A Walk in the Park With Jack

W.C. Fields was often heard to remark that he much preferred whiskey to dogs. “Alcohol,” he’d observe, “can take care of itself, which is more than you can say for a dog.”

While I am not suggesting that you walk your whiskey, and not your dog, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, the idea has merit in view of the turmoil surrounding Topanga State Park.

I am not a whiskey man myself, but I have it on good authority that whiskey, while it might embrace other sins, does not bark or chase squirrels, which are among the chief objections to dogs in parks.

I am not intending to imply, by the way, that booze is a perfect companion. For those who are considering trading their schnauzer for a bottle of Jack Daniels, I hasten to say it wasn’t a dog that killed W.C. Fields.

Which brings me, however circuitously, to the case of Flavia Potenza, a community activist locked in combat with the state Department of Parks and Recreation.

The fight is not over whiskey, but over her right to walk Ben, Rocky and Willow in Topanga State Park, on whose fringes she abides. Dogs, however loving, are not allowed on park trails.

Flavia has been cited five times in the past few months, paid $130 in fines and is on two years’ probation for violating this rule, but swears she will fight on.

“If necessary,” she told me the other day, “I’ll go to jail for my dogs.”

Oh, my.

There are roughly 30 million dogs in the United States, most of which live and love in Topanga Canyon. Their utter lack of social grace is a continuing subject for debate.

The latest uproar concerns Flavia’s contention that one ought to be able to walk one’s leashed dogs on a fire trail and not be harassed by park rangers while doing so.

In one instance, Flavia says, a ranger stood outside her house shouting for her to come out and be cited for having earlier violated the no-dog rule. Amazingly, Flavia complied and was, indeed, cited.

She is, she will tell you, a most cooperative person who is concerned with her community, in whose boundaries the park is situated.

As proof, she offers a list of activities that include her founding stewardship of the sprightly Topanga Messenger, and a character reference from her landlady, which I find the most impressive credential of all.

Most landladies would rather rent a cell on Death Row than utter a positive word about a tenant.

Flavia, we must therefore assume, is the kind of person even a landlady can love.

Then why, I hear you cry, is she the center of a controversy that threatens civil war in Topanga? Simply put, not everyone prefers dogs to whiskey.

In more complicated terms, she feels targeted by the system, is angry that she can’t walk her dogs on the park trails and is annoyed that letters to park officials have gone unanswered.

“I’m saying to them, ‘Talk to me, for God’s sake,’ ” she said the other day, her eyes flashing fire. She was wearing a sweat shirt with a cow on the front to indicate, one supposes, her otherwise serene and bucolic nature.

“I’m saying why not establish a volunteer dog patrol to guarantee they’re kept on leashes and are cleaned up after?”

I asked this of park personnel who replied, in effect, that if you let a dog on a trail today, someone’s going to want to walk an elephant on a trail tomorrow. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

Dogs, they point out, intimidate hikers, chase small animals, bring in diseases and leave do-do on the trails, among other unpleasantries.

“If you allow them on a leash,” one ranger said, “you can bet that they’ll be off the leash when no one’s looking.”

All points of view have been significantly aired on the pages of the Messenger in essays by Flavia and responses by those in disagreement with her stand.

“Maybe Ms. Potenza has been living in the company of canines a bit too long,” one person wrote. Another letter began, “Who in the hell does Flavia Potenza think she is?”

I hike the park trails occasionally, and accept without rancor the possibility of meeting dogs, coyotes, horses, rattlesnakes or time-locked, unregenerated hippies.

I consider them all a part of the ecosystem. What I do not consider part of the system are rangers with guns and pickup trucks, and maniacs on mountain bikes rocketing down a fire trail at 30 m.p.h.

My solution is simply to ban everyone and everything from the park, with the possible exception of me and my martini. I will sit on a knoll under a tree, sip a little glory and contemplate the barking of the crowd below, as the world rolls unnoticed into hell.