Old Days in L.A.

While your faithful correspondent was mowing the lawn here at Nib Manor it occurred to him that one of the things that has changed in Southern California the no one mentions is the watering of lawns.
Back in the day when this writer was a sprite the usual watering routine for tract houses was the laying out of a hose and a sprinkler on a lawn of Bermuda or rye grass. No working man expected his lawn to be a green verdant carpet. One watered one's lawn to keep the dormant grass from dying.
During high summer it was not unusual for the working man to lay out a hose and some sort of sprinkler on his lawn during the heat of the day and turn on the water. This usually resulted in the neighborhood kids running through the sprinkler to keep cool. In those days the householder sat on his front porch, perhaps with a friend or two and a six pack of Lucky Lager or Hamm's, and watch a rotary sprinkler water what appeared to be dry and dead grass. Those of a literary bent may recall Raymond Chandler's description of a sprinkler in high summer watering yellow grass.
In those days it was expected that grass turned yellow in the summer and that only those freaks who planted dicondra on their front lawns expected year round greenery; and even those guys were pulling the Rainbird and hose out to water the lawn.
Some years ago the grass known as tall fescue came into favor and householders invested in sprinkler systems and it became a norm that lawn were green year round and kids did not run through sprinklers (because sprinklers are usually set to fire off at about 5 in the morning.
It's just not right. It's not L.A. It's some sort of East Coast nonsense. If one cannot have kids running through one's sprinklers on a hot day what's the use of sprinkling?