Gettin’ to Know the Guys

To: Mayor Dick Riordan City Hall, Los Angeles

Dear Dick:

A few days ago, in comments following the sentencing of those two cops in the Rodney King case, you said now is the time for the people of L.A. to get to know each other. You specifically mentioned getting to know bank presidents and retired postal workers.

It occurred to me when you said it that while my acquaintances ranged from working pimps to unfrocked Jesuits, I didn’t know any bank presidents or retired postal workers. Given the recent activities of the latter group, I’m not even sure I wanted to.

Nevertheless, I decided I would make an effort on your behalf to meet someone in both categories. But then the question arose, while a retired postal worker might be accessible, how do you get to a bank president?

I spent a couple of days on the telephone badgering friends and people who protect banks from image-bashers like me. Initially, they were suspicious. Especially the Bank of America. What was I up to? Was this another lousy Martinez effort to humiliate the nation’s second-largest banking institution?

You see, Dick, they’ve never gotten over my last Bank of America column, about a branch manager in the Valley who issued an order insisting that all of his female employees wear underwear.

They figured their underwear policies were none of my business . . . but they did rescind the order.

*

At any rate, I managed to line up conversations with Harry Yardley, a postal worker for 12 years in the Santa Monica Mountains, who got bored delivering mail and quit; Carl Schatz, who is president of the Bank of Encino, a kind of mom and pop bank he founded several years ago, and R. Thomas Decker, executive vice president for the Bank of America.

I wasn’t actually going to get to know two bankers, Dick, because one banker is a feast, but when I cast my line in the water and both fish bit, I reeled them in.

I met with Carl in the morning in his tidy little bank in the Valley. We were on a first-name basis right away.

He had just come back from two hours with the dentist to repair a detached dental crown and had decided to replace the crown with gold. Carl pointed out that the price of gold had increased from $330 an ounce in February to $381 an ounce today and it was a good investment, even if it was in his mouth.

Carl is a handsome man of 75 we once described as spunky. He is also extraordinarily well-dressed. I, on the other hand, was thrown together in the styleless manner of a shoe clerk. But Carl was born in East L.A. and raised during the Great Depression, so he was used to it. Anyhow, the Valley is not exactly the center of haute couture.

Later I met R. Thomas Decker. It is usually my policy not to trust a man who uses an initial for his first name, but I found R to be friendly, intelligent and approachable. I guess you have to be to get to the 51st floor of an Arco Tower, which is the headquarters for the Bank of America in Southern California.

R, at 55, is not a Depression baby. He was born in upscale Sausalito, just north of San Francisco, not in struggling Boyle Heights. Also, he has a degree from Stanford, which is the social equivalent of winning your halo in heaven.

It was a lofty session in a rarefied atmosphere. We talked of fiscal responsibility, the new L.A., sports, sailing and restaurants. R was in his shirt sleeves and patted his tummy twice to indicate he wanted to lose weight. A regular guy.

*

It was late afternoon by the time I got to Harry Yardley. He was having a beer out of what looked like a mayonnaise jar at the Marco Polo pizza place in Topanga Canyon. It replaced Bruno’s Dead Dog Saloon, which folded.

A 62-year-old reconstituted Brit, Yardley became a postal employee by accident. As a matter of fact, both Carl and R entered banking by accident, but it wasn’t the same accident. If you want to know more, Dick, you’ll have to talk to them yourself. I’m running out of space.

Harry, who does odd jobs now, lives in a 16-foot trailer and spends a lot of time drinking with friends. He has no wife, no phone and no television set. He’s a happy man, Dick. R is a bachelor too, but he probably has a phone and a television set.

I’ve got to admit that I felt more relaxed with Harry than with either Carl or R, although I liked them both. I might even invite them all to a barbecue someday.

There you have it, Dick. I did what you asked. But I’ve got news: If we’re going to make this town work, it’s not the bank presidents we’ve got to get to know. Drop by the barbecue and I’ll fill you in.

And, oh, Dick . . . bring your own mayonnaise jar.

Yours for a friendlier L.A., Martinez.