California Story 1

A late-night run-in with a parking sign led to a body-shop road trip through Watts and Tijuana, and an engine that glowed orange somewhere in Northern California.

It was the summer of ’83, and my bronze ’74 Volvo 142 GL had a good whack on the right rear quarter. My car had been used to yank out a ‘no parking’ sign, embedded in concrete, at 2am or so right opposite Vancouver City Hall after a night downtown. I didn’t think I was in any shape to drive, and my friend/coworker Terry said he was fine. Why thank you, Mr. Sign Remover. The whole rear quarter panel was toast.

I had just been laid off from the video studio I was operating to run movies in the Four Seasons, Hyatt Regency, Miramar, as well as Ed and Roy Lisogar’s Century Plaza hotel. Our studio was located on the second floor where the ballrooms are. I had to stop in on evenings to change some of the tapes for the evening movies, and the ride on the elevator was dramatic one night when there was a pride party: the elevator door opened and I got in with a car load of drag queens. They don’t do anything halfway!

It was summer and I wanted to take a trip to California to visit my friend Kirk. Kirk had moved down to LA with his friend Percy. My friend Ed London suggested I could get my car fixed down there; he knew some places. Off we drove through Washington… Oregon was really hot as hell at one of the places we stopped. We stayed overnight at Ed’s friend and business partner’s place in Stockton; the guy ran a decent sized furniture store. Stockton was insanely, unbearably hot. I was severely allergic to cats at the time, and the bed I slept on was covered in cat hair. Not being able to breathe, I was really glad to get out of there.

We made it to the Los Angeles area on I-5. The city seemed endless; we drove for what seemed like hours and hours of city lights. Percy and Kirk’s place was a California style bungalow with a pool at the back, and a lemon tree in flower. The smell was beautiful and intoxicating to me.

Ed and I stayed there for a night or two but headed out on a journey to get my car bodywork done. We went to a wrecking yard in the Watts district. There had been riots and some incidents there, so the guys playing cards in the wrecking yard seemed really surprised to see a couple of young white guys approaching, but they were cool and friendly when they found out we were from Canada. I can’t remember what I paid for what was a body part almost a quarter the size of my car. We got it strapped down on the roof and it looked like the giant brontosaurus rib that tipped the Flintstones’ car.

Next stop: Tijuana, Mexico, baby. The border was chaos driving into Mexico, people and all sorts of vehicles all over it seemed. I got waved over so someone could inspect the brontosaurus rib, I gather. The inspector said, “What are you doing here?” I need a rib replaced… no, body work on my car. No problemo.

Tijuana was a trip: tin shacks scattered on fields adjacent to the highway approaching the town. At the first traffic light all cars get a red, and then it was crazy, with cars weaving across each other and pedestrians crossing through the intersection everywhere. People washing your windshield and begging. The body shop was as festive as the rest of the place; it was a lot full of makeshift bodywork stalls like giant cattle pens, with Benzes, Rolls-Royces and all kinds of cars. Ed negotiated: they would cut out the old quarter panel, weld in the new one and primer paint it that day for $200 US. Fine. No problemo.

We got to wander the streets of Tijuana all day and into the evening. We ate at a little restaurant. The food was good, I remember, but I loved the appetizers: crispy little fish, smaller than sardines, that you dip in salsa. We wandered the streets, ducking into department stores to get away from the swarms of young and old beggars, hawkers and hookers. A short hairy taxi driver with a black eye patch offered a trip to some entertainment. No, I do not want to see the lady and donkey show. Brrr. I did not want to see the bullfights either.

Later that night we got back to the body shop and they had it done. They did a really good job too, welding the panel on and priming it. With that Rolls-Royce in there, I had figured they had to be decent. Driving back through the border was like driving through a circus, but it was uneventful. Back in LA, I got a bronze/gold Earl Scheib paint job, and the car was back to new.

Kirk said I could hang out at his place for my vacation, so I did! For a month and a half. I loved LA! Great food, great weather, the swimming pool, the lemon tree, Ramona and Linda (she wanted me to stay; life would have been different).

Before I left, Mom said that I should visit my great aunt, who lived in the Los Angeles suburb of La Habra. Mom gave me Hildur’s phone number and I called her up. Hildur was one of 12 children of my great grandparents (morfarfar and morfarmor: mother’s father’s father and mother). My grandfather Torvald, I think, was the oldest or close to it. It took me a while to explain to 80-something-year-old Hildur who the heck I was… my mom’s father was her brother… that did it. “Ahh yes, Rigmor, now I remember!” She had an energetic happiness in her voice.

She invited me for dinner, and I drove my patched-up Volvo to her place, reading the map(!). I pulled around the corner to the street where she lived, and I didn’t have to look for addresses: there was an eager old lady on the lawn of the house on the corner, and she looked like my mother! Great Aunt Hildur and Uncle Sverre were fun and drank whisky! Hildur drank scotch and Sverre drank bourbon (apparently they drank one glass every night). Sverre had worked as a chemical engineer at the oil refinery in Long Beach. He told me about how he was playing tennis and the ball started moving really crazy. It was actually the ground moving crazy: it was the Big Quake that hit Los Angeles. I left feeling happy.

It was time to leave and head home. Ramona wanted to catch a ride up to Washington State; she was from Spokane. It was night time in Northern California, in the hot, dry air, and Ramona drove so I could get some sleep. She woke me up and I was groggy. “The car’s not working.” I opened the hood and the engine was glowing orange, like something from the foundry class I took in high school.

I got a tow in the morning to the nearest town, a small town in olive country, and a dive motel I called Cockroach Court. Ramona caught the next bus home to Spokane. Stranded in California and not knowing what to do, I called Dad up. Knowing Dad, I thought there’s no way he’s going to help me with money or anything. But he did. Dad and my sister Eva drove down in Dad’s 4WD pickup or Suburban (not sure which he had at the time) and towed me back home.

It was a long drive towing the Volvo back. I rebuilt the engine myself on the floor of my older brother’s basement on Rumble Street, with the heads shaved and the block bored. I did it as a project, and ’cause I loved that car with the electric heated black leather seats. It took me on many more adventures, up to Whistler and also up to Bella Coola through mudslides, floods, and a 300-mile stretch of hard-packed snow and ice: 18 hours of driving. Oh yeah, I brought back crabs from California. Thanks, Ramona!

I spoke to Jon Krogsrud, Hildur and Sverre’s son, today. He lives in North Carolina, and I told him about my dinner with his parents. Sverre was born in 1901 and Hildur, I think, in 1903. I feel grateful to have dined and drunk with these wonderful people.