Reporting for jury duty in the 1980s in Santa Monica, California

Lately in this blog I've been painting a pretty grim picture of my Los Angeles of the 1980s, the traffic, the air quality, that sort of thing, so today I'd like to take you back to one of the most pleasant times of my life, ten days at the LA County Courthouse in Santa Monica, California.

No, I didn't live in Santa Monica, I lived in Canoga Park, which is in the San Fernando Valley, but it's all LA County. And as gigantic as the City of Los Angeles is, the county is just mind-boggling, even back in the 1980s. So the fact that I ran into a friend, and had a good time overall during those ten days will sound like I'm making this up. Of course, I have no proof, so I could be, but I'm not. This is what really happened. Just the facts.

I'm pretty sure it was 1987, but it could have been 1986, and I had just started working at Blue Cross of California in their corporate offices in Woodland Hills. If you're not familiar with LA, that's a nice area, as opposed to where I lived, a few miles east in Canoga Park, where the best I could say is that the rent was cheap. I could go on and on about wonderful the job was, and it got better the day that I got a letter in the mail from the County of LA telling me to report for jury duty.

Most of the people I've ever talked to about getting a letter like that immediately start groaning, and they exchange ideas on how to get out of it. I got a kick out of it, and of course I'm lucky. My company paid ten (10) days for jury duty, and so it was a pleasant break for me.

I hate freeways, so I took surface streets, through the Santa Monica mountains on Topanga, and then down the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Monica. I just Googled a map, I'll show you where the courthouse is. Here ya go:

I have no idea how it works nowadays, but I'd imagine it's still the same - you show up, and then sit around in a big room day after day. Every once in a while someone comes into the room and calls people out, and then a few minutes later they return (or don't, if they're chosen to be on a jury). I know that a lot of people found it dull, because I remember a sign that said something like "People wait so courts don't have to". I brought a paperback book to read the first day, but I never needed it, mostly I talked to people.

The vast majority of people there were old folks, about the age I am now, and many were happy to talk to me about their LA. I've never had the slightest interest in celebrity gossip, or Hollywood murders, or LA scandals, I've always just wanted to know what it was like for ordinary people living ordinary lives back then. Then, as now, people remembered when it was all a simpler time, before the freeways were built, or whatever.

The chances of randomly running into a friend from the entire population of LA county is astronomical, but I've always had a charmed life, so one day I recognized a friend, and we decided to go to lunch every day. He was an LA local, born and raised, and we went to a few different places, which were all wonderful, unknown to tourists, that sort of thing. My absolute favorite was a place called Polly's Pies (long gone now of course), which served chicken (in spite of the name on the sign). There was also an awesome Italian place.

Sadly, the tenth day came and I had to go back to work. I've subsequently done jury service, here in Arizona, but it wasn't nearly as much fun. By the way, and this is just a small piece of trivia, but I recognized the courtrooms when the O.J. Simpson trial was on TV, which I watched in Phoenix. My first thought was, "Hey, I know that place!", and then I thought of the chicken at Polly's Pies.

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