Joy (the van) is in the shop. When I had the oil changed in San Francisco the mechanic said I had grease leaking from the left front boot and would need a new axle at some point. Thankfully I have eight months left on the warranty. I picked a Dodge service place at random, but failed to think about the distance from my next friend visits. LA has the largest geographical footprint of any city in the country. In NYC terms, I picked Delaware. But, when you're traveling, wherever you are is home, right? The real error was assuming it could be fixed same day.
So, I'm killing time in a trendy coffee shop by Silver Lake. I'm being picked up by Alison (dad's 3rd wife's daughter again) and hanging at their place, then visiting Tessa back in Silver Lake. Sharon and Tessa and another friend, Elizabeth, worked together at 60 Minutes before we met. Sharon was a transcriptionist, able to write 120 words a minute. Elizabeth went on to be a full producer on the show. Here they are, back in the day:
Tessa is “in the biz” and produced a beautiful movie called Life Inside Out, featuring Billie Eilish's mother and brother. (I had fun with my 5th graders telling them I was only a few degrees from Billie Eilish: my wife's friend's ex husband's cousin’s wife is her mother.. and the response was, “Whoa…”) I'm staying in LA through Saturday to be able to attend Tessa's 70th birthday party.
After Thanksgiving, I left Alison and Parke and drove to Idyllwood, a cute mountain town and did some hefty hikes, then on to Riverside where I saw my high school friend Deborah Wong. Deborah is a renowned ethnomusicologist and has several books to her credit. We spent a delightful day together. A highlight was joining her at her monthly Primal Scream gathering. We met a few other participants right on the street, went around the circle sharing something we were pissed off about (US government losing children, murdering fisherman, f**king patriarchy) and then SCREAMED!!! Other passersby were entirely nonplussed. It felt great. We even had a couple blowup hammers.
Then I was off to Seal Beach where I met Suzi, a new friend of a friend. Yvonne (from the Alaska cruise) thought we should meet because we both love to travel. She has family in town so it was a quick visit, but I may join them when they go to Disneyland. That evening I met new friends Nilda and Jim in Anaheim. I didn't write about it before, but they approached me at Salton Sea when I was making my lunch in the van with the door open. They were curious about the build. I gave them the tour and said goodbye, but as they drove off Nilda gave me her card and said, “If you're ever in Anaheim..” so of course I took them up on it! We went out for dinner and had amazing Creole food.
This trip is exponentially expanding people I'm friendly with, so why not call them new friends? Who knows how in touch we'll remain, but who cares? It has been great reconnecting with friends I haven't seen since high school, and they are all still my friends. I have my “core” friends, of course, but as the network grows it creates a feeling of ever-expanding goodwill and faith in humanity. There's no shortage of evil and reasons to be outraged and depressed, but it helps to have the counterbalance of meeting so many good people in the world. This seems to be a common conclusion of long term travelers.
I almost missed the Channel Islands National Park, but I saw it on Google Maps so I drove up to Ventura and took a day trip to Santa Cruz Island. Had a gorgeous hike mostly to myself, and had my lunch on a bluff. On the return trip we were graced with an Orca sighting! A pod of three or four gave us quite a show.
Yesterday I took the bike path to Ojai, walked around town and happened on a screening of Unbroken, a documentary about the Weber children, seven siblings who made it out of Nazi Germany. The daughter of one of them was the filmmaker, and was there for the talk-back afterwards. It's streaming on Netflix and is highly recommended.
A little sadly, the key chain with my license engraved on it, the going away present from my piano students Felix and Lindy, finally broke. But, now it's on the dashboard with a few other keepsakes from home.
