A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Testimony / ONE PERSON’S STORY ABOUT LIFE IN L.A. : ‘There Is Plenty Here That’s Delightful’

Crusty but smart defines Bud Vandervort, the 73-year-old dock master of the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey and retired army colonel, who has seen it all. He was assistant director of the Peace Corps under Richard Nixon. Vandervort grew up in West Hollywood and Pasadena, led artillery units in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and for the past 15 years has presided over a hectic marina. What has he learned? That Los Angeles, for all its warts, is still the most glorious place in the world.

I was born here in 1919. Then military service took me to three wars and 92 countries. But 15 years ago, I returned here to live and work because this is the best place in the world. Despite earthquakes, fires and riots, it still is.

I don’t think the place has changed so much. There is a hubbub, a frantic nature that appears in certain areas, but the beaches are still the beaches and the mountains are still the mountains, and you can get to those areas as you wish.

I would say I love L.A. The weather is predominantly better, day by day better, on the shores of Santa Monica Bay than any place I’ve ever been; 365 days a year I come to work in shorts. Show me a place I can go and do that. I lived in Hawaii and I like Hawaii very much. But Hawaii is a tourist-type environment, where this is a family-type environment.

I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve had a delightful 70-plus years. My wife and I celebrated our golden wedding anniversary in June. She’s a wonderful woman and we have three delightful children, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren living in this area, and they make life a continuing pleasure. We feel we live a very normal life. We don’t find life to be a series of hectic events.

Some say it’s more violent, more dangerous here. I don’t see that. I read it in the newspaper. It’s the abnormalities that sell newspapers. I realize that there are some people who can’t get away from that. They live in the area. But you have that in almost every big city in the world. And it all comes back to basic problems of a certain lack of discipline and some who are so far down that they don’t care. They can’t be any further down and they’ll do anything.

I think the riot in L.A. was the result of a continuing national problem of race and color and assimilation of one group into the whole of the entity. Violence exists, and I know that it exists. My daughter works as a nurse at the Daniel Freeman Hospital in Inglewood and they were probably the busiest of all the hospitals during the riot time. No, I recognize the magnitude of it. But even so, it did not affect probably 30 other communities of Los Angeles. And from that standpoint, it probably does get blown out of proportion.

I don’t believe that Los Angeles is disintegrating and that people are eager to leave the area. Look at what you get here--the events that are made available, the Cirque de Soleil, or whatever it is, a delightful show. The availability of sports activities. And we talk about how bad times are . . . or at least that’s what we hear on the TV and on the radio . . . and yet I find people standing in long lines to pay scalper prices to go to a rock concert. And I can’t even turn onto the street out here in Marina del Rey because of the mass of $20,000 to $70,000 cars that are going by. It can’t be all that bad.

Am I afraid of crime? No, I’m really not. I’ve watched crime-control in many areas around the world and I think that we have fine police, sheriff and state police activity. I wouldn’t have come back here if I feared it.

Certain things are getting worse--rudeness has appeared on the streets of L.A. They find it awfully hard to stop for a pedestrian in the painted crosswalks. Or somebody flips you a bird because you didn’t do this or didn’t do that. I just feel that the graciousness that we could have doesn’t exist.

I can remember in our community in South Pasadena, all the youngsters were invited into one lady’s home every afternoon to practice Christmas carols. And I still remember them today because of the polite and warm way of life.

But there is plenty here that’s delightful. We should appreciate what we have, develop it further, improve it, build on it. Because we have the lifestyle, we have the environment that is the envy of the world. And I don’t mean to be maudlin about it or sentimental about it, but it just exists. And I think it basically exists around the lifestyle of freedom of the individual, which enables people to do what they want.

I think that one of the problems in the recent riots was the fact that the Koreans are here and so delighted to be here that they are busting their backs to do the job. And they become the envy of their next door neighbor who happens to be black and who is not demonstrating the same kind of diligent effort, whereas this Korean has got the doors open to his shop for probably 14 or 15 hours in the day. I think that competition is always good.

Immigration is good. If we didn’t have it, I probably wouldn’t be here either. My ancestors came from Holland to find a better way of life. I have a hard time with the notion of creating a Berlin Wall between us and Mexico. We’ve got a large number of Mexicans and Salvadorans who work here at the yacht club. Some of them have worked here 15 to 20 years. I don’t think we have a big problem with immigration. There is still an awful lot of country out there.

My message is, I find Los Angeles a satisfying place to live. California is an amazing place to live. I’ve still got hundreds of places to visit in California that I’ve never seen.

My wife and I plan to retire when I am 75 and go see some of the rest of California, but Los Angeles will still be our home.

I don’t feel there is any end to the California Dream. It still exists. I can’t think of any place that I would rather live right now than on the shores of Santa Monica Bay.