I have decided that a hot dog . . . is something even a supervisor can understand. : Hot Dog Wars

We have weathered a thousand social conflicts the past few years in this heterogenous cultural biome we call the Valley.

There have been smut wars, freeway wars, disco wars, peace wars, gas wars, mall wars, church wars and wars over where to put monuments to war. War wars.

With some exception, they have been fought in a bloodless manner, though not without the theatrics that invariably accompany a good fight, from fist-waving to cat-kicking.

But the storm clouds that gather anew on the horizon warn that, this time, we may not escape so easily.

Men at arms and women who wait, I bring you dire portent of a new conflict looming: The Hot Dog Wars.

Please remain calm.

It began when a street vendor named Mort Diamond (Puppy Dogs $1.45, Full Growns $1.95, mustard and relish optional) was told that, henceforth, he would have to take his cart downtown for its yearly inspection and keep it indoors at night in an authorized commissary.

Mort, who is not a man inclined to whispery acquiescence, thought this outrageous.

He has sold hot dogs in Los Angeles for five years, two of them on the same corner in Canoga Park, and takes the same passionate pride in his business that a sailor takes in a tight bunk.

Each year, he has towed his scrupulously clean cart the short distance to Van Nuys for a thorough inspection, using city streets to reach his destination.

Each night, he has kept his cart at home, taking care to shelter it from weather, tucking it in with the tender equanimity a mother shows her sweet baby.

Few men care more about the implements of their trade than Mort Diamond.

“Then why in the hell,” he thundered, “are they doing this to us?”

Why is the county suddenly making its hot dog vendors drag their carts onto the perilous freeways to take them into town, and why are they forcing them to build or rent inside commissary space for overnight storage?

“These carts,” Mort fumed one day at his favorite corner, “are not meant for freeways, by God! Look at those tiny wheels! They’d fall apart!”

I watched as he laid a puppy dog in its bun, reminded of the perfect fluidity of motion displayed by the great Willie Mays when he swung a bat in San Francisco. What style. What poesie en mouvement .

“My cart won’t fit in a commissary,” Mort was saying. “It’s custom-made. Catering trucks aren’t kept indoors at night. This is the cleanest cart you’ll ever see. Why should it be kept inside?”

Before he became a street vendor, Mort owned a restaurant called the Dog Pound in Van Nuys. As I stood talking to him, a customer he recognized from the old days came up.

“There,” Mort said, pointing at him. “Ask him if I run a clean place.” To the customer: “Did I run a clean place in Van Nuys?”

“Well . . . sure,” the man said, wondering what was going on.

“Do I run a clean cart now?”

“Absolutely!”

“Did I tell you to say that?”

“Not at all.”

Mort turned to me as I took notes. “Write that down,” he said.

He is not a do-nothing hot dog vendor. When letters failed to elicit a response to his objections, Mort marched on down to the Board of Supervisors and rose to make his point.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich took his complaint to heart and ordered the Health Department to look into it.

It is not the level of anguish Antonovich would normally concern himself with. No hot dog lobby exists to donate to his political campaign, so why bother with their problem?

I have decided that a hot dog, unlike more oblique concepts, is something even a supervisor can understand. Further, the very word embodies an image dear to the American ethos.

Antonovich sees first the hot dog threatened, then apple pie, then motherhood, then the flag, then God Himself.

He envisions anarchy and nudity and fornication in the streets. He hears the F-word shouted in the halls of government. He hears little babies crying his name.

And all because of the fall of the hot dog vendor.

Well, sir.

Mort has a meeting today at the county Health Department. If things can be ironed out, fine. If they cannot, Mort warns that he is already starting to organize the county’s 800 hot dog vendors. There are 300 in the Valley alone.

He is going to lead them in a parade down the freeways into town, where they will circle the new inspection facility, and there they will remain until each and every cart is inspected or until the rules are changed.

It will be a parade to stand in history with Hannibal’s march on the Roman Empire, an assembly of defiance to match the Battle of Corregidor.

Hot dog men. Polish dog experts. Foot-long specialists. Vendors who use chili and vendors who use sauerkraut, their carts poised, their jaws set.

Therein will sprout the seeds of war, my friends, and even if its leader falls finally in battle, the Mort Diamond Society will live forever. God save the hot dog.

And keep that mustard comin’, America.