A Journal of My Mid-Life Crisis

9 November 1997 - Random Walks Through Memorials, Trials, and the Arts

Part 1: Memorials

Yahrzeit (Yiddish for a death anniversary, literally "year time") for my father was Tuesday night and, as I lit the memorial candle, I found myself thinking about how much my life has changed in the 12 years since he died and wondering what he would have made of all of those changes. Some of them were certainly things he would have approved of (professional successes). I have no idea how he would have thought of my involvement in storytelling - probably a mixture of pride at my creativity and confusion over how something so unconventional could be such a major part of my life. The trip is probably the thing he'd have been most puzzled over. He would have been concerned about the risks I'm taking by stepping off the career ladder for a while and he would never have understood why I feel so driven towards going off the beaten track.

Travel was never something that made much sense to Dad anyway - not surprising given his own early experience was one of displacement. I remember that even as a child the difference between my parents was obvious. Mom had photo albums of summers in Parksville bungalows and eating birthday cake with Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney. While Dad seemed to have sprung full-grown from the Statue of Liberty. I always knew he was a Survivor, that he had endured horrible things as a child, but they weren't talked about in detail. One night we were eating dinner at Giovanni's, an Italian restaurant in Oceanside, and the placemats had maps of Italy and he began to talk about his path through DP camps after the liberation of Dachau. There were two things about Dad that I learned the first time that night. One, was that he spoke Italian fluently. And, two, that he was a person, not just a father. I didn't realize that I learned those things then - I couldn't have been more than 12 or 13. But those paper placemats are still one of the most vivid images of my childhood.

Despite all that, the thing most people who knew Dad would remember about him was his sense of humor and I think that mine is very much in the same vein. He was an optimist, always able to look at the bright side of things, to joke through pain.

Which brings me to Peter. (See the entry of 5 October 1997) The memorial service for him was Sunday morning at Rand and what struck me the most was how consistent people's recollections of him were. People talked about Peter in different environments - at work, on boats, skiing, storytelling, etc. - but everyone had similar words about his enthusiasm, his spirit, his optimism. I think the comment that Norman made summed it up for me. When Peter talked to you, he made you feel like you were special and that he was honored to be with you. That's a valuable gift and I feel immensely honored to have known him.

Part 2: Trials

I mean trials in the sense of the justice system, not trials in the sense of tribulations. In Los Angeles, one gets called for jury duty far more often than in any other place in the known universe. I had changed dates a couple of times, which they've made easier to do with an automated system that avoids the hours of trying to call the court that I'd gone through in the past, but I wanted to get it over with. The key thing to remember about jury duty is that it is infinitely more interesting if you actually get on a jury. However, you will inevitably spend hours waiting around a jury room before that happens.

So Monday morning I drove down to the courthouse. Central Civil West Court is in Koreatown, just across from Lafayette Park. It's a pity that the park has severe problems with drug dealers and is not considered safe, even during the day, because it would otherwise be an attractive place to take a picnic lunch. At any rate, there was the usual waiting around for jury orientation and check in. And more waiting around afterwards. At about 10:30 they called a panel, prescreened for people who could serve at least 60 days, excluding me as Aerospace only pays 10 days (and only every 2 years). It was the only panel they called all day. I had brought a stack of work-related junk mail and got through almost all of it. I also had a nice conversation with two other women - one a genetics counselor for Kaiser and the other an architect who runs a company doing architectural tours of Los Angeles and publishes a magazine. We went out to lunch at The Clay Pit in the Chapman Market, which was a typical Indian restaurant, a bit pricy for its sort but good enough food and a nice setting. After lunch they started dismissing people for the day. I was there until about 3 or so, at which point I got put on the call-in panel.

Call-in is a sort of limbo in which you call every day after 11:30 to find out if you need to go in at 1:30 in the afternoon to the court. I didn't have to go in the rest of the week, so I got a fair amount of work done at the office, but it's frustrating trying to set up meetings and not knowing what your schedule will be.

My past experiences of jury duty were rather different. The first time I was called was Beverly Hills Municipal Court and I only waited around about a day before getting on a jury. The case was an attempted burglary from a motor vehicle and hinged on an eyewitness who said the two kids being tried were not the guys she saw trying to break into this car. There was only circumstantial evidence for the prosecution. This sounds like it should be cut and dried, but we didn't reach a verdict, largely because of one racist woman who didn't care about the evidence and wanted to convict these kids of being Hispanic in West Hollywood. It was an enlightening experience for me, because this woman had seemed perfectly nice all through the 3 or so days of the case, and I was shocked that she turned out to be a narrowminded bigot who believed that locking up people on the grounds of race counted as doing something about crime.

The second time I was on jury duty I was downtown and ended up on a jury in a civil case that was only interesting because it involved a lot of money. It had to do with a multimillion dollar real estate deal and whether or not the general contractor and the developer had made an oral contract. Again, I found the deliberation process to reveal the worst side of human nature. There was one woman on the jury who I had already pegged as an airhead and she continued to prove that she was incapable of logical thought by insisting on discussing the 30 or so other questions we didn't have to answer if we decided that there was no contract. Then there was another person whose attitude could have been summarized as "screw the rich" and who didn't care about the facts. At least civil cases don't require unanimity so the idiots didn't derail justice.

Last time I thought I was being smart by volunteering to get sent to traffic court (from downtown, which was in the midst of the O.J. case so was more of a zoo than usual), thinking I would get on a nice one or two day drunk driving case and be done with it. Instead, I found out that they mostly use juries in traffic court (which actually handles other sorts of misdemeanors, too) as a way to intimidate people into plea bargaining, so they have almost no actual trials. In the 10 days, they called maybe 4 panels. The only one I got called for was a shoplifting case and I was dismissed by the defense attorney.

The really good jury duty story I heard, though, was from my boss. He was on a jury for a case that involved "lying to the DMV". The Department of Motor Vehicles is obviously important in California as they actually wasted the money to bring a guy to trial for allegedly lying to the DMV in order to get the address of someone who had stolen a horse from him. What makes the story particularly silly is that the prosecuting attorney actually managed to get the evidence that this other guy had indeed stolen the horse and served time for the crime excluded! Luckily the jurors were not as complete idiots as the lawyers and laughed their way to a verdict of innocent.

Part 3: The Arts

Lots of arts related stuff all over my life this week.

• I saw The Full Monty Tuesday night. It was pretty amusing and about what I was in the mood for.
• I went to Long Beach Storytellers Wednesday night. It had been a while since I'd been able to get down there and it was good to see people again. We're doing Tellebration again this year (the night of 22 November) and I am psyched for it!
• I went to the Contemporary Crafts Market in Santa Monica (a twice a year art show) with Penny. I don't think she and I are very compatible shoppers, as I am compulsive enough to have to see everything before I buy anything while she likes to linger for ages when she sees something she likes. (Nor do we have the same tastes, but that is actually less important to shopping compatibility than shopping style is. I've shopped with Marcia for years and she wears pastels but we can still shop well together.) My major purchase this time was a set of anodized metal and glass bookends. I also bought two pins and a magnifying glass with a lovely turned wood handle. Another highlight was running into Alex, who was part of the (now-defunct) stitching circle, and chatting about life in general with her.
• The first storytelling concert of the W.O.W. series was Saturday night, which featured Angela Lloyd. She's always so interesting, very much out there with her performance, and I always enjoy her mix of story, song and poetry. I particularly appreciate that she's not afraid to experiment. Her show was more serious than I've seen her in a long time and I know how hard that is for someone who is used to using a lot of humor, which gives you more immediate audience feedback.