County’s Economy Is Looking Better, but Some Can’t See It Yet
Economic growth in Orange County is up at a moderate pace and will keep getting better throughout 1996, the experts are telling us. Unemployment here is at about 5%. That’s considered extremely low.
This news is going to make Kevin Evans of Santa Ana feel much better as he waits for the bus to take him to a job site where, experience tells him, he has less than a 50% chance of catching on.
Those state unemployment statistics have always seemed a little cold to me--5% is good, as long as you’re among the other 95%.
Evans, who says his past income has been mainly in sales and marketing fields, has a wife and three young children. Though unemployed, he’s partly responsible for his own financial dilemma: He could be collecting weekly unemployment. But Evans is just too stubborn. A better word, of course, is proud.
We talked outside the state unemployment office on Grand Avenue in Santa Ana. He shows up there every morning that he isn’t already on a job, to look for new employment postings. Evans uses hand gestures to indicate he’s already thought through filing for unemployment relief.
“I know that line [for unemployment checks] is there,” he says. “But I want to stay with my way as long as I can. Jobs are the backbone of America. I just know that one day I’m going to show up here and they’ll have something perfect for me.”
Until then, it’s one temporary laborer job after another in his attempt to cover his $740 rent and feed his family.
It’s not all sad stories in that building. One man told me he’s a construction worker who collects seasonable unemployment when it rains, and has every year since 1976. Some applying for unemployment payments stood in line in suits and ties, and one woman wore designer clothes.
But many in the building were like a 35-year-old Santa Ana woman named Lorena, mother of four whose husband works in a T-shirt shop. She’s worked years as a machine operator, but that’s left her with back trouble. Now she needs a job, she says, “where I can sit at least part of the time.” This was her first time at the unemployment office. She brought her 8-year-old daughter, Rosala, with her because the girl speaks better English.
I’m sorry to say that when I approached them, the mother thought I had a job to offer her. “I’ll work hard,” she quickly said. As we talked, it was obvious that hard work is all she’d ever known.
Pat’s Day: The late Pat Nixon missed by just a few minutes being born on St. Patrick’s Day. But the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda will have its own “Pat’s Day” on Saturday, March 16, her birthday.
Admission to the library will be free that day, and the first 100 visitors will even get birthday cake. There’s also an afternoon Marine Band performance. On display will be orchids representing countries the former First Lady visited during her husband’s years in Washington.
Around the Town: When the Republican presidential candidates reach Orange County for politicking, they’d be wise to head straight for the Orange County Zoo to have their picture taken with Samson the bear. Have you ever seen a wild animal stir up so much excitement?
Now Santa Ana-based Calavo avocado growers, world’s largest cooperative in that market, has adopted Samson. And Samson could do worse: He happens to love avocados, and now gets 25 pounds of free ripe ones each week from his new foster parents. Next step: Calavo says the zoo may have an avocado hunt at Easter time, instead of the old-fashioned egg plan. . . .
Laguna Beach gets a nice plug in this month’s Travel & Leisure magazine. “A coastline as beautiful as any in the south of France, and not a Gap in sight,” says writer Kimberly Brown.
Problem with these travel writers, they’re all on expense accounts when they recommend places to eat. Kimberly Brown’s favorites: Splashes (Surf & Sand Hotel) $40 for lunch for two, and Five Feet on Glenneyre Street, $70 for dinner for two. . . .
The Army’s 173rd Airborne was sent to Vietnam in 1965 for a scheduled 90 days of duty. It left seven years later. It’s putting together a reunion July 10-14 in Anaheim. If you were one of its paratroopers, call (818) 969-4320 for details. Of course, feel free to call me. I’d love to talk with you. . . .
The 7th annual Southern California Golf Expo opens Friday at Anaheim Convention Center ($7 admission). Free clinics for improving your game include golf psychologist Elaine Moore’s offering: “Free Your Mind, Free Your Swing.” So that’s what it takes. . . .
Wrap-Up: I know I’m among the fortunate: I’ve never gone a single day since school that I haven’t been employed. And always by a company that could be counted on to meet its payroll. I’m sure that’s true for most of you too.
But I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like not knowing when that next paycheck would be. Or what it would feel like to be fresh out of high school, telling the world I was ready, only to discover the world wasn’t ready for me.
Jeremy Rezzonico is a good sport for letting me tell his situation. Rezzonico is 20 and energetic, a graduate of Saddleback High School. He’s got no money for college--though he wants very much to go to vocational school--and the only job he could find after graduation was clerking at a Circle K. “And I was lucky to get that,” he says. He was fired from that job in a dispute with his boss. Now he’s at the unemployment office hoping for anything.
“One minute I’m in high school, the next I’ve got adult bills to pay,” he says. “Oh man, do I want a job.”
Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or sending a fax to (714) 966-7711.
