Only a few minutes to spare this week, so I’m sitting down with a cup of coffee and my favorite pastry to share some memories about the big doughnut on 7th Street and PCH I mention in last week’s post. I remember when it still had the Angel Food Donuts painted on it like the picture in the Peopletron blog. One of the posts there mentioned that the full name of the store was Mrs. Chapman’s Angel Food Donuts and that there were once seventeen of them. The chain began even before Randy’s Donuts as a drive up donut shop. Another post points out it’s now more of a coffee place than a donut shop
I remember taking my boys there in the 90s as a special treat after school. They both went to Lowell Elementary back then, about a half mile away. The lady who ran the shop at the time was Cambodian and always remembered us even though we only came in every other month or so. She would ask the boys about their grades and let them twirl around and the revolving stools. She would laugh when the boys called her Mrs. Chapman.
There were always three old guys who’d show up about the same time we would. The doughnut lady would set up their places with their favorite kind of doughnut even before they got through the door. It was a bit of small town hospitality that always lifted my spirits.
Of course, Cambodians have run most of the donut shops in Southern California since before I moved here in 1982. Metroblogging claims that 95% of the shops are run by Cambodians and that Cambodians don’t even like donuts. Now that’s just sad. The New York Times has a good article on the history of Cambodian donut shops and there’s a fascinating documentary called Cambodian Doughnut Dreams too. Since Long Beach has one of the largest Cambodian populations outside their native country, does that mean we have the best donut shops? Not to mention, we were one of the first cities in the area to get a Krispy Kreme shop.
When I was growing up in Virginia, my dad worked nights and he would come home at eight in the morning with fresh cooked Krispy Kremes. It almost made waking up to go to school worthwhile. It’s crazy to think that I never connected his bringing home a dozen of those sugary delights home in a box with my taking my boys to Mrs. Chapman’s. Well, my sugary treat is finished and I've learned a little about setting up links. See you next week!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
10,000 Small Steps for Mankind, Part 4
- THOUGHTS AND AFTERTHOUGHTS
When I sat down three weeks ago to write about walking to work, I thought I’d eke out a short blog. Now I’m on my fourth week and I still have so much to say.
A major omission from last week was the bus stop at 7th and Bellflower that I pass every day just before I enter the grounds of the Veterans Administration Medical Center. It’s a major hub of bus systems from Long Beach and Orange County and a Passport shuttle bus stop too, so a broad mix of society can be found waiting for the bus any hour of the day. Disabled veterans in their souped-up wheelchairs, drowsy-looking hospital staff still in their scrubs, and intense looking students (most with iPod buds stuffed in their ears) all rub elbows here.
The people don’t do much talking, but the bus does. The GPS systems are programmed now to announce the stop as the bus doors open, which can be a little disconcerting. The voice is authoritative and female and ever so slightly bored. Regularly, I get to take part in the group relay of yelling at a bus to get it to wait for a straggler. On cold winter mornings, the warm air from the buses’ vents is a welcome boost the body temperature.
There’s usually an abandoned grocery cart or two hanging around, but generally the bus stop is well maintained. The benches, made of gleaming white metal tubing, snake around the sidewalk at odd angles. The awnings look like white sails in a strong wind, suspended tautly above the waiting crowd. Mass transit has always been a positive aspect of American cities to me. Getting a bunch of people to all move in the same direction in this day and age should be applauded, and the price is right too. It just seems so much more civilized than the bleats and beeps and other zoo noises I have to contend with in the snarl of traffic seething on 7th and Bellflower and PCH.
Here are a few other random sights and encounters during my walks to work:
~A bag of oranges left at the edge of a lawn with this note attached – EAT ME!
~Discovering there’s a distinct pattern of which types of cars yield right of way to pedestrians and which don’t. Be very afraid, I know who you inconsiderate jerks are!
~A new type of urban art – stenciling. It’s kind of like graffiti, but more succinct. There’s a stencil of a guy with a cigarette in his mouth that shows up all over campus. My favorite says “You are beautiful.”
~The big doughnut on 7th! Long Beach’s contribution to 1950s gigantic ornamental architecture, it’s about 15 feet in diameter and currently painted with pink frosting.
~Sparkling beads of water miraculously suspended on the paper-thin petals of a tangerine-colored poppy.
~A glimpse of “The Beach” painted on the 10 story water tower overlooking the campus. Whoever the genius was who came up with calling CSULB “The Beach” deserves a major promotion. I think the new name has changed the sleepy commuter college into an energetic and innovative place to study.
~Weekly rituals of the neighborhood – the gi-normous trash bins huddled together like gossiping neighbors on trash day and the mad rush to move cars to the other side of the street on street sweeping day. The only time it’s okay to be seen in your jammies.
~Odd assortments of litter – a swizzle stick in the middle of the crosswalk on PCH, a paper clip attached neatly to a crumpled hamburger wrapper, and clumps of cigarette butts in the most unexpected places.
~Yelling directions across three lanes of traffic to a frantic driver who was late for a standardized test being held at CSULB
~Mysterious unmarked metal boxes planted in the sidewalk here and there that my engineer brother calls “street furniture.” They regulate something, but I’m not sure what. And then there’s the fantastic twisted mass of pipes and valves and junctures that emerges from the ground every now and then from all the underground gas piping system that average Joes like you and me never give much thought. And talking about unfathomables, what are all those weird lines and squiggles spray painted on the streets and sidewalks.
I have a feeling I may return to this topic before long. It’s such a great opportunity to take some time to think, some time to breathe. Give it a try. Park your car about a mile or so from where you work and walk the rest of the way there. Rather than driving 50 miles up to the mountains for a hike in nature, save some time and some gas and discover the great outdoors that lies right outside your front door.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Groves of Academe
The last part of my trek is more than worth its weight in shoe leather. I have the god fortune to walk in the quiet grounds of the Veterans Administration Medical Center. The broad straight cement walkway runs along a row of stately old magnolia trees on a lawn about fifteen feet wide, separating the vast and jam-packed hospital employee parking lot from the vast and congested Seventh Street. Through some quirk of landscape design, this mini-park is elevated about six or seven feet above the traffic. With my head not nearly in the clouds but my feet not exactly on the ground, I savor a few minutes of serenity before I punch the clock for work.
Cars to the left and buses to the right, but this swath of green seems like a walk in the country. The only people who use it are students and staff walking to the campus of California State Long Beach, which is to say next to nobody. Okay, there are a few miscreant bicyclists and skateboarders whizzing by in spite of several government issue warning signs and a vigilant security guard who enjoys nothing better than giving students a hard time.
Walking just above the roofs of the cars, especially if they’re jammed up at a red light and I’m passing them, creates an oddly euphoric sensation. Seriously, I think they should think about designing bi-level pedestrian walkways. The bikes can use the lower level and pedestrians above. It won’t eliminate the noise and fumes, but it would definitely discourage jaywalking. LOL
After two blocks of serenity, I squeeze through a perilously narrow opening n the cinderblock barrier between the hospital grounds and the university campus. The sidewalk takes a sharp turn and wobbles above the level of the street, contorted by several old eucalyptus trees that have forced the slabs of concrete out of alignment. A rusty guard rail seems as forgotten as the sidewalk, and the lantana shrubs growing on the steep bank leading down to the street are choked with weeds. I have a secret fondness for this homely little corner of the campus that the landscapers forgot. There’s a gaping hole in the cinderblock wall that’s been crudely barricaded on the hospital side. I like to think some frenzied student came barreling through there trying to get to class on time.
For the last block or so I surrounded by the honest, angular red brick buildings of the university. There aren’t any ivy-covered walls, but there’s plenty of ivy-covered ground as well as colorful flower beds. Students pass me by like I’m not there, caught up in conversations on their cell phones or their friends or just walking alone wrapped up in their studies. I feel so luck to be a part of this place, at least for a couple of months.
Cars to the left and buses to the right, but this swath of green seems like a walk in the country. The only people who use it are students and staff walking to the campus of California State Long Beach, which is to say next to nobody. Okay, there are a few miscreant bicyclists and skateboarders whizzing by in spite of several government issue warning signs and a vigilant security guard who enjoys nothing better than giving students a hard time.
Walking just above the roofs of the cars, especially if they’re jammed up at a red light and I’m passing them, creates an oddly euphoric sensation. Seriously, I think they should think about designing bi-level pedestrian walkways. The bikes can use the lower level and pedestrians above. It won’t eliminate the noise and fumes, but it would definitely discourage jaywalking. LOL
After two blocks of serenity, I squeeze through a perilously narrow opening n the cinderblock barrier between the hospital grounds and the university campus. The sidewalk takes a sharp turn and wobbles above the level of the street, contorted by several old eucalyptus trees that have forced the slabs of concrete out of alignment. A rusty guard rail seems as forgotten as the sidewalk, and the lantana shrubs growing on the steep bank leading down to the street are choked with weeds. I have a secret fondness for this homely little corner of the campus that the landscapers forgot. There’s a gaping hole in the cinderblock wall that’s been crudely barricaded on the hospital side. I like to think some frenzied student came barreling through there trying to get to class on time.
For the last block or so I surrounded by the honest, angular red brick buildings of the university. There aren’t any ivy-covered walls, but there’s plenty of ivy-covered ground as well as colorful flower beds. Students pass me by like I’m not there, caught up in conversations on their cell phones or their friends or just walking alone wrapped up in their studies. I feel so luck to be a part of this place, at least for a couple of months.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Cross Roads, or Where Highways Tangle
Everyone knows about Southern California’s insanely clogged freeways, but let me tell you that the surface streets are no walk in the park either. Three days a week on my trek to my part-time job, I trot across a total of eighteen lanes of traffic, breathlessly trying to beat the merciless “don’t walk” signs within inches of the throbbing 5.7-liter engines of every type of gas guzzler known to man.
Only on foot have I begun to appreciate the desolation of the urban Bermuda Triangle formed where Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway), Highway 22 (Seventh Street), and Bellflower Boulevard (every bit as wide and congested as the other two officially designated highways) tangle. The photo on Google Maps Street View gives a pretty good indication of what it’s like – blurred and hazy with the sun’s glare on the pavement and in the far corner a dark island marooned in a sea of asphalt.
In Long Beach, Pacific Coast Highway was once State Street, a good all purpose name for a major commercial street. City fathers reluctantly agreed to allow a regional thoroughfare to split their homogeneous little burg into north and south. Perhaps their resistance led to the lax urban planning which resulted in the disjointed conjunction of these three major roads that frustrates drivers in a series of gridlocked intersections that holds up traffic in every direction. The main culprit is Seventh Street, which is limited access Highway 22 to the east until it reaches the Long Beach city limits. Where Seventh meets PCH is the first major intersection that blocks the path of these crazed commuters, and they dart and weave like wide receivers on the ten-yard line trying to beat the light or maneuver into the right turn lane to skirt the backed-up lines of cars.
Signs are everywhere – no trucks, no parking, no left turns, right turns only. All of them are violated as a matter of course, and the only violations that elicit honking from laid back Californians are left turns. There are no signs saying, “Hey, bozo, don’t hang out in the middle of the intersection expecting someone to let you in,” but it’s just as well. Drivers would ignore that one too.
As a pedestrian, I’ve become much more aware of the commercial signs that I’d ignored when I drove through this tangle of streets. The newly opened vitamin shop sports brightly colored fabric banners on the sidewalk in front of the store that flap elegantly in the rush of traffic like heraldic emblems at a medieval joust. A chain motel has a lighted digital display above the manager’s office that seems to change rates daily. Next door, the car wash’s marquee usually gives the hours in stark black and white but adds color to a rainy day with “Closed” spelled out in red.
For years now, two men have positioned themselves in the medians of these busy streets – one on Seventh and the other on PCH. They sell flowers or hold up signs saying “Help me, I’m homeless” to appeal for handouts from drivers trapped in the turn lanes. I actually only walk by the PCH guy. My illogical but surprisingly effective approach to panhandlers is that I save coins I find on the street. If I have some in my pocket, I give them to beggars, but if I have none, I just say no. I’ve only had coins once for the PCH guy, and I couldn’t help but notice the envious look on the face of the man on Seventh Street when I handed them over to his rival. Maybe one day I’ll ask the PCH guy if he ever talks to the Seventh Street guy. Somehow I doubt it. The impersonal paved-over feeling of the place sucks the life out of any inclination toward human contact.
I’d never cross Seventh Street myself. It’s not that I have anything against the other panhandler. It’s just that that side of the street has even more out-of-control traffic than on the side where I’ve chosen to walk. It has one of those gas stations with three entry points, where without even trying, everybody is in the wrong direction and everybody is in somebody else’s way. Next to it is a car wash with only one exit and cars sitting there forever waiting for an opening in traffic. Then, inexplicably, there’s a flower store (I suppose the homeless men get their flowers out of its dumpster) with a cheesy circa 1970 fake stained glass design of red roses above its entrance. I never pass it without wondering who would go to the aggravation of stopping to buy flowers there. Maybe they do a good delivery business.
Even in this urban wasteland, a few signs of life persist. In the rainy season, dandelions sprout in the sidewalks and even in the cracks in the pavement between the lines of cars. Living proof that grass can in fact grow on a busy street. One of the gracefully arching arms of the street lights that reach out over the snarl of traffic about thirty feet overhead is a favorite perch for pigeons. Anywhere from fifteen to fifty birds huddle together on this one pole and none of the others with the inscrutable wisdom of survivors. This particular pole extends out over the intersection where the most egregious violators ignore the yellow light and drift out into ongoing traffic causing a lot of risky maneuvering. I get perverse satisfaction when one of the pigeons anoints the malingerers with a well-aimed splat of bird poop.
Only on foot have I begun to appreciate the desolation of the urban Bermuda Triangle formed where Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway), Highway 22 (Seventh Street), and Bellflower Boulevard (every bit as wide and congested as the other two officially designated highways) tangle. The photo on Google Maps Street View gives a pretty good indication of what it’s like – blurred and hazy with the sun’s glare on the pavement and in the far corner a dark island marooned in a sea of asphalt.
In Long Beach, Pacific Coast Highway was once State Street, a good all purpose name for a major commercial street. City fathers reluctantly agreed to allow a regional thoroughfare to split their homogeneous little burg into north and south. Perhaps their resistance led to the lax urban planning which resulted in the disjointed conjunction of these three major roads that frustrates drivers in a series of gridlocked intersections that holds up traffic in every direction. The main culprit is Seventh Street, which is limited access Highway 22 to the east until it reaches the Long Beach city limits. Where Seventh meets PCH is the first major intersection that blocks the path of these crazed commuters, and they dart and weave like wide receivers on the ten-yard line trying to beat the light or maneuver into the right turn lane to skirt the backed-up lines of cars.
Signs are everywhere – no trucks, no parking, no left turns, right turns only. All of them are violated as a matter of course, and the only violations that elicit honking from laid back Californians are left turns. There are no signs saying, “Hey, bozo, don’t hang out in the middle of the intersection expecting someone to let you in,” but it’s just as well. Drivers would ignore that one too.
As a pedestrian, I’ve become much more aware of the commercial signs that I’d ignored when I drove through this tangle of streets. The newly opened vitamin shop sports brightly colored fabric banners on the sidewalk in front of the store that flap elegantly in the rush of traffic like heraldic emblems at a medieval joust. A chain motel has a lighted digital display above the manager’s office that seems to change rates daily. Next door, the car wash’s marquee usually gives the hours in stark black and white but adds color to a rainy day with “Closed” spelled out in red.
For years now, two men have positioned themselves in the medians of these busy streets – one on Seventh and the other on PCH. They sell flowers or hold up signs saying “Help me, I’m homeless” to appeal for handouts from drivers trapped in the turn lanes. I actually only walk by the PCH guy. My illogical but surprisingly effective approach to panhandlers is that I save coins I find on the street. If I have some in my pocket, I give them to beggars, but if I have none, I just say no. I’ve only had coins once for the PCH guy, and I couldn’t help but notice the envious look on the face of the man on Seventh Street when I handed them over to his rival. Maybe one day I’ll ask the PCH guy if he ever talks to the Seventh Street guy. Somehow I doubt it. The impersonal paved-over feeling of the place sucks the life out of any inclination toward human contact.
I’d never cross Seventh Street myself. It’s not that I have anything against the other panhandler. It’s just that that side of the street has even more out-of-control traffic than on the side where I’ve chosen to walk. It has one of those gas stations with three entry points, where without even trying, everybody is in the wrong direction and everybody is in somebody else’s way. Next to it is a car wash with only one exit and cars sitting there forever waiting for an opening in traffic. Then, inexplicably, there’s a flower store (I suppose the homeless men get their flowers out of its dumpster) with a cheesy circa 1970 fake stained glass design of red roses above its entrance. I never pass it without wondering who would go to the aggravation of stopping to buy flowers there. Maybe they do a good delivery business.
Even in this urban wasteland, a few signs of life persist. In the rainy season, dandelions sprout in the sidewalks and even in the cracks in the pavement between the lines of cars. Living proof that grass can in fact grow on a busy street. One of the gracefully arching arms of the street lights that reach out over the snarl of traffic about thirty feet overhead is a favorite perch for pigeons. Anywhere from fifteen to fifty birds huddle together on this one pole and none of the others with the inscrutable wisdom of survivors. This particular pole extends out over the intersection where the most egregious violators ignore the yellow light and drift out into ongoing traffic causing a lot of risky maneuvering. I get perverse satisfaction when one of the pigeons anoints the malingerers with a well-aimed splat of bird poop.
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