I Left My Hat In San Francisco
Okay, technically it was Monterey. But when the Fates conspire to present you a good line, the Writer’s Manual insists you take it, even if Poetic License is required, as it so often is around here. The ballcap, a souvenir of the Florida Gators 2008 National Football Championship season, is safely back home now thanks to some advice I received from a long-ago issue of Esquire Magazine, which promised me that people will do practically anything for $20. I left the twenty with a bellman at the Spindrift Hotel in Monterey, advising him where I’d left the hat (a closed movie theater). The cap made it back to Florida before I did. The legend of the $20 tip lives on.
Seals And Zebras And Bears! Oh My!
The driving distance from Monterey to Los Angeles is 321 miles, a six-hour proposition if you stop to get lunch and visit your local seal colony—and you will be visiting those seals if Siobhan is aboard. After a disappointing seal encounter in San Francisco (2 layabouts), and a much better experience, if from a distance, at Point Lobos, we were jolted to attention about four miles north of San Simeon by a large sign which screamed ELEPHANT SEALS AHEAD! “Oh boy,” exulted Siobhan, “they’re going to be CLOSE this time!” And close they were, tons of ‘em, lounging back-to-back and belly-to-belly along the comfy beach not fifteen yards from the viewing area. Manic tourists with flailing cameras were everywhere, four giant tour buses having egested their contents on the beach. You’d think the Beatles had rearrived.
The entire Piedras Blancas seal population numbers—are you ready?—TWENTY THOUSAND of the mustached critters. That’s a lotta Phoca vitulinas. The whole colony is never in the rookery at the same time. The number of seals on the beach ranges from hundreds in July and August to thousands from January through May. This time of year, the sub-adult males (which have reached puberty) are beginning to grow their signature noses but are not yet at a size or age to command the respect they need to breed, sort of like high-school freshmen or Justin Bieber. This is the time they begin what is errantly called their catastrophic molt, which is not so catastrophic at all. It simply means the period that each elephant seal will stay ashore (twenty to twenty-five days) in order to shed all its fur. The process causes increased blood flow to the surface of the skin to help quickly supply nutrients to the new fur. Nothing catastrophic about any of that, right? So we think we shall be changing the name of the process to the rather spiffy molt. Far more appropriate and much less worrisome.
Not far down the road from Seal-O-Rama, Siobhan sat up straight in her seat. “LOOK!” she insisted, “There are ZEBRAS over there! GANGS of them!” Surely, she jests, I thought. Even for California, herds of zebras would be a stretch. But nope, there they were, about 30 of them, gallivanting over the fields near the Hearst Castle, not a care in the world unless it be that one of those fast-braking tourists might careen through the fences. We thought about stopping to see William Randolph’s fine estate but didn’t want to risk getting in to Alice’s place in Camarillo, just north of L.A., too late. Those Republicans like to get to bed early, the better to get a prompt start next day on aiming missiles at their Obama dartboards.
Camarillo And Beyond
Alice lives in a nice little gated community in Camarillo, which is full of well-kept homes with serious landscaping. 65,967 other people (all Republicans) live there as well, happy in their safe suburban bliss, as is Alice. My sister has a very nice two-story apartment with plenty of room to ramble around in. She has friends close by and still works a couple of jobs, often more than she’d like. Alice gave us a nice room with a comfy bed. Next day, she gave us a fan. Republicans like a warm house, it turns out. Very warm. The following day, we tried to go to Republican Headquarters to get a picture of Alice. The nearest ones were all closed. We even tried Pasadena, home of the famous Little Old Lady of Beach Boys lore. No dice. Even the phone was disconnected. Does this bode well for future elections or is the GOP just hunkering down, gathering their resources?
In Pasadena, we took in the L.A. County Arboretum, very nice, before repairing to the Santa Anita racetrack across the street, where we watched Cosmic Flash on the big screen from Miami. It was a nice race for five-eighths of a mile. He even got his head in front briefly before fading in the stretch. Undeterred, we headed for downtown, looking for Melrose Avenue, where Bill once found wonderfully imaginative clothing stores for Siobhanwear. Unfortunately, that was 23 years ago and the bloom is off the rose on Melrose. Which, by the way, proved enormously difficult to find, due to oodles of people who kept giving wrong directions. This is a National Practice in Mexico, where they consider it rude not to steer tourists in one direction or another, even if it is not the correct one. I guess this is catching on in California due to the Hispanic influence. Midway in the Great Search For Melrose, Alice complained “I can’t believe you didn’t get a grid map of downtown L.A. when you were planning your trip.” Well, gee, Alice, I thought you might be a little familiar with the territory since you’ve lived here for FIFTY GODDAM YEARS! “Well, yeah,” she protested, “but my husband always drove.”
Santa Monica, Venice And Hollywood Boulevard. The Ultimate Parlay.
Next day, we drove along the Ocean to the world-famous Santa Monica Pier, which was bustling. Last time we were there was over twenty years ago when I was Official Driver for a couple of restaurateurs, Steve Solomon and Mark Newman, from Gainesville, who were investigating the new California pizza palaces prior to opening their own in Florida. One night, we were at the pier and Steve noticed some tents in the distance. We walked over and found a little circus in full throttle. The entry fee was a perky $39, which took Steve somewhat aback. “Are there ANIMALS?” he wanted to know. “No, no animals,” the circus guy told him. “Well, the heck with that,” complained a miffed Steve. “I’m not paying $39 for a circus with no animals!” And so it was that we missed one of the very first performances of the now famous Cirque du soleil.
The old pier hadn’t changed much. A few additions to the iconic setting. The day was perfect, not unlike practically all the days we spent in southern California. I bought a little painting from a talented fellow named Miguel, who plied his trade on the pier. Siobhan advised waiting to check out the remaining artists in the area but I thought Miguel was unusually good at what he did, his colors spectacular. An hour of perusing the rest of the painters didn’t change my mind. We got some ice cream and picked up a few Route 66 trinkets (Santa Monica being the terminus of that route) and headed on to Venice, just a quick hop down the road.
Venice is almost the same place it has been for years, the stable representative of L.A. beach insanity, full of rollerbladers, muscle beach exhibitionists and general lunacy. The musclemen have been reduced to a pale imitation of the Arnold-era giants but the melody plays on in diminished form. There is one small difference in the unending collection of beachside retail shacks full of t-shirts, cheap jewelry and smoothie purveyors. The marijuana doctors have descended on the place, their dark little “offices” dotting the landscape. And perish forbid you try to take a photograph of these guys—they come leaping to their feet, arms out in protest. “No pictures of the doctors’ offices!” they insist. “It’s the law!” Who knew there’d come a day when marijuana was legal and photography was not? Uncle Bill, however, puts his camera away for no man and we would post a great big shot of the doctors if any of the photos were worth a damn.
As the day drew down, we moved on, after a fashion, to Hollywood Boulevard, always a zoo on Saturday nights. The Boulevard boasts many practitioners of rare business careers, foremost among them being people dressed as famous movie stars. You can have your picture taken with them for a mere dollar, which seems more than reasonable to me, although it might be a public service to cut down on the number of Darth Vaders, of whom there are so many they are bumping into one another. We found Marilyn’s star outside McDonald’s and then we even found Marilyn, herself (see photos). Siobhan found a nice wig she might like, a pretty red one, but it was going for a delirious $3000 and that piker Siobhan wasn’t willing to go one penny over $2500. Michael Jackson was there, of course, and there were even huggers—a short musclebound guy and an overtall young lady, both willing to hug you for a dollar. Alice, smart alecky, as usual, said she would pay them a dollar NOT to hug her, her best purchase of the weekend. Eventually, we ran out of Boulevard, just before Alice ran out of legs. We retired to Camarillo for dinner and the final night at the Alice Richards abode, conversing well into the night and planning future reunions. While we were there, no one discovered we were Democrats, so all the tar and feathers remained in local garages. That Alice could always keep a secret.
Days 10 & 11: Laguna, Starring Jackie Fournier/Jack Gordon
My first best friend on Earth was Jackie Mercier, who lived at the end of Boxford Street in South Lawrence, hard by the B&M Railroad property which the neighborhood kids used for a baseball field. The B&M was not particularly offended by our subjugation of their property as evidenced by their tolerance for the gigantic black numbers we had painted on their warehouse wall designating the various distances in feet from home plate. Better that, they probably figured, than having us climb all over their sitting-duck boxcars.
Jackie lived in a small house with his parents and his older brother, Bunky, widely admired by the rest of us for his ability to do just about anything well. Jackie, himself, was less gifted. When it came to sports, he left the finesse aspects of the games to others, preferring crashing into second basemen to break up double plays and knocking over catchers instead of sliding into home plate. Physical, is what we would call Jackie, who always wanted to be outside and foresaw a grandiose career as a fireman.
If he had to resort to a backup occupation, however, Jackie wouldn’t be entirely disappointed to work for the telephone company, climbing up those tall poles to “unsnag the wires.” He and I got a lot of practice in the tree in his backyard, climbing all over the thing and stretching wires—sometimes called “string”-- everywhere while discussing the serious issues of life like school (he didn’t like it), girls (he was never getting married) and cars (he couldn’t wait to “take them apart and put them back together again,” like his brother, Bunky). After a couple of hours in the tree, Jackie insisted on traipsing down the block to Leo Gervais little variety store which had a huge soft drink box filled with iced sodas in a hundred different flavors. After picking up half the bottles for closer examination, he would always wind up with the same kind of strawberry soda. And while we enjoyed our drinks, he’d frequently look over at me and say, “We’ll always be best friends, right Billy? No matter what.” I had to remind him of this once when I foolishly pulled down the lever on one of those red fire alarm boxes over on Andover Street and Jackie felt obligated to wait and tell his future career-mates what had happened. He relented but not without deep regrets.
One day, as happens often in these matters, Jackie’s parents decided it was necessary to move elsewhere. This was a big shock to both of us and if boys were allowed to cry at the news, we would have. And so one day, just like that, Jackie Mercier was gone forever. And since little boys are obligated by contract to always have one best friend, my new one became Jackie Fournier, a year or so younger than me and the neighborhood’s reigning Protestant. Our houses, located at 53 and 29 Garfield Street, were separated only by those of Frank Ouellette, who raised lilacs and pigeons, the Kennedys, which included one of four cops in the neighborhood, and Sid Humphrey’s coal yard, where we kids learned all about anthracite and bituminous and came home filthy to our horrified mothers, who made us take off all our clothes at the door.
Jackie liked baseball, rock and roll and Mad Magazine, though not always in that order. We would sit on his front porch evenings trying to draw in idolized radio deejays like Alan Freed from foreign climes, meanwhile discussing serious problems like the Red Sox’ inherent inability to hire a manager who knew when to take out the starting pitcher, for cripes sakes. Jackie had the prettiest mother in the neighborhood, a perky redhead with a quick temper, but his greatest asset was his grandmother, Anna Severance, the hardest-working grannie in show business, seldom seen without a broom in hand. Anna was Jackie’s biggest fan and would brook no negative reports on her protégé. If someone were to bring her the news, say, that Jackie had promulgated the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, grandma would just attribute that to boys being boys. All of which is not to say there was no discipline meted out when the need arose. You people of later eras may not realize this but in those days there was such a thing as Grandmother School and all nanas were required to attend. It was at Grandmother School that the ladies were taught such scary expressions as “If you don’t behave, I’m going to cut your ears off!” which, you’ll have to admit, is a pretty scary admonition for a little kid. The reason I know there was a Grandmothers School is that my very own grandmother used the same expressions as Jack’s did and where else could she be picking up this kind of stuff?
Eventually, Jackie’s mother got rid of Mr. Fournier and took up with a Nehi Soda truck driver named Jack Gordon (and who wouldn’t want that job?). Mr. Gordon up and decided to join the army one day and from then on it was an endless sequence of jaunts to Germany, Virginia, San Francisco, Japan and, finally, back to Virginia again. In the process, Jack’s stepfather rose in the ranks to Captain and Jack graduated from his high school class as valedictorian. So what if it was a class of two? Here’s how Jack—now reincarnated as the other Jack Gordon—remembers it:
Once I got to be eight, my father began dragging us all over the world but whenever the tour was up back we’d go to Garfield Street until a new assignment came along. All through our teens, Billy and I stayed in touch via letters, an antiquated practice now gone the way of the dinosaurs. I think the only living person that has known Billy longer than me is his sister, Alice. Back in grade school, we would catch the B&M train to Boston, 26 miles away, and occasionally have to hitchhike home if the game went into extra innings.
Jack doesn’t remember this but on one of those occasions, our first ride having merely delivered us to Cambridge, across the river from Boston, a pair of cops stopped us and asked what the hell we were doing. While we were explaining, one of them noticed Jack was wearing a ring and asked him if he was married. Both of us exploded into laughter and Jack exclaimed, “I’M TEN YEARS OLD, for Christ’s sake! Are you CRAZY or what?” The embarrassed cops let us go. Back to Jack again:
A lot of time has passed but both of us can still remember the names and houses of all our friends from the neighborhood and the things we did in those days. Billy—can’t get used to calling him Bill—will always be my best friend, even after the huge gap in years when we temporarily lost track of one another. During the interim, I found the best woman I could ever imagine would foolishly buy into my line of bullshit and actually marry me and we celebrated our 48th anniversary just recently.
Being his best friend and all while also reading his weekly blog, I sometimes grow concerned over Billy’s left-wing ideology, which even causes him to take shots at his kindly old sister, Alice (the Republican). I attribute this to his lack of my companionship and advisory capabilities and also the fact he has never lived more than twenty miles from a college town.
Jack finally tracked me down after almost fifty years when he drove to Ocala four years ago. He visited various horse farms, asking questions, until he arrived at Hobeau Farm, about five minutes from where we live. Hobeau had a phone number since we had recently bred a mare there. He called and I met him at Hobeau’s front gate. We look a lot different but the voices remain the same. Anyway, it was only appropriate that we now check in on Jack and his wife, Barbara, at the southernmost point of our trip, Laguna Beach.
Laguna is a colorful locale, the surrounding area a mecca for artists who somehow survive despite the high rents. We checked into the old Laguna Hotel, located right in the midst of everything, and rambled around the town, eventually taking a free shuttle to points south. And here, I am not kidding. Your average shuttle will flop around the downtown for a few blocks and return you to whence you came in no more than 15 minutes. Not the ambitious Laguna shuttle. It went on and on and on, showing no signs of coming up for air. “Siobhan,” I finally said, worriedly, “I think this shuttle is taking us to Tierra del Fuego. It’s never going to turn around.” She quickly brushed off such sentiments but began to wonder, herself, when we were still churning south fifteen minutes later. Eventually, of course, the thing relented somewhere just north of Del Mar. We made it home just before sunset, enjoying a sumptuous meal at the hotel’s seaside restaurant. We left the windows open that night to let the ocean’s soft lullaby ease us into sleep. It did, just fine. A few hours later, however, all other sounds diminished by the hour, the unrelenting roar from the sea also woke us back up. Another illusion shattered, we slammed the windows closed and went back to sleep.
The next morning, we drove over to Jack Gordon’s very nice digs in Laguna Hills, spending about three hours in reminiscences. The good old days may be gone forever but the memories linger on….and how powerful those memories are, particularly when reinforced by another who was there. We probably could have carried on for the better part of the day, but there were also the poor women to think of. We eventually said our goodbyes, hoping to meet on Garfield Street in July of 2015, and parted ways, Siobhan and I heading north to visit the Queen Mary in Long Beach on our way back to the Embassy Suites at LAX, an excellent choice of inns as it turned out, with free drinks in the afternoon and a gratis breakfast next morning. With rooms that were BIG, by the way, and unencumbered by the roar of the sea.
Siobhan At The Laguna Hotel Restaurant
Sunset At Laguna
Bill With Jack Gordon. Bad Hombres.
Epilogue
Another year, another vacation over. But not before we stomped across the Golden Gate Bridge (twice), took the ferry to Sausalito and back, laughed and listened to the phenomenon that was Beach Blanket Babylon. We toured Golden Gate Park’s gardens, and visited a revitalized Haight Street, drove the coast south to Monterey, were awed by Big Sur and celebrated finding Nepenthe. We visited with elephant seals and watched zebras gambol through the fields at San Simeon. We tracked down Alice, drove all over L.A., walked the pier at Santa Monica and the boardwalk at Venice Beach. We battled the crowds on Hollywood Boulevard and even spotted Marilyn. Finally, we closed the trip with a memorable visit to my oldest friend, who thankfully lives long and prospers. It was a glorious adventure, 1100 miles in the making, made better by the best of company, even if she happens to be a very shy passenger.
All this made possible by the supervisory talents of David “Stuart” Ellison and the business acumen of Austin Li, not to mention the horse-care abilities of the dependable Sharon. Next year, it’s Acadia National Park in Maine, perhaps a side visit to NYC and Fenway. We’re going back to the old neighborhood, maybe even visiting the aging homestead while it still stands. There’ll be baseball and fried clams and the rockbound coast of Maine. Mark it down on your calendar. Okay, as soon as you GET one then.
That’s finally ALL, folks….
