SO I CAUSED ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE....

Friday evening, I was scheduled to fly out of LAX homeward bound for Arizona.

Mechanical difficulties, I assume - the actual announcement was "All Tucson flights have been cancelled; go to United customer service."

I hastened there, in the vain belief that somehow I would get better hotel accommodations if I was one of the first in line. 

Ha.

I got instructions to catch a shuttle to the Ramada Plaza hotel.

After waiting almost an hour for something, ANYthing with a Ramada logo, a modest van showed up to give myself and three other Tucson-declined travelers a ride to a... well, less-than-modest hotel within eye sight of the iconic LAX restaurant. 

I get checked in... was informed by a random resident, "Don't go over to the exercise room, there's a couple having sex there right now...." found my room, including dinged furniture, several non-working lights, and only one working telephone.


I did the only practical thing possible.... ordered pizza.

Then sat down, trying to find something reasonable to watch on television.



Suddenly, the bed I was sitting on began shaking.

My first thought was, oh, now, someone BIG in the next room is having SEX.

Then I realized - it was an earthquake.

Not a big one - just 5.1 on the Richter scale

Enough to let you know it's an earthquake, enough to roll everything around some, and enough to get all the news anchors excited again - "Could this be the preliminary to the BIG one?!?

Thanks goodness - it was only that one small one.

PEDAL TO THE METAL

Los Angeles was not designed with public transportation in mind. In the age of cheap gasoline and cars, Los Angeles grew up wide-spread orange groves, scenic mountain and beach views and always the dream of the future right on the horizon.

So public transportation, at least in the 60's, was underfunded and unwelcome. I do remember benches at bus stops, but they always seemed to have a drunk sleeping on them or desperately poor Mexicans waiting for something.

An automobile was not a luxury by any means but a simple necessity. The cars of my childhood were long, wide and always very, very clean. Seat belts were there, but I can't recall ever using them. Air conditioning was rolling the windows all the way down and driving fast.

The Pasadena freeway, the first real freeway in L.A., was designed at a time when 35 mph was speedy. So on-ramps were non-existent, multiple curves were not considered hazardous, and speed was king (again, with 40 mph pushing the limit).

I vaguely recall my dad teaching me to use a stick-shift in the huge parking areas of Santa Anita Racetrack, and I know I could ride my brother's motorcycle when I was 12. Yes, 16 was the legal driving age, but since I was already 5'10" by 13, no one even thought to question me about minor things such as a license.

So when my dad was teaching from the home studio, I was free to take the keys and just go. It is amazing that I didn't get in more trouble than I did - no one ever kept track of where I was.

But to get a license, you did have to take the driver’s education class in high school. And Mr. Penn was the instructor.

Back then I still had a complete brain, so I could doze through the classes and still pass the exams. The actual on-the-street driving was only interesting when one of the other students got to drive. Her first time behind the wheel, my friend, Robin Yamamoto, literally floored the gas pedal to get the car moving. And others would wander all over the left and right sides of the road, although I only recall jumping the curb once.

Even then, I could only assume that any teacher got some form of hazardous duty pay for classes such as this.

But Mr. Penn always let me drive last, drop off all the other students' at their homes, and then drive myself home while he graded papers. And then I would jump out, and more often than not, hop right into one of my dad's cars and drive myself to my friend Annette's or McDonalds.

Guardian angels of naive underage drivers, thank you again for all your protection. And allow me to call on you, especially when my granddaughter turns 12.