SoCal Stories Past & Present: Who Is Ol' Blue Eyes?
I'm excited about some things in 2010, and worried/apprehensive about others. But it's a new year and any year that starts with 70-degree weather is bound to be good. The last day of 2009 found me in the southwestern-most corner of the West Coast, taking off my shoes, rolling up my jeans, feeling sand beneath my toes, and getting my feet wet in the Pacific Ocean to just above my ankles. It was great.(Even if the waters off of San Diego are freezing in January). There's just something so indescribably freeing about being near the ocean. Afterwards, we made a run for fantastic Baja-style fish tacos, something I last had at my conference in San Diego in April.
We drove north on New Year's Day, heading up 405, through the "OC" (Orange County), past Torrance and Long Beach, and into L.A. to stay at a hotel along Wilshire Blvd, (not far from the UCLA campus). Why does Long Beach always make me think of Warren G and rap music? Is it the LBC references? Snoop Dogg and Death Row Records aside, it was a great time hangin' out and looking around for a couple of days and seeing the usual sights, like the big Hollywood sign in the hills. Korean food was eaten. But no celebrity sightings. Have you ever driven through K-Town? Wow...you might as well be in Seoul. I wonder if there are optical shops at the galleria mall there that might carry glasses frames that actually fit my face, and sit properly on my nose instead of the frames sitting directly on my cheeks? Anyway...
It was a special trip for my dad b/c it was his first time back in Los Angeles since his college days (aside from one professional conference he attended there in the late '70's). When he was in college at the University of Oregon, he used to drive down the coast in his first car�a brown Chevy--along then-Highway 99 (there was no complete Interstate 5 yet, because it was the mis/late 1950's). He migrated south from Eugene every summer to find work in Los Angeles--mostly around Venice, Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica. It's appropriate that my Dad is/was a History professor. He's such a wonderful storyteller, and he recounts the past--HIS past--in a funny, witty, nostalgic, soothing way, weaving together a captivating oral tapestry.
He spoke of how he learned to make pancakes (he makes a kick-ass pancake, fyi), and told us of his great adventures people-watching from the kitchen, between the eye-level slats behind the counter where he was a short-order cook at one restaurant. We laughed as he recalled his horror at watching one customer ordering a completely raw ground beef burger�and watching him eat it. He talked about the great Jewish couple who managed the burger restaurant he worked at in Venice Beach, and how business was always strong on hot days when everyone was at the beach. We laughed when he told us that the husband would always remind employees in a whisper and a wink to "give people lots of ice" when they ordered drinks. He told us about being a window washer and other various jobs at a hotel in Beverly Hills, and how, when everyone excitedly whispered that Frank Sinatra was coming, he (having newly arrived from Korea) didn't know what the big deal was and thought/asked, Who is Frank Sinatra? His eyes widened with excitement as he talked about an elderly woman named Mrs. Meyers, who often left $50 tips.
I loved his story about getting "fired" from one restaurant where he worked the 3rd/closing shift. One evening, business was slow, and he became sleepy and figured it would be okay to put his head down for a short nap. The next thing he knew, the sun was coming up and the manager--a tall Scandinavian-American woman was letting him go for sleeping on the job. My dad may have been new in America, and young, with a very slight frame. But don't be fooled--he was no pushover. He had recently learned about a law that stated that when an employee was fired, the employer was legally required to pay them on the spot. So he cited the law and insisted she pay him then (she did!).
As I listened to his stories, my heart filled with a combined tinge of sadness and overwhelming pride/about how difficult those days were for him, but all that he has gone on to accomplish. (He and his brother--my uncle--were new in the US, and had to fend for themselves b/c they lost their parents while they were in their teens). Is it somehow fitting that we were in L.A. during the Rose Bowl, and that the U of O was playing in it, no less? Maybe. I usually don�t have strong feelings one way or another about football. Except when Oregon plays. Then I become a fierce supporter of the Ducks, so I guess my dad should be proud of my green and yellow team loyalties. I live on the wrong coast, I suppose, but there you have it.
January 3rd found me in a car speeding Eastward across the Mojave desert and towards the Sierra Nevadas, dreaming of slot machines. But save it for another day, since it�s late, and tomorrow starts bright and early with an oral glucose tolerance test. Oh fun.
