88: BACK TO NIXON’S FUTURE IN WHITTIER

My photographer and his wife got out of bed around 7:00am and their plan for the first part of Tuesday August 7, 2018 was to visit a handful of movie and Presidential sites that were located east of Los Angeles. Later in the day, they were scheduled to meet up with their California friends for a baseball game at Angels Stadium.

The freeway traffic was heavy, but manageable, during our 20-mile ride from Tustin to Norwalk, California. At roughly 9:40am, Vicki parked the Mustang in a parking lot alongside Excelsior High School; the school that Tom thought was used for the Rydell High exterior shots in the 1978 movie ‘Grease’. But, for once, my photographer was wrong. It turned out that Excelsior High was used four years later in ‘Grease 2’ – which sucked; especially when the sequel was compared to the original.

When we were finished at the wrong Grease school, there was no mistaking our next movie site – the motel swimming pool used in the 1983 classic ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’. It took less than ten minutes to make our way from Excelsior High to the Guesthouse Hotel in Norwalk, which was known as the Saddleback Inn when Clark Griswold and the Girl in the Ferrari took an after-hours dip in the pool. I remained in the camera bag as my photographer and his wife made their way to the famous swimming pool, which was one of two outdoor pools that the hotel offered. Even though it was only 10:15am, there were a lot of hotel guests using the pool; which made my camera guy a bit apprehensive of snapping photos. Although he wanted to capture images of where Chevy Chase and Christie Brinkley had skinny-dipped in the movie, Tom didn’t want to be perceived as a ‘creepy stalker’; so he tried to remain inconspicuous. After he captured images of the famous pool from ground level as well as from the second level of the hotel, my photographer noticed the door to one of the upper rooms was open as it was in the process of being cleaned. After obtaining permission from the hotel cleaning staff member, Tom entered the room for an additional photo or two. Was that particular room used in the movie? Doubtful; but there was no way we could tell for sure.

After Tom had finished taking his photos of the pool, the three of us went to the hotel’s front desk where my photographer tried to get directions to the bar that was used in the movie. My cameraman wanted to photograph the lounge where Clark Griswold told Christie Brinkley that he owned the hotel and he was travelling around the country with his brother’s family. Unfortunately, the bar was closed and Tom was told that it wouldn’t open until 4:00pm – which would have been a five-hour wait. It was at that moment I overheard my photographer mumble under his breath: “The next time we’re in this area, we are going to stay at this hotel; swim in the damn pool; and have a drink in that bar.” I only hoped that Tom didn’t plan on swimming naked in the pool.

At roughly 10:30am, the three of us got into the Mustang where we headed about ten miles north into Whittier, California. We got lucky and Vicki found a parking spot along Philadelphia Street almost directly in front of the Whittier Union High School. Both Tom and I were excited to see that school as two important events happened there: Richard Nixon graduated from Whittier High School in the Class of 1930. The school was also used as Hill Valley High School in the 1985 blockbuster film ‘Back to the Future’ and its 1989 sequel ‘Back to the Future Part II’. While Vicki stayed in the Mustang, I was carried towards the front of the school – only to find a fence surrounded the property and the gate was locked; there was no way we could enter. I had hoped to pose closer to the school, but my photographer managed to capture a few images of me from our position on the public sidewalk outside of the barricade. As I was held aloft with the famous school in the background, I thought about Richard Nixon for a moment. The guy was smart – he graduated third in a class of 207 students; but when he ran for student body president, poor Dick lost to a more popular student. I laughed to myself when I wondered if that popular student’s last name was Kennedy.

My photographer was disappointed that we couldn’t get closer to Whittier High, but at the end of the day Tom did manage to capture a few images of me with the famous building in the background. Back at the Mustang where Vicki waited for us, my position in the back seat was short-lived as our next Nixon site was less than a five-minute drive down Philadelphia Street. Once my cameraman’s wife parked the car around the corner from the National Bank of Whittier building, Tom carried me to a position in front of the historic Beaux Arts style structure that was built in 1923. After Richard Nixon returned to Whittier after graduating from Duke University Law School, the future President was admitted to the bar and his first law office was in that building. Tom carried me across the street where I had a great close-up look at the magnificent Whittier Village Clock that was mounted to the corner of the building. As I stood there staring up at the six stories, I thought about Nixon as he worked for the law firm Wingert and Bewley where he focused on commercial litigation and wills. Nixon was reluctant to work on divorce cases, however, as he disliked frank sexual talk from women – which kind of surprised me a bit. After I posed for a handful of exterior photos, I was carried inside where we saw the first and second floor of what’s now known as Nixon Plaza that featured trendy restaurants and upscale lounges. The only thing missing was Nixon’s law office; which meant I was forced to pose for one photo while I stood on the original mail chute in the lobby.

For some reason, Vicki once again remained in the Mustang as my photographer and I did our “thing” inside the former bank building. Once we returned to the car from our 20-minute excursion, our chauffeur drove us to the next site – which was the boyhood home of Richard Nixon that was located nearly two miles to the south. After Frank and Hannah Nixon moved their family from Yorba Linda to Whittier, they lived in the small Tudor-style home that sat directly in front of my photographer and me. The house remained in the Nixon family for three decades. Hannah deeded the house to Richard in 1965 and the President sold it for $85,000 on September 9, 1975. Shortly after the sale, the house was transformed into an antique shop.

Although we were finished at Richard Nixon’s boyhood home, we weren’t done with Nixon sites in Whittier. Vicki navigated the Mustang a little over five miles north until we arrived in what seemed to be an upscale section of Whittier. Not only did the houses look nicer, the neighborhood was elevated onto a terraced hillside and some places had an amazing view of the valley below. But one house on Worsham Drive in particular was the place that my photographer had his sights set on. Known as the Stoody Home because it was built in 1926 by Shelley Stoody of Stoody Steel Company, Frank and Hannah Nixon purchased the uniquely designed home sometime in 1938 or ’39. The future President lived with his parents in that house up until his marriage to Pat Ryan on June 21, 1940. As a matter of fact, the Nixon newlyweds’ wedding reception was held in that house as well. While I posed near the historic home, I couldn’t help but gaze in amazement at the two-story tower on one side of the building. It turned out that the second story of the tower was an observatory that could rotate 360-degrees and was topped with a roof hatch that could open up to the sky. I wondered if the observatory was present when Richard Nixon lived there and whether or not he ever gazed up at the Moon through a telescope. Perhaps Nixon dreamed about sitting at his White House desk as he talked on the telephone to men standing on the lunar surface.

For the next Richard Nixon site, it was all downhill – at least for about a half-mile until we arrived at Whittier College. While Vicki stayed with the Mustang that was parked a block or two from the school, Tom carried me onto the campus of Whittier College where he tried to find a few cool places for me to pose. After high school, Richard Nixon was offered a scholarship to Harvard, but his family couldn’t afford the travel and living expenses; so the future 37th President opted to attend the local college. While there, Nixon played basketball; he also tried out for the football team, but he lacked the size to play. During his Whittier days, young Richard became a great debater and a standout in college drama productions; he graduated in 1934 with a BA degree in history. Nixon had no way of knowing that he would make history just forty years later by becoming the only President to resign from office. Following his graduation from Whittier, Nixon received a full scholarship to Duke University Law School. After my photographer carried me aimlessly around a small section of the campus, he settled on me posing alongside the Lou Henry Hoover Memorial Hall – a building dedicated to the memory of President Herbert Hoover’s wife.

We had one final Nixon site to visit in Whittier and it was located about ten minutes north of the college. Although we didn’t save the best for last, we definitely saved the hardest to find for last. After we searched for the Nixon house for about ten minutes, Tom finally realized that the historic home sat back from Beverly Boulevard and was hidden by another house. Once my photographer’s wife found a place to park the car, Tom carried me down the long paved driveway to the front of the second building. We had found it – we were standing in front of the house that Richard Nixon had bought after his marriage to Pat in 1940. The quaint one-story home was small and was likely a fixer-upper in the ’40s, but it was the first place that Richard and Pat could call their own. But not for long – after one year, the Nixon’s moved to Washington D.C. in January 1942 where the future President got a job at the Office of Price Administration. Richard hated that job and four months later he joined the United States Navy.

With me in tow, my photographer and his wife had travelled back in time to visit an era when Richard Nixon was just beginning to make a name for himself. He majored in history; and eventually he carved his own legacy into the history books. But when I thought about time travel, we were only 11 miles from where that concept had spawned on October 26, 1985. After driving for about 20 minutes in thick traffic, Vicki pulled the Mustang into the parking lot of Puente Hills Mall in the City of Industry; but she had no plans to shop there. Instead, we were there to go Back to the Future – in a sense. In that exact location in the southeast section of the mall parking lot, Emmett “Doc” Brown conducted the first successful time travel experiment with his modified DeLorean that was outfitted with a plutonium powered flux capacitor. Tom had a detailed map of the parking lot that showed the starting point of the DeLorean in the movie and the precise spot where the speeding car catapulted Brown’s dog, Einstein, into the future.

With the map in hand, my photographer positioned Vicki and the Mustang into their launch area and he gave his wife precise instructions: “When I raise my hand, start driving in a straight line right towards me and try to get up to 88 miles per hour before you run me over.” His wife replied in a sarcastic tone: “I’m not going to drive 88 miles per hour in this parking lot. Are you nuts?” Ironically, I thought the same thing! After we walked about 50 yards or so to our location, my photographer raised his hand; the car Mustang began to roll; and Tom started capturing photos as Vicki sped towards us at a hair-raising speed of 30 miles per hour. Seconds before the Mustang ran us over, my photographer yelled as he jumped out of the way: “Are you kidding me right now? You just about killed me!” “I thought you wanted authenticity. I was waiting for the car to disappear just like in the movie,” she said. Then I heard the final response from my stunned photographer: “Well, it might have vanished had you driven 88 miles per hour like I had asked. Let’s get out of here – we’re ‘Outatime’.”

At roughly 2:45pm, we left the Puente Hills Mall for our 27-mile ride back to Tustin. Although the afternoon traffic wasn’t horrendous, it still took us nearly 40 minutes to get back to the Currier’s home where we had a little over an hour to get ready for our next adventure – a MLB game between the Detroit Tigers and Anaheim Angels. When it was time to leave, my photographer packed me snuggly into the camera case for our nine-mile drive to the ballpark. From my closed case, I could tell that Rhonda Currier knew what she was doing as she navigated her Lexus 250S along Interstate 5 like a professional driver and had us safely in the parking lot by 5:45pm. As a bobble head, I’m not a huge baseball fan – but I was anxious to see what all the fuss was about with two Angels players named Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani was a rookie and was the talk of the league so far; and Trout has been the best player in baseball for the past six seasons – and as a bonus, it was Trout’s 27th birthday. In front of the stadium, our group met up with Umper, Heidi, and Tony. Our favorite meteorologist Dew Point Tony had gifted two tickets for Tom and Vicki so they not only could sit with the others; they didn’t have to pay to get inside. When I heard what Tony had done, I thought to myself: “Tony Maupin has to be the most generous, kindest, and loveable storm-chaser that I’ve ever known.”

For about 45 minutes before the game started, I was carried around Angels Stadium where Tom and I saw the ballpark from different vantage-points. What had set it apart from other stadiums, according to my photographer, was the decorative rockpile in left-center field known as the ‘California Spectacular’ that featured running water, water falls, and erupting geysers that shoot high into the air when an Angels player does something spectacular. When we finally got to our seats, which were in the first row of the second deck near home plate, I heard my photographer say out loud: “Ol’ Tornado Tony sure knows how to pick good seats!”

The 2018 Detroit Tigers had begun their rebuilding process and had struggled through most of the season; they had already lost 66 games going into that night’s contest. My photographer and his wife didn’t expect their team to win, they only hoped their Motown Minor League Misfits didn’t embarrass them. After the Tigers batted in the top of the first inning and scored a pair of runs, it looked like my companions hopes might come true. That’s until the Angels batted in the bottom of the opening inning. With Kole Calhoun on second base and Justin Upton on first, rookie Shohei Ohtani blasted a homerun into the seats just to the left of the 390-foot sign in deep left-center field. That round-tripper was Ohtani’s 12th longball of his career and it set the stage for what was a long first inning for the Tigers. The first eight Angels hitters reached base before starting pitcher Jacob Turner could record a single out. When the smoke cleared, the Angels had a commanding lead over Detroit 7-2. The game seemed to crawl along as it lasted a shade over three hours. Some of the 35,824 spectators had left early to beat the traffic; which was fine with us. Even though our Tigers lost the game 11-5, it didn’t matter to us. We spent a great night with our California friends and nothing could have topped that.

Following the 11-5 drubbing of his Tigers, Tom sluggishly left the stadium; he waited for Angels’ fans to tease him since he was wearing a Verlander jersey, but that never happened. Outside of Angels Stadium, my photographer and his wife bid farewell to Tony, Heidi, and Umper – hoping someday their paths would cross again. The drive back to the Currier’s surprised Tom and Vicki because they were accustomed to how long it usually takes them to drive home from Comerica Park in Detroit. But on that night, with Rhonda Currier behind the wheel of her Lexus, we were back to their house in 15 minutes.

After my photographer placed me back onto the bedroom shelf, I was somewhat sad. There were no more scheduled Presidential sites for me to see; but with only three full days left in California, I was okay with visiting television and movie sites. Perhaps we might run into a famous celebrity or movie star. I could only hope!