Walls Come Tumbling Down, and Neighbors Come Face to Face

There is something a little strange about the relationship between San Fernando Valley homeowners and their walls.

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To contradict the poet: Something there is that absolutely ADORES a wall, in these precincts.

Case Study No. 1: Craig Ducette, 47, accountant, Mission Hills.

After five or eight or 30 seconds of what seemed interminable shaking Jan. 17, the second thing to cross Mr. Ducette’s mind was the status of the 6-foot-high cinder block wall around his house.

“The first thing was I just wanted the earthquake to stop,” said Mr. Ducette, who describes himself as a very ordinary man. “Next, I wanted to check the wall . . . I know it sounds a little weird now, though.”

Only after he discovered that the wall had been reduced to rubble did Mr. Ducette turn his attention to the condition of his house, the whereabouts of his dog, and finally, to his own safety.

Case Study No. 2: Norman Simpkins, 74, retired, Northridge.

Since his wall collapsed, Mr. Simpkins, who has lived on Prairie Street for 46 years, has taken to patrolling his home with a .270 caliber Winchester rifle.

Each night, Mr. Simpkins, a man with energy beyond his years, rousts himself from a comfortable bed at midnight for 30 minutes of guard duty. He wakes up again around 2:30 a.m. and stays up most of the rest of the night.

Other than being a tad sleep-deprived, Mr. Simpkins, like Mr. Ducette, seems relatively well-adjusted--with the notable exception of his fixation on getting his wall rebuilt so he can shut the world out again.

“People can look right in the yard and we felt very exposed,” said Mr. Simpkins. “So we’re hurrying as fast as we can to get the wall back up.”

Ducette and Simpkins are two of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people across the wall-crazy Valley now ready to rebuild after their concrete barriers collapsed, turning neighborhood streets into a sea of broken cinder block, brick and stucco.

So for the past month or so, instead of the bleak view of the very boring and very orderly drab gray and rusty brown-colored walls that line the Valley’s boulevards, people traveling slowly enough have had the chance to sneak a glimpse into the secret life of these very private suburbs, where dirty swimming pools, messy patios and unkempt lawns are the order of the day.

But don’t blink, or you’ll miss it, because this glasnost -at-the-local-level is disappearing fast.

Take Sal Dominguez, 31, a North Hollywood convenience store manager who was recently knocking down the cinder block wall around his house with a heavy sledgehammer.

“Putting the wall back up gives me the feeling of being in control again,” said Mr. Dominguez, opening himself up to a whole raft of psychoanalytical interpretations.

“It helps my spirit.”

Uhmmm, doc, so what is it with these walls?

“In some ways, people in the Valley, and West Valley in particular, represent pioneers moving west--moving from places like the crowded Westside,” theorized Santa Monica psychiatrist Mark Goulston after hearing a description of this love affair with cinder blocks and mortar.

“Maybe there’s a spirit of people moving west to stake their territory out. Maybe people in the Valley have more of a frontier spirit than the cosmopolitan spirit you would find in a city. Part of the western spirit was to have a clear line between your territory and the territory of others.”

OK, that sounds reasonable. So why’s it only the men?

“Males are more concerned with the perimeter of their property, while women are more concerned with the hearth, the inside of the house,” Goulston said. “Maybe men feel that their fortresses have been violated and are now going to counter it by securing the walls.”

Since the walls came down, some residents, even some of the men, have actually had sustained conversations with neighbors. But, take heart. No need to fear an outbreak of out-of-control block parties any time soon; some of the conversations didn’t go so well.

“I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting the folks next door in the 12 or 13 years I’ve lived here,” said Warren Johnson, 51, the owner of a ranch-style house on a now largely wall-less stretch of Superior Street in Chatsworth.

“Well, wouldn’t you know it, the first time we met, we got into an argument about what material to use to rebuild the thing.

“My feeling now is, I don’t care if I speak to him again. I mean, let’s get this wall up already.”

Good fences, and yes, good walls, make for good neighbors, to steal from that poet again.

To be fair, supporters of walls say they have their functions.

Not only are they like the three-lock front door of an urban apartment, but they also shut out street noise, keep wayward children out of swimming pools and block wandering pets.

But because they also divide property up so neatly, many realize that they have become neighbors in name only.

For instance, after his wall collapsed, Simpkins--the man who has been guarding his home with a gun--said he had finally had the opportunity to meet other residents of his block.

“My neighbor behind me, we always kind of stared at each other,” Simpkins said of a neighbor of 16 years. “But I had to go over there so we could decide what to do about a fence. It was the first time I had really talked to him.

“And across the street is a psychiatrist,” Simpkins added. “He’s a very nice man too.”

So is he going to build a wall anyway?

“I think this time we’ll put up a fence,” he said. “Maybe a chain-link fence.”

The winds of change blow soft.