The Jury is Out

It's said (by marketers?) that Griffith Park is a "popular" spot for hiking, but I'd never done any there in all my life. Last weekend I labored a few hours up and down a thousand feet rise, but I'm not convinced I'd call it hiking.

I'd visited Griffith Park many times in my life, most often to the Observatory. I'd also seen the tiny trains, but never the zoo, and had the occasional picnic in what amounted to large front yards covered in grass and boasting picnic tables and trash cans, but that was about it. I worked with a guy from Philly who claimed to have hiked there once or twice, but I'm not sure where he went.

I used to do a fair amount of hiking, most often on weekends, but I'm such a nature snob that I never considered anything like this

to be a "hiking trail." I know, cheap shot, and not even the throngs of avid Griffith Park hikers consider it to be a "hiking trail," but it's fitting, in an "LA" sort of way. Nothing beats walking up and down a paved street.

But that's not the point.

Not surprisingly, I shared the route with some twenty or thirty other people, including one bicyclist. What was surprising was that nobody I "met" on my journey was particularly friendly. Maybe I appear threatening, but in more than one instance I was actually glowered at, but more commonly ignored. I consider this sad. I'm not sure if the men who gave me dirty looks were afraid I'd strike them down with a single blow and carry their women-folk into the brush or just generally annoyed by my presence. It wasn't as if I was littering, setting fires, or dancing naked in the afternoon sun.

When hiking up north or in Angeles Forest the people I'd run across were all routinely friendly, or at least civil enough to exchange greetings and smiles. There was none of that on the Mt Lee road, and I worry about the future of humanity. Maybe everyone else is eager to avoid their fellow man, but I just don't know.

One thing I do know is that walking up and down a paved road apparently puts most eveyone in a "leave me the fuck alone/ you don't exist" mindset, which, I think, isn't much in keeping with my memories of hiking.


Big Train Show is being enhanced, though not at the moment. I'm writing this, instead.

I'm filling in and correcting details about the Hollywood Sign, trying to make the text not only accurate but, more importantly, "come alive" and give the readers a less vague feeling of what it's like for Sid and everyone to visit the Hollywood Sign. I think details, truthful ones, may help here.

I'm reminded of the "write what you know" dictum. Now, I don't claim to be an expert on the Hollywood Sign, but I guess I have more knowledge about hiking up there now than I did when I first wrote the story. Then, I did some online research and asked around, but now that I've actually been where my characters went, I have a more personal take on it. The things that impress me aren't ones that others may notice or write about, so my memories are slightly different than those recounted by others.

I think that may be an "important" lesson. It's true that six people seeing something will have six different accounts, and this is often used in fiction, sometimes just to show this fact. The picking and choosing of which details to include, as well as the character's reactions to them, I think, is what makes characters real. Sid might not pay any attention to the rush of sound rising up from the freeway far below on the valley's floor, nor to the crumbling roadside marked off with more caution tape and bollards than comfortably fit there, but he might notice them and actually be careful in that area.

I, of course, tried mightily to get a pic of me standing *inside* this designated area of danger, but that's just me. You know, that whole "living on the edge" thing...