Agouraphobia

Agoura Hills is a typical white-flight community just over the hill from the San Fernando Valley.  It straddles Highway 101 west of Calabasas.  At least since middle school, my granddaughter has referred to this place, her birthplace and current home, as "The Bubble".  Neither she nor any of her friends seem to have the slightest desire to venture over the hill.  Why should they?  According to her, they already live in a perfect world.

Now comes a delightful and oh-so-true video from a young lady ('Olivia'?) that explains The Bubble and its rules.  The video, titled "LONG SHORTS!", is essential viewing for young people in Augora and those who love them.

LONG SHORTS! is shared by Kim Tracy Prince, a mother of two young boys who moved over the hill from the San Fernando Valley because of the better Agoura-area schools.  Prince blogs as "Agoura Hills Mom" (agourahillsmon.com).

The video takes its name from the shock of young girls in The Bubble at the discovery that some people wear shorts that aren't, well, SHORT.  (From a guy's perspective, the quest for ever shorter shorts is one of the most wonderful aspects of this protected enclave.)  There is nevertheless some awareness that old people may harbor 'outside' attitudes.

Last night my granddaughter and I were walking up a quiet residential street at night, carrying some Thanksgiving food to another nearby family home.  She was barefoot and wore a big T-shirt over her natural self.  Up ahead was Grandma and one of Grandma's friends from church.  "OMG, Grandma's friends are SO conservative, and it looks as if I'm not wearing pants!"  Actually, her tiny shredded white shorts weren't visible.  "Just walk inside of me and I'll provide a screen" said Grandpa, as we quickly avoided interception.

A play on the word agoraphobia (without the U) ends the video with a wink.  As it's respelled, with a U, it means "fear of Agoura".  The base disorder, though, is what may affect the entire Agoura Hills community.  Agoraphobia is a fear of being in places where there is a chance of having a panic attack that people may witness, and where getting away rapidly may be difficult.  In extreme cases, this anxiety disorder may lead an afflicted person to never leave home, which is the only place they feel safe.  That sure sounds like my Agoura Hills family!  (See the Medical News Today description from British firm MediLexicon International.)

Graphing Boys

Graphs help us understand the real world.  My granddaughter Anna was doing her seventh grade science homework.  At the same time she was fielding calls and texts about her 13th birthday party this weekend.  For the first time, over half the friends she has invited are BOYS.  In between the interruptions, I asked her if she understood the terms independent variable and dependent variable.

I did my best to explain that the independent variable is the quantity that YOU select--or that exists regardless of whatever else is going on (for example, TIME).  The dependent variable is a quantity that changes IN RELATIONSHIP TO the independent variable.  "Given X [independent] then Y [dependent] will occur."  The independent variable is written across the horizontal (X) axis, and the resulting dependent values are measured up or down the vertical (Y) axis.  I gave Anna several examples, such as the time it took to heat an object and the resulting temperature.  They all drew blank stares.  

Then Anna said, with a mischievous grin, "Explain it to me in terms of boys, and then I might understand."  After a moment's thought, I suggested that if there were one boy in the room, Anna would be happy.  I could see from her look that that idea didn't work.  (After all, the look said, it would depend the boy.)  OK, then--TWO boys?  Alright (I got an instant smile), immediate happiness.  Three boys, you would be giggling.  Four boys you would be overjoyed.  (Her smile was getting bigger.)  "How about 30?" she asked.  OK, suggested Grandpa, euphoric, ecstatic.  Your degree of happiness is dependent on the number of boys in the room.  It is the dependent variable.  Anna marched forward through her homework with the concept of dependent variables firmly in her mind.

Graphs help us understand the real world. 

Lucky in Agoura Hills

Greetings from Denise in Agoura Hills. I am lucky. I have both my children and both grandchildren living within 2 miles of me. I have Grandma Rose and Grandpa Tony just a few minutes away. I have extended family living in Santa Barbara, it doesn't get any better than this.

Don Quixote and SCNA

VC Reporter hit the newsstands Thursday, July 3, just in time for a long holiday weekend. On its cover, Ventura County's alternative weekly newspaper featured a story on "Naked Ambition" ("Local nudists rally for the right to stay exposed"). Reporter Jenny Lower wrote of a campaign by the Southern California Naturist Association to reinstate a nude beach just north of the Ventura County line.

"Bates Beach" is the colloquial name for an isolated stretch of state beach. You reach it by taking the Bates exit from Pacific Coast Highway, parking in the free public lot, and walking down a long sloping trail. The area proposed for nude use is far up the beach, toward Carpinteria. It is so far from the homes on Rincon Point that one would need a powerful telescope to see anyone there.

For 30 years Bates Beach had a clothing-optional tradition. It was heavily used by a group of regulars who paid more attention to their volleyball than their frequent disdain of swimsuits. About eight years ago one woman who lived in a house on Rincon Point decided to enforce her morality on the thousands of people who frequented "her" beach. She began a daily campaign of complaints to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff. They included a standard complaint form that she would re-date and FAX daily to the local Sheriff's station.

State beaches are covered by a long-standing state parks system rule, validated in the courts, called the "Cahill Policy". Created in 1972 by a director of the state parks system, this policy seeks to allow clothing-optional use of traditionally nude areas while avoiding offense to other park system users who might object. The policy states that if a member of the public complains (and this does NOT include a park ranger's or a sheriff's deputy's personal objection to the nude use), the park ranger will ask the unclothed users to get dressed and to remain dressed for the remainder of that day. The following day, with presumably a new set of visitors, nude use can continue unless there is another public complaint. This is a reasonable, polite ask-and-comply system. It recognizes the rights of everyone to use public lands for personal recreation, while preventing "user conflict" between people who have different value systems.

Despite the fact that state park rangers traditionally manage a state beach, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff (who has a right to enforce county laws anywhere) decided to act aggressively at Bates Beach. Prodded by the frequent shrill complaints from the lone woman resident, the Sheriff began sending undercover officers to ticket undressed users without warning. Santa Barbara County has an ordinance that declares it a public nuisance for a person to appear in a public place (specifically including a public beach) unclothed. More important, the ordinance imposes a stiff fine and requires a court appearance. The aggressive campaign of undercover, surprise enforcement quickly decimated the population of users at this public beach. It turned out that most of the people who used it didn't want to do so if they were required to wear swimsuits at all times.

Today Bates Beach is nearly deserted, even in good weather. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff succeeded in doing what wealthy homeowners in Malibu and other elite beach areas have consistently failed to do. He allowed the protests of one rich resident of Rincon Point to turn a public beach into a private beach, to the benefit of local homeowners. This is probably the core public policy issue involved at Bates Beach.

All the posturing of law enforcement officials about an anti-nudity ordinance, and their specious claims that nude use "attracts perverts", probably masks the fact that aggressive law enforcement of anti-nudity rules at traditionally clothing-optional beaches reflects a personal value preference by the enforcing officers. This same scenario is playing out NOW at San Onofre State Beach, at the Orange County boarder with Camp Pendleton.

At San Onofre, a newly assigned supervising park ranger has successfully enlisted his boss, new state Director of Parks and Recreation Ruth Coleman, in an effort to suspend the Cahill Policy at Trail 6. Ticketing of nude sunbathers is supposed to start after Labor Day. There were no public hearings and no efforts to seek public input of any kind. Trail 6 draws over a million visits each year. The other five trails, which are available to those who prefer to be surrounded by people wearing swimsuits, lead to beaches that are comparatively deserted.

There have been *no* documented public complaints about nude use of the Trail 6 portion of San Onofre State Beach. There have been numerous complaints about people, often homosexual partners, who cross over the south boundary of the state beach to trespass onto Camp Pendleton land. Illegal sexual behavior on Camp Pendleton land is not uncommon. Nudists who peacefully use the Trail 6 beach area object to this problem as much as the state park rangers. Sending a million law-abiding citizens away is not going to fix the problem. Guess what. If all those unclothed beach users vanish, the state will not be able to justify as many park rangers. So there will be dramatically fewer rangers to handle the "perverts" problem, and NO members of the public to self-police the state beach. Just as at Bates Beach, sending nude users away still leaves the problem that supposedly justified the anti-nudity crackdown.

People who choose to enter public service need to realize that their role is to protect public resources for the enjoyment of the people they serve. Public service is not an entitlement to enforce one's personal morality under a cloak of authority.

As one of the founders of the Southern California Naturist Association, this writer was quoted extensively by name in the VC Reporter article. Since he is a member of a Perfectly Normal Family, this of course proves that nudists and naturists are Perfectly Normal People. If you want to check this out for yourself, SCNA holds a public discussion group on the second Tuesday of each month at a pizza restaurant in the San Fernando Valley. Call 818-225-2273 (818-CAL-BARE) or write 'scna(atsign)socalnaturist(dot)org' for the location. The photograph on this post is courtesty of SCNA's Nude Beach Alliance. Visit nudebeachalliance(dot)com for more information.

Cafe Laneaux

The next time you feel like having a big breakfast in the middle of the day, you might think about driving down to Cafe Laneaux. It's located at 8501 South Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90044 (telephone 323-752-8515). The two-story brick building is on the southwest corner of Vermont and 85th Street, across from the city's Mark Ridley Thomas Constituent Service Center. Take the Harbor 110 Freeway, exit at Manchester, and go west across Figueroa, Hoover and Vermont. I cross Vermont, turn right on Kansas Avenue, and find free street parking on 84th or 85th street. The area is safe during the day. If you don't want to park on side streets, metered parking along Vermont Avenue is 25 cents an hour.

Cafe Laneaux is one of the few family-owned sit-down restaurants in this area of South Central Los Angeles. (The community is so plagued with fast food chain stores that it asked the city council for a moratorium on building any more.) Los Angeles city councilman and former police chief Bernard Parks eats at the cafe, as do many law enforcement officers. It is open from 8 am to 6 pm daily.

Sandra Underwood owns and operates Cafe Laneaux, together with her daughter Lashawn and grandson John. It opened in about 2005 after a long battle with the city over upgrades to the sewer and other requirements for its aging building. Breakfasts of ample proportions are served all day. They feature a wide variety of meats, including pork or turkey bacon, pork links, pork or chicken or vegetarian sausage patties, ground beef patties, Louisiana pork or beef hot link sausages, corned beef hash, Spam, salmon croquettes, catfish, red snapper, chicken wings, ham steak or New York steak. Three-egg omelets, breakfast burritos, waffles, pancakes and French toast are served. Sides include hot grits, home style potatoes, steamed rice, hash browns, sliced tomatoes, fresh fruit and cottage cheese.

Lunch at Cafe Laneaux features salads, Po' Boy sandwiches of hot links, catfish, red snapper or shrimp, hot and cold sandwiches, a variety of hamburgers, and platters (such as chicken wings and shrimp) with a side, garlic bread and a small green salad. There is often a daily special. One recent day it was Barbecued meat with two sides (from dirty rice, macaroni salad or garden salad), with a choice of links, ribs, rib tips, beef brisket or pulled pork for the meat. Sundays Sandra Underwood moves into the kitchen herself to prepare soul food. It's the cafe's biggest day.

Cafe Laneaux is a work in progress. On a recent trip, Sandra proudly showed us the newly redecorated rest rooms that she had done herself. The ladies' room was bright pink with large, colorful framed pictures and a giant ornate mirror over the wash stand. In the back room, which can accommodate groups of 12 to 20 people, there was a newly installed corner stage. The cafe had opened to a Friday night karaoke session after its 6 pm closing. It was very successful, drawing over 70 guests, and Sandra plans to continue this every other Friday night.

The area around Cafe Laneaux is safe, and your visit will be pleasant, if a little different. Please note that not all parts of South Central are the same. For example, Figueroa Street around Manchester is a pretty gritty neighborhood where people with light skin and fancy cars will stand out. On Manchester near Figueroa you'll see a storefront church that explicitly welcomes the homeless and drug addicts and announces that it feeds daily. Drive right on by.