This week, I was in Montecito, soaking in some late summer rays poolside at the Montecito Club with my wife and with a dear friend and his son. We spent most of the day virtually alone, the only game in town for the bartender and the wait staff. Where was everyone? The weather was beautiful. And it is still summer, after all.

When I was a kid, the school year never started until after Labor Day. Truth be told, the summer sometimes felt almost too long. There were some of those “dog days” when I would find myself starting to feel bored, though I am sure my parents found my complaining about such boredom endlessly entertaining. By the time I got to the latter part of my high school career, the year would have a “soft opening” just prior to Labor Day Weekend (minimum days with orientations, assemblies, etc).

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As an adult, living proudly as a “childless cat lady”, there is little cause for me to remain vigilantly aware of school schedules. This year, during the week of August 12, I became aware that the school year had begun when I found myself in a traffic jam while driving from Los Feliz Blvd. to the Trader Joe’s on Hyperion. The traffic was downright apocalyptic! In the mid-afternoon! Realizing the cause, the back-to-school explosion of pick-ups, of buses, of car pools, of first-time drivers, only served to make the situation more insulting. Shouldn’t all these kids be at the beach, at the mall, at home, glued to backlit screens and playing video games?

“It’s not September!” I wanted to yell.

I don’t expect people to continue embracing summer through the autumnal equinox. I get that we think of September as a “fall” month, even though most of it falls during summer, just as we consider December a “winter” month, despite most of its days falling in autumn. Traditionally, and definitely within the movie biz, Memorial Day was the ceremonial start of summer, and Labor Day the ceremonial end to summer. Summer blockbusters ushered us into summer, and Jerry Lewis ushered us out.

What happened to THAT summer? Why, of all seasons, should summer be truncated? It’s not the heat I will miss, of course. After all, we in southern California know our hottest days might just blow in during October, courtesy of the dry Santa Ana winds. It’s not the sunshine I miss. After all, there is a reason beach-based shows like “Baywatch” filmed during the early months of the year, when the L.A. skies, are at their most blue.

This summer, I certainly did a great deal of swimming. Only it was all done at the community pool in Overlook, a neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside the nation’s capital, and at the Coral Casino Beach and Cabana Club, and the Montecito Club, both of which are in Montecito. This was going to be the summer that I would finally take advantage of the Griffith Park Pool! Sure, I know, it’s been closed since 2022, but the longer the summer lasts, the more the possibility that “permanently closed” won’t mean what I think it means. And I hope “permanent” is only temporary because I NEVER took advantage of this local treasure in all my 25 plus years in the neighborhood!

What happened to weekday afternoon matinees at the Vista or the Los Feliz 3 to beat the heat? This year, daily rum and tonics did the trick, and other than one nighttime Cinematheque screening (can’t they please bring back weekday matinees?), I haven’t been to either theater since seeing Civil War at the Vista this spring. Strange Darling is playing there now, and I want to see it, but at best, I guess, it’s now looking like a September – autumnish – matinee for this fella.

Wasn’t this the summer I was going to resume early morning hikes in Griffith Park, and early evening tennis sessions as well? Wasn’t I going to dust off several years of rust and revitalize my basketball skills? It’s been since before the pandemic that I have worked on my shot outdoors at Our Mother of Good Counsel Church, and got into pick up games in the Marshall High gym. Where exactly do middle-aged Los Feliz hoopers get some run in the neighborhood? Are there any middle-aged hoopers in the neighborhood? I feel lost. I blame the early onset of autumn. The winds of change. Especially as I approach the September of MY years.

Perhaps I am guilty of wanting all seasons to stick around long enough to overstay their welcome, but I definitely want the summer back this year, OR I want it to feel so long again that I wish for it to end. Is that too much to ask?

In preparing forthcoming episode 2 of “The Voice of Los Feliz” podcast, I interviewed stalwart local Brian Morrison. He is the co-chair of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council Cultural Affairs Committee. He serves on the Greek Theatre Advisory Committee. He is the President of the Los Feliz Village Business Improvement District. He is a filmmaker, the driving force behind “Free Blockbuster”, and a member of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club in good standing. During our conversation, he said something that I could not find a way to include in the finished podcast, but which has rung in my ears in the wake of summer making a French exit this year …

I’m a big fan of the, you know, The Dreamtime idea, right? That I’m walking around and when I walk from Kingswell and Vermont to Kingswell and Commonwealth, I’m walking past Walt Disney and Roy Disney as they go to work. And when I’m (Brian laughs at this point), in the bathroom at the Drawing Room, I’m – I’m standing, you know, in a urinal next to Charles Bukowski. And that’s really cool. When I walk past the Brown Derby … You know, or Mess Hall Kitchen, not only am I walking past the Derby that was there, you know, decades ago, but I’m also walking past the crew from “Swingers” shooting that final scene when Jon Favreau gives his business card to Heather Graham. And it’s all happening right here, right now.

I firmly believe that this place is magical. I do. And I’ve seen like … I’ve seen so much magic happen here historically and even present day. And I feel like I’m honored and blessed to know the people that I know and to live here at this moment in what we perceive as “time”.

People sometimes joke about, or complain about, or even brag about the lack of seasons in Los Angeles. I always point out the fundamental untruthfulness of such a point of view. We most assuredly do have seasons. For example, we have fire season, we have awards season … Yet, I think Brian is onto something quite profound in regards to the theme I find myself exploring. I, too, have experienced what he described as The Dreamtime (which refers to a term describing the worldview of Aboriginal mythology). Los Feliz was home to the Tongva people, and it’s no doubt to me that they found the area magical.

My experiences of “The Dreaming”, though occasionally related to the incredible cinematic history of the area I call home, more often of late concern friends who have died. One of these friends was the great educator Darrell Hughes, who lived for many years in the Los Feliz Towers. I got to know Darrell through the Los Angeles Breakfast Club and it is safe to say this man was beloved. In addition to seeing him at club functions, I would frequently see him taking his daily constitutionals. He walked everywhere. To this day, when I am out and about, on foot, I sometimes know I am going to see him, probably on his way to Hillhurst Liquor to buy lottery tickets.

The Dreamtime is not about the everywhere, so much as the everywhen. Everything that matters to us in our psyches is all happening, all around us, all the time. Maybe that’s why we are so fortunate as to have such a wonderful spot on Hillhurst Ave. as … All Time! And therefore, perhaps I need not fret about the loss – premature or otherwise – of summer this year. In Los Feliz, I can experience summertime, or anytime, whenever I wish.

All of the essays I have written thus far for The Voice of Los Feliz have proven much longer than this one. There certainly is much more I could write, but like what everyone is doing with summer, I am going to do to this essay. I’m going to cut it much shorter than it should be. Now, if there was just something I could do about that gosh darn mid-afternoon Marshall High School traffic …

If you enjoyed this essay and have not yet subscribed to The Voice of Los Feliz, please do. If you have subscribed for free and would like to support this content, please consider converting to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers will be rewarded through non-Los Feliz-related content each month. Whatever you do, please help spread the word. The second episode of The Voice of Los Feliz podcast will drop before the end of August, and it will feature an in-depth interview with Brian Morrison, as well as interviews with Los Feliz Improvement Association President Debra Matlock, and the longtime Epic Manager of the Vista Theater, Victor Martinez.

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