In Training

A kid’s excitement couldn’t be greater than mine this moment. I'm going south-bound from Burbank on the Amtrak towards San Juan Capistrano to meet my writing buddy Kelly. I find a parking space easily, rescue a June Bug while waiting for the train to come, and have a lovely conversation with a couple from the mountains around Tujunga.

First stop Glendale. We’re zipping along handily past the same hills I view from the freeway, but this perspective is lower and disrupted by more buildings. I see businesses along San Fernando road that I don’t usually notice because I’m driving.

An air of freedom permeates my internal space. I love this hands-free Zzzzziiiippping!

Ooooh, passing a north-bound short train is dizzying. It takes my breath away.

Glad to note there is a Lu and snack car downstairs. Who  wants to eat those snacks? Not I.


Glendale has more sophisticated parking options and a classy station - new? or renovated WPA project? Hard to say. I like the spanish tile roof, round portholes on the ornately carved wooden double doors and symmetrical towers. They have Natural Gas Refilling and electric car rebooting stations!

Next stop Union Station. I thought about taking the Red Line Subway there from Universal, but decided I’d take my chances on finding parking in the lot south of Burbank Airport. I won the lottery!  

Crossing under the old Figueroa Street Bridge I note it's where my grandfather stood in 1934 and watched a box-car going end-over end down the storm swollen Los Angeles River which had washed several train cars into its hungry waters.

I see the new Metropolitan Transit Authority tower. We’re coming past the east side of Chavez Ravine. What a time it was when the O’Malley family brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to L.A.  So many folks lost their homes in the shuffle to make Dodger Stadium and attendant parking in Elysian Park... a blight on the city’s humanity. Ditto the attempt to put the Convention Center in the same park. 

In 1964, a Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park coalesced around Grace Simons, after whom the Grace Simons Lodge was named. A legal battle ensued to save the green space from commercial interests. We, the citizens of Echo Park, put on a show in the spirit of the best Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney tradition. “Hey, my father has a barn... let’s put on a show and let people KNOW how important the green space is for future generations!” Actually, we used Saint Athanasius Church across from the Lake on Echo Park Boulevard - in the very same building where I used to take modern dance lessons from Ann Barlon. Our show, "That Was the Park that WAS," played for three performances over one weekend and earned enough to start the legal defense for the trees. My friends, Gusti Bogak and Sarah Miller and I choreographed a dance to Mick Jagger’s throbbing, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” which, at least WE three thought, was the highlight of the show.

Skits included one that showed a family of six trying to enjoy being squeezed into a four foot by four foot cubicle for a picnic underground with roots hanging from the dirt ceiling representing all the “natural space” left in the once great city.

The content of the skit was perhaps influenced by the Cuban Missile Crisis the year before. I remember my bus route to Thomas Star King Junior High School passed home after home with dug-up front yards where fall-out shelters were being constructed. Survival of the world as we loved it was certainly in the collective psyche. Harry Belafonte made famous a song that spoke directly to me. “Come Away, Melinda...” included the lyric: "Daddy, Daddy, come and look and see what I have found, a little ways away from here while digging in the ground." "Come away, Melinda. Come in and close the door, that’s nothing but a picture book before they had the war.”

The Citizens Committee DID manage to save Elysian Park and the Convention Center plan was moved to down town.

Leaving Union Station... next stop Fullerton. Now, I’m riding backwards. Not so fun. I move to the seat next to a young woman sitting across from me. That’s better. I prefer seeing where I’m going to where I’ve been.

Passing J.B. Hunt cargo containers all stacked alongside the 5 Freeway, I wonder how many containers come to the Port of Los Angeles from China every day? I was thrilled Wednesday to find some oval ceramic serving trays in cobalt blue and white, as a birthday gift for my friend Annet. They were made in Poland! I’m not too keen to be supporting an economy (China’s) that owns so much of our U.S. debt.

I’m also wondering how Kelly’s trip is going. Escondido to San Juan Capistrano may be an equally lengthy (two hour) trip.  Cannot wait to meet her there where the swallows return year after year.

In our own back yard we have returning birds... a ducky couple who love the pool and who lay eggs along side it on the deck without benefit of nest. NTB (not too bright).

This year, there is a pair of crows who prefer bathing in the small fountain which flows into the pool. They breakfast regularly on the barely ripening strawberries. It’s a toss-up who will be first to enjoy the fruits of our labors... the crows or the squirrels. We humans don’t stand a chance. (The train is passing a trailer park with a few scraggly trees. I feel ashamed for complaining about the bounty of our beautiful garden being stolen by wild animals. I imagine living mostly on asphalt is a hardship not recognized as “eligible for battle pay,” but it should qualify!)

Being divorced from the lovely emanations coming from Earth is an equal opportunity destroyer. We don’t even know what we’re missing. The 1.5 gauss emanations are cost-free and are the best anti-inflammatory “substance” known to carbon-based units like we are. Perhaps The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album was prophetic.  Our rubber soles insulate and isolate us from Mama Earth’s electric kisses.

How lucky, am I that my Cousin Lynn recently gave me three pair of leather-sole shoes which she has out-grown. Leather conducts the anti-inflammatory emanations; rubber does not. Cement sidewalks and tile do; asphalt roads do not. Grass and dirt do; raised wood floors do not. Grounding technology can help us reclaim our connection. (google: earthing.com)

Hey! Fullerton already! There’s Anaheim Stadium, where my beloved was honored on the field twice - once for completing over 100 apheresis donations for the Red Cross and again as a “Volunteer of the Year” for Padres Contra el Cancer.

A gal across the aisle has a bag that says, “A magical journey... Brasil.” She and her companion speak German. The fellow who finally got off at Fullerton spoke “Fuck.” “Fuckin’ 60 degrees one day then fuckin’ 90 degrees the next... fuck this shit. I’m fuckin outa here!” And so he was... I’m glad for the 8 year old boy, who was listening to an audio program just one row away, that Mr. Fuck Mouth got off the train before the young lad had removed his head-phones.

Slow going past the armpit of back-road Orange County... but wait! There’s a green  house with plants being tended, and a park with sycamores and two young teens on scooters. Mobility and independence are still primary currency for the young. Hooray!

Santa Ana Station is reminiscent of Union station in its use of roof tile, colorful Spanish tile trimming and terazzo flooring. My favorite recollection of Union Station was the day my high-school buddy Judy and I went to say good bye to Wendy at Union Station as she was heading back to Yellow Springs, Ohio (WOW there was a sight... a trash dump [temporary, I hope] with back storage areas of pipes, palettes, pots  and giant truck tires. This really IS the armpit of O.C!)

Anyway, that day in 1965 at Union Station, I saw a man dressed in an immaculate white suit who had eight pieces of matching luggage in a semi-circle around him. We were all sitting in those plush leather seats with wooden arm rests that are iconic Union Station Waiting Room Furnishings. Wendy, Judy and I were signing one another’s year books. He noticed the question in my eyes as I looked at his many suitcases. He said he was going to Mississippi to visit family. Then he said something that has stuck with me all these years. He said, “It’s better to have what ya don’t need than to need what ya don’t have.” 


Next life-time, I aspire to travel light. This life time, I'm taking all I can... so as not to need anything.

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I made it all the way to San Juan Capistrano, where I’d never been before, had a marvelous meeting with Ms. Kelly, brunch, a tour of the old Mission and a sleepy ride back to Burbank. I highly recommend train traveling and getting a glimpse of the swallow’s nests on the old mission’s rafters. That made ME want to return to SJC too!