"Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box" John Lennon
Chapter 8 - Los Angeles
We got an early start on the day; I was pleasantly surprised to find that
it was not that cold out on the highway. The ride was fun and the miles slid
by. I had really begun to enjoy the desert landscape: the sparseness, space,
and expanse of it. Moreover, interspersed with the broad expanse of flatness
were salient mountain ridges sharp against the sky. We crossed the Colorado
River and rode into California at Blythe. A winding trail of green foliage
to the north and south showed where the river flowed.
In another eighty miles, the land to the south was barren and low, it led
down to below sea level at the Salton Sea and the Imperial Valley. Mountains
were framing a pass before us in the west. To the north lay Joshua Tree. We
came up through Indio and headed towards San Gorgonio Pass. At 2600’, it was
not anywhere near as high as Cajon Pass or the Grapevine, but it was a windy
and scenic place. It was framed by 10,804’ Mt San Jacinto to the south and
Mt San Gorgonio to the north. At 11,499’, Mt San Gorgonio was the highest
point in Southern Califonia, and it formed the roof of the San Bernardino
mountains. We passed Rte 111 coming up from Palm Springs. The rock wall
coming down from Mt San Jacinto to Palm Springs in the desert is one of the
greatest mountain escarpments in the continental United States.
We continued through the pass and headed west. The traffic picked up, the
roads got wider, and the traffic picked up some more. After a while, we saw
the skyline of downtown away in the distance. When we got close Gerry took
the lead in the car, and they navigated their way off the highway and on to
Wilshire Blvd by following the directions given to us by Dave’s friend. We
away from downtown and pulled into a store’s parking lot and found a phone.
Dave’s friend arrived with a few places for rent that he had circled on a
newspaper; along with this, he had a sheet of typing paper on which he had
drawn a crude map. I was not much in the mood for looking at apartments, but
it was that or find a motel.
We took the first place we looked at, a large brick building that rented
rooms to adults, primarily Spanish adults (a sign in the lobby said “no
ninos”). After the total racial openness of the Army, we were OK with that,
and the super smiled at us when we told him our story about just getting out
of the Army. We talked it over and rented a room for a month (paid in
advance). This was a good deal for us, if we found something later on that
was better or cheaper we could move. As it was, we were not going to be here
that long, perhaps this place would do. The building itself was up on a hill
at 3rd Street and Alvarado. It had a rooftop area that you could get out on
and enjoy a beer with the lights of LA lit up all around you. In the cellar
was a room of washing machines. Our rent was on the second floor and
consisted of one semi-large room, and off that was a small kitchen with a
stove and refrigerator, and a bathroom that had a shower and curtain rigged
up inside of an old tub. By getting a room we did not have to worry about
utilities or credit checks; though we did get warnings on the big three
taboos: no kids, no drugs, and no trouble. I guess the last one covered
everything. It was furnished sparsely, a small round beat-up wood table with
chairs, sofa, end table, coffee table, TV table, and a dresser. There was a
light fixture on the ceiling in the center of the room and a light with
shade on an end table. The sofa opened up into a bed, I was OK with blankets
and a sleeping bag on the floor. Down the hill was MacArthur Park. Across
the street were a variety of pizza places, bars, markets, and liquor stores.
We unpacked the car in short order, and I chained my bike to a telephone
pole. There were plenty of people on the streets, a mix of tongues and
ethnic faces. As far as knowing what was a good or a bad area in which to
live here in Los Angeles, that was totally unknown, and perhaps unknowable,
to us here on our first day in the city. We would improvise and learn from
experience. But we had to live somewhere, and we now had a place to call
home. We did not have a lot of money, either, so our sights were not set too
high. We hoped we could get by with the three of us sharing all expenses and
pooling the GI Bill money we expected to get when we started school.
Dave, along with his compact stereo system, had brought a small black and
white television set from Phoenix, this he set up on the TV table and
plugged it in to a socket. Success! We would at least have news and sports.
He also had a couple of boxes his mom put together for us; they contained
assorted small pots, frying pan, plates and utensils, paper towels and
plates, glasses, coffee cups, and toilet paper. We put this away and emptied
our cooler into the warm refrigerator. We turned the dial and the compressor
started up in the rear. We had some liquor that we had brought with us from
Phoenix; this went into a cupboard in the kitchen.
We went out and walked across Alvarado to visit the stores on that side. We
ordered a large pizza to go from “Two Guys Greek Pizza”, and we picked up
beer, ice, soda, instant coffee, milk, and juice from a small market. The
three of us carried the swag back across the street and up the stairs to our
new room. We ate pizza and had drinks in the splendor of our new digs as we
watched black and white television. As Spartan as it was, I much preferred
the fact that we now had a place. We need not spend tomorrow looking for
one, driving around unfamiliar settings. We finished with a couple of shots
toasting the fact that we were actually here and doing it. Here we were, two
weeks out of the Army and we had a place in LA. Tomorrow we would find
Hollywood and the school, and begin to learn our way around.
I made up my bed on the floor and was soon asleep.
In the morning, we made instant coffee and quickly made our way outdoors to
explore our world. We stopped at a restaurant and bought coffees to go, them
we rode to Hollywood to find the school and talk with an administrator. Our
room certainly was not in Hollywood, but it was about a third of the
distance that we used to travel when we lived outside the post at Fort
Bragg, so it seemed manageable.
We found our school, the Don Martin School of Radio and Television Arts and
Sciences, on Cherokee Ave and went in to introduce ourselves. “At
least it really exists,” quipped Dave. We found someone from the
administrator’s office who provided us with forms for veteran’s benefits,
our classroom location and instructor’s name. School started the following
Monday and, on paper, went full time for three months. The fact was that
after 5 or 6 weeks you would have covered enough information to take the
federal examination for the FCC 1st Class License, if you passed you were
done. If not, you stayed in class and studied until you passed the next
test. The pace was slow and, given the fact that Thanksgiving, Christmas and
New Years were also in this timeframe, we would have plenty of free time.
We left the school and walked over to Hollywood Blvd. Although it was busy
it seemed commonplace
in the afternoon sun, not the place of ‘dreams’. School buses cruised the
boulevard encouraging people to get onboard and find Jesus with Tony and
Susan Alamo. We found an Orange Julius
store and ordered an orange drink. A large car carrying three people pulled
up to the curve and a passenger got out and walked up to the drink counter
where we stood. Charlton Heston sat in the back seat reading a document of
some type. The passenger returned with three Julius drinks and the car sped
off. We looked at each other with that “not in Kansas anymore” look, and
then we made our way back to the car. We stopped in at the Brown Derby and
nursed a beer as we looked at the pictures of the Hollywood elite that
adorned the walls.
The Los Angeles area was so big, with so much to offer, that it boggled the
mind. Just learning the freeway systems seemed daunting. We made our way to
the coast and the pier in Santa Monica, and followed the coast road on up to
Malibu. Griffith Park was close and we went there often. We hiked up to the
“Hollywood” sign, and went to the planetarium. There were regular “Be-In”
gatherings in the park on weekends and it was a fun place to meet people and
enjoy some green space amid the concrete sprawl that was LA. It was a large
place and there were many things to see and do there.
We learned about the neighborhood we lived in. We would not want to be in
MacArthur Park at night, but the commercial area and stores across the
street from our building seemed safe enough, our room seemed safe enough. We
enjoyed our time and our explorations, but we wanted to start with school.
We had all the worries that come with major life changes and little money;
we felt that we were just marking time.