Back into the time machine

ROBERT GARDNER

The other night we drove out to the Phoenix Club in Anaheim. It was

an adventure in time travel as good as anything described by H. G.

Wells.

It didn’t start out that way. It started out with me being

compressed into the back seat of a small car. It’s amazing how

difficult it can be to squeeze two size 11 shoes into what is

laughingly called leg room, particularly at my age. I finally managed

to get my limbs in and the door closed, and off we went.

Now, I have to admit I wasn’t paying much attention to anything

other than how best to distribute my legs so as to avoid permanent

paralysis. Besides, on a freeway at rush hour there’s not much to pay

attention to except the bumper of the car in front of you.

So there we were, poking along the Costa Mesa Freeway, the people

in the front seat undoubtedly luxuriating in their ability to do more

than twitch, and the next moment we went rocketing back in time. Or

so it seemed. By the simple act of taking an offramp, we left the

21st century and its freeway jammed with the cars of all those

unfortunate people making their daily two-hour commute home to the

Inland Empire -- an oxymoron if I’ve ever seen one -- and were

transported back to the early 20th century. Looking around, except

for the lack of a sea breeze, I might have been in the Balboa of my

youth. We had entered the old part of Orange.

We were driving through a commercial area, but you’d never have

known it. It looked like a residential area with houses and lawns and

trees, no surprise because that’s what it had been at one time. Most

of the buildings were those characteristic California bungalows, once

as ubiquitous throughout the county as orange groves. Like the orange

groves, the bungalows in most towns have been ripped out, but in

Orange they’ve been converted from residential to business use. A

drive down Glassell is like a drive back into the early days of the

county. So consistent is the feeling that it seemed like the road

should have been crowded with Model Ts instead of SUVs.

There was even an old gas station that hearkened back to the days

when an attendant came out and filled the car with gas, washed the

windows, and checked the oil while you relaxed in your car. This

particular station was no longer filling cars with gas but people

with food since it had been converted into a restaurant.

Then the street widened, and we were suddenly thrust back into the

21st century. Bungalows and lawns gave way to strip malls and

billboards. I guess by city planning standards this is considered

progress, but the dictionary defines progress as: “improvement;

advance toward perfection or to a higher state.” So I wonder if it

really is.

Not that I’m a Luddite. There are some things we have done over

the last 80 years or so that I certainly consider progress. In the

early days, for example, the town’s toilets flushed directly into the

bay, which meant you had to keep your mouth closed and your eyes open

when you went swimming. To get those toilets connected to a sewer

system -- that is progress by any definition.

As to why we were venturing so far afield as the Phoenix Club, it

was the annual meeting of the Orange County Pioneer Council, which

was unveiling its latest batch of published oral histories. Mine was

one of them, so I was invited to receive a copy. I almost missed the

ceremony, though. It seems it’s easier to go back a century in time

than to get out of the back seat of a small car.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge.

His column runs Tuesdays.