Mother of All Road Trips

This was an epic ‘best of all’ road trips to celebrate my Eightieth birthday. Brian and Melanie had planned this entire adventure and sprung it on me during their visit here at Christmas. It would begin in San Francisco then follow the PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway, down the California coastline and end up in San Diego. I flew up to San Francisco on March 1^st, met up with the gang at my gate and we were off on our adventure.

Fifty-Nine years after I first arrived there in the Fall of 1964, I was back on familiar ground… or was I? San Francisco had changed a lot since I was first deposited in front of my barracks, as a fresh-faced recruit right out of basic training.

My job was that of a staff reporter at the post newspaper. With more than two and a half years of college education, I was considered a good catch for the Army and a potential lifer.

The base quickly became my new launch pad from which to explore the city in a used motor scooter, begin work at an art theater downtown, and grow my library of paperback books and vinyl records. Just walking the old parade grounds, now covered by grass, brought back a plethora of stimulating memories.

Back in the day, the farthest I got on my motor scooter was down to Half Moon Bay. This time around, we drove through the quaint town of Santa Cruz and visited the giant redwoods there.

I had a strong visceral feeling as we drove further down the coast to Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea. Back then, this was John Steinbeck’s world and my mother was a part of it. Long before World War Two changed California from a semi-rural state to the crowded, fast-paced world that it’s become, this area was heavy on fishing and the coastline had become a glamorous get-away for Hollywood stars and industrialists.

Eighty-three years earlier, an adventurous young woman was just beginning to spread her wings along the very same coastline. Newly escaped from the rigid confines of working as a maid on Summit Avenue and long sojourns back to the farm to care for her aging parents, Hildegarde was, for the first time in her life, free from the constraints of her rural German Catholic upbringing.

We drove through Seventeen Mile Drive in Carmel, where my mother used to work at a maid to the wealthy and enjoyed the famous bag piper at Spanish Bay who plays each evening as the sun goes down.

We visited Cannery Row and the Wharf where my mother might have gone for fresh fish for her employers or for a weekend getaway. I’ll never know but the chances are great it probably happened there.

Moving farther down the coast, the kids and I returned to where my latest cerebral adventure took place. ‘Playground for the Devil’ is my latest novel and the Henry Miller Memorial Library played a pivotal role in its storyline. I wrote about the place based on research I had done online. It was refreshing to see that my description of the structure and the atmosphere there was close to right on the spot.

I didn’t include ‘Jack the cat’ in my novel but the back porch where my protagonists first engaged in verbal fisticuffs was right there as written. The Henry Miller Memorial Library/museum/bookstore proved to be a cathartic experience for me.

From Big Sur, we swung over to Paso Robles, had a wonderful luncheon at a vineyard, visited Bubblegum Alley in San Luis Obispo, checked out the pier at Pismo Beach and finally drove down to Santa Barbara.

After leaving Santa Barbara, skirting Los Angeles, and zeroing in on the beaches of San Diego, we ended up on Mission Beach and then finally Ocean Beach.

It was a three-day whirlwind adventure, stopping where we wanted, enjoying liquid refreshments, eating in the sunsets each evening; and sharing thoughts, feelings, and appreciation for the lives we’ve created for ourselves and our families. Family time is priceless and this trip was a certain example of that. Besides, it’s given me a ton of ideas for future blogs. Now the grandchildren can find out what it was really like for Mom and Dad and Papa.

California Mindset

The beauty of this great state lies in its diversity of people and places.

I was on the East Coast a while back to savor the salty brine of the Chesapeake Bay and the cloister phobic cacophony that is New York City. While both were replete with their own virtues and charms I once again found myself dreaming cross country to the land of wild dreams, mythical goddesses and eternal sunshine.

Perhaps it started back in the mid-50’s when well-to-do families started to fly off to Hawaii for vacation. Maybe it was the mid-sixties when the Beach Boys and their surfing music introduced us mid-westerners to the California beach scene. By the time ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’ came along we had all been inundated with beach party / surfing movies starring Annette Funichello and Frankie Avalon. Most of my friends and I totally bought into that fantasy image of the California sun, sand and beach bunnies. We were hooked. California has been doing that to out-of-staters ever since.

The migration to California has been going on since before the great depression and continues to this day. For the snowbirds it’s like watching the seasonal migration of the wildebeest in a Disney nature film; clean, sanitized and kid-friendly. Despite its roller-coaster economics and left-leaning politics, California continues to attract old and young alike.

For some reason the state seems to hold fast to its long-held moniker that ‘whatever happens first on the coast will eventually move to the Midwest and then the other coast.’ Whether it is massive housing developments, movie magic, new computer technologies, solar initiatives, fashion trends or otherwise innovative, invasive, or surprising new trends in all sectors of our lives, many of them seem to happen first there. Perhaps that’s why I like the place so much. As much as I like the Midwest, California speaks to me in a voice that is fresh, exciting and at times provocative.

It’s the perfect environment for a writer trying to observe and capture a fifty-year class reunion as an unobtrusive speck on the wall.  ‘Riot’ was born here as well as ‘Debris’ and some tales of the wild west. There always seems to be more plays and novels to write here.

California is the perfect natural setting for such ventures. Its manicured golf courses and clear blue skies belie an undercurrent of mystery and intrigue and confusing lives. What more perfect setting for the creative mind. The warm sun beckons. The mountains are calling. The ocean is just over the horizon and I get to ruminate all those stories swirling about in my head. It’s all good.

A Season of Altered Reality

Fifteen years of trekking to Palm Springs has produced a humanistic cauldron of changing venues and evolving life styles for my wife and me. Yet through this gradual evolution from several visits per year to seasonal occupation there was always a comfortable continuity to life here. Desert living had become a comfortable alternative to winters sequestered in Minnesota. There was comfort in continuity…until now.

Not a lot of folks have the opportunity to flit back and forth between two distinctive life styles, renewing acquaintances with friends from around the country and enjoying two distinct and different environments as the seasons ebb and flow. So complaining about a less than perfect season might sound more than a little disingenuous to the average person. I get it and I agree.

There really doesn’t seem to be a lot to complain about when one’s fractured season is less than most others could hope for. But this season wasn’t like all the others and while I’m not complaining…just explaining… the reality is that the old cliché about nothing ever stays the same played out this season like a bad hand of cards.

Our kids and grandkids were out here for Thanksgiving. It’s always fun, exciting, intense and fulfilling when they’re here. Did I also mention exhausting? But after they left things started to go south as compared to other seasons.

Unlike past seasons where familiar routines fell into place and the old organizations remained stoic and unmoved, this year it was different. The Writers Niche, a very comfortable collection of fellow writers who met twice a month, had been disbanded. My friend who was teaching a writing class in town decided to fold up shop. The Palm Springs Writers Guild hadn’t found anyone to spearhead the Desert Writers Expo this year so that also died a quiet death. Writing became a solitary exercise except for the occasional coffee-up with some fellow writers.

Sharon’s mom had passed away three weeks before we left for Palm Springs. Then a friend who had been sick with a terminal illness passed away in November. Shortly after that a family member unexpectedly passed away. We went back to Minnesota early and stayed longer than expected.

The changes, some subtle, some overt continued. Balloon wrangling for the annual Christmas lights parade turned out to be an exercise in exhaustion with an over-active team leader. Our gym downtown had closed and we were forced to find other accommodations. The weather all season was about ten degrees cooler than normal. My plans to hike the Lykken Trail and then graduate to harder climbs was derailed by leg injuries and other commitments. We weren’t able to go on the Desert Horticultural Tour this year nor the Walk of the Inns.

Remodeling projects around the house produced a chorus of weekly chaos that disrupted my normal writing routine. A new HVAC system installed in the middle of winter produced some chilly nights.

Overall it was par for the course. It was a season of change, of a cessation of changing venues and evolving priorities on the part of other people, institutions and events. Yet despite the challenges of a disruptive work schedule I/we managed to find some semblance of order in the chaos.

I started to bike to the Saguaro Hotel to work out in their gym. I discovered several new trails to hike and found a new spot to meditate in the mountains. My renewed attempts at play writing seemed to find success back home. ‘Apache Death Wind;’ a trilogy was published. ‘Debris; a trilogy was being edited.

We got to tour some new spots in the area like Salvation Mountain, Slab City, and San Juan Capistrano and along the Pacific Coast Highway. We visited the Annenberg estate and took a windmill tour. We sought and found a new semblance of order in that chaos of change and the façade of Palm Springs forced us to look anew at our lives there.

A season of altered reality produced a new perspective for life in the desert. It also reminded me of just how lucky we are to live the life we do.

Return to La-La Land

It was supposed to be a mid-summer break from Midwestern reality. A return to the land of surf and traffic. Instead it became a world coated in soot and ash and a surreal exercise in ‘California Dreamin.’

It was snowing the day we arrived in Palm Springs. In fact, it had been snowing soot and ash for several days. Officials labeled the cause as the ‘mountain fire.’

At its height, there were over 3000 hotshots fighting the conflagration just over the mountains from Palm Springs. Local newscasters are all aflutter with hints of doom and gloom descending on this tony enclave of absentee owners. Admittedly, it was a little unsettling to watch the night flames moving high in the mountains above us like a surreal basket of glowing orange in a bowl of black. But realistically, it would be a stretch to say the fire was threatening our community. But, of course, there were television ratings to grow and it made for exciting, if not exaggerated, story-telling. The national news was even more distorted.

A friend wrote to ask if we were concerned about our home being consumed by the fire. I answered “not so much. We’re heading behind the Orange Curtain tomorrow.”

Now it’s 6:00 am on the main drag heading through town. We’ve left the desert and pasted through the Orange Curtain. I’m the only one up, meandering toward the main beach. There is little traffic and only a few public works folks picking up trash. This return to the ocean brings new meaning to the cliché ‘spending the night together.’ It’s a romantic return to my first sojourn to the Pacific Ocean in 1965. The beginning of a lifetime of romantic illusions of sea and surf and sin.

It’s the height of summer season along the West Coast with its art festivals, hordes of bronze bodies on surf boards and women showing more skin than they would ever dare show anyplace else on the planet. Traffic on the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) is unbelievable. It’s California at its best. A kind of cliché etched in stone by advertisers and every Midwesterners distraction from winter.

First there’s a necessary side track to Starbucks for my morning fix. The first thing I see is a well-endowed, rail thin, leggy blond hugging a tall, muscular surfer dude. They seem to be whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. Only she’s old enough to be his mother. ..but they certainly seem to be very friendly.

Welcome to Laguna Beach.

Starting in the late 20’s, with the opening of a road to Laguna Beach, this town quickly became a thriving magnet for artists, musicians and other creative types. I’m told the difference between this town and Newport Beach, its neighboring community to the north, is that they don’t all cut their hair the same down here and the people aren’t plastic. The homes in Laguna Beach certainly aren’t the ticky-tacky million dollar stucco beauties that line the ridgelines and mountain sides of Newport.

In Laguna Beach, houses range from expansive mansions on top of the mountains to shacks lining the side streets (think ‘favela’ in Portuguese) to everything in-between. Outside of the business district, few of the streets have sidewalks. The houses come in all size, shapes and colors.

It’s mid-summer so we’re past ‘May gray’ and ‘June gloom.’ Yet it’s still overcast and hazy and a typical morning on the beach before the sun burns through the haze and heats up the place.

What I encounter is the early morning beach scene before the tourists, boarders, surfers and bogie-boarders begin their assault on the ocean. The air is thick with the smell of rotting seaweed which will soon be replaced by the odor of suntan lotion, beer and kid’s drinks filling the vacuum.  Thankfully, the air is still cool before the salty breeze leaves the skin sticky to the touch.

There is a group of homeless men gathered around a stone picnic table, some wrapped in their old army blankets. I assume they’ve just crawled out from wherever they were sleeping and now it’s time to gather in the park for morning BS and a cheap cup of coffee. Not far away is a prayer group of men, probably all in recovery.

I catch a glimpse of the legendary crazy old lady who is always dressed like a court jester and encourages people to take her picture. Then when they do, she screams obscenities at them.

A young man, dressed in all black and lugging two large satchels, walks by me mumbling to himself. He looks over at me but I don’t dare return his stare. Several men go by in long pants. Only tourists wear long pants even in the winter time.

The early morning beach worshippers are all there. Zen masters practicing their beliefs in the sand, dog walkers, beach runners, a volleyball game going on, someone searching for gold with his scooper and metal detector, a couple of kayakers older than my grandpa and trash pickup truck being stalked by seagulls. Even ‘Despicable Me’ was there in the form of a blimp.

Gradually the early morning crowd gives way to the daily onslaught of tourists and regulars.

It’s the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and all those other masterful painters of the California surf scene practicing their craft. An old man’s favorite fantasy.

Further up the coast, alongside the 405, sits a wonderful palace dedicated to the arts. Paid for by a man who reveled in his moniker as an old curmudgeon. J. Paul Getty, who at one time was the world’s richest man, has left a treasure for all to see.

Welcome to the Getty, a 750-acre mountaintop property in Brentwood, West Los Angeles. All of the buildings are clad in travertine, a type of limestone, with glass and metal in definitive con-trast to the rough stone. I’m not an art aficionado by any means but there were some wonderful pieces there.

Hollywood and Vine is at the epicenter for all things illusional, dream-like and typical Hollywood.

                                               

 ‘Sister Act’ was playing at the Pantages Theater and while it wasn’t as good as the movie, the stage production was great entertainment.

Before the play, there was even time for garage-sales in West Hollywood. Old habits die hard. Even on the West Coast, one person’s junk is another person’s treasure.

Finally a return to the desert. The fires are mostly out by now. The haze is gone and returning blue skies mean intense sun and growing heat. 110 in the shade is just a start. But it’s still nice to be back in the desert. It means coffee with friends in the early morning hours before the sun begins to bake the air and slow-burn any exposed skin.

During the summer, Palm Springs is like a city of lost souls. There were two sickly old men at Starbucks sharing their respective tales of illness and multiple hospital visits. A crippled, bent-over old man who got into a Steve McQueen (bullit) Mustang fastback and tore out of the McDonalds parking lot, going who knows where? Welcome to Palm Springs in the middle of summer.

Despite the heat, it’s good to be back home. I don’t own this town yet but my comfort level here is growing with each visit.

Then it’s back to the land of green grass, green plants and plenty of flowers. Cool evenings and lakes all around. Trail running and swatting flies, mountain biking while ducking branches, finishing up “A Shau” and getting to the core of “Debris.”

My trip to the land of milk and honey was brief, pleasant and a wonderful distraction from the necessary work at hand. Yet while I thought returning to Minnesota was a return to normalcy, it really wasn’t. Granted, it was a different environment, great friends and comfortable familiarity with the tried and true.

But my heart was still back at the beach, penning my observations and fantasizing about surfer dudes and California girls. Oh, the naïve life of a romantic…

I can’t wait to get back home again.