Odds & Ends Around the Valley
Soft Pedaling Ecology
These days when people talk about conservation and ecology, they usually say something such as, “I’m saving water and recycling, but I’m not riding my bike to work or anything.”
The disclaimer is meant to show that although these people are in favor of doing what’s expected, they aren’t raving-green nut cases or anything.
But Larry Krikorian rides his bike to work--from Silver Lake to Pierce College in Woodland Hills, where he is an English instructor--but he’s not a raving-green nut case either. He says it’s fun.
“A friend gave me my first racing bike about four years ago when I was really down and out, and I found that riding it made me feel better,” he said.
For the past nine months, Krikorian, 32, has been following a schedule in which he drives his car the 25 miles to school on Monday, with the bike on a rack. Monday night, he leaves his car at school and pedals home, and Tuesday morning he rides back. Tuesday night he drives home and Wednesday drives back. That night and the next morning he bikes, and so forth.
“I have a Benotto bike that has Italian styling, is made in Mexico, with Japanese parts and French wheels, and I really feel good riding it,” he said. “I’m like one of those anorexic runners that has to go farther and farther to get the same high.” He would really like to pedal both ways every day, but he holds it down to every other day because he says clothing is a problem.
“I get out of my riding clothes and shower in the faculty center when I get to school, but I’m always wearing the same thing I wore the day before because I forget to bring a change of clothing.”
Krikorian says the route from Woodland Hills over Oxnard Street to the Sepulveda Dam area over Burbank Boulevard to Lankershim Boulevard, down to Riverside Drive, over to Forest Lawn Drive and through Griffith Park is scenic, but not necessarily carefree.
Because Daylight Saving Time ended, “I have to leave school earlier to get home before dark,” he said. “It usually take me about 90 minutes to make the trip--which is faster than some people do it by car in rush hour. But darkness is too much of a hazard to risk.”
He also doesn’t ride in the rain. “It doesn’t make sense.”
The biggest hazard in pedaling to work has nothing to do with nature, however: It’s lunatic motorists, Krikorian said.
“There just seem to be some car drivers out there who want to give bike riders a scare,” he said.
Sky Watch
There are people who are plane junkies, who just like to watch anything that goes up, up and away.
You can find these people around any small airport, Van Nuys Airport being no different, except that it is among the busiest in the nation for small-plane traffic and has a lot of old flying military hardware that takes off occasionally, so the watching is about as good as it gets.
For almost 20 years, plane junkies have been hanging out at the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant at 16302 Raymer St. in Van Nuys, but the real hard core don’t dilute their sky watch with dinner or drinks. They take it straight, at the minute Airport Observation Area, which is open to the public but almost impossible to find.
To get to the observation area take a left off of Woodley Avenue onto Waterman Drive and go to the end, where there is a tiny parking lot next to the field. There, you can sit in your car and just watch.
Finding the place is a challenge because the sign announcing it is small if you’re going north on Woodley, and unreadable if you’re going south. And, if you do see the sign, there is another sign that says Waterman Drive is a private road, which it isn’t.
Kyoto native Hidenhiko Saki, who left Japan six months ago to live in the United States, is working at a nearby hotel. He spends Sundays watching the planes take off and touch down, and he brings along a radio so he can listen in on what the tower is saying to the pilots. He says it helps him to learn English.
Monroe High students Sean Dolezal, 16, and his brother, Michael, 14, live with their mom in Van Nuys. But when their dad comes for a visit from his home in Colorado, they take him to watch the planes.
It’s something of a busman’s holiday for Steve Dolezal. He’s a corporate pilot for McClosky Enterprises flying out of Aspen. “But you really see a lot of interesting aircraft here,” the father said. “We saw a Gulfstream II take off a while back. It’s a 12- to 14-seat corporate jet that probably costs about $7 million.”
Generation Gap Rap
Judy Kass is a professional do-gooder who has spent most of her career working with hard cases.
She has worked with mentally ill criminals, with battered women and children, with the mentally ill homeless. Now Kass, who has a master’s degree in marriage and family counseling from UCLA, is working with two groups she thought should get to know one another, teen-agers and the elderly.
Every Tuesday between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., the elders from the Pacoima Senior Citizen Multi-Purpose Senior Center and young people who attend the Pacoima Skills Center, a continuation high school, meet at the senior center for something called a Generational Gap Rap.
“It was my thought that getting the two groups together might possibly be good for a number of reasons, which it has,” Kass said. “The teen-agers, many of whom have never had a caring adult listen to them, are very willing to open up about their problems to the seniors. The children, many of whom have children of their own, respond to the kindness and mature thinking of adults who have no ax to grind.”
What is particularly poignant, the counselor said, is hearing the youngsters talk about how pressured they feel to join gangs, and their elders pointing out that there are always choices.
And the elderly get their opinions heard, as well. “The older participants have tried to explain to the young people how hard they have worked for what they have and how frightened they are by vandalism and other crimes against people and property,” Kass said. “I think seeing it from the older person’s perspective has been a real eye-opener for the youngsters.”
At first, Kass said, the elders were a bit slow to respond, but now the sessions have limited to 15 youngsters and 15 seniors.
Overheard
“Maybe we should restrict traffic on the Ventura Freeway to pogo sticks and unicycles.”--North Hollywood commuter
