Cinco de Mayo Comes of AgeCinco de...

Cinco de Mayo Comes of Age

Cinco de Mayo is to Mexican restaurants what Mother’s Day is to card shops. The fifth of May is a patriotic holiday in Mexico, celebrating the Mexican army’s victory over an invading French force in 1862. In the Los Angeles area, awareness of the occasion has been steadily growing.

“In the last few years, I’ve seen schools become more involved with it as integration takes place. They’re trying to become more sensitive to the community,” said Rosalva Emerick of Northridge, a student attendance counselor with the Los Angeles Unified School District. “And Latino kids are beginning to take more pride in the holiday, too.”

As San Fernando City Councilman Doude Wysbeek sees it, “Cinco de Mayo is becoming a community event, with Anglos and Hispanics celebrating together.” Lions International and the city of San Fernando will again be co-sponsoring a weekend festival at San Fernando Park on Saturday and Sunday, with food and game booths, live entertainment and carnival rides for young children. Wysbeek estimated that about 4,000 people attended last year.

Even Taco Bell is hyping the day. “We’re doing more media support this year, emphasizing our concern about the holiday,” said Rob Petersen, manager of the Taco Bell in Agoura. “And we’re starting about four or five weeks prior to it, rather than just the week before.”

Home Is Where the Project Is

Home improvement projects can multiply faster than rabbits. One of the more popular projects that homeowners are inflicting upon themselves these days involves doors and molding.

“You know those lightweight interior doors that you can put your fist through--and a lot of people have done that? Well, people are replacing them with solid recessed-panel doors, usually made out of paint-grade Douglas fir,” said finish-carpenter Ron Capadagli of Cap Construction in Encino.

But many people who plan to replace just the door end up replacing the casing around it as well. “Most older homes were built with 1 5/8-inch casing, but the look now is wider casing--about 2 1/2 or 3 inches wide,” said Bill Schultz of House of Moulding in Van Nuys. “It makes the door more of a focal point.”

With wider casing, your skinny baseboard starts looking a little pathetic. Schultz said that older baseboards are also being replaced with wider, more detailed ones.

Your eye now wanders upward--where ceilings and walls meet--and you can’t help but think about how crown moldings would really pull the room together. “A lot more people are getting tuned into moldings. They see them in more elegant homes and ask, ‘Why can’t I do that in my house?’ ” Schultz said.

Schultz’s theory is that the skyrocketing price of homes in Southern California has prompted people to stick with what they have and dress it up.

Recycled Rap

They’re not the kind of rappers you see on MTV. Excluding the lead rapper, their ages range from 40 to 70. So far, they have only one song in their repertoire--called “Trash Is Cash, Yo!”--written by lead rapper Cile Borman, who performs in an outfit a Martian would envy and calls her character “Recycle Ray.”

Composed of members of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn., the group of at least 10 (depending on who’s available on any given day) are sometimes called the Hillside Rappers. Their purpose is to promote recycling. “We’re always fighting the Lopez Canyon Landfill, so we wanted to do something positive,” Eileen Barry said.

Recently, the Hillside Rappers performed during lunch hour at Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley. Hip teen-agers--dressed in so much black that it looked like a morticians’ convention--at first were skeptical. “Who are they?” was the question of the hour.

Eventually, though, the students began enjoying the lyrics. “Pick up that trash, don’t toss that bottle. Recycle that plastic, times are getting drastic. . . ,” Borman urged them, dressed in a red outfit accessorized with recycled materials.

Students Randy Cruzado, Juan Aynat and Tony Brown were asked to dance on stage alongside the rappers, but they didn’t do much dancing. “The music was way too slow,” Cruzado said.

But they all gave the rappers credit. “They’ve got spirit!” Aynat said.

Trucking to the Left

Doyle Woods, owner of Homer Mann Trucking in Sun Valley, has an idea he’d like you to consider. His 10-truck firm specializes in heavy hauling, and some of his trailers have as many as 52 tires on them.

“I think a lot of freeway incidents stem from trucks driving in the right-hand lanes. Then it takes six hours to clear up the freeway, and tempers flare when you’re sitting in gridlock,” he said. A solution, he said, is for trucks to drive on the inside lanes near the center divider, opposite of where they’re now supposed to drive.

“Trucks don’t get on and off the freeway as frequently as cars do. Usually they get on and they stay on for long distances. Wouldn’t you think that cars could intermingle with each other--as they’re getting on and off--a lot better than cars and trucks now do?” he asked.

When asked to describe his biggest beef with car drivers on the freeway, Dino DeMaria, a Homer Mann trucker, doesn’t hesitate: “Big trucks need to leave more room in front of them than cars do because it takes us much longer to stop. But no matter what you do, people always have to get in that space and then they slam on the brakes,” he said.

The far left lane--where Woods would like to see trucks drive--is called “the dollar lane” among truckers. Said DeMaria: “If you get caught in there, it’s a $100 ticket.”

Overheard

“My mom used to burn our food a lot when we were kids, so I think of burn as a flavor rather than a mistake.”

--Woman eating breakfast at Uncle John’s restaurant in Encino