Mighty Eagles

50 years ago a bunch of students from working class families outside Los Angeles, got their education in Bell, California at BELL HIGH SCHOOL. Oh, there were some bright and talented members of that 1960 class. But sociologists weren't convinced we'd amount to much. But as we returned to Bell High on homecoming and 50 year reunion day, that sure wasn't the way we felt.

The entire high school band stepped out of class to greet us. As fellow offensive lineman on the football team, Warren Sapp (different Warren Sapp) quipped, we never got this kind of salute when we were playing. Of course none of us could remember a football game we won.

Here's that football field. It has changed very little in 50 years. One change you can't see well in the picture is a fast-food restaurant that's taken over the site of Bell Plumbing and Heating. That's where my Dad used to work on his days off as a fireman.

That's Bell's Warren Sapp down there with a little less hair than he owned in 1960. That's his wife Mary on the right. Classmates Loretta and Elaine on the left.

We ran into a number of jaw dropping revelations on campus. This one really blew our minds. See all the names on the back of that Tee Shirt down there? They are names of Bell High Graduates who are now employed at Bell High School. The man wearing the shirt, a math teacher, graduated in 1969.

I'm pretty confident we didn't have anyone working in Bell willing to reside within ten miles of the place.

We were really impressed that pretty much the same physical plant could hold twice the number of students it held in 1960.

We were overwhelmed with the politeness, the self confidence and the pride this new student body carried with them.

Oh, we've had our life successes. That's Larry Ramos vocal lead and CEO of the Association. One of his group's songs, "Never My Love," is still the third most played single in radio history. I was a big fan of their hit "Wendy." The students revealed a mural in honor of Larry on the cafeteria's Wall Of Fame during our visit.

That's Steve Snyder on the left below, member of a very successful San Francisco law firm. He is sitting next to Rich Case, my college room mate. Rich was trained as an engineer, but has since gotten his Masters degree in environmental science, and is a consultant to agencies wanting to preserve their forests.

He is most famous amongst us for taking a copy of the "Whole Earth Catalog," traveling to British, Colombia in the late 1960's, finding some land he could homestead, and building his cabin from hand. It still exists, and he spends a lot of time there. A warning to anyone wanting to visit. It involves a two hour canoe trip with portaging to get there.

That's Paula Prewitt Perich on the right, who has had a very successful marketing and public relations career. She flew in from Texas to hug Alice (Purcell) Goecke, as we all did. That's because Alice, once again demonstrated some incredible skills at bringing us all together, and getting us to behave.

It is not the best shot I have of Tim Ewing, but I wanted to show him in his comfort zone. Tim was a starting forward on the basketball team. They fared much better in competition than the football team. He is standing right underneath the same basket that captured his jump shots 50 years ago. (They have a new gym, but have kept the old one.)

Tim is retired from careers in steel and pharmaceuticals. He owned a company in one field, and was national sales manager in the other.

John Shilling (not shown) is a prominent attorney in Newport Beach. Tom Wariner (not shown) is a Superior Court judge in Northern California. Kenny Long (not shown), carved a great career in journalism. And that is just a sampling.

But I've buried the lead a bit. If those sociologists, and statisticians were to look at the futures of today's Bell High School students, they'd likely conclude, as they did with us, their chances of thriving in this society are slim. This town is currently rife with scandal. With language barriers, poverty level incomes, and crippling costs of living, you'd guess success would be the last goal on these students minds. But WE now know different.

As we cheered together, shared tales of yore, and new student adventures in 2010? As we sang the fight song and Alma Mater together, we found an instant bond. We share a pride. We know they are going to make it. And one of the reasons they are going to make it is that same pride we all had in ourselves....that when were told we couldn't do it? We said, and this new student body says, "WATCH US!!!"

"ON BELL HIGH SCHOOL." "WE UNITE TO SING THY PRAISES, PLEDGING WILLING HEART AND HAND." "GET THAT BALL AND FIGHT." "GO BELL!"

How Many?

Let's get this started. Mark Twain, a roll model of mine, said over and over again, "there are three kinds of lies, lies, damn lies, and statistics."

He said it so many times, that even though he attributed it to British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, most people are determined to assign it to Twain.

Let me add to that a quote from my ex-wife Karen. An accomplished lobbyist, she must have said this ten times a day.

"DO YOUR HOMEWORK!"

Like Twain I doubt Karen would take quote creation credit.

What does any of this have to do with Bell, California and its scandal?

Well, I've been doing my homework, and I'm about to share with you some "lies, damn lies, and statistics."

The first harmless lie comes from me. "No one who graduated from Bell High School in the Summer class of 1960 still lives there." I won't declare that an absolute truth fearing there is a straggler hiding in the bushes. Suffice it to say the character of Bell has morphed into a whole new world. And, if we just stick to the conclusion we typically apply to these statistics, the change is not for the better.

Let's look at some of the conclusions drawn by City-data.com. They have pulled their supporting numbers from a number of sources, including the census.

. Median household income is below the state average. ($39,394.00)

. Unemployment percentage is above the state average. (15.7 % April of this year)

. Cost of living index as of 2009 is very high. (162.0 in Bell compared to U.S Avg. 100)

. The size of Bell is 2.48 square miles.

. The population of Bell in 1960 was approximately 20 thousand.

. The population of Bell today is just under 40 thousand.

. Just under 20 thousand of that 40 thousand are foreign born.

. The city is 90 percent Hispanic.

Bell has no theatres. (They had two in 50's, one in the 60's.)

It has four small motels listed ( I didn't see them), no hotels.

The streets are narrow.

Most of the housing stock can be traced back to the 1930's and 1940's.

(They tore our house down in the 70's to make room for a school. My sisters and I argue whether the historical Reinertson site is now in the middle of a parking lot, or a grassy play area of the school. Can't give you a date but my sister Brenda remembers Dad telling us he paid about $2,500.00 for the house in the late 30's. And she remembers him negotiating with the bank and got a $ 25.00 a month mortgage until he could afford to pay $50.00 a month. Thanks to an alleged corrupt city government that house today would be valued at over $400,000.00. My other sister, Theda and her husband Jerry still own property in Bell. They say they HAD noticed taxes seemed to be getting a little high?)

So you can probably guess my level of disappointment as the tour bus inched into town. And you would be WRONG!

Here are some other numbers for you.

Bell has one of the lowest property crime rates in the entire L.A. Basin.

The divorce in Bell rate hovers around 5%.

I saw very few homes that weren't freshly painted, and yards immaculately landscaped.

I know there must be some, but I saw not one spray can's worth of graffiti.

Not everyone on that bus is going to agree with me, but I LIKE THE NEW BELL. It really is SWELL.

And that really raises my indignation towards these city officials ripping off people who they knew were vulnerable. And they were ripping off people who clearly care.

But wait until we get to our trip to Bell High School on Home Coming day. That's coming next.

Is that a crack in the BELL?

"So where you all from?"

"Bell, California!"

"Oh, you mean Bell Gardens?"

"No, Bell!"

"Was that Bellflower?"

"No, Bell!"

"Oh, now I get it. You all are from Belair?"

"NO, Bell!"

"Belmont Shore?"

"LOOK, PAL, remember the little town where the city manager, mayor, some council people and a few others employees were caught making fortunes, at the cost of poor local taxpayers? Some of them, we are told, were making more than the President of the United States!"

"OOOH, THAT BELL!"

This is going to be all about the town I grew up in, ( 9 miles south of Downtown Los Angeles) and I'm not going to put a lot in this first posting. I don't want to risk boring you.

Let me just say to you, me and my classmates just held the 50 year anniversary celebration of our graduation from Bell High School. It took place in Huntington Beach this past week. What a hoot! The highlight for most of us was a bus trip to and through Bell. We got to look at our old houses, then a student led tour of our high school.

There was the anticipation, the tour, and then some really wonderful flips of our expectations at the high school.

Just as a starter, that is not the City Manager up there cutting a deal with another city employee. That is me and my former classmate Loretta. We are PRETENDING we are cutting a deal.

The reason we had time to take this picture? We had a picnic on park benches right next to city hall. It was an arrangement made long before the scandal broke.

I'm not going to say much more at this point. But I'll attempt to tease you a bit by repeating my own revelation as a career journalist. "The STORY you think you have is NEVER the SAME STORY after you get there.

I won't promise a new posting every day. But I'm going to try. SO? Hope to see you soon.

WOW!!

It is so nice to have a BLOG when you know that Face Book, Twitter and e-mail won't do the trick.
It is going to start out as an instructional or entertainment piece based on your perspective. Entertainment for me. I will end it on a much higher plane than I've ever flown before. You'll decide for yourself.
The end of June of this year I was out loping branches off a 20 year Aspen. I tell you it's age because landscaping experts say that is just about the predicted life span of an individual Aspen.
Anyway, that Aspen got back at me. I started feeling dizzy, and then faint, and I went inside and my blood pressure ( I take blood pressure medicine) shot up to 180 over 120. (Those are not good numbers, by the way, on or off medication.)
So I tell Peggy what I'm experiencing. She takes my temperature. It is over a hundred one. And then she says you're calling the Dr. (And, oh, its on the weekend.)
I fight her for a while, but give in.
I get through to my Doctor (Dr. So and So) and, he and I chat. He says, "to be on the safe side you'd better go to the emergency room at (such and such) hospital. "
Peggy drives me there with neither of us knowing I'm in for a three day stay. I don't believe there is a heart machine or stress test in there I didn't take. And they kept finding nothing. So Peggy and I are sitting chatting with Dr. So and So,So, a compatriot of Dr. So and So.
He runs around the hospital checking out all these test results and says, "you know that CT scan we took of your heart?"
"Yeah." "
"Well your THYROID shows up so low in your sternum it shows up in the scan. It has a very irregular growth on it. AND it is sitting right on top of your Vegus Nerve which can affect balance."
Seemed to make sense.
"But I think I'm going to send you down to the radiologist to get a needle biopsy to make sure we are not dealing with something else."
So? Well the needle biopsy says all this irregular mass on my Thyroid is made up of Hurthle Cells. And I guess nobody in my little clique at this point knew that Hurthle cells are NOT always cancerous. In fact Hurthle cells in the THYROID are almost never cancerous.
(Don't take my word for that please. I'm just quoting and paraphrasing my sources.)
So! I was sent on to an endocrinologist to plan our life time relationship. She, too, spoke of cancer. ( She is a very stately yet easy to talk to person, who also assumed I had cancer.)
BUT, and this was the first time in the process it came out. You can not do an effectively true biopsy on your THYROID until you yank it out of there. So Dr. she and she sends me to THE SURGEON OF NOTE!
(He's had some pretty noteworthy clients, but seems uneasy with a lot of publicity so let's make him Dr. SEE AND SEE.)
After looking at ALL the tests, he says, "first of all Thyroid Hurtle cells are hardly ever cancerous.....about 20 percent of the time they are malignant.
But you are definitely a candidate to get that Thyroid out of there, and then, and only then can we confirm one way or another whether there is cancer in there."
"Okay, let's do it."
"Not so fast. I don't have an opening for a month and a half."
"But isn't that too long to wait?"
"A MASS that large has been there a long, long time, and there is no evidence any cancer has spread to any other part of your body. We've got plenty of time."
Okay, let's shorten this story. Last week they walked off with my Thyroid. I wait another 3 days for biopsy results, and the news is NO CANCER. So how do I feel? Angry? Bitter? Scared? Resentful?
NONE OF THE ABOVE. I STILL LIKE ALL THESE DOCTORS AND APPRECIATE THEY ARE HUMAN. I've been saving that picture I took about 15 years ago....just for this moment. I didn't know that's what I was saving it for, but THAT my friends is how I feel.

JUST HORSIN' AROUND!

But I do have some advice. About every five minutes say to your medical men and women, "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?"

Odd?

Money IS coming from somewhere.

Went for a walk today in a rural area very quickly becoming suburban.

How do I know that about the money? Because we're walking on this five mile long highway that wasn't even public knowledge 6 months ago.

They've already cut through a deep thoroughfare hidden by massive berms. It is already half paved. But because of those berms, it is not likely you'll ever know it's there until you use it, or fly over it.

Now here is the topper. They say they'll have it done by the end of the year.

No, wait a minute, here's the topper! It is being built a mile away from a new highway that will run parallel to it. That road has been on the books for at least a decade, but it won't be fininished until 2012.

You'd think that would be about all the ODD a person could take in a day. But we are walking along this construction site and up pops a coyote. It skitters by us, crawls under a fence and disappears to where ever coyotes disappear to. I guess not THAT odd. But right after that?

Three cowboys ride up with their trusty cattle herding dog (either a Border Collie or Australian Shepherd.) Really nice looking quarter horses. So we exchange howdies, and they ride off down some creek bed to tend to some steers. But just as they part, that little cattle dog leaves the cow poke party and starts hiding behind us. Odd!

This soft spoken giant in beige boots (no spurs) comes riding up to me, jumps off Trigger, and says, "Here, hold muh horse," and hands me the reins.

"Yes, sir! Isn't he supposed to hang out with you and help round up the herd? "

"Well, first of all, he's a she. Named Dally (pronounced dolly.) Problem is she's afraid of horses."

He picks Dally up in his arms, remounts with my help, thanks me, and as he's is riding back into the creek bed, he says, " if I hadn't picked her up just now, she probably would have followed you all the way home."

So we mosied on our way surveying this new highway project. We walked about an hour in three or four different directions, and then on our way back to the car? Yup! Here comes Dally. With the cowpokes? Nope! Her herding instincts she applied to us. Licked us a lot when we behaved like we were supposed to. Nipped at us if we moved in any wrong direction.

Peggy was adamant.

"We are not going to leave her until we get her back to her owners."

Well turns out there were a bunch of phone numbers on Dally's collar. Cell phone to the rescue you'd think. But out of all those phone numbers we got through to just one female voice mail.

Well just as we were about to set up camp for the night, we see our wranglers up on a hill and wave wildly to them. They finally catch sight of us and with Peggy hanging on to Dally with all her might, the dog is reluctantly reunited with her family.

"Kind of odd for a Border Collie, or Australian Shepherd to be afraid of horses isn't it," I ask.

"That's not nearly half the problem. She's also afraid of cows."

I've got to tell you. In my mind, THAT'S ODD!

They rode off, and we drove off, and fortunately none of us into the sunset.

BUT IN THIS ECONOMY I STILL WANT TO KNOW WHERE THE MONEY IS COMING FROM TO BUILD THIS ROAD? AND WHO IS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF THE COYOTE?

Tough Talk

This is a story I've told often, but not one I really ever thought would be important to tell.

Back in the 70's, during some other oil crisis, I was doing a daily radio feature titled "Tighten Your Belt."

I'll be honest. It was not easy to come up with something interesting every day. But one day, whatever I did, elicited a rather entertaining reaction.

"Hey, Paul, y0u got a call on line one."

"Thanks. Hi! This is Paul, can I help you?"

"Maybe! My name is @#$#@. I own *%$#* oil. Whadda ya doin' right now?"

"Just gettin' ready to leave for the day, why?"

"Grab your tape recorder and get on down here to Combs Gates."

I need to tell you at this point that this guy had the "Voice of God." My vocal range drifts between bass and baritone, but this guy made me resemble a soprano.

But I was young and brave in those days.

"I'll be right there."

Combs Gates was where you landed your private jet in Denver. They had a small, but lush meeting room. I was told I would find my interview there waiting for me. You know, how some times, men with really deep voices, turn out to be guys about 4'8" tall in heels? Well, no Wizard of Oz in this case.

I can't be totally accurate, but I'd guess my height at the time? Oh, 6'1". Weight? Maybe 210 lbs.

Well, this owner of what he called a small independent oil company, out stood me by about 6 inches, and out girthed me a minimum of a hundred pounds.

"Sit down," he says.

I suppose I should have "high-tailed" it out of there right then. But a combination of that youth, false bravado, curiosity and out right fear, had me responding positively to his command.

Let me finish his description. He had a very ruddy complexion, arms the size of sequoias, a neck that didn't really exist.

I sat down and started to push play and record on the machine.

"Hold on," he says. "Let's talk first before we tape anything."
(Precursor of "Go On the Record.")

"Not a problem," I say.

"Why is it, whenever there is a story about oil, we always get all this rotten publicity from you guys in the media."

Well, well, well. I guess if I'm about to be cut up and swallowed by Shrek, I might as well get in some final words. So, and I can tell you from my side, this is not paraphrased. It is exactly what I said, and I guess in retrospect, since I'm still alive, glad I said.

"IT IS BECAUSE YOUR INDUSTRY IS MADE UP OF GRIZZLED OLD FARTS LIKE YOU THAT THINK IT IS NEVER ANYBODY ELSE'S BUSINESS WHAT THEY'RE UP TO."

Oh, yeah, I got the expression you'd imagine, and I was thinking maybe I should have left some nice notes for next of kin. But you know what? That grimace, very slowly turned to a grin. And following a VEEEEERY long pause he says, (unfortunately I still hadn't turned on the tape recorder) "YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT."

With that, he flew back to Texas and immediately hired a sharp, reputable public relations firm.....clearly something BP might have considered.

I think I heard from him once after that. That oil crisis ended soon afterwards, and we all got back to doing what we were doing before it started. To be honest?

I hope this gulf situation doesn't end that way. We need some good solar powered cruise ships in the Gulf.

Mea Culpa Diva

Ante-pros! Seems like a well structured and thought out oxymoron, eh?

Instead it is a short form of ante-proscenium.

Ante-proscenium is a theatre term that often describes a production element that originates off stage. Oh, lets say like a follow spot, or spot light that follows the action of key players on stage. Bored?

Well I guess I was bored too during college rehearsals of Gilbert and Sullivan's Ruddigore. Let's see, that was back in 19*^$. You see I was sitting up in this slit in the ceiling (ante-pros) above the audience. I was operating the follow spot making sure every Diva Gets Her Due.

Okay, now jump up to a week ago.

A week ago is when I was doing my fourth ever piano recital piece. It was "All I Ask of You," from Phantom of the Opera. I really wanted to shine, particularly since it was a duet piece with my Piano Guru, Rosemary Rogers. And I have to say it was going pretty well. And there was good evidence the melody was recognizable. But more on that later. Right now back to Ruddigore folo spot.

Partly because I was bored, and partly because it was just something I always did, I found myself humming along with the airs of Gilbert and Sullivan. And over time during rehearsals? By golly I memorized all the lyrics of all the parts. And guess what? I started singing along during rehearsals. Nobody seemed to notice, and I was having a ball.

Back to my recital. About two thirds of the way through "All I Ask of You?" I hear this humming from somewhere in the first row. It is a resonant, well trained hum and at first I didn't think much about it. It seemed flattering.

I was probably thinking I was flattering the light opera stars during that production of Ruddigore, but I guess not. During technical and dress rehearsals all of us technical people put on our headsets so we could hear each other and get things right on stage. It also meant the director, the stage manager, the props manager, the sound manager, the lighting guru? They were all listening to me enhance Ruddigore. And I guess they didn't like it.

They were going out of their minds trying to figure out who was doing the accompaniment. It was not helpful, they said in harsher words than those. In fact whoever it was, was "screwing up the whole production."

Not being as sensitive as I am today, I just giggled to myself and ultimately shut up. And besides nobody ever said I was flat or sharp. And in case you're wondering? No I never did tell them who that was singing along.

Well back to the recital and that flattering humming coming from the first row. It must have been pretty good humming because I started paying more attention to it than what I was doing. And as I looked at the music in front of me, D's became A's, F's became E's. And then I froze like a Popsicle. Oh, I got through it. But now in retrospect I want to express my sincerest apologies to the cast and crew of the producti0n of Ruddigore at Long Beach State in the year 19*&^%. I hope you all went on to have smashingly successful careers in opera and theatre.

(I'm going to try and not hum at other people's performances from now on. It is not going to be easy. Ye that hum know what I'm talking about.)