will tell.

I didn’t read in the article what city in California was the least stressful. I nominate Sacramento. Well, just the members of the Assembly and Senate. They don’t seem too stressed. They keep asking for more money from us, and we keep giving it to them. No stress on them. Maybe, just maybe, someday we’ll say no. We have no more to give.

When that happens, both Palmdale and Lancaster will be happy to relinquish the titles concerning stress. Only one city will have to be listed then. Just our capital city.

And there is a huge input on the stress scale: just being part of Los Angeles County. I shall not say more about that today.

So go relax.

Darryl Manzer grew up in the Pico Canyon oil town of Mentryville in the 1960s and attended Hart High School. After a career in the U.S. Navy he returned to live in the Santa Clarita Valley. He can be reached at dmanzer@scvhistory.com and his commentaries are archived at DManzer.com. Watch his walking tour of Mentryville [here].