"An Unusual Case Of Boldness"

“Hot town, summer in the city…“ (John Sebastian (1966)

Los Angeles, same year as above, same season as well.

Let’s start with this.

I am embarked on my very first trip to “The Coast.”  Wait. It is even bigger than that.  This is the first time in my life I have gone anywhere alone.

(As well as the first summer I did not go to camp since I was 9 years old.)

I am now 21.

We “open” – if this were a movie – with a lonely sojourner, sitting on a bench on a Sunday morning early in July, waiting for a bus to carry me to UCLA, to attend the Bertolt Brecht Summer Theater Workshop.  

I will spend the summer there. 

As an actor.

Days before, I had no idea if I’d been accepted.  I had submitted an application but had not heard anything back.  The reasonable “move” was to call them and find out.  But I was too scared.  Too scared to hear “No.”  Too scared to call “Long Distance.”  That’s a pretty far call.  Which, in practical terms, means nothing.  Unless you’re a wimp.

DRILL SERGEANT, READING FROM “WIMP RECRUITMENT” ROSTER: “Pomerantz!”

“Yo.”

Let’s pick this up a little. I am already past 200 words.  (Appreciative Note:  My friend Alan called for me.  They told him I was in.)

Though I was unaware of it at the time, buses do not run frequently in Los Angeles.  Especially on Sundays.  People take pictures of them when they show up.

That’s how infrequent they are.  Comedically speaking.

A nearby clock registers the time, telling me I have waited two hours for this bus.  Above it, is an electronic “Temperature Indicator.”

It reads “97 degrees.”

So, two hours sitting on a bus bench in 97-degree heat.  (The bus bench advertises Groman’s Funeral Home.  I hope they don’t think I’m dead if I just faint.)

The night before, I had taken a “Complimentary Shuttle” from the L.A. airport, transporting me to the downtown L.A. Hilton, where I would spend the night, before going to UCLA.

(Uh-oh.  This is starting to feel like a two-parter.  I’m really sorry.  I seem unable to write short.  Okay, back to our story.)

I chose the L.A. Hilton for two reasons.  One, I had heard of the Hilton.  (I had actually stayed in one once in New York.)  It was “pricey” but I splurged.  (Plus, there were no “Complimentary Shuttles” to anywhere else.) The second reason I chose to stay there was because the downtown L.A. Hilton is downtown, and I imagined that UCLA was downtown as well.  Why did I think UCLA was downtown?  Because the University of Toronto is downtown.

I thought t hat’s where they put the universities.

It turns out UCLA is not downtown.  UCLA is in the L.A. community of Westwood. 

Which is, like, fifteen miles from downtown.

That’s why I was taking the bus.  

Which – in the context of my wait and this extended narrative – finally arrives.

Lugging my overstuffed suitcase up the stairs, I board the bus, and ride, seemingly endlessly, down Wilshire Boulevard, heading for UCLA.

Reaching the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood, after a near hour-long bus ride, the driver tells me to get off.

So I do.

But I do not see a school.

Imagine, if you will, an untraveled Canadian, standing at the corner of “I-Have-No-Idea-Where-I-Am” and “What-Am-I-Supposed-To-Do-Now?”, in the company of a forty-pound suitcase before suitcases had wheels.

Woe was I.

A Yellow Cab drives by. I hail the taxi.

I did not know you do not hail taxis in Los Angeles.  In L.A., taxis are only dispatched.  (This was before Uber and cell phones, so you can forget about that.)

The cab pulls over. Never before or since have I seen an automobile look genuinely surprised. 

“We don’t dothis!”

I get in, dragging with my suitcase, say, “I’m going to UCLA”, and we’re off.

Two minutes later, the driver announces,

“We’re here.”

I sheepishly pay, and climb out, pulling my suitcase.

After a trans-continental flight, an almost three-hour bus trip – including the wait – and a subsequent two-minute cab ride, I have arrived at my coveted destination.

I am at UCLA.

Mustering all the strength in my Olive Oylarms, I hoist my suitcase off of the ground – barely – and I head off, searching for the college’s “Office of Registration.” 

Unaware, though not for the first time on this adventure,

The UCLA campus is huge. 

Stay tuned for our thrill-packed conclusion.