10,000 Small Steps for Mankind, Part 1

Part 1, Home Turf

Last summer I heard people talking about the 10,000 steps movement, where people set the goal of walking 10,000 steps (over three miles) a day for mental and physical health and for the environment. I kept putting off starting what sounded like a simple, multi-purpose exercise program. I don’t have the time. I don’t have a good location. I don’t even have a pedometer.

Recently, I had the great good fortune to land a temporary gig about a mile away from where I live. When I discovered that parking assigned to part-timers like me is as far away from my office as my house is, I decided to try walking to work.

Despite the rain that’s been baptizing California lately, I enjoy the walks immensely. I get the heart pumping and the blood flowing without caffeination plus I’m putting the pedometer I got for Christmas to good use. I’ve always enjoyed walking in the evenings, sometimes as much as two miles if the sunset inspired me. Making this long distance trek every day seems to slow down my usually frantic mind to the rhythm of my pace, and fascinating little thought bubbles rise to the surface of my consciousness. I see my world, and especially that part of the world close to home, in a new light.

For instance, the street I live on looks very different at eight in the morning than it does in the evening when I used to walk when everyone’s home from work and tucked safe in their Barca-Loungers or wherever. No soft blue video glow flickers from the windows, but there’s plenty of action, let me tell you.

It’s kitty rush hour, for one thing. All these determined little felines cross my path (none black, at least so far), scampering home for morning treats or scraps left over from the night before. Women, mostly Hispanic, pull rattling old compact cars up to the curb and hop out to unpack cleaning supplies. The house cleaners all have cheery hellos for me, but barely make eye contact with each other. Is it professional rivalry or something else?

Talking about rivalry, the contractors and their crews make no bones about whose daddy is who as they arrive on the scene. Between the oversized vehicles and high volume (in sound and size) equipment, these guys put the whole package on display. Being a woman of a certain age, I only receive hurried glances, not wolf whistles, but I know the exaggerated grunts and thumps and engine noise are meant to impress any passerby with just how macho these guys are. Thankfully, the refinancing fiasco has greatly diminished the remodeling frenzy. For a while there, parking was at a premium because of all the painters’, roofers’, and various other outsized vehicles clogging the narrow neighborhood streets.

My morning walk has noticeably improved my dog radar. There are three regulars. Two are wonderfully ugly mutts so obviously thrilled to play the role of guard dog they always make me smile. The third, a flinty-eyed bulldog, purebred for battle, scares the pants off me, especially since the fence around his yard is made of rickety lattice. He’s trained me to walk on the other side of the street, which reduces his howls and snaps to a low-level warning growl. Between the dogs and cats and cleaners and contractors and the occasional possum waddling home to his secret lair, I’m left to wonder who this place belongs to – the hard-working beings on the scene every weekday morning or the ones who slave away to pay the mortgages on these all-American dream homes and only get to enjoy them two days out of the week?

After four blocks of manicured lawns and suburban bounty, I have a short jaunt along Pacific Coast Highway. But get this – it’s on a dirt path! PCH is surprisingly quiet at this time of day, so this short stretch of my walk on the rutted clay under the feathery branches of acacia trees is almost like stepping back in time into the adobe days of Rancho Los Cerritos. What was it like back then with green hills and views all the way to the ocean? Now, we can only guess.

My first brush with urban encroachment is the sloping expanse of the Denny’s parking lot. Usually, one of the employees is outside sweeping the steps for the breakfast rush. (It’s mostly retirees cashing in on the senior specials who don’t get started until nine or so.) I guess I fit the customer profile, because the Denny’s people always greet me warmly and then look surprised as I walk past the entrance. Maybe one day I’ll leave early and stop in for the French Toast Extravaganza, which they’ve been advertising with three color posters in their windows for weeks. Something about being up close and personal with a three foot tall slice of fried bread with a gallon of syrup dripping off of it that just makes a person hungry.

Next week – Part 2, Cross Roads, or How Two Highways Tangle

A View from the Top

Things sure are looking up on Signal Hill. Every time I visit Home Depot, I look forward to taking a detour up the graceful bend of Skyline Drive to Hilltop Park and looking for changes. The park is almost 5 years old now, but the landscaping and monuments still seem fresh. I love to read about the hill’s place in the history of the area.

Before white people settled, it was a lookout point for the native people and the Long Beach coastline was named Bay of Smokes by Spanish explorers who spotted the watch fires on Signal Hill’s summit. The fresh water supply attracted farmers and some persisted in growing crops and roses even the oil boom of 1921, when there were so many oil derricks along the city’s steep ridge, it was called Porcupine Hill. In the panic after the 1933 earthquake, many people rushed to the top of Signal Hill to escape the tidal wave that was rumored to be capable of devastating the lowlands along the shore of Long Beach.

In the fifties, a soapbox derby event was held annually on the death-defying slope of Hill Street. Members of a Model T Ford club used to parade up the hill to show off the reliability of their old Tin Lizzies. I’ve even heard that skate board competitions used to be held there. It boggle the mind.

My favorite time to visit Signal Hill is just before sunset. It like a 3D geography lesson taking in the San Gabriels to the north and the urban clusters of Westwood and downtown L.A. and of course the Hollywood sign. As sunlight dims, the city lights start to sparkle -- maybe not quite as brilliant as Mulholland Drive, but definitely more expansive. Then looking south, the entire shoreline of Long Beach is visible including the vast harbor and the sun sinking behind Palos Verdes. Surrounded by the mountains and the sea, it’s easy to understand why so many people are drawn to this place of stunning physical beauty and why they put up with so much aggravation to stay here.

The city of Signal Hill seems to be working with developers to plan attractive and livable housing along the steep slopes. What views the multi-story condos must have. Discovery Well Park incorporates basketball court, playgrounds and a community center among still operating grasshopper pumps. Take a walk up the steep slope with the Sierra Club for a great aerobic workout and a quick refresher course in local history.

This is how I summed up the glories of Signal Hill, which appeared in a slightly edited version in the May/June 2006 issue of Westways Magazine:

I love to take visitors to the Discovery Well on Signal Hill, the site where the California oil boom began when a gusher exploded here in 1921. Out-of-towners enjoy learning about this often-overlooked part of history and watching the pumps still in operation bob lazily up and down. Nearby, Panorama Promenade offers an easy ¼ mile stroll with spectacular views of downtown Los Angeles and the Hollywood sign as well as the Pacific coastline and Catalina Island. For a crowd-pleasing finale, I drive my guests down the breath-takingly steep Hill Street, as exciting as any roller coaster.

Home Sweet Beach

Why beachify? Because I want to testify about my hometown, the misunderstood marvel that is Long Beach, California. This city of over 470,000 people (the 34th largest in the United States) is the most overlooked and underrated place to live in Southern California. Sandwiched between the urban sprawl of Los Angeles and Orange County’s suburban wasteland, it creates its own little oasis of beaches, parks, and friendly but stubbornly untrendy people. Here are a few big reasons why I want to write about Long Beach:

Long Beach does not stink. Okay, the port could use a clean-up and our shoreline is not going to win any beauty contests. (Although, did you know that Long Beach hosted the Miss Universe pageant in the 1950s?) Since I moved here 25 years ago, I’ve done my best to keep my cool when people put down my city, calling it rundown, dirty and crime-ridden, but now I’m talking back.

Heads up, all you snobs who cruise by on the 405 and think you know something about the LBC, Long Beach is not a bedroom community that’s seen better days. It began as a farming community when L. A. was still a pipsqueak and then morphed into a world famous seaside resort. Then, oil was discovered, the navy came to town along with big boys like McDonnell Douglas, and the city has been running on its own steam ever since. Long Beach has a long history of people who just want to have fun but don’t mind getting their hands dirty when they have to. My kind of people.

Long Beach been very good to me. Both of my sons were born at Community Hospital, and one even came home swaddled in an oversized Christmas stocking. We’ve made good use of the city’s award-winning parks, libraries, and schools, not to mention the Beach—love that bike path! Some of my current favorite locales are the Marina Farmers’ Market on Sundays, Signal Hill on a clear day, and Marine Stadium at twilight.

In my blog, I want to share the special qualities of these places and so many others that offer serenity in the midst of one of the most densely populated places in the country. Even more, I want to talk to other people who live and work here about what they like best about this city with the heart of a small town. I’ll throw in some history, interviews, and maybe a rant or two, but mostly it’ll be my take on what makes this city hum.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a writer. I’ve scribbled in journals for years: poems, stories, plays, you name it. I’ve even been published a few times. In the last two years, I’ve pushed hard to get my writing out there without much success. I have this theory that my style will become more relaxed and fluid if I write here in a blog where no one will ever read it. (I got an idea how hard it will be to get blog readers after I mentioned at work I was starting one, and five people told me their computers were broken within the hour. I mean, I hadn’t even posted anything yet, and they were coming up with lame excuses about why they couldn’t read it.)

I'll be experimenting with styles and formatting as well as posting some photos and stories that got published or should have been. Some of my posts might touch on things that concern me as a writer -- time management, stress reduction, surly editors, etc. So, whoever you are out there reading this, drop me a line and let me know what you think.