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| bangkok temple rubbing |
So the total effect was a vague sense of deflation.
28 May Wednesday: We began in earnest the business at hand: to find a house. The problems confronting us became immediately clear. How much, what kind, where?
What we want may not be available at the cost we are able to carry. The prices for the houses we have seen have been discouraging. It seems that inflation in the last year has crushed our hopes to afford the kind of house we admire in the areas we have dreamed of living. Before we left, it seemed that we could have managed a little house nestled in one of the canyons, woodsy and isolated, but close to action. Now, those prices are way prohibitive. We have to look north, over the hill, into the Valley.
We are only beginning the process, but I don’t like the instability.
When we think that during the last year we have made so many decisions together, each critical to our enjoyment of the moment, we have a deep down faith that we can make this one, though the stakes seem so high.
I spent the afternoon sleeping off a hayfever / cold and went to AAA to try to register the Fiat in California. In the evening Bea and I met Jules Katz [our accountant] and went to dinner with him and Lillian. They are a sweet older couple who work together and they were parental in their reaction to our harrowing tales of travel to exotic places.
31 May Saturday: A very frustrating day looking at houses which were too expensive. What made it worse was that even such high priced places were boring or even depressing in the contemplation of living in them.
Bea has been dogged in her pursuit of brokers. She has made lengthy lists of phone numbers, enlisted battalions of them to search for us. I don’t know where she finds the energy, the patience; it must be akin to the shopping urge which for her is developed to an art.
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| Greek flokati |
Gerry came over for dinner and we all went out. He is the same guy with the same problems, though maybe he is showing insights: he now admits that neurotic Jewish women are best and that his allergies are psychosomatic.
I have a respiratory infection as in Israel and I am wheezing so badly that it is scaring me.
7 June Saturday: The last few days have been very tense, due mostly to the frustrations of house hunting — which is to hotel searching as $45,000 is to $10.
After seeing many houses over vast areas of the SF Valley, most of which were uninhabitable or dull or downright seedy, all of which were priced far beyond their intrinsic worth, we narrowed our search to North Hollywood / Van Nuys. Not exactly the Where we had hoped for, but at least a Where where we can afford and to drive to and from.
We made an offer on one house, a harrowing experience itself because of the uncertainty in value. The offer was rejected and so was our counter offer and we left deflated. On the same night Ron chose to tell us about his client who just bought a "fabulous" Bel-Air house for $285,000 which completed our dejection.
Yet, the next day, Friday, when the new listings came out we were on the run again.
We have become familiar with all the "terms of art" in the real estate lexicon, including the euphemisms. A "fixer-upper" is a pile of junk that can be turned into a "charmer," a "dream house" with a "little imagination and vision," And a lot of money.
While I was getting my hair cut by a pro and my body examined by a doctor — both for the first time in 10 months — Bea was out scouring "the new listings" with the broker who we have had the most contact with. When I got to my parents (to pick up my suits for work), Bea announced she had found "The House" — drop everything and come immediately to the broker.
Which I did.
The House turned out to be a neat little tract home in the northern part of Van Nuys. It has a pitched roof with exposed wood beams and a high and wide brick fireplace—all of which are painted a disgusting shade of yellow. It has a quality known in the real estate sales trade as "possibilities" meaning that if you don’t like the way it looks now but pour enough money and aggravation into it, you may come out with something approaching what you hoped for.
Speaking of aggravation, that is what we have had more than anything else. We made a bid which was countered and we countered back after much discussion and soul searching—I was luke warm and my innate annoyance with being forced to make more compromise than the seller was willing to make— but I yielded to Bea’s persistent certainty that this is The House.
She loves it. She wants us to live there and make it our home. That settled the issue for me, despite my qualms and grumbles.
When you get right down to it we both want to live somewhere—a place we can say is Ours—our responsibility and our earned pleasure. It won’t be our last house and the extra couple of thousand we pay will not break us. We never have been "Smart" about money. If we were, we never would have made our trip which was a financial disaster, if security was the goal.
18 June Wednesday: I haven’t made any entries the last ten days even though they have been very eventful days.
Ever since we returned to LA my health has been rotten. While at R&L’s I kept waking in the middle of the night coughing, choking, congested and unable to breathe. I didn’t know if it was a virus, allergy or hayfever. Then Friday it emerged in a full flowered cold with sweats and sneezing. I had to use a vaporizer to breathe. This is too reminiscent to asthma to be temporary; is it back after 30 years?
My first day at work in 10 months was Monday the 9th. Juvenile—the court is at Juvenile Hall, near USC-County Med. Center. It doesn’t seem to have changed since I worked there as a PD Clerk in ‘68 or ‘69. Lonnie Sarnoff is here—a bureaucrat, behind Gibbons and Ken Clayman. Jo Kaplan is here and John Ryan, old colleagues all. I didn’t know any of the others here. They are all younger—have been PD’s a few months, makes me feel like the old veteran, returning after a wound.
There is some anxiety because I really know very little about Juvie Law.
I found that Mark Horton died this weekend of cancer. Horton had been my very first contact in the Office; I interned with him while I was still in law school. His iconoclastic cool had been one of the lures that kept me there. He hired me as a clerk and then as a lawyer. I spent many hours around his office listening to stories, soaking in atmosphere. When I came back two weeks ago I had discovered that he had been out three or four months with a "bad back." No one said anything else about his absence and he had not had any visitors. In his typical private, withdrawn manner he simply never returned.
The next day I did very little—familiarizing myself with Juvenile Law and procedures. Somehow I am having trouble taking it all as seriously as everyone else down here does. The fatal flaw in Juvenile justice is immediately obvious. The system is undecided whether to be a means of determining guilt and meting out punishment or a manner of discovering delinquency and straightening out the children. The more fundamental problem which is probably insoluble is that the cause of most crimes is rooted deeply in society—its values, poverty, disenchantment, incapacity of parents to control adolescents.
As a result, our presence is a thorn in the system by insisting on legal"technicalities" which were designed for adult guilt determinations, asserting rights which children have never been accorded in our culture. They file the charges which they refuse to call "criminal" "in behalf of" the minor and then appoint a lawyer to face them: fouling up their plans for the minor is "child’s play" for us.
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| Istambul copper tea set |
On Wednesday I made my first court appearances—detention hearings, the arraignments. The cases range from runaways to knifings with the expected GTA and burglary thrown in. The "judge" was Nate A’s son, Bob, just as officious, ignorant and arrogant as his father.
The general philosophy of our office here is to take everything to trial which makes sense here because a "petition" can be found "true" whether guilt is proved on one or all charges—whether murder or disturbing the peace, the same result will ensue. So plea bargaining is useless. There is also a value in giving a kid his day in court with a strenuous defense—in most cases, these kids have lost all faith that any adult will voice their side of any issue. At least it instills some respect for The System.
Thursday, Bea and I had our interview with the loan officer for Coast Fed. We were nervous and brought all our documents to try to explain our situation to him. Turned out he was just a functionary and was there to see we filled out forms properly and didn’t want to know anything that didn’t fit in a rectangle. The loan "committee" would decide our fate.
We went to the movies that night, saw "Scenes From a Marriage" and "Prisoner of Second Avenue" had a fight with some fat old people and caught a cold from the on and off air conditioning.
Friday I woke up in the morning with a full fledged cold. During the day it got worse and worse yet. By the end of the day I was bathed in sweat. I should have stayed in bed but I had a trial scheduled.
Timothy P. charged with sales of 4000 Valium to an undercover narc. The defense was entrapment and a smokescreen I have tried before ... that did not work but enough probing got the cop witness caught up in some stupid lies which exposed the entrapment issue, and the judge was confused and embarrassed enough to cut my kid loose. The kid left the court knowing he was lucky to have gotten off and I left knowing I would be in bed sick.
I didn’t know how sick I was. Instead of all my congestion breaking up and coming out as I had hoped from past experience, I became more clogged. I spent the night unable to breathe at all.
19 June Thursday: After being sick for five days I went back to work. I had four cases set, two for trial. Both trials were losers
The loan for the house has been approved and we are much relieved but quite antsy to get into the new house and out of this one.
3 July Thursday: We went to sign escrow papers and pay closing costs. Later we heard from Bill T. who had gone to the house for a walk-through with the sellers. They have been bastards to everyone including both brokers, escrow, and to us. Bill revealed that on the night he went to them to give them our offer, the owners made some anti-Semitic remark, showing they did not want to sell to Jews and if they did, it would only be for a higher price.
Bea and I were furious that he did not tell us at the time; he pointed out the truth: that we would have canceled the deal and not have the house that we, especially Bea, is by now completely committed to as our first home.
9 July Wednesday: I got a full paycheck—in fact, fuller than expected—$910 net, for two weeks work, slightly more than usual because there were no deductions this time for retirement, etc. Still, it helped, with our expenses so high. House payments will be over $400 per month.
10 July Thursday: We had some disappointment: the sandblasters canceled for the weekend because workers refused to work. This means our move will be delayed a week, which means another week of driving in the heat from the West Valley. This week was no better than before, if fact the heat results in being sweaty and exhausted by 9 a.m..
15 July Tuesday: Another busy day. At 8 a.m. the sandblasters called and said they could start today. I went to work and Bea went to the house. By noon I finished my court calendar and drove to meet her. The house was covered with sand.
16 July Wednesday: My birthday, 32 years old. I do not really feel it and tonight I felt especially young—we went to dinner with R&L and Jim&Elaine. We had Chinese and Ron, Elaine and Jim exhibited a closed minded attitude toward new tastes that I associate with aging people.
Both Bea and I felt it and it was disappointing and at the same time made us feel better, as if we really had grown away from some of the things we had outgrown and toward a new, better direction that was ours alone..
At night in bed, I blessed her for having made me a little different than what I would be without her. I told her that she was my "George Bailey" and that I was more like Donna Reed—without her I would be a monk shriveled up in my lonely room.
19 July Saturday: I must still decide whether to be serious about my work or to concentrate on other interests—my writing and our home. I am torn between the desire to get re-involved in a search for excellence in a "career" as a lawyer and the desire to skate through and get out early each day and enjoy new challenges.
Today, my full concentration was on affairs of the house: the work and money outlay seems endless. Paint, brick sealer, lacquer, ladders, door locks, a clothes dryer, kitchen goods, tools. It just goes on, including the work required to make our vision come true.
Exhausted after a full day of work we went out with Roy, his latest "Shiksa" and Gerry and his latest love non-interest. We really needed the release and relaxation. We got pleasantly ripped and also had some good Italian food.
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| Agra box |
We have a lot in common with them except for their children, their wealth (inherited); we share a fascination with things out of the LA ordinary which circumscribe the lives of most of our other friends. But we do have one quibble with Stu and Ann; we can’t find it in our hearts to tell them how often we think they are full of shit.
27 July Sunday: We spent the day in our house which is becoming a home entertaining my parents and Jim & Elaine. They were very complimentary about the work we are doing, and Bea and I felt proud of what we have accomplished so far. We showed them most of the souvenirs we collected on our trip and are now all around the house. The temple rubbing from Thailand, the print from Hong Kong, pots and flakati rug from Greece, Tibetan rug from Kathmandu, the copper from Istambul, all those flea market buys that I had ridiculed Bea for being so persistent about gathering.
When they left we were exhausted, and went immediately to bed. I felt lucky to be alone together with her.
EPILOGUE
8-17-70
Dearest Bea,
I hope this letter reaches you in Rome—I’m sending it there but I don’t know if it will get there in time—I rather doubt it. This whole summer has been so frustrating for me as far as you and I are concerned. I haven’t been able to go to you when I needed to—and I needed to, often. Its been lonely and upsetting—especially during this period of change and transition.
Beginning work—these first few months have often been insecure and required analysis and moments of perspective which your love and nearness has so often provided for me. I don’t know if you realize how good you are for me in that way. I have been inadequate in some ways, the worst not being more verbal with my "problems" and your help. But you have helped me open up in that way more. With you, I opened up and exposed more of myself than I have ever done with anyone...
... Writing has been a terribly inadequate way to try to touch you ... maybe its because I never know if my letters will ever reach you, or if you will really care to read them now that your senses have been exposed to a continent of important, beautiful and exciting things and people.
I have found myself envying you, hating you missing you and wishing you would enjoy yourself immensely—it is weird, all those mixed feelings.
... I LOVE YOU COME BACK TO ME PLEASE. M.
... I LOVE YOU COME BACK TO ME PLEASE. M.
C’est Finis....
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