This Hollywood Life

I moved to Hollywood when I was 23. I had grown up in L.A., but after leaving for a few years I thought I never come back. Still, there was something special about moving to Hollywood. Happy childhood memories were of sunny days of driving in the Hollywood Hills or down Hollywood Blvd. Somehow, despite the miserable state of Hollywood Blvd. during the seventies and the eighties, I had been entranced. In particular, I was in awe of the Hollywood sign. It had taken on welcoming aura for me and whenever I see it now I know I am near home. Even when I travel, there is a certain comfort in seeing the sign on television or in a movie. My father is a landscaper, and when I was a child he would sometimes take me with him while he was giving estimates. These were some of the few times we spent time alone . When my father was going to give estimates in Hollywood he would ask me if I wanted to come along and see the Hollywood sign. I lived in Norwalk, which although only twenty miles from Hollywood, it seemed like a distant land. I felt special and privileged over other children in my neighborhood by going to the real thing, not just seeing it from afar or on TV, but actually going to the hillside where the letters were bolted in. Back then the sign wasn't gated to the public, and as a result it was heavily coated in graffiti. But even still, I remember those days with fond memories. At the time, money was tight and usually all we did was see the sign and leave for home. But every so often my dad would offer a special treat and take me to the Cinerama Dome. Standing on Sunset near Vine in its huge parking lot you could still see the sign in the distance and being at that huge white dome was surreal. I might as well have landed on the moon -it seemed so futuristic to me at the time. The fact the building was in a state of disrepair was of no concern to me. It was just me and my father spending the day together somewhere magical.