Click on photo to enlarge
Just a short, winding drive up the hill from Sunset is the
Will
Rogers State Historic Park. Since it's a part of Sunset that is unwalkable, we decided to visit it and include it here as the
penultimate installment of our hejira from Olvera Street to the sea.
Will lived here for a relatively short time, from 1928 until his
death in 1935. He built a 6-room ranch house and in seven years,
expanded it, a room or two at a time, to 31 rooms. He also built a
grand stable and facilities for the two activities he most enjoyed
in life: polo, and calf ropin'.
Polo? Will Rogers? It was a bit of a jar the first time I heard
that. I associate polo with rich, pampered, useless people like
Prince Charles. It's an expensive sport, requires a huge playing
field and a lot of horses.
But horses were what Will Rogers was all about. He made a lot of
money in his lifetime but never kept much of it. He'd either spend
it or give it away. He traveled, he bought the ranch, and he had fun
with his time. Living in Los Angeles, being a big celebrity, he knew
most of the famous snobs of his time, was buddies with many of them
... and no doubt could ride the pants off of any of
them. I can just see him out there on the vast green lawn with
Errol
Flynn,
John Ford,
Douglas Fairbanks, and other celluloid he-men,
showing them how it was done. I'll bet he got a kick out of it.
But calf ropin'? Where's the fun in that? Which brings me to the two
statements he was famous for that I think are rather dumb (out of
hundreds and hundreds that are so spot-on they still take your
breath away all these years later):
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1) There is something the matter with a man who doesn't like a horse. |
As a man who appreciates equine beauty but has steered clear of them
all my life, I have to say this is a cat person/dog person argument.
I am totally gaga crazy mad about dogs. I can't keep my hands off
them. I love all of them except the ones that actually want to take
a bite out of me. Cats I can take or leave, depending on the cat. If
a cat ignores me, is too snooty to get up in my lap and ask to be
stroked ... well, fuck him. To a cat person, this is precisely why
they like cats. They have dignity, they are independent. Cat people
like that. Me, I like an animal that likes me. We'll never see eye
to eye on this issue: no point in arguing it.
It's the same with horse people. I, personally, think there's
something a little off about a person who doesn't love a dog, but I
don't go around telling people that. Well ... I just did, but you
know what I mean.
Enough about that. Rogers also said this:
|
2) I never met a man I didn't like. |
This is a paraphrase, but it's the one most often quoted, and though
the actual wording (possibly in a comment about
Leon Trotsky, who
Rogers never met) is in dispute, the meaning is not. He meant it
literally. He felt that if he got talking to anyone, he'd end up
liking him.
Well, that's incredible to me. I just looked it up, and realized
with a bit of an unpleasant shock that I am now three years older than Will Rogers was on the day he splashed into
the water at Point Barrow, Alaska, with
Wiley Post. And though I
haven't met a fraction of the people Will met, including many of the
richest and most powerful men of his day, I've met plenty
of men I didn't like. I expect to meet more.
So does that make me a misanthrope and Will a saint? I don't know,
but it's a fundamental difference, and may be why his humor was so
gentle, even when he was kicking someone firmly in the ass.
Aside from those two statements, I like everything about Will
Rogers, and always have. It is incredible to contemplate, in these
days when political discourse is steered by the pustulent likes of
that drug addict
Rush Limbaugh and the spewing hatred of
Bill
O'Reilly, that this was the most influential and beloved political
commentator of his day. Plus, he was a radio personality, and a big
movie star (second only to
Shirley Temple one year!) ... and he
could rope a calf like nobody's business! Plenty of people wanted
him to go into politics, and I don't doubt that had he run for
president he would have won in a landslide.
He had this to say about that:
|
I not only "don't choose to run" but I don't even want to leave a loophole in case I am drafted, so I won't "choose." I will say "won't run" no matter how bad the country will need a comedian by that time. |
Which just illustrates the principle that has become more obvious
with each passing year: The only people I'd trust to run the country
are the ones with too much sense to take on the job. We are left
with the dregs, from
George W Bush to
John Kerry.
ê ê ê
The ranch and buildings were given to the State of California by
Betty Rogers in 1944, and the state let much of it get into a
deplorable condition. But much restoration work has been done now,
and the newly-reopened stable is immaculate. The polo field is
beautiful, and even Will's calf-ropin' arena is fully restored ...
and a little puzzling. It's a big oval enclosure. At the north end
is a pen made of sticks which was used to contain the goats that
Will would sometimes rope (when he got tired of calves?), and to the
south is the gate where the calves would be released. It's all
surrounded by a board fence that leans outward, maybe ten degrees
from vertical. At first look, it seems to be falling down. The guide
Lee talked to couldn't tell us why that is, and we couldn't find a
ranger. Any calf ropers out there? If so, could you tell us why the
fence was built to lean out like that?
About half the ranch house is open for visitors, but you have to be
part of a tour. This wasn't a problem the day we were there. Two
docents were leading groups of from 2 to 6 people through the open
rooms. It is about as comfortable a house as I've ever seen. Each
room has a fireplace. The theme is aggressively western. It's a
great, big bunkhouse, knotty pine walls, wood floors ... but an
extremely nice one. All the furnishings are the original stuff, and
so are the books on the shelves and the pictures and artwork on the
walls.
And we can't show you any of it. No photography allowed, and let me
tell you, we're running into this more and more, and it pisses us
off. What is the deal here? This place is owned by the state,
which mean us. I own a piece of it, and so does Lee,
and so do you if you live in Cahleefornia. I have absolutely no
problem with the tours being guided, so nobody steals something, nor
with the cautions to keep on the rubber runners. Constant traipsing
can do a lot of damage, the place needs to be protected. I've got no
problem with not allowing photography in galleries that are
exhibiting copyrighted works, or works for sale. I don't mind a
prohibition on flash photography; it's distracting to
other viewers. But why can't we take pictures of our own stuff?
Will someone explain that to me?
My feeling is the state bans photography ... because it can. To the
bureaucratic mind, any question that can be answered
"no," will be answered "no," just as a matter of
principle, unless there's a lawsuit involved. Even then, they may
fight.
Other than that, we highly recommend the ranch as a great place to
spend the day. We took a picnic lunch from
Whole Foods and had a
great time.
June 5, 2006