A CHRONICLE OF THE PASSING SCENE

All in the Fireman’s Family

The year was 1957 and Alexander Shutz and Elmer Robar were firefighters with Station 90 at Van Nuys Airport.

They were looking forward to taking their families to the firefighters’ picnic in Soledad Canyon that June.

Robar’s son, Robert, was 18 and just graduated from Van Nuys High School, and Shutz’s two girls were 11 and 13.

“I was an 11-year-old attending Van Nuys Junior High School when we went to that picnic,” Suzanne Shutz Robar remembers. “My sister Kitty and I were dying to find out who the cute guy was.”

The cute guy was, of course, Robert Robar.

“He was an adult and I wasn’t,” she says now, laughing.

Her romantic fantasies were put on hold while she grew up.

Ten years later, Robert asked Suzanne for a date.

“By then I was a 21-year-old graduate of the University of Redlands and a student teacher and Robert had been with the Fire Department for about seven years,” she says.

The day after the first date, Robert and Suzanne knew they were going to be married, and just months later they were.

Married life has been full of what a firefighter’s family life is full of. “Missed birthday parties, dinner parties, vacations canceled, you know,” says Suzanne, who adds that she wouldn’t trade those 24 years of marriage for anything.

Her husband, Capt. Robert Robar, 53, who retired a couple of weeks ago, will have a retirement party in August honoring his 32 years with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

On the Friday that he said goodby to his men at Station 96 in Chatsworth, he cooked lunch for the guys, then his wife and three children and Dalmatian dog came to visit.

One of his children, Ryan, 20, a student at Moorpark College, hopes to become a firefighter.

He Sought the Law and the Law (Finally) Won

The world may not need another lawyer, but no one told William Hogan of Burbank, a recent graduate of Whittier College of Law.

As he waits to take his exam to be admitted to the California Bar in August, he is wondering what his job-searching fate will be in this deflated economy. At 55, he is older than most law school graduates.

Hogan once studied for the Catholic priesthood back when he went to college the first time, but that was not his real calling. Ever since he can remember, he has wanted to study law.

“After getting degrees in philosophy and English from Gonzaga University in Spokane, I ended up in the entertainment field rather than law school,” he says.

Hogan says he worked in promotions for CBS and ABC, but eventually became a writer-producer. He wrote and directed several episodes of TV’s “Death Valley Days” shortly after Ronald Reagan left the program to become governor of California.

Hogan, who is unmarried, says that when he finally made the decision to enter school, no one wanted to talk to him.

“Some schools wouldn’t even send me an admissions application form,” he says.

The admission counselor at Whittier recognized that being an attorney was Hogan’s lifelong dream and decided to take a chance on him.

“She understood this was not a midlife crisis, and for that I’m grateful.”

Naked Ambition

The Elysium Fields in Topanga Canyon will celebrate National Nude Weekend Saturday and Sunday with two major events.

There will be a wine tasting and massage party, and members will bring used clothing for distribution to Los Angeles riot victims.

Chris Moran, a spokesman for this sylvan spot where people feel free to frolic naked, says the group could have chosen to collect canned foods, “but we couldn’t resist the obvious choice.”

Clothes brought by members and their guests will be sent to the First A.M.E. Church in South Central Los Angeles for distribution through the offices of the Brotherhood Crusade.

No one will be going around the undressing room donating members’ clothing without their knowledge, he adds.

“We understand the concept of giving the shirt off your back, but we don’t want anyone arrested on the way home,” Moran says.

Horse Sense Teaches Discipline

The California Rangers are not a Valley-based expansion baseball team, although some members do play baseball.

They are not a secret paramilitary group hiding out in a bunker in Newhall, although they originally were formed to watch the coastal waters during World War II.

They are a statewide group of youngsters from 9 to 19 who learn discipline and responsibility through riding and caring for horses. The local group of just under 20 meets at Don-E-Brook Farms in Saugus. They are known as the First Regiment Cavalry.

Members belong to the oldest youth-oriented horseback riding organization in the state.

In addition to the weekly riding instruction and drill, the riders often get dressed in their yellow and black equestrian outfits and participate in parades and riding competitions.

The monthly dues are $10, and there is a $15 monthly fee for the rental of horses for those who don’t have their own.

“It’s low enough so that kids who might not be able to afford to learn to ride can do so here,” says Carl Walper, who oversees Monday night’s Troop Q, one of four groups in the regiment. It’s a solid alternative for kids who, if they didn’t have the program, might opt for something less legal. “The kids in our program are more likely to get into veterinary medicine than trouble with the law,” says Walper, who works with the group during his off hours as a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy.

Overheard

“I hate coming to Kaiser because on the way I pass 7,000 garage sales, and by the time I get here I’m broke.”

--One woman to others in line at Kaiser Permanente Hospital pharmacy in Woodland Hills