I'd like to say that he was happy about it. He was not. Dad was, as often I have written here, and elsewhere, my determined protector. I could have none better. He would have thrown himself on a railroad track to preserve my life. But, he was not in favor of change that involved any kind of risk. And when he wasn't in favor of something, it was more moral prohibition than advice that was dispensed. And the fact of his disapproval was evidence of my folly in even considering it.
At this point, in late 1980 or early 1981, I had a job with that small personal injury practice. I was making probably less than 10,000 a year, without medical benefits. I was in agony in the cramped three rooms, only two of which were usable by the three or four staff which included me--the third reserved as the office of the boss. I was in agony not only because I was the associate that the judges put on the spot when he wasn't in court on time, but because he was a "yeller". He yelled on the phone. He was particularly fond of the F-word. Everything was urgent. Files were everywhere and no where.
If there was ever a time for me to risk a move, this was it. But dad's advice was "to make it work" for me. I had a job. That was good enough. And I had a place to live, safe at home in more than enough space for father and daughter. I had about 4,000 dollars in savings and that wasn't, Dad thought, sufficient cushion upon which to build a new life. I had learned to drive, but I had little practice as the only car to use was my father's, and he was terrified of my being out and about making mistakes (as I did luckily without bodily harm) on the streets and highways. I would not be able to afford my own car in Los Angeles, at least until, if if, I got a job.
Dad was right, of course. I wasn't much of a grown-up though I was in my late twenties and an attorney. I had been so well protected and so long embraced that protection that doubts were beginning to overtake me. I was by nature inclined to doubt and had difficulty making decisions about anything, even when there were no apparent obstacles.
Uncharacteristically, I was undeterred. I began to tell friends and family that a move was imminent.
And then Dad had his second heart attack. His first had been in 1971. Dad was 63 years old. He was convinced, as he always was with any medical condition, that this was his end. I have always told myself that I was an attentive daughter in those couple of months during which he recovered, but whether that is so or not, I know that I was resentful. I am ashamed of the truth, but here it is. I felt that Dad's heart attack was his unconscious way of keeping me in New York. And I believe he thought that I would now abandon the idea. He put the responsibility on himself, and the happenstance of his illness.
Looking back, the period between his heart attack in June 1981, and the implementation of my plan to move was brief. Did I simply decide he was sufficiently recovered? I could see that it did not make him happy that I was STILL looking to leave. He seemed depressed. How could I ignore that?
I think as I write that I owe the fact of my move to my utter selfishness. Then I know I felt not only justified, but compelled to go ahead. And once I described to him what I was going to do, and how, he conceded, and as he always did, he supported me.
I would quit my job. I would take what savings I had and commit to six weeks in Los Angeles. My uncle's family was willing to put me up on their trusty couch, so I would have a safe place to stay. I would look for a job, which because I was not yet licensed in California, would be clerking or secretarial. If, after that six weeks, I still had no job, I would come home, and abandon the whole idea.
And so Dad hosted a just in case farewell party for my family and friends. Not everyone came it being on short notice and many there privately thought (I would hear later) there was no chance I would stay. I was always so cautious, so afraid, so well, pessimistic. And wonder of wonders, my employer, who thought I was a nut for wanting to move to California, did not want to lose me ("I've invested a lot of time and training in you." I recall no training whatsoever.) and said he would give me a leave of absence (unpaid of course) for the six weeks. Like my father, he apparently was less than convinced of my likely success.
Mr. Anonymous, now of the deluxe furnished Barbara Judith Apartments, but then still a denizen of New York, joined me for two weeks of the experiment. I rented a Ford Escort for that two weeks.
In the morning, I would peruse the Daily Journal. It became immediately clear that I couldn't be waiting for responses to written applications. So beginning at what was then the TICOR building on Wilshire Boulevard, the 6000 block, I spent the mornings knocking on doors---literally. I went from floor to floor stopping at various lawyer offices. If I liked the arrangement of the names on the door, or for some other visceral reason, I would go in and solicit work. "Hello, I am an attorney licensed in New York. I am moving out to Los Angeles and am looking for a clerk job, research job, or secretarial job" while I study for the California Bar."
Most places politely declined my request. A few spoke to me. One, an associate of Gloria Allred, as it happens, could offer me only part time work. I needed it to be full time.
Mr. Anonymous and I made a detour to the Century City towers, the ones which served as exterior for the offices of Remington Steele, my favorite TV show of the time, and, about a week into my plan, went up and down each tower, with no success. Only then, sitting on one of the benches in the ABC Entertainment Center, did I admit to Mr. Anonymous that I had begun to think I had indeed made a mistake. Why would anyone hire me? The saving grace was, that in the afternoons, I would go back to vacation mode and Mr. Anonymous and I would tour the city and the beach, restoring my resolve not to give up until the end of the sixth week.
It was the week after Mr. Anonymous returned to New York, and I had wended my way to the 5000 block of Wilshire Boulevard. I walked into a door on the fifteenth floor of a turquoise building. The receptionist, a large, friendly Southern woman took an instant like to me called her boss to see if he would talk to me.
He did. He was a man older than my father who had become a lawyer late in life and started a family firm. Little did I know at the time that the family practicing with him were pushing him to retirement. Apparently, though, he wasn't ready to go, and my appearance on the scene fit into with his plans to stay on in the office. I was so naive that it never occurred to me his interest was more than professional. I couldn't imagine that any man of his age, with an ill-fitting wig and a disheveled suit, would think I would be interested in anything beyond the professional. Be that as it may, he offered me a job, for about the same as I was making in New York, without benefits of course, to start immediately. I would be his secretary. And because I had a license in New York, I could do research for him and draft paperwork for him.
I'd like to say that the sailing was smooth thereafter. Naturally, as life goes, it was not. But, my aunt and uncle were happy to have me stay on their couch until we saw whether the job would "take", and until I could find an apartment I could afford. I called my boss in New York on the third week of my plan and told him I would not be coming back. He tried to convince me to open a branch of his office in Los Angeles when I got my license. I would have none of that given my experience in the cramped office in New York.
The job was only about two miles from my family's apartment, and though limited, the buses in Los Angeles, took me there. Two months into my sojourn, perhaps in something of a Providential moment, an apartment opened up right across the street from my family, another 1920s four unit residence. The owner was charging $375.00 in a neighborhood that was now seeing rents of nearly or over $600.00 which I could not afford, and though I knew he was a do nothing landlord from the shape of the outside of the building, and the stains on the wood floor within, the price was right, the apartment was otherwise cheerful and large for a one bedroom. Coming from more institutional looking buildings--our last one had some fifteen or twenty apartments on the same floor--I felt like I was leading a suburban life. Though I was in the heart of the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, the building felt like a house. I had a back door. I even had a soupcon of a back yard.
Dad and I talked nearly every day. He might not have expressed great delight at my having made a successful move, but he did share some with my friends and family. Maybe it was even a hint of pride that his insecure kid finally took a bull by its horns. We never talked about things in any direct way, so I don't really know.
We bring our personalities and our challenges with us. If I thought that moving to California would solve whatever problems I had or thought I had, of course, I was wrong. I was still afraid and unsure enough that Dad and I were on the phone virtually every day. I was an as yet un-diagnosed case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and what I had done at home, I did at a distance. I worried constantly and out loud. Dad tried to solve it with a logic to which OCD is notoriously resistant.
The job was significantly imperfect. My boss, whom I came to call "the rascal" was a seat of the pants type lawyer. Like his counterpart in New York, organization was not his strong suit. He took every case that walked in the door whether he knew enough about the area of practice and he would not always tell his secretary, me, that he had taken one. Clients were constantly calling for status and I would not necessarily know where he had tucked away the paperwork. He also had made it clear that his interest in me was social as well as professional, and I learned about his various affairs over the years from his brother in law, who acted as one of his administrators. The office that had made it possible for me to get an income to move was an ethics violation waiting to happen.
I couldn't take time off to study for the Bar, though I was allowed to take the actual days for the examination. And I didn't pass right away. The rascal, having conceded to my disinclination to be other than his secretary, gave me sound advice. He said that my handwriting was so bad the examiners weren't reading or able to read it my blue books. He suggested I type the essay examination. When I did, on my third try, I passed. If my dad were alive today, I would hear him say to my revealing that, "Why do you have to tell anyone that you didn't pass right away?" He told people I passed the first time. That was true, but only in New York.
Except for a bed I bought for $200.00 at Ortho Mattress, a small color television and the piano I had shipped from the East, I could not immediately afford much furniture. My uncle, an inveterate collector of items, provided chairs and a small desk on which I studied for the Bar when I could. In lieu of furniture, I acquired a free cat, a little tabby I named Hollywood who would live 18 out of the 31 years I spent in that one apartment.
Over the next year, a friend or two visited, coming to share for a little while with me, the new vista I had found. And loved.
Larry already lived here.In 1982, Dad took his own leap and moved out to live in Los Angeles. I found him a one bedroom apartment about four blocks from my own. He never really liked it here. But I was his only daughter, and he found his satisfactions, picking up an old avocation, his writing. And resuming his job of protecting me- until he was 90.
I have never regretted my move to Los Angeles. Here I finally found my life's work as an attorney at the State Bar of California. The climate here is that of a paradise. I am a happy transplanted New Yorker.
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