What's in a Story?

The burnt VW Beetle where Gordon Miller's body was found in 1964. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

We shall not cease exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

                                    -- T.S. Eliot

Earlier this month I wrote about the late Joan Didion and her influence as a chronicler of culture and a model for writers. A friend of mine from high school who has more time on his hands now that he's retired from dentistry and coaching college rugby -- time enough to even read my blog -- became intrigued by Didion. One of her books, The White Album, published in 1979, had been taking space on his bookshelf for years, but never opened.

His mother who was an English teacher gave him the book sometime during the 80s. "I never read books. I didn't have time," he said. She sent him a book every year for his birthday. He's kept every one of them.

He sent me a text with a photo of Didion's book and the message: 

"Here goes!" He was about to finally read it.

It's been nearly 60 years since we hung out together. Life changes us. I wondered if he would like the book? For one thing, it's a book of essays from the 1970s, dated material. For another, Joan Didion's perspective and phrasing do not constitute a page turner, more indicative of a writer's rock star, a provocative voice in the jungle.

Yesterday I received a call from my friend Wayne, who had already informed me that he was loving her book. "Her essays involve places in Los Angeles during a time when I was going to school there. Very interesting," he said.

I was glad to hear that but the first thing on my mind was football, a mutual interest that we had in high school. Did you watch football this weekend?" the first thing I asked.

"No, the power has been out since Friday," he said. "The Santa Ana winds knocked it out, uprooted trees, cars were smashed. So no football. We're supposed to get power back tonight (Sunday)." 

He lives in Claremont, about 35-miles east of downtown Los Angeles, along the corridor of the San Gabriel Mountain Range where high desert winds blow in from the Great Basin. Didion wrote stories set amid this regional landscape in a couple of her essays.

"I'm texting you an article from the LA Times about a woman who was a subject in one of Didion's pieces. You've got to read it," he said. The original story involved a murder that happened in nearby Alta Loma.

"Was she upset?" I asked.

I referred to one of Didion's most quoted lines about the real-life characters in her stories: "I will sell you out," she wrote. She understood the adverse commercial aspects of the press, especially when dealing with the subject of murder and people's often fragile lives. 

"No, she's not upset. It's very interesting, a fascinating story."

I found the Times article, under the heading: "I thought Joan Didion's essay would ruin my life. But something else happened."

The piece was written by Debra Miller, whose mother was convicted of murdering her husband -- Debra's father. Debra referred to the case as "one of the most infamous murder trials in California history."

Debra was 14 at the time. Upon her mother's conviction, Debra sprang to her feet in the courtroom and yelled, "She didn't do it! She didn't do it!" This scene was recounted in Didion's essay, which was entitled "Some Dreamers of the Golden State."

Didion compared the upwardly mobile Miller family to the dream-seeking Joad family in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, both of whom sought fulfillment in California. The Joad's were from Oklahoma in the 1930s, the Miller's from Oregon nearly 50 years later, and they were real folks as contrasted with Steinbeck's novel. 

Lucille Miller spent seven years in prison before being paroled for the murder of her husband, Gordon Miller, a dentist. The coincidences of the murder happening while we were in high school in the same area where we were living, and that he became a practicing dentist, were not lost by my friend. 

The Miller's marriage had been unraveling among other difficulties. She hated Didion's portrayal of her life and taught her three children to despise Didion. Debra spent a good part of her life hiding from the essay, embarrassed and ashamed, even as she became a high school teacher who taught writing. 

A turning point came during Debra's teaching career when Didion's essay was introduced as a topic for a fellow teacher's English class. She re-read the essay several times and realized the truth in Didion's piece. "She was spot on... She was a genius," wrote Debra in her recent piece. 

She penned a letter to Didion explaining how the essay had affected her life, up until then mostly negatively. 

Didion wrote back:

"There's no real way to tell you how moved I was (am) by your letter... As a writer I tend to compartmentalize the people and events I've written about -- the writer goes in, tries to understand the story, as if the act of writing it down completed the situation, became the truth. I guess I think writers need to do this, have to do this to maintain the nerve to write anything at all. But of course it's an illusion." She thanked Debra for her letter.

Eventually Debra met Joan Didion at a public reading of her then-latest novel where the author, in a moment of compassion, "threw her arms around" Debra.

In her recent piece, Debra reveals the hardships of her life, including drug addiction, and how she was finally able to find release and peace through Didion's essay. Debra's personal observations of her mother while in prison -- not a model prisoner -- and afterward, changed her mind regarding her mother's innocence. 

Debra began to include Didion's essay in her classes, acknowledging that she was the young girl in the piece, opening herself to questions.

The recent death of Joan Didion was a personal loss to Debra. "I would not be the woman I am today," she wrote — “a woman to tell her own story, who survived and flourished rather than succumb to the darkness that consumed my mother and beckoned me."

She expressed confidence that she was ready to write her now memoir.

My musing about Joan Didion led to my friend Wayne picking up her book, an unopened gift from his mother nearly 40 years ago. Being of curious mind, Wayne was intellectually stimulated by reading Didion's work, enough so that he found the above story by Debra Miller fascinating and had to let me know. He and I both are fathers of three daughters, although his are much younger than mine. We are particularly moved by stories about female empowerment. I know this because he said he was going to share this piece with his daughters.

What goes around comes around. 

Thanks Wayne.

Skin in the Game

Jimmy G will lead the 49ers against the Pack on Saturday Night

What do Los Angeles, 

San Francisco, Cincinnati, Buffalo and Kansas City have in common?

If you answered "nothing," you are 99-percent correct.

On a scale that measures employment opportunities, unvaccinated citizenry or numbers of E-bikes flying down the road, you will find wide discrepancies. Especially this time of year.

If you said, "fanatics," you hit the jackpot!

Make that football fanatics who will prove their lunacy this weekend.

I hid Tampa Bay from the above list to avoid the obvious. And besides,Tom Brady fans and non-fans are all over the map.

Even COVID will take a backseat to NFL Playoff Weekend with eight teams banging heads while their fans scream, pound their chests and enact a weird human ritual that will take our minds off of pandemic overload, personal problems and political fatigue.

Sports are our last bastion of agreed upon winners and losers, my friend Glenn pointed out to me recently. There are no disputes when the game ends and the score is posted. Reality prevails.

This weekend, football will play the role of savior and prove that America really is united by our love for the polyhedron-shaped leather spheroid known as the pigskin. 

In 1906, Bradbury Robinson of St Louis University had no idea of the significance of his act when he threw the first forward pass ever recorded in a football game. Or maybe he was prescient and did know the omnipotent power of a spiral.

For years I didn’t watch football. I hated football. Football represented everything that is wrong with our country, especially professional football with its meglomaniacal team owners who exploit our modern-day gladiators for profit and prestige.

Football is a thinly veiled form of blood-sport that makes diminutive white men wealthy, so clubbish that they would not allow one of their own, a pucker-lipped pissant with the initials D.T., to own a team of his own.

Consider that a three-plus hour football game contains only 10-minutes and 43 seconds of real action, according to a Wall Street Journal study. "The rest is fill, the Styrofoam peanuts in between: commercials, replays, coaching, huddling, officials muddling" and broadcasters prattling away with obviously stock remarks and commentary.

So will I be watching football this weekend?

You bet I will.

Because my team, the San Francisco Forty-Niners -- who are actually headquartered and play their home games in Santa Clara -- will enter the icy tundra Church of Lambeau in sub-freezing Green Bay on Saturday night against the storied Green Bay Packers, the only publicly owned NFL team in America, whose shareholders wear crowns of cheese on their heads, the numero uno seeded team in the NFC.

I really don't care who my error-prone Niners will face, but the frigid weather and the wily Green Bay quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, who misrepresented his COVID immunity, will make the battle more... interesting.

When I was a lad, I was all about football. I collected football cards of players like Dick "Night Train" Lane of the Detroit Lions and Willie "The Wisp" Galimore of the Chicago Bears. I begged my father to take me to the Rams games at the Los Angeles Coliseum so I could see my favorite player, Jon Arnett, run with the ball. I played football from elementary school through high school. Until it broke my heart, which is another story.

The elusive Jon Arnett, 1957

It took years before I was lured back to football by the San Francisco Forty-Niners with Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Ronnie Lott and Jerry Rice.

In 1995, I watched Steve Young lead the Niners to Super Bowl victory over the San Diego Chargers at a sports bar in Capitola with California's esteemed U.S. Senator Alan Cranston also in attendance.

Yes, this weekend I will be among the millions of Americans -- my fellow football fanatics-- who will be watching and hollering about pigskin action -- and inaction -- in our homes, in stadiums and taverns across the land.

Because I have skin in the game. And win or lose I will accept the results.

As of Saturday morning the spread is Packers -5.5. The Pack are 8-0 at home. 

Forty-Niners are 5-1 against the spread in their last six games; 7-3 overall on the road.

Go Niners!

 

It Seems Like Yesterday

Dobie and Maynard

A rush of nostalgia washed over me recently with news of the passing of several cultural icons who were part of my life, albeit their influence was virtual since the space between me and them was a screen. Or, in one case, airwaves.

We like to think that our iPhones and social media have prompted a new reality when, in fact, most folks of my generation grew up with neighbors on their television sets.

A quick look around the TV block and I see the Nelson family -- Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky. Around the corner, Wally and Beaver sit in an upstairs bedroom, big brother giving the Beav a life lesson.

I'll never forget Spin demonstrating to Marty how to treat a pair of new Levis by kicking them around the corral in the dirt before slipping them on. For the uninitiated, Spin and Marty were a spinoff (pun intended) from the Mickey Mouse Club.

And what baby-boomer mother did not have a crush on Dobie Gillis? Played by Dwayne Hickman, Dobie posed as a 17-year-old heart-stricken teenager with huge crush on Thalia Menninger, played by the blonde, avaricious beauty, Tuesday Weld.

"He's very cute," said my mother about Dobie, who was actually in his mid--to-late twenties. His dark hair was dyed blonde to give him a more "cornfed" appeal, according to Dwayne Hickman's obituary in the New York Times this week. He died of Parkinson complications. He was 87

Besides the fetching Tuesday Weld, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis introduced America to Bob Denver, as Maynard G. Krebs, the lovable Beatnik, or television's version thereof. This was BH, before hippies. Whenever employment was mentioned, Maynard flinched. "Work!" he would cry. And we all laughed. Denver would go on to make a name on Gilligan's Island.

Dobie carried the distinction of playing the first angst-ridden teenager in a television series, albeit his angst was softer than that of a Shark or a Jet a la the currently-revived musical, West Side Story, of the same era. His obituary called the show "quietly subversive" since it was presented from the viewpoint of a teenager, beginning each episode with a Dobie monologue next to a replica of Rodin's "Thinker."

Sheila James (Kuehl) played Zelda Gilroy, a brainiac who had the hots for Dobie. She later became the first openly gay person elected to the California State Legislature.

Others who were part of the prodigious cast: Warren Beatty, Ellen Burstyn, Mel Blanc, Ron Howard, Michael J. Pollard and Steve Franken as the flamboyant Chatsworth Osborne Junior.

Hickman's acting career ended early, due to his indelible image of being Dobie. He couldn't shake it. The name was essentially tattooed on his smiling face. His career transitioned behind the scenes as a studio executive.

My personal connection with Dobie Gillis was a yellow pull-over shirt with a diagonal stripe across the front, purchased for me by my mother. The label proclaimed it a Dobie Gillis edition. RIP Dwayne Hickman.

The Ronette's, Ronnie far left

Ronnie Spector, lead singer of the female trio The Ronette's, died this week at age 78 from cancer. Known for their ground-breaking hit, "Be My Baby" in 1963, the group, led by Ronnie's powerful voice and unabashed sexuality, including heavy mascara and short tight skirts, signaled a new direction for women in rock music. In addition, the song was arranged by Phil Spector who introduced what was known as the "wall of sound" to rock arrangements.

When Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys first heard "Be My Baby" he cried tears of discouragement. "I'll never produce anything as good as that," he reportedly told his girlfriend. Wilson was the genius behind the Beach Boys, their arranger, songwriter and leader. 

The Ronettes shared touring bills with the Rolling Stones in the 1960s. Listening to them warm-up backstage, the Stone's Keith Richards said of the group, announcing their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: "They could sing all the way through a wall of sound. They didn't need anything."

The Times obituary called Ronnie Spector a "touchstone for women in rock music, from Chrissie Hyde of the Pretenders to Amy Winehouse."

Veronica "Ronnie" Bennett was married to Phil Spector following their initial big hits. She endured an abusive, turbulent relationship with Spector who was sentenced to prison in 2003 for the murder of a woman at this home. He died last year at 81.

Ronnie continued to record and play music although never equaling her early fame. In 1986, her duet with Eddie Money, "Take Me Home Tonight," reached No. 4 on the Billboard chart.

"I'm just a girl from the ghetto who wanted to sing," she said in 2007. RIP Ronnie Spector.

Sidney Poitier receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama,  2009.

Actor Sidney Poitier died this week at age 94, the first Black performer to win an Academy Award as Best Actor for his role in the movie, Lillies of the Field. Anyone who was alive in the U.S. between 1963 and beyond will have heard of him. He needs no introduction, but he deserves a huge "thank you" from all of us.

Born in Miami and raised in the Bahamas, Poitier knew hardship and poverty early. It's difficult to believe that at one time his spoken English was barely understandable. For me, his clear, elegant, velvety voice is the first memory that comes to mind.

He won a place in acting school by serving as the theater's janitor without pay. His big break came when fellow student Harry Belafonte missed a rehearsal and Poitier filled in. 

He was criticized by more militant advocates of the Civil Rights Movement for being too sanguine. He represented peaceful integrationist roles in his film career, especially in the 1967 films In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. In 2009 President Barack Obama presented Poitier with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Other luminaries who died this week include actor Robert Saget, 67, and U.S. Senator Harry Reid, 82, who was instrumental in helping President Obama pass the Affordable Care Act.

To all those who recently passed from this life to the next, may you find peace. If you were fortunate enough to make a difference toward the greater good, a special thanks. 

Epilogue:

At age 13 when I showed up in Spokane, Washington wearing my Dobie Gillis edition pullover yellow shirt with the diagonal stripes across the front, one of my new friends said: "Wow, look what they're wearing in California!"

 

Where I Was From

Joan Didion, 1970

It's been two weeks since her death at age 87 and writer Joan Didion is still topping the news cycle. As we enter a new year seeking hopeful outlooks, I count Didion's surprising notoriety as a good sign.

First of all, because she earned a living by stringing sentences together -- in essays, reporting, novels and screenplays. The breadth of her work in this age of specialists is impressive. And, in our celebrity-centric culture, writers are not high on the scale. She proved to be an exception.

Secondly, because she was a woman in a man's world, especially when she began writing in the early Sixties. Granted, she had a supportive husband John Gregory Dunne, also a writer and at times collaborator. 

Thirdly, because she wrote the truth as she encountered it, not with an agenda but with an unflinching approach, and a style that would-be writers studied in order to learn the craft. Her sentences were complex yet direct, her pieces always perceptive with a strong sense of place. 

She taught us how to write with a critical eye, including toward herself, the writer. Hemingway she was not.

From The White Album, 1979, a collection of her essays:

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live...We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ideas with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience. Or at least we do for a while.

“I am talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself."

And fourthly, she hailed from California, a fifth generation native whose family roots traced back to the early Donner Party, before the ill-fated split that led to starvation in the Sierra. Her ancestors chose the northern route through Oregon.

I have always identified myself as a Californian, having arrived at the age of four in 1951. My family of four -- two parents, one sister and myself -- left Seattle heading for Arizona but ended up in Southern California where I grew up. When I decided to write a memoir about my life and times, my research into the Golden State that would become my home and major influence, led me to a book: Where I Was From by Joan Didion.

Published in 2003, Where I Was From has been called the "central book in Didion's career." She was in her sixties when the book was published, and, as a writer, still going strong. She began as a Goldwater conservative and drifted left after after Reagan.

Born and raised in Sacramento as part of an agrarian family, Didion tells the story of her family and a state that has always been a magnet for newcomers, new ideas and a land of impermanence. I devoured her book which offered critical and personal perspective on California history, its characters and ethos.

I strongly believe in the power of place, one's environment and how it molds us, from the people we meet, the sounds we hear, the ground we walk on, the music we dance to and the smell of the region that we call home. Such was Southern California for me, mostly the valley town of Pomona, 30 miles east of Los Angeles, home of the L.A. County Fair.

In addition to Malibu, Didion spent much of her career in New York City and a period in Hawaii, yet her California roots formed her soul.

Interesting that she used the past tense, "Was From," in the title of her memoir. 

Where I was from is not the same place that it was when I grew up, either, especially Southern California and Pomona, now a speck amid the sprawl, once a small valley town known as Queen of the Citrus Belt. 

Joan Didion's passing reminds me that I've yet to finish my project. Of course it would help if I possessed her drive and talent.

 

Year of Living Hopefully

Driving my car

through town on a recent overcast morning a skateboarder appeared in the left corner of my windshield. My foot slammed on the brakes, my car skidded left as I gripped right. My reaction was faster than my thinking. 

I spotted a human figure through my rearview mirror, head-covered in dark clothes, grab his or her skateboard and tenderly walk across the street to the sidewalk. Maybe he realized how close he came to being hit, possibly killed. 

I found myself trembling. 

So close.

I was reminded that things can change in an instant. 

So precious. This life.

Every second. A gift.

Here in Santa Cruz we move in close quarters with pedestrians, bicyclists, skateboarders, tourists and clueless wanderers. It behooves us all to stay alert.

As 2021 comes to a close, I want to shout out a "thank you" to those who take a moment to read my scribbles. It's been a roller-coaster year of hope one day and fear the next, mainly due to COVID and its increasingly contagious variants. The partisan rancor of a divided nation also plagues us. Thanks for hanging in there.

Two of my readers, that I know of, passed away this year, although not from COVID: Bill O'Hara, a longtime friend from high school, and Lee Quarnstrom, a writer with a resume to match Damon Runyon. They both lived the high life. I salute them.

As I face my 75th birthday next month, I consider that three-quarters of a century puts me on the short end of the curve. Now's the time to write that novel and tell my sister that I love her.

My beautiful wife Barbara celebrates her 73rd birthday today. Happy birthday, honey. We will mark our 40th anniversary of marriage on Christmas Eve. Thanks for believing in me, sweetheart. I love you. We met as neighbors on a circular street, two pilgrims clinging to the bend in the road. 

We raised three independent, gifted daughters, Molly, Vanessa and Bryna, who have contributed intelligence, compassion and levity to the world. We came together with each of them this year, and husbands Jason and Mike, as well as their children Summer, Piper, Samson, Finn, Viva and Mystiko, although never all at one time. 

I yearn for the day when we can all sit together.

We shall dance and howl as we have in the past. Drink wine. Take walks at sunset. Eat donuts at sunrise. Listen to good music. Savor delectable meals. Tell stories. Smell the roses. Laugh our heads off.

May you all embrace love, hope and happiness this holiday season and into the new year.

Drive carefully.

Pearl Harbor Day

Frank C. Samson, 1945

Look around today and you will see Old Glory, the flag of the United States of America, flying at half mast.

That is because 80 years ago today, Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, suffered a surprise attack by Japan.

More than 2,400 Americans were killed, nearly 1,200 wounded, eight U.S. battleships were sunk, 169 Navy and Army Air Corps planes were destroyed and 129 Japanese aircraft were shot down.

The following day, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

War is hell.

My father, Frank Cameron Samson, had shipped out of Pearl Harbor on the battleship USS Idaho in June, missing the attack by six months. He spent six years in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters in battle support situations. His final deployment was on the USS Midway aircraft carrier. As a fire controlman he maintained and fired a range of military weaponry.

He never talked about his war experiences. 

As a farm boy from the plains of North Dakota, he had never seen a mountain until he traveled west on the train as a young adult. 

"I was awestruck by the Rocky Mountains," he said.

I can only imagine his long days at sea and intense moments during combat. He believed in service to his country and never complained. Ever. 

Frank was the son of Scottish immigrant, David Samson. His mother, Jeanette Harvey, homesteaded in Minnesota in the early 1900's.

My father found peace and contentment doing things with his hands, which were large for his small stature. A devoted rock hound, in his later years he made beautiful bolo ties, broaches and pins from gems and minerals. He also planted and tended lovely gardens. He devoted his life to my mother, Dorothy Herron Samson, a native of Havre, Montana. They were married in Seattle in October of 1945, following the war.

Controlman Frank C. Samson passed away on August 17, 2006, one month shy of his 91st birthday.

Thank you for your service, Dad. So glad you got out of Pearl Harbor before the attack.

Love, Kevin

Coming Home for Thanksgiving

Happy Gratitude Day from Kauai

The waves rise in horizontal blue lines as they approach the shore. They peak when the under current reaches the shallow bottom, they curl and crash into plumes of white foam. A surfer's ride may last a couple of seconds before the rider tumbles into the soup. It's over in a flash and a splash.

The short-lived beach break in Manhattan Beach does not stop surfers from grabbing their boards and heading out. You see the same people every day. It's their routine: The long-haired older guy who drives the El Camino. He's already out of the water by the time we see him peeling off his wetsuit in the parking lot. And there's the gal with the big white smile, long dark hair who's likewise caught her morning stoke and getting dressed behind her SUV.

"Good morning!"

She beams.

Barbara and I have just descended the hill next to the currently renowned Bruce's Beach, a terraced park of grass and trees that rises behind the lifeguard station operated by Los Angeles County. That section of the park was recently deeded back to the Bruce family, descendants of the original owners of the land who were run off by the authorities in the 1920s because of their dark skin. In those days they were politely called Negroes.

The Bruce family is the new lease holder. The remainder of the park still belongs to the city of Manhattan Beach.

Activity in the park has blossomed lately, says a longtime resident with a view of the park. "It's nice," says Bettelu, Barbara's mom, from her birds-eye window view.

Park-goers reflect a diversity of skin colors and ages, from toddlers to grandparents. The vibe is mellow.

We've come for Thanksgiving weekend to spend time with Bettelu. Our daughter Vanessa and her sons Samson and Finn arrive for our grateful feast. Husband Mike stays home with flu-like symptoms.

We're all trying to be careful during these days of COVID, and especially protect our most vulnerable family member who is 96 years young.

Our daughter Molly and her family (Jason, Summer, Piper and doggie Dolce) were all set to join the celebration when Piper came down with a cold. At the last minute, they called off their trip from San Rafael to Manhattan Beach. We all grieved with disappointment but made the best of it.

Thanksgiving table in Manhattan Beach

Vanessa presents Samson's birthday cake

Samson and Finn

So our Thanksgiving dinner was lightly attended. Samson, who just turned 13, contributed mightily by baking two pies -- banana cream and chocolate pecan -- and creating one cranberry salad with walnuts and marshmallows. His culinary interests tend toward the sweet side.

We all participated by helping ourselves to slices of pies and scoops of cranberries, as well as turkey, mashed potatoes, artichokes and a delicious Brussells sprout concoction prepared by Vanessa. She also entertained us with holiday tunes she played on Bettelu's piano.

Molly's table setting in San Rafael

Molly sent us photos of her last-minute Thanksgiving table arrangement at her home. And daughter Bryna on Kauai texted a photo of her setting for the holiday, which she called Gratitude Day, per her always-fresh and never conventional perspective. I'm sure her children, Viva and Mystiko, appreciated her gratefulness and organically inspired holiday cuisine.

In the morning, Barbara and I walk from 27th St. along the Strand to downtown Manhattan with our dog Frida. This is our ritual. I'm not fond of riding beach breaks and tumbling in the surf like a rag doll first thing in the morning. I always bring my wetsuit, however, and I have a board stashed in Bettelu's basement.

Along the way we pass and chat with the "surfer boys" who hang out at Marine Street, checking the surf and maybe heading out to the drink. Barbara calls them "surfer boys" because she's known some of them since elementary school in the Fifties. She grew up here. It's not the same beach town of middle class families that it was then. Most of the boys cannot afford to live here anymore. They come from places like Long Beach and drive the freeways to get here and meet their buddies at the beach.

"It's so crowded in the water it's beginning to look like Malibu," says one of the guys.

They should see Santa Cruz.

At the Manhattan Beach Pier, we turn up hill from the beach toward town. Green lights shaped like a Christmas tree shine at night at the end of the pier. It's a landmark. So is the Shellback Tavern just up the street, the only funky drinking and eating establishment in town, where you're liable to run into professional volley players or maybe an LA Laker.

Barbara's brother Bob owns the Shellback and if we're lucky we might see him ordering supplies early this morning. The doors are open and the bar empty. It reeks of disinfectant as Julio busily scrubs and mops, refreshing the place for a new day after last night's partying. If you want to watch sports on TV, this is the place.

Shellback is an old nautical term for one who has crossed the equator.

We head up to one of the coffee joints with Frida where locals with their dogs shuffle around, grabbing their morning fix and gabbing in front of Peet's. We slide through, order our cups of Joe, procure a bagel at Noah's next door. We bag one to bring back to Bettelu.

There's a Trumper at a table outside who goads people for wearing masks. Most are. He's a fixture, advertises his politics with his DT camouflage regalia. People accept him, many probably agree with him. It's a well-heeled conservative town. If you want to sit among liberals you go to Santa Monica.

Vintage and late model Porches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Lexus and Cadillac SUVs line the parking spaces like a car showroom. Wealth and sportiness are on display.

As a hometown girl come home, Barbara does not know these current locals. It's a change of pace for us. The homeless population hovers at about two.

Sunset in Manhattan Beach Nov. 22

The Green Flash

The day we arrived, I walked Frida down to the Strand just before twilight. The pristine blue sky had begun to fade. The silhouette of Catalina Island drew a shadowy line on the water. I stopped to stare at the gold sun as it sank behind the watery horizon, until its final glimmer of light.

That's when I saw the green flash, a split-second halo of spectral green light. It winked, a reminder of nature's sometimes subtle grandeur and the concept of mindfulness. Pay attention. When the Zen Buddhist monks enter the zendo (temple) they lead with their foot closest to the door hinge. It's a reminder to be mindful of every step.

Curious, I googled the green flash that appears at sunset and sunrise, although rarely seen.

Ever since Jules Verne's 1905 novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World, the green flash has engaged peoples' imagination. Pirate lore claims it signals the return of a dead soul. It has shown up in numerous poems and songs and plot points in novels.

"I saw the green flash," I said to Bettelu when I returned to the house.

"You did?" she said.

"Have you ever seen it?" I asked.

"No," she said.

I could tell by her expression that she still considered me the oddball son-in-law from Santa Cruz.