California and Me

We are lying in bed. Normally I would have said laying in bed, but I just finished a book on the plane coming here by former talk show host and Yale University spelling expert Dick Cavett. He and my English major (Hampshire College in Amherst Ma) daughter Kezia would kill me for saying that. Is it he or him? It is early morning. It is foggy. I am back in CALIFORNIA, lying in a really comfortable bed, in a bungalow, next to my esposa, in the southern coastal part of the state. Then it starts.

Here we go
Here we go
Round again
Round again

Won't stop
Won't stop
Won't quit
Won't quit

Never die
Never die
Why?

I let my mind totally relax, and the cadence comes back to me. Well, it has been awhile. Like 47 years if you, like, happen to be counting. That was my very first time in CALIFORNIA, 47 years ago. How is that possible?

My Uncle Sam decided to send me to CALIFORNIA to a Navy Seabee Construction Electrical School. I flew First Class in my Navy blues -- the very first time I had ever flown. Boot Camp at Great Lakes in Chicago was a long train ride from Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1965. It can be cold there.

I kept to myself on the plane and just observed what was going on around me. I think it was Yogi who said, "You observe a lot just by watching."

As we crossed the Mississippi River, the businessman sitting next to me pointed it out. We probably talked before we landed at LAX but I don't remember that part. So we pulled up at the gate and he said to me, "Stick with me and I will help you get out of the airport."

At 19, what did I know? I stuck with him. Hey! It was different back then. He made a phone booth call to his wife and the next thing I knew was I was at their beautiful home, which overlooked the city, staring at the lights that went on for miles. I had never seen anything like that.

That night they drove me to my next duty station, Port Hueneme. (Why-KNEE-me) Port Hueneme is sixty miles north of LA. You know where Oxnard is? Only kidding. You do? One of our Liberty towns was Santa Barbara.

They wished me well. I thanked them profusely. I hoisted my sea bag over my left shoulder and walked toward the heavily armed Jarheads at the Main Gate. That was a very nice introduction to CALIFORNIA, but it was only the beginning of my good luck.


That is me gaffed in with Elmer Berky from Oregon on the crossbars.


My best luck was when I met her for the very first time at age 15. (Frankie Avalon was singing "Venus." It was at the high school gym. Call me sometime and I will tell you the whole story.) I knew right away. She didn't. (Or stop over and we can share a michilada or two. It is a lengthy story.) Engaged at 19 and married at 21. We had to. You could not live together before marriage if your parents were Polish and you grew up in the little town of Adams, Massachusetts.

No, we weren't pregnant. Back then there was no living together. People called it Shacking Up. I guess today you should live together and see if it is meant to be. If we can hold on until this September, it will be 45 years for us, not including the six years we dated.

We had the same exact wedding that everyone else did in our little town. Four hundred guests, mostly chosen by our parents. First there was a Stag and Shower at the Polish Hall on North Hoosac Street, with a live Polish band on Saturday night. Mom said, "Well, we were invited to THEIR daughters wedding, so . . . “



Then the following Saturday (it was always a Saturday) the 400 guests, mostly chosen by our parents, and the wedding at Saint Stanislaus Kostka Polish Church, followed by more food and drinks and dancing to a live Polka band at the Polish Hall on North Hoosac Street. If you want to revisit our wedding, simply watch the movie "The Deer Hunter.” That was our wedding, only ours was in Massachusetts not Pennsylvania.

Did I mention that we are Polish? My Mom was a Lemanski. My wife, Alexandra, was a Zabek. I only added all of the above because of where it will lead next. And I wanted you to get to know us.

We did get to choose our own honeymoon, and back then, we thought we were original in choosing CALIFORNIA -- Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, San Diego, Tijuana and San Francisco. Well, it WAS the Summer of Love.

If you’re going
To San -Fran- Cisco
Be sure to wear
Some flowers in your hair.

Sandy had beautiful, blonde hair and I had none. Isn't it fun how some song will just take you right back to where you were and who you were with?

We were headed for Alaska next but decided instead to take the leftover $400 from the wedding cash and come back to our apartment and buy a color TV. Hey, it was a color TV, and it was a big deal. Back then you had to get up to change the channels or the volume, but who would want to change Bobby Orr and the big bad Bruins, or the Red Sox and Jim Lonborg? Tony C., Rico Petrocelli, and Carl Yastrzemski. Jose Tartabill pulled in $14,000 that year. WOW! How about Laugh-In or The Smothers Brothers? I just read that Bobby Orr is a grandfather. He still lives in the Boston area and I find that wicked awesome.


Tony C.



Remember when we first met, when I mentioned Port Hueneme? Well, after school, our DI -- Rumsey -- would form us up into platoons and we would run the palm-tree-lined base in our work clothes and combat boots, shouting,

Here we go,
Round again
Here we go
Round again

Won't stop
Won't stop.
Won't quit
Won't quit.

Never die
Never die.
Why?
Why?

Whiskey
Whiskey
Women
Women

PT
PT
Rumsey
Rumsey

PT is physical training.

One day Rumsey announced that we were at war in a place called VietNam and asked, “Who wants to volunteer?”

It was the very first time that I had ever heard of that country.

Everyone but me and my friend from Massachusetts took one step forward. “Sir, Yes Sir.” If you don't think that it is possible to be brainwashed, as my Dad would say, "Then you have another thought coming." Dad was a Seabee and saw action at Okinawa during World War II.

At the end of the Class A Construction School, my friend from Massachusetts got orders to Reykjavic, Iceland, and I ended up at a Naval Air Station in South Weymouth, Massachusetts.


Inside Hangar 1 at South Weymouth Naval Air Station

As far as I know, everyone else went to Southeast Asia. Rumsey ended up doing three tours of 'Nam. The last reported sighting of him was on the tarmac at Da Nang. He was standing like General Patton, firing his .45 in the open, as if he was wearing one of those Lakota Ghost War shirts that bullets or shrapnel could not penetrate. I believe it was there, at Port Hueneme, that I was first diagnosed with the sometime fatal "I need to run today" disease. I would like to be diagnosed someday with "natural causes."

Running, I have logged 54,000 miles plus, including two tries at Western States 100


About thirty miles into Western States 100 (WS), at the top of Elephant's Trunk, just before Red Star Ridge in 1996. Guess where? CALIFORNIA.


Six hours after the Vermont 100 race. Brian, my brother in law, was my handler for the whole 29 hours.

I also did many 24-hour track runs. And a few 50s. That sounds insane, doesn't it? Track runs, I mean. But on tracks, there are no hills, mountains or valleys. When it gets dark, you can't get lost. You don't need to carry a hat, packs around your waist, flashlights, extra socks, Vaseline, sunglasses, gasoline, (only kidding), gloves, food, water, water, water, energy bars, or a change of clothing. Your feet don't get wet from plowing through streams. So it is much easier. It is mostly mental. Mind over matter. I know this to be true because sometimes I overhear my wife telling people that I am mental.

I am a purist and NEVER run listening to music, except track runs. You need to keep your energy up and you need to keep motivated. A non-running friend, in frustration before my first try at 24 hours said, "When was the last time that you even stayed up for 24 hours straight?" That was a very good question.

Back then, in trail running, the Eastern Mountain Sports store didn't even have a flashlight that would last 8 or 10 hours, so when the batteries ran out, you would need a second flashlight to change batteries. You needed to carry a second flashlight anyway. Once a flashlight bulb blew out on me when the batteries were still working and I was off the trail, in the dark, digging in my pack and feeling around for my second light.

They hang green glow lights low in the trees on the mountain trail run courses. They are few and far between, and sometimes you get religion and pray to see the next one. Especially if it’s raining. Do you know what it feels like to know that you are off the trail at mile 72 on a mountain in the pitch black by yourself? I do. I was running with a woman once, around 10 pm, and she said out loud, "My friends are at the opera and here I am at mile 68 of a 100 miler."

If you try an Ultra, once or twice on the trail you will take a spill. When you do, and if you happen to break something, just lie there and wait. Do not get off the trail. At WS they have a sweep crew come through on horseback to haul you out. At Leadville, Colorado you are pretty much on your own at 14,000 feet. Most Ultras have three or four hundred runners, but spread out over 100 miles, you don't have company often during the 24-36 hours that it takes for completion.

Once I ran with a guy for the first 70 miles, but that is rare. At 70 miles you are awarded a "handler" who will see you through to the finish. The rules are that he can't carry anything for you. That is called muling. Once a runner ran WS with ski poles and was disqualified. The race director said the poles made the race too easy.

WS starts in Squaw Valley, near Lake Tahoe. The first mountain you hit is at 8,800 feet, and usually in late June it still has snow on it. No I did not just make that up. Have you ever been to Truckee, CALIFORNIA?

I was lost twice in the Green Mountains of Vermont, and once right after mile 70 in Forestdale, heading to Auburn, CALIFORNIA, by way of the Rucky Chucky River crossing. At the crossing, you go hand over hand on a cable, chest-high in the icy water. There are no rivers or streams to cross at a 24 Hour Track Ultra.

I was a lousy marathoner but I held my own in Ultras, especially on the track. I am starting to sound like a professional, but basically I was always a bandit or a back-of-the-packer. I never even qualified for the BAA. Believe me, por favor.

I ran my 8th Boston Marathon (it was my last Boston ever, #8 being my favorite number) while training for the WS100 in the Sierras in CALIFORNIA. There is that name again. After my first WS 100 try, Sandy and I and our two daughters, Kezia and Marnie, traveled down the coast of CALIFORNIA for 17 days. It is too long a story for here, but the highlights were picking strawberries, Kezia purchasing fifty two used books in Berkeley, Muir Woods, Alcatraz, Steve and Sue's casa, Hearst Castle, meeting with a former member (almost) of the Kingston Trio, and Marnie sleeping in a trash bag and in closets along the way. But call me!



My biggest running claim to fame was running home after a wedding in Western Massachusetts. It was Sandy's cousin Terry's wedding. Terry was Nancy and Gary's brother (you’ll hear more about them later). Are you still following me? That one, by myself, was a 200-miler across the state. In the movie "The Magnificent Seven," when Steve McQueen is asked why he is about to do something crazy, he replies, "I once met a cowboy in Abilene who took all his clothes off and jumped into a pile of cactus. When asked why he did it, he replied, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ ”

I did my last Boston sixteen years ago this April 2012, in preparation for WS. I was 30 pounds lighter for my second WS100.



I would like to take this moment to introduce you to my grandson, Abel Arcturus Bernstein. I hope that he takes to running.

One of my best friends, Tom Egan, once my next door neighbor in Marshfield, spent 20 years in CALIFORNIA. Together we have hiked all over the Southwest and West.



As a matter of fact, Tom's wife Jeannette was born and raised in CALIFORNIA. Her Mom and sister live in Laguna Niguel, and we drove through it to get to Casi and Jason's house. Laguna, of course, means lagoon and Niguel was the name of an ancient Juaneno Indian village that was there long ago, near the creek. Thirty years ago Jeannette taught Sandy how to make her family recipe for fideo (Mexican soup). Now we think of it as our family recipe. Sandy made some last night and let it simmer, because today we will have an 11-degree high temperature. Jeez, maybe Jeannette was named after the Indian village. Jeanette also was making homemade taquitos way before they ever hit the supermercados. Hers are superior.

Of all the national parks, Yosemite in CALIFORNIA is still my favorite. On the way home from one particular Yosemite hike, Tom Egan of Rhode Island via CALIFORNIA via Massachusetts and ending, so far, in Pennsylvania, took me to a wonderful Mexican restaurant in Burlingame, which was just south of the airport. Friends flew out to CALIFORNIA for our friend Steve's 50th in Lafayette. We ate at the Mexican Restaurant in Burlingame.


Randy & Donna

Randy and Donna, my NYC marathon friends, were going hiking in Yosemite. I told them about the restaurant. They went upon arrival and also on departure. If they could have gotten a room, they would have.

My Ultra friend Mike and his girlfriend were going to San Francisco. It is in CALIFORNIA. During the trip, Mike said to Lori "Would you like to go tonight to a REALLY good Mexican restaurant ?"

Lori said, "You have never been here before. How do you know where there is a REALLY good Mexican restaurant?”

They eventually married in Vegas and I think it was Elvis who married them in some small chapel.

Billy Thibideaux, a Navy Seabee VietNam Vet friend, was going to San Francisco. I told him. He couldn't find it. He finally asked someone. They told him that it had finally closed after thirty-some years. It was called La Piñata. Did you ever go there? I don't recommend it anymore.

So back to the beginning of this yarn. The bed we are lying in is in Laguna Beach, CALIFORNIA. Here is a letter that I was asked to send

Hi Dennis and Cheryl ,

This past week my wife Sandy and I stayed at your bungalow in Laguna Beach. Along with Sandy's Cioci (Polish for aunt) and her cousin Nancy and husband Jack. We are all from Massachusetts.

Cioci's Granddaughter, Nancy and Jack’s daughter, Casi, was getting married to Jason at the Montage. Casi asked me if I would write a critique about your bungalow. I looked up the word critique and it seems to mean to be critical or to find fault. So I cannot write a critique because everything was perfect. I also looked up bungalow and found that it originated in India and meant a one-story house, longer than wider, with a really great front porch or veranda. My Grandmother Hattie called it a piazza. What ever it is called, we certainly enjoyed sitting in the sun, rocking in the rocking chairs, every day. You have bumblebees in your flowers in January?

We loved the location. We could walk to the beach, liquor store, cafés, shops and restaurants. It cost me $11 to top off the rental car when we left. When we saw the house, it was love at first sight. We felt as though we had been there before. Sandy and I slept in the first bedroom with the cowboy hats, and had our own bathroom. The bed was really comfortable. I believe that you have the hottest bath water I have ever experienced. By the way, I own the very same cowboy hat as the ones on the bedposts. I bought mine in Upstate New York but it is exactly the same hat. They have rodeos up there. You can't make this stuff up.

The bungalow -- I love saying bungalow -- was very homey, WICKED clean, and warm (as they say in Boston), comfortable, and the perfect size for five or six people. We will come back someday with our friends. Maybe things won't go as well next time, and I will get to write that critique.

Sandy and Bob Bacon
Marshfield , Massachusetts

Some images from the bungalow . . .


Jack and me on the porch



Sandy



Nancy



Interior


So yes, we are in CALIFORNIA for a wedding. Nancy and Jack, Casi's Mom and Dad, are there, of course, as are Nancy’s brother Gary and his wife Jean from Oregon. Let's all say it together kids Orre-gunn -- not Ore-GONE. We all spend an afternoon at Gary and Jean’s friends’ rental casa, just south of the Montage. It is a gated community, very nice, but there are signs posted, indicating that someone’s Porsche has been stolen. (Not “Porsh;” Por-Sha. Thank you.) After our beach walk inside the gated community, we go back for drinks at Jean and Gary’s, where Jean forces me to drink Margaritas. I make the best of it. We catch up on the familia stuff and it is really sweet to reconnect and spend time together. Well yah, Babci Flo is there. She leads the beach walk.

I have a morning ritual that involves coffee and donuts and my pickup truck. The first day in CALIFORNIA Sandy and I walk downtown and find a really nice little café near the bungalow. Didn't Jim Morrison take his girlfriends to his bungalow?

Where the little girls
In their Hollywood bungalows

On the way home, we stop for groceries and Drambuie. Have you ever had it? Drambuie, that is. We bring a bottle to Jason and Casi's. I know it is the first time that Jason has ever had it.

This is the very first time Sandy and I meet Jason. I like him right away, and not only because of his voice. We are Cajun /Zydeco dancers and one of our instructors from Rhode Island is Ed Slattery. Louisiana music is very big in New England. You can't make up stuff like this. One year Dewey Balfa and his fiddle came up from Louisiana to play at the Newport Jazz Festival, to start this craze off. Dewey is gone now but his music is still here. How many of his recordings do you have? So the guy who reminds us of Jason has hair in a ponytail turning white, wears glasses, and dresses like the artist he is. He and Jason have the same voice. As if it has been severely strained at some point. It is distinctive. I like it and we like Jason right away because of it. That is good because he is about to marry Sandy's Godchild.

Godchild -- does that sound weird to you? If you are raised Catholic, you just accept it. like the man hanging off the cross in your kitchen or over your bed. I have to hang from a doorway from time to time to stretch out my aging spine, don't you? It hurts after a short time. It is a terrible punishment. “Godchild” means simply that you will take over if the parents die -- say in a bungie jumping accident -- and you have to raise then Roman Catholic. Sandy did not think twice before accepting this responsibility with Casi.

We had a three year old and a six month old when Sandy went for a fairly simple test at the hospital that turned out to be cancer, with a radical operation right then and there. Casi's Mom, Nancy, showed up on our doorstep with her son and stayed to help out. They came from 180 miles away, so it wasn't a simple or easy thing to do, but we are family and Nancy just took over. I was in as much shock as Sandy maybe. We were totally blindsided by this at age 27. No recurrence in 37 years. I told you were are lucky.

Where was I? Oh. So we are buying things at the liquor store on the Pacific Coast Highway or Route 1, and we ask how far it is to Dana Point, because we want to go on a walk later. There are three walkers standing near us. One has overheard our conversation with the store owner and wants to add his two cents. As it turns out, he is from Marshfield, our hometown. We know many of the same people. Of the 1,181 in-ground gunite swimming pools that I designed and built, two are on his street. The bent-over guy with the Coolie hat is a former Marine officer and warms to me right away because in the field we dressed in the same uniform. Seabees would build the airfields and barracks and furnish the electricity to keep their Jarhead beer cold. I did not catch where he was from.

The three of them have us cornered and are peppering us with local facts as well as questions. The third guy’s name is Sherrill. He has on a Tour de France tee shirt so we talk a little about that.



Our traveling couple friends have done the tour (sorta). We will meet them in Mexico at the end of this month. It will be our 24th vacation together. Obviously I like numbers, but our traveling friend Tom really likes numbers. One time we were on the Mexico/Belize border and some guy, out of the blue, asked Tom what latitude he was from. Tom shot out "42" or something like that.


Eileen & Tom on Isla Mujeres

One of his friends calls him Charlie Babbitt, who was Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man. Whoops, lost again.

Then Sherrill invites all of us to dinner later at Gina's Pizza Restaurant with them and their wives. The next morning we see them again, but one of the walkers has been replaced by Sandy and his dog Beyoncé. Well it isn't really his dog, but the neighbor asked him to care for it for a week or ten days. Sandy is into his third year with Beyoncé The Wonder Dog. Years ago, Sandy had shipped out on a large sailboat for an around-the-world trip as a common seaman. He saved his money, and when the trip was over, he went to law school in LA. He was originally from Greenfield, Massachusetts, just over the next mountain from where everyone staying at the bungalow was born and grew up. He knew the HairPin Turn on Route 2, Dead Man's Corner, Shelburne Falls, the Bridge of Flowers and the Hoosac Tunnel (quite a marvel for its time – it went under a tall mountain and eventually got you to the coast and Boston.) “Small world but I wouldn't want to paint it.” Comedian Steven Wright said it.

One of the places recommended by our new friends was Crescent Beach.


Crescent Beach


Sandy, Flo, Gary, Jean, Nancy


We spend two hours there, high on the hill, just watching the surfers and looking for whales and sea lions. A whale pod had been spotted there recently. People are way more friendly in CALIFORNIA than they are in Boston. They actually walk around smiling as though something good is about to happen. And they will say Hello. What is with that?

While scanning the coast, a woman tells us her story. She was on the beach there, sitting on a blanket by herself, years ago. She was pregnant. A sea lion came out of the water and sat next to her. The sea lion rested its head on the woman's shoulder and took a nap in the warm sun. Then, a little while later, it awoke and toddled off, back into the Pacific.



Laguna Beach is an artist colony. If you go there to live with your wife, you are each given a small dog with a person's name. There are no Spots or Rovers or Rin Tin Tins there. You are given a dog, even if you are just visiting. Bette Davis probably had dogs. Her mansion still stands there.



Warren Buffet had two homes on Crescent Beach. Woodrow Wilson went there to recuperate and once FDR. was seen riding through town in a convertible, waving to everyone. Probably there are many celebrities who have homes there. The bartender at the Montage agreed but would not volunteer any names. Close-by towns are San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano. I don't have to explain them, do I?



Oh! “How was the wedding?” you ask.

Magnificent would be a perfect word and quite accurate.


Jason and his family



Casi and her parents





The average temperature there in the month of Enero is 64 degrees, but Casi willed it, and for the wedding it was blue cloudless skies and 84 degrees. It was held at the Montage Luxury Hotel,which is just off the Pacific Coast Highway. The Montage only opened its doors in 2003.

One of the first differences that you notice about CALIFORNIA is the automobiles. So many Porches, BMWs, Ferraris and Mercedeses. It is like Friday night on Federal Hill in Providence times a thousand, but with fewer Italians. All the cars there are in immaculate condition. All the valets seem to be college students from Yale or Harvard or Columbia University. You should check out the cars that come in.

Sandy and I agree that The Montage is one of the most beautiful hotels we have ever seen.


The Montage



I strike up a conversation with a waiter. I ask him if I could get a job here. He promises to get me a job application. He said that he had six interviews before he was hired. He started out as a towel boy at one of the swimming pools and worked his way up to waiter. I ask where the bathroom is, and I am walked to it. Not pointed to it, walked to it. At the end of the night, I ask to see the manager.

"Certainly, sir."

Here he comes -- I can tell it's him by the way he walks with confidence and a big smile. He seems to know that I do not have a complaint. David introduces himself with a great handshake. He looks me square in the eye. Why do people only look you square in one eye?

"What can I do for you, sir?"

I compliment him on the first class service that we have been enjoying all day. It has been a while since I have seen it, but I love when they serve dinner and all eight plates get set on the table at exactly the same time. In between courses the waiters stand at attention and never at parade rest. All waiters, just like in Greece or Turkey. No women allowed. The wine glasses never go empty. (Jason said that we drank up all the red wine they had on board.) Someone has taught them attention to detail. David says he very much appreciates the compliment and he will pass it on to the staff, and that my job application will be considered. Not even once did we hear, "What can I get you GUYS?"

The Montage was originally a trailer park. It was first called Treasure Island. “Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson was filmed here. Do you remember the movie "The Long Trailer?" It was with Lucy and Ricky and it was in color and filmed in 1953 or 1954. Fred and Ethel were not in it. Some of the "I Love Lucy" series were filmed here also. The two palms down by the restaurant on the Pacific, over to your right, are called Desi and Lucy.



Did you meet my wife at the wedding? She did a reading. She is a redhead because of Lucy Ricardo, but she was blonde when I met her. Real blonde. Polish blonde. To me, she is still a classic beauty.

As the fairly-short ceremony was going on, people were coming up from the beach or just strolling on the sidewalks. They would stop and look, then smile. Every single one of them.




There were only 26 people at the wedding. Including Jason's Mom and Dad and sister. Jason and Casi have really awesome friends. I think I met most of them. At $30,000 a plate you cannot invite everyone.

Actually, I do not know what it cost, but I bet it was more than our wedding in Adams, Massachusetts, 45 years ago, but we did have a Polish band.

This wedding’s guest of honor was probably Casi's 86-year-old Babci.


Casi and her Babci


“Babci” is Polish for Grandmother. One by one, Casi and Jason's friends would go over and tell her that they felt as though they knew her -- and that they loved her. I would say that Babci had a good time. When we left even the valets said “Buenos Noches, Babci. Have a good night.” Her quilting friends in Adams will think that she is making things up. I believe it was Babci's first time in CALIFORNIA.

Nearly every thing I said here is true ,

Bob Bacon, or if you please, Roberto Tocino