The Bus Instructor
This guy named Mike White would hang out at my dad's shop. He was an instructor for the Los Angeles Rapid Transit District or "RTD," the name for the bus system they have there. His job was to teach people how to drive buses. If you were hired by the RTD, if you didn't know how to drive a bus already, they would teach you as this isn't normally a skill people pick up anywhere else.
He began work in the wee hours of the morning, so he was off by mid-afternoon. He would then mosey over to my dad's shop, where he planted himself in the waiting area and would nurse a pint of Southern Comfort over the next few hours until my dad closed the place and he had to leave. I can still remember his voice ("Jerrah. Jerrah. Jerrah" - my father's name was "Jerry") as he tried to gather his thoughts to express something through his increasing drunken haze.
He was white, but he ironically only dated Black women. He had an odd accent; his people may have been from Oklahoma, as so many in the Los Angeles area were at that time. My best friend's parents were Okies. The guy that worked for my dad was from Oklahoma; a full-blood Cherokee named Broken Arrow or ᎤᏲᏨᎯ ᎦᏟᏓ (u-yo-tsv-hi ga-tli-da) in the Cherokee or ᏣᎳᎩ (tsa-la-gi) language. I have no idea if he spoke it. He probably didn't, although he may have known a few words, just as I know a few Yiddish words and can just barely read it.
Mike White offered to get me a job driving a RTD bus over the Olympics in 1984. It was assumed that the already horrific LA traffic would become inconceivably worse with the influx of athletes and spectators. In fact, everyone who was able to leave town did so, with the result that the traffic volume during that two-week period was probably lower than it had been since cars were invented. I didn't drive at the time, but my wife told me that the freeways were deserted. Wisely, I didn't take White up on his offer as I probably wouldn't have had any work, since there was no demand for extra buses.
I was living in Westwood Village at the time, even though I wasn't taking classes that summer, so I saw the gradual, increasingly obtrusive assembly of the Olympic Village. Large areas of campus were declared off-limits and the place was crawling with cops on three-wheel off-road vehicles, which was odd as the area around UCLA is one of the least natural places in the world with almost no dirt. One guy I knew found a job as a janitor in the dorms, which were used to house the athletes. This meant he had a pass to get into the Olympic Village. He lent it to me one day so I could see the men's gymnastic teams practice. One of my former roommates had been a gymnast, so I had a slight interest in the sport. Even though I looked nothing like the guy whose pass I was using, they let me right in. So much for security.
My girlfriend had just broken up with me. I heard she was dating a member of the Moroccan bicycling team. I was not surprised; she was exactly the kind of girl who would do that. I imagined running into them and explaining to him in French what a bitch she was, but never had the opportunity. Right after the Olympics ended, I went to Minnesota for two weeks with one of my friends, to stay in the town his mother had grown up in. The Olympic Village had taken months to construct. When I returned, there was no trace of it, other than a lingering color scheme of pastel salmon, teal, and light gray that had been ubiquitous that summer and remained visible in local businesses for years afterward. I will never see those colors without being reminded of the Los Angeles Olympics, and I can't look at a bottle of Southern Comfort without hearing "Jerrah. Jerrah. Jerrah."
He began work in the wee hours of the morning, so he was off by mid-afternoon. He would then mosey over to my dad's shop, where he planted himself in the waiting area and would nurse a pint of Southern Comfort over the next few hours until my dad closed the place and he had to leave. I can still remember his voice ("Jerrah. Jerrah. Jerrah" - my father's name was "Jerry") as he tried to gather his thoughts to express something through his increasing drunken haze.
He was white, but he ironically only dated Black women. He had an odd accent; his people may have been from Oklahoma, as so many in the Los Angeles area were at that time. My best friend's parents were Okies. The guy that worked for my dad was from Oklahoma; a full-blood Cherokee named Broken Arrow or ᎤᏲᏨᎯ ᎦᏟᏓ (u-yo-tsv-hi ga-tli-da) in the Cherokee or ᏣᎳᎩ (tsa-la-gi) language. I have no idea if he spoke it. He probably didn't, although he may have known a few words, just as I know a few Yiddish words and can just barely read it.
Mike White offered to get me a job driving a RTD bus over the Olympics in 1984. It was assumed that the already horrific LA traffic would become inconceivably worse with the influx of athletes and spectators. In fact, everyone who was able to leave town did so, with the result that the traffic volume during that two-week period was probably lower than it had been since cars were invented. I didn't drive at the time, but my wife told me that the freeways were deserted. Wisely, I didn't take White up on his offer as I probably wouldn't have had any work, since there was no demand for extra buses.
I was living in Westwood Village at the time, even though I wasn't taking classes that summer, so I saw the gradual, increasingly obtrusive assembly of the Olympic Village. Large areas of campus were declared off-limits and the place was crawling with cops on three-wheel off-road vehicles, which was odd as the area around UCLA is one of the least natural places in the world with almost no dirt. One guy I knew found a job as a janitor in the dorms, which were used to house the athletes. This meant he had a pass to get into the Olympic Village. He lent it to me one day so I could see the men's gymnastic teams practice. One of my former roommates had been a gymnast, so I had a slight interest in the sport. Even though I looked nothing like the guy whose pass I was using, they let me right in. So much for security.
My girlfriend had just broken up with me. I heard she was dating a member of the Moroccan bicycling team. I was not surprised; she was exactly the kind of girl who would do that. I imagined running into them and explaining to him in French what a bitch she was, but never had the opportunity. Right after the Olympics ended, I went to Minnesota for two weeks with one of my friends, to stay in the town his mother had grown up in. The Olympic Village had taken months to construct. When I returned, there was no trace of it, other than a lingering color scheme of pastel salmon, teal, and light gray that had been ubiquitous that summer and remained visible in local businesses for years afterward. I will never see those colors without being reminded of the Los Angeles Olympics, and I can't look at a bottle of Southern Comfort without hearing "Jerrah. Jerrah. Jerrah."
