Up the Coast to San Clemente

A couple of years ago, the stirring words of spoken by a visiting London Rabbi still ring in my ear. The speech by this long fingered Rabbi took place about four years ago at the Hebrew University outside the city of San Diego. Chabad members arrived from everywhere to hear and see this long fingered man dressed in black. On the podium his long fingers pointed to each of us.
  "We have been sold a bill of goods...When we were young, we wished to grow older. When we arrived in our twenties, we wished for a good marriage, nice car, and enviable job. Yet when years gained on us, we wished to become younger. We died our hair had tummy tucks, removed out face for a newer one, and like the Wife of Winston Churchill, Jenny, we yearned for a younger mate"
  "But we got it all wrong, Life does not stop as we get older, it gets richer...We learn to be come a  Mozart and become wiser."
And so it was with me this morning. Tired of going to the nursing home to visit my brother Mel and the humdrum of Surf City, I decided to mount the number one bus down the coast beginning at Balboa Island. I said "Hello" at Newport Beach and looked over each beach city. In the horizon Laguna Beach came up and a sign said, "No smoking."
  On Ocean Avenue, volleyball games were going and the bus now headed for Dana Point. My head began to clear. The hot muggy days inside of Surf City make it hard to breathe, hence difficult to think. As the bus crossed the 5 to San Juan Capistrano and then San Clemente, I knew that I had made a good decision to take the trip; but after one and a half hours, I needed a toilet break. So when the bus stopped and the driver told us he would return in a minute, I asked him if I could leave the bus and return.
   "Yes but be quick about it," he demanded. He had stopped the bus earlier for the same problem.
    I followed him into Starbucks and he entered the men's and locked the door. I made a quick decision to enter the ladies, but first knocked on the door. Quick as superman I unzipped my pants and removed my driver. I shook it and told it to hurry.
     I ran to the bus and took my front seat. The bus driver entered and shook his head, probably wondering where I emptied my bladder. At the next stop, the Department of Motor Vehicles arrived inside a small strip mall.
     I felt tired and stoked a conversation with a contractor who had known Mike Garrett, a U.S.C. football player at one time. He mentioned a Mexican restaurant that ex President Nixon frequented and how to get to their library.
     The test I flunked since I was tired and studied an outdated book.But there is always good news. It felt good to escape to San Clemente, where the air is clearer and healthy to breathe than the overcast air of Surf City.
      It took the bus two and one half hours to get to Huntington Beach. The traffic was at a stand still from Laguna Beach all the way to Surf City. And the good news is that I had been able to keep my driver in check.