Taking Refuge in a Far Place

Yes, we have escaped. We have taken refuge, if only for a weekend, in this little coastal village a few hours north of San Francisco. Once, Mendocino (pop. 1,008) was a logging town. Today, its commerce revolves around bed-and-breakfast inns and gourmet restaurants.

Actually, my wife and I scheduled this trip long before the riots. We spent our honeymoon here, and always intended to come back on our five-year anniversary. Plus, I was curious about exploring innkeeper burnout.

A restaurant owner had tipped us to this bit of California irony. He explained that city people, seeking a second life far away from traffic jams and corporate intrigue, move here, fix up a quaint little Victorian and go into the b-and-b business. At first, it’s all so wonderful, an escape fantasy realized. But over time, they wear down. Too many early mornings rolling out blintzes. Too many soiled sheets. Too many tourists tramping about at 2 a.m., singing Tyrolean fight songs.

Finally, he said, the burnt-out innkeepers “start to get grumpy and quit taking care of the guests.”

Well, it seemed like a natural column--until the riots. The travails of bed-and-breakfast operators now seem frivolous. All the same, we wanted to take flight. So, burnout or no burnout, here we are.

Here, to be exact, is a saloon called Dick’s. I am drinking a cold Sierra Nevada pale ale. Brewed in Chico. Yea, California. It is Mother’s Day afternoon, and the bar is jammed with locals wearing droopy jeans and knives attached to their belts. Everyone is yukking it up. The bartender is catching martini olives with a toothpick. A conversation rages about how modems can change the world. There is much fuss made over a woman who is nursing two broken ribs, along with a bottle of Bud. It’s her first day back from the hospital. Life imitates Cheers.

Outside, tourists troll the sidewalks, shopping. It is bright and warm, with a strong wind. Wildflowers are in bloom, painting the grassy bluffs of the coastal headlands with streaks of blue and yellow. The volunteer fire department is conducting a hot dog sale. There are no windows covered with plywood. There are no Humvees in the street, no cop helicopters overhead. I pick through The Mendocino Beacon: It contains not a single mention of Los Angeles.

We are staying at the same inn as we did on our honeymoon. The innkeeper was just starting out then, having quit a bank job in Los Angeles. For the record, he as yet does not appear to be burned out. Tuned-out, maybe. I have tried several times to engage him in conversation about the riots, but he always skips away from the subject.

“Sure bet you’re glad to be out of L.A.,” I offer sagely.

“Yes,” he says, “and did you reconfirm your dinner reservations for tonight?”

“Well,” I say later, “we’re sure glad to be here this weekend, you know?”

“Yes,” he responds, “and how was your drive?”

And so forth. I begin to wonder if word of the hostilities ever reached this town.

Of course, I could whip out my press tags and ask some direct questions, but direct questioning seems heavy-handed. Besides, we hardly need any more quotes from strangers about Los Angeles. So much has been said already. On this trip, I’m content to sit quietly and soak up the local color.

In this pretty town, and from the distance it provides, what went down in L.A. seems almost unbelievable, a bad movie. It is a comfort to take a break from boarded-up windows and Daryl Gates, and for the first time since the trouble began, I find it possible to entertain a faint measure of hope.

Now the bartender is telling a joke. “Have you heard the new motto of the LAPD?” he asks. I keep quiet, but know the punch line. This one made the rounds in L.A. in the first days of the videotape. “We make you feel like a King. “

The denizens of Dick’s cackle with laughter. Except for a woman who, though smiling, can only hold her ribs and grimace.

I take the weary one-liner as my cue. The furlough is finished--and so, with a swallow, is my Sierra Nevada. It’s off to our last meal in Mendocino. Tonight, the dilemma will be whether to order pork loin with brandied prune sauce or osso buco with gremolata. Tomorrow, it’s back home. Mendocino is nice, but the real world is in L.A., for better or for worse.