Veteran sails through legal career

Larry Thorne has been many places and has seen many things in his 75

years.

Thorne served as an officer in the Navy during the Korean War. He

began a legal career as a lawyer and then sat as a judge for 22

years. His biggest brush with fame, however, may have come courtesy

of ‘70s rocker Frank Zappa, who had to appear before Thorne in court

one time.

Thorne was born in Tacoma, Wash., but has lived all over the West

Coast. He now lives in Costa Mesa with his wife Shelley and spends a

lot of time taking classes at the Costa Mesa Senior Center.

The Daily Pilot’s Lindsay Sandham sat down with Thorne to hear

some of his interesting stories and experiences.

How long have you lived in Costa Mesa?

Well my wife’s been here 40 years, and I’ve only been here

off-and-on 23 years. When we got married, I was geographically

undesirable [because of work], so I stayed in Rancho Cucamonga, and

my wife stayed in Costa Mesa.

What made you finally move to Costa Mesa for good?

I have Parkinson’s disease, so there’s a lot of things I can’t do.

So, I need my wife’s emotional and physical support.

You take a stretch class at the senior center on Tuesdays and

Thursdays. What’s that like?

There’s usually 11 or 12 women in the stretch group, and I’m the

only man, so I consider them my harem.

How does your wife feel about that?

Oh, I think she’s all for it. (Chuckles)

Other than taking classes at the Senior Center, what do you do to

occupy your free time?

We usually walk on the peninsula for about an hour every morning.

Sometimes we walk at the Castaways or around the island ... We’re

very active in the Unitarian Church ... We go to Parkinson’s support

groups.

You were a judge for 22 years in Rancho Cucamonga. You must have

some exciting stories from that time.

People ask me who the most famous person in Cucamonga is -- it’s

not Jack Benny. The most famous person is a musician by the name of

Frank Zappa, who died a couple of years ago. He had a recording

studio right next to my court, and I never met him until one day

[when] he was brought in by the police.

Why?

Well, he set up the recording studio, and he put out an ad that if

you wanted to record your instrument or song, you could do it in his

recording studio for a fee. He expanded it and said, “What do people

really want to hear?” Turns out what they really wanted to hear was

the sound of having sex with a partner, and so people would come in

and record these noises. That was pretty successful, but what really

sort of clinched it was he decided that if a person didn’t have a

partner, he would provide them with a partner for them to make the

recording. So he and a prostitute were brought into my court one day.

I gave him a few days in jail, and he gave me a nice mention in his

autobiography.

Any good stories from the time you were in law school at UC

Berkeley?

We had a class of about 100. Now they have 500 or 600 a class. The

tuition was $42 a semester. It’s now $22,000. The $42 included health

care and free underwear. You could go work out in the gym and trade

in your socks and underwear for fresh ones.