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Laguna Beach

We were just about through with the Costa Mesa chapter of our trip. I had a "must contact" friend of my old man that I had to look up on this trip. His name was Norm Jacobson, he was a business contact of my Dad's  They had collaborated on east coast/west coast executive placements. They dealt with high-end execs looking to relocate.

For many years, my Dad and I had this running tease, about which of us was going to get to California first. He was a cool guy, closer to an older brother than a pain in the ass, or "a my way, or the highway" stentorian dad.

Any how, he had been doing a sidejob for a number of years, with a guy on the West coast named Norm. Together, they had a lucrative gig where they were doing some bi-coastal recruiting of executives. He would often be on the phone late NJ time, going over resumes, positions, candidates for jobs on either coast. Once their candidate or placement accepted a position, Norm or Nick got a cash commission, kind of a finder's fee.

In 1973, my old man beat me to California. I picked him up at Newark Airport when he arrived from Los Angeles. He was the most excited I had ever seen him. "Wait to you see Southern California!" Norm had showed him the town. Not six months later, his son had hitched out here. I needed to verify on my own, what had jazzed him so much on his trip.

I called Norm with a day or two heads up, and he sounded real nice and really friendly. I had spoken to him for years from NJ, but had never met him. He was real excited to come up and get us, and to show us his part of California. We just had a feeling, this was going to be fun, and inside look at the state.

We packed up our gear, thanked Bob and Shirley Cook for letting us stay with them for almost free. Norm picked us up around mid day, and we drove south along the coast.

Laguna Beach is a hilly, cliffside town with the residences up on these steep green hills. The town itself is on both sides of the Pacific Coast Highway One. It must have been quite a place between WWII and the sixties, supposedly it was a hipster town full of artists, and musicians.

Norm drove us around the town part, and then drove up these really steep hills, up to his house. We pulled into a garage, an automatic door opened and he parked it next to a cherry 1964 green Mustang convertible. It was just him at this homefor a week, his family was on some holiday, all he had, was a little dog in the house. You couldn't appreciate the house, as all you could see from the street was the garage doors. The main house was out past the garage, and went down three floors beneath the garage, down the cliff. He showed us a really nice guest room, it had ocean views, and it was ours!

We then ate some huge Dagwood sandwiches and talked for a while out on his deck. It was a gorgeous day. We described our week in Costa Mesa, the rides, and the trip out with Kenny B. He said, almost insisted that we hang all week with him. We agreed. We would love to hang with him for a few days. He said "make yourselves at home!"

And we kicked back for a few days. I read a book on the deck, Bob took a snooze in the guestroom, and then we had a great BBQ out on his deck. Norm served cold beers, and then he said: "Wait till the sun goes down, we should be able to see the Catalina Mountains."

This was exactly what happened. The sun set and it just burned your eyes to look into it. And as the sun sunked back into the ocean, this land mass, this offshore island sitting way out there, came into sight.

I had never seen anything like it.

The crickets started chirping, the beers kept coming out on the deck, Norm turned it, we did the dishes and had an amzing conversation about what it must be like to live out here.


Toto, we aren't in Kansas City (or Cliffside Park) any more.......