Downtown, outside of the office. You know the festive week is waning when you see a urine sample cut in the seasonal greens.
I’ve had stranger days. Certainly worse ones. But there is nothing quite like a day that begins with an early trip to the airport. Not just ME-STYLE early, but necessarily early. Natalie's flight closes the doors at 6:30, so you should probably be pulling out of the garage by five AM. Trouble is . . . it’s New Year’s Eve, and you’re up talking with Daughter and chatting about this and that, and you have to stay up to say happy new year.
And then it’s 12:30 . . . and then it’s one. And then you have to make a decision: should I stay up all night? Can I stay up all night? What if I only make it halfway, crash, oversleep . . . no, we’ll just set 14 alarms, each a minute apart. But if I sleep now (and it’s 1:26 AM) I will get four hours or so, and you can operate on four. Not literally, particularly if it’s brain surgery, but four gives you enough tenancy in the realm of Lethe so you’re not lost in the waking world, and the deficit is enough to ensure you’ll sleep when you get home. So I went to bed.
Daughter stayed up. Pushed it. Rode the night to the bottom of the Four O’Clock hour, then woke me up, earlier than I’d planned. TOTAL REVENGE, I’m thinking, for all the times I lashed everyone to the airport earlier than they’d like. Perhaps she just wanted company. In any case, up and out. Birch was unhappy with the suitcases and barked and barked, so we let him come with. He was delighted, but then his brain puts suitcases + car ride together and comes up with “I’m being dropped off,” even thought that’s only happened twice, years ago. Maybe he was thinking of the combat of the previous night, when he’d had a rare winter battle - an event that led to the most absurd ending for a year I can remember.
He was chasing something with great speed and vigor - from the looks of it, the prey would escape, and then he would be on it again, and it would bolt, then stop, trapped, or run in the wrong direction. One fatal move to the right instead of the left, and it was over. I was shouting at him while this was going on, running over to get his collar - I know, I know, I’m no fun. Won’t let the dog embloody himself to cap off the annum.
He was pawing at a very large rabbit, inert. I pulled him away, and of course he turned into a statue. He would not leave. This was his. I got growls when I tried to pull him to the door, and that necessitated a stern scruff-gathering and neck grasp to tell him this was not acceptable. I shoved him forward an inch. Maybe two. I needed help, so I called out for Natalie. She was upstairs with headphones on, I later learned. Thus, for five minutes, the neighbors heard this from the darkened backyard:
NATALIE!
NATALIE!
NO. NO. (to Birch.)
NATALIE!
NO. NO.
NO. NO.
NATALIE!
NATALIE!
Eventually I got him inside, picked up the rabbit with a shovel and heaved it over the front fence, where Nature will somehow take care of it. (Looked later. Gone. Thank you Nature.) Damned annoying affair, all of it.
So now she’s gone and I’m home with Killer, backing up and sorting the 2024 work and cleaning and talking to myself, a lot. I expect to talk to myself a lot the next month. I’d better. It’s the only way I’ll hear another human voice, aside from Judge Judy at 5 PM I watch that sometimes. Reminds me it could be worse.
Our weekly recap of a Wikipedia peregrination. Expect no conclusion or revelations, but if you've been with us since this started last year, you know . . . sometimes we learn interesting things.
I don’t know what I was looking for, or if I was looking for something at all. But somehow I found this woman, sitting on a utility pole.
This led me to search for Annie Jenkins, to see what became of her. I was doubtful I’d find anything. One of the returns went to a skyscraperpage.com page about . . . Los Angeles utility poles.
It has a better picture of the pole sitter.
The location: outside the Tower theater. We could talk about that, but we’ve grazed on the topic before. What caught my eye was the discussion on the same page about helipads on downtown LA buildings, how there used to be a law requiring them in new construction, and how helicopter service - indeed, helicopter buses were part of the area’s transportation system.
Take a look at this system!
It fell from favor after the copter-buses started falling from the skies.
Los Angeles Airways Flight 417 was a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter that crashed on August 14, 1968 in the city of Compton, California. All eighteen passengers and three crew members were killed. The aircraft was destroyed by impact and fire. According to the National Transportation Safety Board the probable cause of the accident was fatigue failure.
The accident happened when the (arbitrarily designated) yellow blade, one of five main rotor blades, separated from the spindle that attached the blade to the rotor head. Following failure, the helicopter was uncontrollable and it fell to the ground. The fatigue crack originated in an area of substandard hardness and inadequate shot peening.
Thanks, wikipedia editor, for linking “shot peening.” If you care. Anyway, the helicopters were a major part of Disney Tomorrowland lore, as this page shows with remarkable detail and fantastic old pictures. There had been another fatal crash in 1968, and the double-whammy would begin the end of Los Angeles Airways.
What does that have to do with Annie on the pole? Absolutely nothing, which is the whole point of this feature.
But I will note that the synchronicity between images and unrelated stories is one of my favorite things about old newspapers.
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