Why I carried a book in my car in Los Angeles in the 1980s


Trying to describe Los Angeles to people who have never lived there is just about impossible. You can describe how big it is, and how terrible the traffic is, but it just begins to sound like a tall tale, and I might as well be describing Paul Bunyan. But I've been pondering living in the City of Angels in the 1980s, and as much as I enjoyed it, I was glad to be well out of there, in 1989, and back in Phoenix.

And to this day I try not to comment when people complain about traffic in Phoenix. For me, there really never was much traffic in Phoenix, not compared to LA, because I never felt the need to carry a book in my car, which I always did in LA.

I've always had a bit of a silly sense of humor, so it's understandable if people can't tell if I'm kidding, but I'm serious, I carried a book in my car, and read it on the freeway.

Now calm down there if you're picturing me zipping through lanes and flipping through pages, I would never do that. I just took it out when traffic came to a complete stop, and I could put the car in park. This happened quite often on the Ventura Freeway, which I avoided as much as I could, but sometimes you really just had no other choice than to take the freeway. I would study maps and find alternate routes as much as possible, so I spent as little time as possible on the freeway - I hated just sitting there.

And I'm not talking about traffic inching along, I'm talking about a parking lot as far as the eye can see. When this happened I tried to wait patiently until I could get to an exit, but it often took very long, and I get bored easily. So I would put my car in park and read a book, usually a library book. When traffic started to move, even a tiny bit, I took the car out of park and inched along.

Every once in a while I will hear someone in Phoenix complain about the traffic, or say that there are no parking spots, or something, and I just have to smile, and keep my mouth shut. They'd never believe me, anyway.

Image at the top of this post: with my friend John in 1987, standing next to the Mighty Mustang. I guarantee that there's a book on the back seat.

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