At Year’s End, Time to Confess

Good morning. I have great news. Only three days remain in 1991. Three more days and we will be done with it. Goners. History.

As years go, this one was a grouch, and I say huzzah to its end. The sun came up each morning in 1991, and that’s about it for the plus side.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking 1991 did OK in some respects. We won the war, right? Communism collapsed, or collapsed some more, right?

Right. But what did 1991 do for us out here in Paradise? We got smacked, that’s what.

We got a recession that came without invitation. We had a drought that refused to leave. Oakland burned. Wilson fizzled. Taxes went up. Profits went down.

On the whole, a whiny, grouchy year in Paradise. The kind of year where a plumber would videotape the Rodney King beating and then spend three months trying to have his life made into a movie.

The kind of year where everyone seemed to make mistakes. Like Wilson betting that he could double-cross the gays on fair employment legislation and get away without damage.

Like the Dodgers believing the Atlanta Braves would fade at the finish.

Like Daryl Gates and Alan Cranston thinking the public would forget their sins if they just hung on.

And not exactly a perfect year in the columnizing trade, either. In my gloom I have reviewed my past year’s work and found enough sufficient error to warrant a speedy confession. You want examples? I got examples.

Let’s start with the column that ran twice. Oh, yes. In August I flailed away at the state lottery for its crime of conniving the poor into gambling and then went on to make a few “suggestions.” Such as the state offering three-card monte games at welfare offices on check day. Or mounting slot machines on the sidewalks outside crack houses so the customers could lose a few quarters while they waited to make their buys.

Very clever. Then in December, with memory failing under the strain of a bad year, I decided to flail away at our new lottery director. Accusing her of conniving the poor, I made some “suggestions” about possible new ventures. Like mounting electronic crap games in alleys. Or bookie operations at welfare offices on check day.

Ah, well. Maybe it was a point that needed to be made again. And again.

Then there was the prediction that none of us would ever see a dime of Prop. 103’s promised insurance refunds. Prop. 103, I divined, had set up a never-ending conflict that would live on, like a poltergeist, long after we had gone to our reward.

The day after that column ran, the Auto Club of Southern California agreed to fork over $80 million in refunds to its customers.

Moving on quickly, we come to my advice that Mayor Sonny Bono of Palm Springs should seek another line of work. He took my advice and is now running for senator. Mea culpa.

Then there was my characterization of Jerry Brown as the engaging gadfly of the coming presidential campaign. Moonbeam or not, I said, Brown and his message of anger and moral corruption would keep the race interesting. Watch him and enjoy.

Instead, Brown has become the one-note, campaign bore. Sharing the stage with other Democratic candidates, he reveals himself to be arch, condemning and arrogant. Which is to say, the same Jerry Brown as always. I should have known.

Anyway, that’s how it went in 1991. We made some mistakes, got whacked, hung on. We watched TV, discovered CNN, stopped flushing. I’m sure there are some who had great years, who have swell stories to tell about lives that got turned around and headed upward. It’s just that I don’t know any.

But next year, who can say. It’s got to rain sometime, doesn’t it? The deficit in Sacramento can’t be bigger than this year, can it? Daryl Strawberry will settle down and hit, won’t he?

Yes, I predict Strawberry will hit. Rain will come. Banks will make loans and houses will sell like hot cakes. We will all get rich off the suckers just arrived from Iowa, and California will be paradise again.

Hey, if you’re gonna predict, predict big. If you’re gonna dream, dream the California dream.