Side by Side, and Yet Poles Apart

On paper, these neighbors seem so alike.

David Gongora and Leo Rijn are sons of immigrants who came to the United States in the 1940s. Both grew up in Southern California and watched their fathers toil their way to successful livelihoods.

Gongora has three children; Rijn (pronounced Rhine) has two. At the Rijn home live two rescued dogs -- Angus and Moon, an ornery rat terrier and placid chow-esque mutt. At the Gongora home live three rescued cats.

Their lives intersected 18 years ago, when each bought a house on a spacious lot yards apart in Echo Park, back when that quirky neighborhood was more convenient than cool.

They share a driveway, so Rijn can reach his hillside home, upslope from the Gongora place.

“The driveway offers a weird analogy,” Rijn said. “It’s a symbol of the weird cooperation we have to have, even though we’re so opposed to each other in other ways.”

Christian, conservative and a loyal Republican in a liberal redoubt, Gongora sensed that he was going to raise eyebrows, if not hackles, when he staked the pro-President Bush signs into his lawn. Some 72% of Echo Park voters sided with Gore in the last election, and 9% went with Nader. Bush polled less than 15%.

But no matter, Gongora reasoned: “You’ve got to stand up for what you believe in.”

Rijn couldn’t agree more. He went to his home studio, grabbed his power jigsaw, fashioned two plywood John F. Kerry signs (one in the shape of the country, one rectangular) and stuck them in his frontyard. His wife, Linnea, added a third.

“Those Bush signs pushed me over the edge,” said Rijn, a sculptor and peace rally participant whose politics lie to the left of Kerry.

Now, five signs supporting Kerry or Bush jostle for attention at two homes on Lake Shore Drive.

Passersby stop and chuckle at the local depiction of the national divide of red state vs. blue state. Cars slow to savor the mini-demonstration.

It is easy to imagine the heated arguments of near neighbors with such strongly opposing points of view. But such is not the case. Instead, they simply do not mention the Kerry/Bush face-off on either side of their shared driveway.

The two live by precepts and values that are as clear to themselves as they are foreign to their neighbor. Both have strong beliefs about the war in Iraq, corporate culture and religion.

Both families vote regularly, although the Kerry folks might tremble at Rijn’s support.

“I’ve never picked a winner yet,” Rijn, 50, said airily.

Tall, lean and elegantly bald, he folded himself into a chair in his shady backyard gazebo and built a case for Kerry that was passionately tepid. One of his signs says it best: “Vote Kerry, the lesser of two evils.”

When he looks at the long-jawed Kerry, Rijn sees an Ent, one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s walking tree people. But, he said, he sees past that.

“Bush lied to get us in [Iraq]. OK, Iraq was run by a dictator, but maybe we are too,” he said. President Clinton “already was bombing Iraq. In a way we were already at war. Bush, I felt, was making a grab for their oil that is blatant as hell.”

Rijn would like to support Ralph Nader, as he did in the two most recent presidential elections, because the “corporate takeover of the democratic voice” rankles him. But as anti-authoritarian, idiosyncratic and disillusioned with Democrats as he is (Rijn is an independent), he will vote for Kerry, he said.

“I don’t know. Republicans are controlled by corporate interest too, but at least they’re blatant about it,” he said. “Does that make them more honest? Kerry is married to corporate America.”

Lastly, overt demonstrations of religiosity, particularly by politicians, make Rijn shiver.

When he was a boy, Rijn’s Dutch mother took him to the local Presbyterian church in Fontana. The pastor’s style, he said, was stultifying, didactic.

“My mom was a real strong church-going Protestant, and she said it like that ‘PROTEST-ant.’ I think I protested about going to church about the age of 8.”

Gongora, 42, also had a Protestant mother, but his father, an immigrant from Mexico by way of Kansas, was Catholic. Gongora attended Catholic school during the week and a Protestant church on weekends. But he drifted away from religion and did not return until his life was in crisis.

After a period of hard drinking and job misery 12 years ago, Gongora pulled out a prayer tract from Calvary Chapel in Pasadena that someone had happened to hand him in the street. That Sunday, he said, he was born again.

“It was as if the preacher was speaking directly to me,” he said.

Both David and his wife, Dawn, say they are used to having their religious beliefs greeted with a certain amount of contempt from non-Christians.

“They say you’re wacky,” David said. “But the wackiness comes from knowing that God is in control.”

Two Clinton wins notwithstanding, the Gongora voting percentage is a bit better than Rijn’s.

Neither David nor Dawn has ever voted for a Democrat in a national election, although David has supported a few for local, nonpartisan office.

What Rijn sees as corporate corruption, Gongora sees as a pro-business stand that makes America prosperous. The war in Iraq, he said, is a necessary step to root out terrorists and keep the United States safe from them.

“I believe he’s the right man for the job right now,” he said of Bush. “He’ll go to any length to make sure the U.S. comes out on top. He’s not perfect, but he seeks wisdom.”

One of Rijn’s signs -- the lesser-of-two-evils one -- makes Gongora smile. “See? Even he thinks his candidate is evil. I don’t think mine is at all.”

Bush is guided by his principles, Gongora said. Kerry, he added, wants world opinion to guide U.S. policy.

At school, the Gongora children are teased about their parents’ support for Bush, evident not only by the lawn sign but the bumper stickers on their cars.

“They’ll overhear teachers saying that Bush lied or other kids will say, ‘Oh! Your mom and dad vote for Bush!’ ” Dawn said. When Gongora first put up the Bush/Cheney signs, someone took one down during the night and left it in his trash can.

“I thought it was very disrespectful for someone to do that, because it was on my property,” Gongora said. “I wouldn’t do that to someone.”

In the meantime, if the Rijns and Gongoras happen to run into each other, they will nod or maybe lift a hand in greeting. Linnea and Dawn chat occasionally; the husbands generally smile and keep going.

It is nothing personal, both insist, but Gongora keeps a spare Bush sign in the house for emergency, and Rijn has a supply of plywood ready to go.