Color you eager.
You couldn’t help it – you liked fixing things.
Whether they needed fixing or not.
Sometimes you knew things – whether you actually knew them or not.
Case in point – Ansley, your best friend; his sister Maxine and his dad, Sid and the coffee shop.
Mae And Jerry’s. Nobody named Mae or Jerry – breakfast and lunch – closed before dinner. It was the previous owners and Sid never got around to changing the name even in 1950 when he bought the place. Little Santa Monica Boulevard, right across the street from what was going to be Century City. Hot property. A future date with a wrecking ball, but for the moment, a slice of Old L.A. quaint.
It was your Summer job. Pay was good . . .for you.
Wash dishes, clean tables, break eggs, peel potatoes.
Since Sid was Ansley’s dad. The hours were good, with all the Fries you could eat. Of course, you had to make them first.
But there was that hat. Made it look like were missing clown makeup but you really didn’t mind. There was a theme to the coffee shop. You could never figure out what it was. You assumed the uniforms were holdovers from the previous owners – it explained the caramel colored brim and the permanent aroma of mothballs.
So the day the water heater decided to up and die it was full-on panic. Sid was running through his phone book, looking for a cheap supplier. Full priced was not in his vocabulary. Cheap or Free was.
After an hour he found a water heater – a used one. Only catch; he had to install it himself.
No problem – you know all about water heaters. Done it a million times. Could install one in your sleep.
You didn’t know a water heater from a Pontiac, but you were a Boy Scout, you were handy and you had a practical, deductive mind.
Besides, how tough would it be to hook up a few pipes and turning on a few spigots?
Piece of cake.
When it arrived it was up to you, Sid and Ansley to get it off the truck. The driver shook his head and quickly drove off.
In its previous life, it probably provided tepid water for a five year old’s wading pool. Filling mop buckets and providing hot water for pots and dishes was no doubt way above it’s pay grade. But the price was right, and by Sid’s calculations, they didn’t really use that much hot water anyway.
Luckily you knew the difference between a water main and a gas main – After some squinting and wrangling you finally got everything up and running.
Justifiably proud of your accomplishment, and somewhat bewildered you actually pretended to know what you were doing, you went into the kitchen and flipped on the tap. After ten seconds, steam was billowing into the sink and life was beautiful. High-fives all around while you feigned humility and chalked it up to one of your many imaginary merit badges.
The elation lasted five minutes before the tap went stone cold and the gushing torrent shrank to a lifeless drizzle.
Undaunted, you headed back to the Water heater, cranked up the pressure and increased the thermostat. You figured the more, the better.
And it went along fine until just before closing time. Sid left – Ansley’s sister Maxine who also doubled as waitress and cashier was busy adding up receipts. Ansley was mopping the floor and you were putting away leftover food.
It was after a few minutes that you began to wonder where the smell of rotten eggs was coming from. It was rank and it wasn’t coming from the refrigerator. You followed the smell which was growing in intensity and getting borderline gag-worthy, finally you realized it was coming from the direction of the Water Heater.
Perplexed, you ran to open the door housing the culprit, just as it decided it had enough and exploded, sending boiling water in a geyser all over you and everything in a 20 foot radius.
Feeling like you were dunked in a pool of burning coffee you tried to get out of range at least until the water emptied.
You got far enough to remember the gas was still on and anybody caught rubbing two sticks together within a hundred feet would send the building and most of its occupants flying in pieces over Little Santa Monica.
But the ominous hissing had stopped. Maxine shut off the main gas valve from the kitchen.
She shot you a look intimating she had met smarter bowling balls in her life. She was the older sister – she was also a Business Major at UCLA. She was a former Girl Scout. You were one of Ansley’s dingbat buddies – you were hopeless.
You were also scalded up and down your arms from boiling water. Once the shock of having a disaster to deal with died down, intense and excruciating pain took over with a vengeance.
Since your only form of transportation was a City Bus and two transfers, Maxine took pity and drove you to UCLA where Student interns swarmed over you, slathered you in ointment and wrapped you like a mummy or a newborn, parking you in a hallway until a Student Resident could assess the damage and appraise the procedure.
Ansley promised to call your parents so they could dig you out and left along with Maxine while you gazed at the ceiling, wondering if the nurses could give you something to render you unconscious.
It didn’t happen – not for hours. But in the meantime, the only thing that was going to render you unconscious was the radio playing from the Nurses Station.
The sound of droning violins and hypnotic announcers had you out in less than a minute.
Here is an hour’s worth of KGBS-AM from August 28, 1964 just to remind you.
