Small Victories Make a Working Vacation Worth It

John Ruiz gave me that look when I told him I planned to stay in town for most of my summer vacation. “Well, if you’re not jetting off to Europe,” he offered, “maybe you’d like to help put L.A. back together?”

“Sure,” I replied, thinking Ruiz, who is a thoughtful Angeleno, was interested in his hometown’s future and wanted to talk over ideas about improving the city.

Well, I was only partly right.

Instead of just talking, Ruiz, 44, a licensed contractor, literally put me to work.

Along with others he recruited with the same come-on, I helped rebuild three chimneys in South-Central and El Sereno that had been damaged in the Jan. 17 earthquake. I cleared away trash and abandoned cars from two vacant lots in east Hollywood scarred by the rioting two years ago. And, in stifling three-digit heat, I helped repave the driveway of a couple in South Gate who couldn’t pay for the work.

This was the hardest, dirtiest vacation I ever took. But I’ll remember it fondly.

*

Ruiz’s idea is simple. With all of the earthquake repair work going on in the city, there might be some opportunities to donate his expertise, time and materials to help those who couldn’t afford repairs.

He proposed to concentrate his efforts in the inner city and perhaps spread a little understanding and hope.

“There’s enough paying jobs out there to keep me busy but I thought it might be nice to just help out some people who need it,” he explains. “If I hear of a job that needed doing, I can do it for nothing. Bring in some volunteers to help out and maybe, just maybe, some of us can talk to others in our city and figure out what’s going on. What’s wrong with that?”

It sounded like a neat idea. I’m no construction worker, but I was willing to be a volunteer in Ruiz’s little enterprise. So were John Garcia, Marcus Little and Jason Kim, who all work for governmental agencies in the Southland.

Because the four of us work in offices, we wondered if we could handle the work.

At John Harris’ modest stucco home in South-Central, our fingers ached as we hauled away bricks and trash. My right shoulder throbbed as we rebuilt Mabel Adams’ chimney in El Sereno.

There were some small victories.

I got to drive a tow truck to haul away an abandoned car. I taught my fellow volunteers how to clean bricks since I had some experience at it as a teen-ager.

As we made the rounds at Ruiz’s direction, it was clear that many appreciate his efforts.

“I can’t believe you guys want to help me when you all should be in Hawaii or something,” Harris said. “God bless you.”

“Why are you doing this?”asked Mabel Adams.

“Why not?” Ruiz replied.

In return for the cold cups of water Harris gave us, Jason taught him how to say water in Korean. I still can’t pronounce the word.

At the home of Salvador and Yolanda Alvarez in South Gate, Marcus was taught the proper way to make flour tortillas from scratch. In return, he instructed the couple from Guatemala on the “real way” to cook barbecue chicken.

“This is really good,” Salvador Alvarez said after biting into a chicken wing.

During the work, we chatted among ourselves and others about little things--like how to persuade one’s kids to study harder in school or how to weed a back yard. There was no forced conversation about the city. Heck, we didn’t even talk about O.J.

“Oh please,” Mabel Adams thundered. “If he’s into fixing chimneys for free, then I’ll get interested in him.”

We got some stares from the skeptical when our mission and purpose were explained. “Nobody does something for nothing,” one man said.

Well, we did.

Ruiz is set to do more free work in the fall. More chimneys need to be rebuilt. More good vibes need to be sent out.

“This may sound crazy, but we need each other,” he says. “This is no time to ignore the city and just make money. Let’s clean up the city and maybe we can clean up our own act in the process.”

*

I did manage to do some other things on my L.A. vacation. I drove the Century Freeway for the first time. I finally got around to seeing CityWalk at Universal Studios. For $1.35, I rode the Blue Line all the way to downtown Long Beach, which is undergoing a renaissance of sorts.

When I returned to work at the newspaper, Ruiz called to ask what I had planned for the fall.

I knew what he wanted to hear and eventually gave in. “Football, football, football,” I replied, “. . . and a chimney or two.”