PART IV

Ways of Living

Some simple suggestions include:

Used is better than new

Old is better than young

Small is better than large

Less is more

Later is better than sooner

Saving is better than spending

Giving is better than receiving

Humility is better than pride

Other's first, self second

Differences are good

You can never judge a book by its cover

An old tattered cover is better than a clean new one

Enough is enough

Nothing done in excess

Cooperation is better than competition

Everything in moderation

Walking is better than driving

Muscle power is better than fossil power

Wind and water is better than atomic power

Produce locally, consume globally

"Act locally, think globally"

Home-made, not mass produced

Time is not money

We own our own time

Time is never wasted when learning

Money is meaningless if we have no time

Patience always wins out over pride

*****

65 M.P.H. PAST DISNEYLAND

As a kid I used to love to visit Disneyland

At least once very few years

Saving all my ride tickets, A through E

On the way we were always told how luck we were

To have it so close by

(Just 15 minutes by freeway,

Practically in our backyards)

When most kids in the World

Would never be able to see it their entire lives

We used to be able to climb onto the rooftop

Of our single garage

And catch glimpses of its fireworks

During the summer nights

At 9:30 P.M. sharp

And hear them booming across the distances

Sometimes a bunch of kids

Would even ride over

Just to sit in the parking lot

And watch the fireworks show

And have an ice-cream cone from Thrifty Drugstore

Now as an adult

I used to drive by its front gate

Almost every day going to and from my work

I had the timing down past Harbor Blvd pretty good.

And could make it over the overpass

And completely past Disneyland

Without hitting a single light

It required that I made 65 M.P.H.

In a 45 M.P.H. zone

If only for a moment or two

So I'd have to hang loose in the middle lane

And keep my eye out

For any groups of pedestrians

Servicemen, Asians and mid-Westerners

Jay-walking across the Boulevard

From all the surrounding motels

I never had time to look at all the rides

Or to see all the cars in its huge parking lot

I could only just read the sign saying

"Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth"

My 1970 Plymouth Valiant was a bit banged up and bruised

And needed reupholstering from top to bottom

But its slant-six 225 engine was pretty dependable

And always had extra power in the pedal

Just down the road a little

I would come to the section of motels

Where all the hookers walked along the street

I once had a girlfriend

Whose whole family had been living in one of these motels

For several years

I had thanksgiving dinner with her family

And her mother cheated to beat me at Monopoly

A little further down the road

Is where I would visit my little Vietnamese refugee children

They would always ask me to take them to the castle

Knowing that they meant Disneyland

But I never had the extra cast to spend

The best I could ever manage

Was the Regional Park and Toys-R-Us

And a fifteen cent ice cream cone from Thrifty Drugs

I was always a safe and defensive driver

Always slowing and stopping for pedestrians

Always careful to give other cars enough distance

But that I just wanted to make all those lights

During that stretch past Disneyland

I would shoot for the holes

And never had any problem

Just blowing past all the cars

Slowing down for Disneyland

DOWN at DANA POINT

In the late sixties and early seventies

We used to go swimming down at Dana Point

Just behind San Juan Capistrano

A long drive down

But a drive through the countryside

Well worth the time spent

I had a yellow life raft

I would inflate

I could blow it up with my mouth in half an hour

And we would oar out from the breakwater

Onto the open ocean

There were only a few craft then

Most of the Marina was built of rock breakwater

There was only a single wooden pier and dock

And the parking lot was just a dirt field

Returning there just a few years later

I could not recognize the old place

Everything had been "redeveloped"

The Marina was twice the size as before

And full to the gills with expensive craft

Restaurants and stores standing

Where once was just a pier

Nice asphalt parking lots

With curbs and landscaped palm trees

Where once as just a dirty field

Now there was nowhere to launch my little yellow raft

The place had changed forever

Within just a couple of years

I could not believe it

Where did all the boats, the people and money come from?

Now I get down in the dumps

When I descend the cliffs

Down to Dana Point

LAKE FISHING

Fishing the Lakes

Of So. Cal.

In the mid-70's

Catching our daily limit of trout

Dangling from the stringer

Of our little outboard

Landing huge twenty pound cats

Fishing naked in the middle of the night

By the early '80's

The RV cities sit

Where once was open chaperal

The waters are all polluted

And the only fish to be caught

Are small stock Trout

By the mid-'80's

There is no more room just to sit

Along the muddy shores

And the water levels are dropping

There is no longer any point in going

Except to sit and drink a beer

And become sunburned

Down by the lake

SUPERMARKET KHARMA

Supermarket Kharma

Wrapped in clean plastic

For SuperMan and SuperWoman

Going Round and Round

In Super Circles

Why travel in small circles

When one can have it all?

Everything you need

At the tips of well manicured fingers

And the grasp of a bejeweled hand

All the best brands to choose from

Even many exotic ones

A Super Convenient Shopping Store

For Super Convenient People

Sending out all those Super Beautiful vibes

With those Super White Smiles

And those Perfectly Straight Teeth

And those Super Cuts

And those Super Shopping Sports Clothes

In that Super Dynamic New Car

With just the right fit and just the right look

For all just the right people

Living well on the Other Side

Like Shopping in a deluxe Super Supermarket

That has a giant Super Selection

Driving a Super Big Shopping Cart

With Super split levels

For picking and sorting

All the Super bonus deals

A Super School here, a Super Spouse there

A Super Great Career

Capped with a Super Great Retirement Plan

And in the Recreational Department

Embossed Golf Clubs and Embroidered Super Signature

Tennis Rackets

Squash, anyone?

All the Super Store Super Clerks

Ready and Anxious to help you

Find you what you really really need

The Department of Liquors is on Aisle 147

The Super Special Sushi Bar is just down at the end of the next Aisle

Behind the Italian Delicatessen and the International Cheeses Depot

Our Fresh Foreign Pastries Selection is in our Super Bakery Shop

Within our Whole-Grains Only Breads Section

International Coffees are next to the International Waters

Next to our Super Natural Health Foods on Aisle 197

Living in the Fast Lane

Of the Super Supermarket

Maximizing your super Savings

Getting the most Kharma possible

For your super dollars

Especially for the Super Special People

Why spin around in small worlds

When one can travel First Class

Upon Super Galactic

Cruise Liners?

HOME IMPROVEMENT CENTER

Every time I need to fix something

I go to the big Home Improvement Center

A huge warehouse opens to the public

Everything at wholesale prices

Forklifts full of crates of goods

Running up and down the wide aisles

Like an industrial highway

The traffic of orange dollies and shopping carts

Always jammed at the intersections

And long lines of impatient customers

Waiting interminably at the cash registers

All the handy do-it-yourselfers

And petty small contractors

Driving the small hardware shops out of business

By all their big spending

Wheeling and dealing

Everyday huge amounts of lumber passing

Through the portals of modern paradise

Along with everything the resident experts need

To get their jobs done

The scale of consumption

Seems vast and limitless

Every single person grabbing up huge amounts of wood

In a strange buying frenzy

Hoarding what they want

Leaving the inferior specimens in their wake

So many satisfied customers everyday

Open seven days a week

Twelve hours a day

All year round

One huge chain among many such chains

Who counts the number of boards bought and sold

Who estimates the number of trees consumed there

In a day, in a week, in a year

What is the rate of forest production

That must keep up with such endless consumption

How long can any forest last

No matter how vast

Under private pressure

Of the home owner and building contractor

Always spending a bundle

Just to save a buck

When it takes an entire lifetime

Just to grow one tree

And but a few months

To build a home

That will not last a lifetime

SURF FISH'n

Fish'n the Surf

From Newport to San Diego

Circa 1980

Trying out the waters

Off San Onofre and Cardiff by the Sea

Testing out the line

At Corona Del Mar, Laguna and Dana Point

Tasting the salt off Oceanside

Wading waist deep into the warm waters

Beside the nuclear power plant

Just beneath Tricky Dicky's little retirement castle

On the hill

To see if the fish really glow

Or grow any larger

On the irradiated sands

Lunking lead weights

Between the cliffs and shoals of Corona

Snag'n the hooks and hook'n the snags

Reel'n in the kelp beds

Play'n in the tide pools

Watch'n the half-day boats

Go blubber'n by

Knee deep in Laguna

Cut'n the cuttlefish

Pick'n the Herring

Pocket'n the Perch

Making the reefs at Dana Point

Step'n barefoot on the barnacles

Wait'n till nightfall

For fish to bite

And for the oil slick to subside

Whiling away the hours

With the line planted firmly

Into the murky waters

Watching the yachts go sailing by

The Beautiful People upon the Decks

Copp'n Gold'n Rays and Zees

And all the Wonderful Vibes

Of wind'n surf and land lubber's eyes

Shoulder deep at Oceanside

Los'n all my lines

The tide runs high

And the surf is deep

And the rocks tug beneath one's feet

Trying to plunk the bait

Out beyond the breakers

The whole line kept drag'n

By the wild undertow

Without a beach to stick my pole

And plant my duff

Mak'n the morn'n bite

In the early grey skies at Encinitas

Dig'n deep into the wet sand

For fresh crabs

Strik'n it big

Barely ankle deep

Slam'n the line and jump'n right out of the waves

Grouper, Halibut, Sea Bass

Yellow Fin and Yellow Tail

Bam, Bam, Bam

Big one's all in a row

By the first fifteen minutes

Fillet'd, Butt'rd and Bar-b'cued

By early afternoon

Beneath the leaning Eucalyptus trees

Wash'd down with ice-cold bottl'd beer

Try'n it out the whole day

Down by Cardiff by the Sea

Beneath the Cliffs

In a swimsuit at a nudist beach

While mov'n down the coast

Check'n out the fish'n holes

The white girls with their bare tits and asses

Laying flat in the sand

Roasting red in the blazing sun

The white studs

Glistening in oil

Walk'n up and down the beach

With their half-firm dongs

Swaying to and fro

And white sunscreen on their noses

I keep get'n lots of tugs upon my pole

But nothing bites at all

Down beneath the cliffs of Cardiff

In the twilight of the set'n sun

The ocean glimmer'n red and orange

And only a small sand shark

Keeps taking my bait

Wading out to my thighs

Afraid of step'n on a sting ray

Slowly swing'n my pole over my shoulder

Just before the break'n waves

Cast'n the line out into the foaming water

Until the night comes on

Ten years later

My old fisherman friend

Living in his car along the beach

Last of the longhaired beach bums

Told me that things had changed

The police were always about

And the people are all to busy to talk

And the girls aren't as friendly

And the big ones no longer bite

When surf'n the fish

Shoot, I told him

My dad used to land flounder

And big barricuda

Right off Huntington and Seal

Now you can't even rent public parking space

Last time I went fishing

I got bottle neck'd on the Sant'Ana

While on the rebound

Stuck in traffic for two hours

So piss'd I became

I never went back down the coast

Since

HUNTING OUT in RIVERSIDE

In the mid'60's and early '70's

We would go small game hunting

Out past Riverside

Small cotton tail

Dove, Quail and Chucker

We had most of the spots well mapped

One was a small canyon

Just north of the Indian Reservation

We would follow its stream

Back up into the hills

Until it opened up onto a larger plateau

Where we'd spend the day

Hunting for quail

Chasing chucker to the higher rocks

The dry wind would blow across the plain

The pungent smell of sage

Hanging in the air

We would track through the Manzanita

Listening to the quail calling in their coveys

We'd see them running beneath the bushes

Against the opposite ridges

The sheep farmers and ranchers

Never bothered us

And never seemed to mind

We'd dress and eat whatever we shot

We went back to Riverside

A few years later

Think'n we might try out again

Our old spots

But the plateau had been posted

And a man in a little trailer

Told us we couldn't trespass

They were surveying for a development project

And the heavy equipment was already waiting silently

Now when I drive down the back way towards San Diego

Down the I-15 past Riverside

All I see are vast stretches of new tract homes

And acres of flattened bulldozed earth

Where once was chapparal, eucaplyptus and manzanita

And I wonder if we had hunted all our small game

To the edge of extinction

I have long since given up hunting

The wild creatures, big and small

Now needing all the peace of untouched places

And the privacy of wide open spaces

They do not need our cruel, childish intrusions

But I miss the dry wind against my face

The smell of sage

The fresh crisp air

And the dry treks across the hillsides

I miss being able to spend the day

Out upon the open places

Leaving all my petty worries behind

I can buy all the meat I need

Down at the local corner market

But I miss the flavor

Of the wild sage

In my quail and cotton tail

ALONG IMPERIAL HIGHWAY

Imperial Highway

Runs the entire length of south LA

From the Beach by LAX

To the Hills of Anaheim

Where development squeezes into the pass

And squirts out the other side

Flooding into Corona and Riverside

I've been along its entire length

Numerous times during my life

A good part of my life has been spent

Waiting at its many traffic signals

As a kid we would take it to the Airport

Through the black sections of the city

Where they had all the riots

The kids would count the number of blacks

Through the rolled up windows

Later on, we would take Imperial down just a little way

To visit old friends in the Hispanic area

As an adult I drove the other direction

To and from my commuter campus

There used to be a lot of open fields

And farms along the way

It was kind of a pretty drive

By the time I graduated

Most of the fields and lots

Had already been developed

The new traffic signals upset my timing

When I used to be able to make it

All the way down

Hitting only one or two lights

Now I only take it

Going shopping at the stores

Its traffic has gotten heavier

And now they're tearing down the old buildings

And rebuilding new ones

TELEGRAPH ROAD

I grew up around Telegraph Road

On the corner of Carmenita

I've watched the fields where I used to explore

Get paved over and built upon

The stores have come and gone

Old Jim's Grocery, Sunshine Hardware, and the Triangle Take-out

Bert's Hamburgers, Leoni's Pizza, Texaco and Gulf

Bank of America, the Big T Driving Range, the Beaver Inn, Turf Liquors

Bob's market, Glick's Lumber, All are gone

Only the old Alpha Beta and Jack in the Box are still remaining

And they've been renovated

Several times made over

The little league base-ball diamonds

Are now a parking-lot

The old orange groves are now new homes

The eucalyptus grove where we used to play as kids

Many of whom grew up and went to Vietnam

Has been turned into a strip center

Some old things still remain though

Looking worn and out of date

My old grammar school

The fire station next door

The local library

My Junior High, hidden behind all the new buildings

The old oil fields down the two-lane road

With all the tall Texan oil derricks

Now square blocks of industrial buildings

And business offices

Along a four lane highway

Most of the old wooden clapboard houses

Having been replaced

By new square stucco homes

When I drive down that way now

I feel sort of strange

Things just don't seem the way they used to be

There is absent in all the new buildings

A sense of a lost past

Covered over and left forgotten

SAILING OUT OF LONG BEACH

Our old friend Dave

Bought himself a small sailing boat

And took us down to the harbor

At Long Beach

And there we'd back it into the water

Tie it up to the little wooden dock

Load it up and sail it out into the bay

And then out past the breakwater

Into the open surf

Just beyond Seal Beach and Huntington

We would tack towards the oil platforms

And then reel around and run in towards the big ships

We'd pass craft of all kinds and sizes

In the evening the lights along the coast

Would send out their shimmering reflections

Out across the waters

Sometimes the evening waves

Would break across our bow

And the water would spray

Over the entire boat

More than a decade has passed since those days

Dave quit taking his boat out so often

When the Marina became too crowded with craft

And you had to wait your turn in long lines

To launch it into the water

He quit taking it out

When he could no longer easily manage it alone

Dave grew older

And quit taking care of his small boat

Finally he sold it

After it sat a couple of years

For a fifth of what he had paid for it

To some young sailing enthusiast

I've never been on a small boat since then

I miss the feel of the salty spray

And the cooling wind against the skin

Those good old days

Will never come again

1994-5

Blanket Copyright, Hugh M. Lewis, © 2005. Use of this text governed by fair use policy--permission to make copies of this text is granted for purposes of research and non-profit instruction only.

Last Updated: 03/15/05