An Ode to a Year Thankfully Departed

We made it through this year just gone,

We wrote “2000” on our checks,

Survived twelve months of news reducing

All of us to nervous wrecks.

Before the gloom, hand out the cheer:

For, knock on wood, disaster has

In nature’s forms from floods to quaking

Given us--this once--a pass.

The LAPD filled the news:

Three Rampart “guilty” verdicts tossed,

Millions paid to frame-up victims--

Dollars and morale the cost.

We lose some good ones every year,

All to the Reaper and the grave,

Like Julian Dixon, congressman,

And he who founded Pic ‘N’ Save.

L.A.’s big do’s were New Year’s Eve

And then the Democrats’ convention.

The first a snooze, the latter cost us

Millions more than our intention.

The D.A.’s office was his life

For decades; voters did evict him

In November, making Gil

Garcetti one more O.J. victim.

Cooley picks it up from here

To master, if a mortal can,

The quandaries and struggles of

An office vaster than one man.

The dude who started up the Crips,

Now in his Death Row destination,

Writes children’s books and this year earned

A Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

A toxic touch of chromium 6

Is L.A.’s new enviro scare,

Now that we’ve passed to Houston, Tex

The first-place prize for foulest air.

In these parts crime can take a twist:

The Palmdale kids who stretched their means

By faking twenties--or the guy who

Counterfeited vintage jeans.

A Bel-Air schoolboy swung a rose

And smacked some kid with thorns that sting.

In Hollywood, a thief made hay

Armed with a can of Silly String.

The man who stole to pay for acting

Lessons has been cast in prison.

Three bank robbers learned too late

That “Coldwell Banker”--well, it isn’t.

We heard this straight from Sheriff Baca,

He who’s hired to chase down varlets:

“The train has left the tracks,” quoth he-- You won’t soon find that line in Bartlett’s.

“I want to say three magic words,”

Our mayor told the Dems’ convention:

“Welcome to the city of angels”--

Small numbers don’t get Dick’s attention.

Some things don’t change--the rich are still

As different as are mice to mountains.

We suffer in the dark and cold while

Bevvy Hills lights up its fountains.

And Steven Spielberg, ET’s dad,

Has plans for a huge riding stable;

Caesar would have built one like it

If he’d been financially able.

For all its bad spells we survived,

And weep to see 2000 go.

A year like that, we will not see

Again, and thank the Lord it’s so.

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Patt Morrison’s column appears Fridays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com