At The Huntington Tea Room

     As we sipped our coffee this morning, home after our ten-day trek down the coast, Nyel and I considered what we had seen and heard with relationship to society’s economic pulse.  Granted, our view was a relatively narrow one, but we reminded ourselves that in the past (the gas crunch of the mid-‘70s for instance), a road trip gives one some interesting comparisons.
     The roads, themselves, were in fairly good order – less highway construction than usual, perhaps, but that only made our traveling easier.  The highways, state and federal, were the best; city streets in Los Angeles (as we had noted recently in Seattle) were in need of help.  However,  few work crews were in evidence.
     Although there were vacancy signs in abundance at the motels along the way, they seemed to be doing a brisk business even mid-week.  Too, their free breakfast offerings seemed over the top.  It was hard to think ‘tough  times’ while omelets were being made to order at an ‘economy class’ motel!
     And, speaking of food, restaurants everywhere were bustling.  I was especially impressed by the crowds at the Huntington Tea Room where Charlie took us as a special treat.  Even though it is a reservations-only sort of place and you have to first pay to get into the Museum grounds ($15 senior admission) and second for the  high tea ($29.99 per person), the Tea Room was totally full.  People were even waiting on the off-chance that a reserved table would unexpectedly free up.  Lines, yes.  Soup lines of the 1930s, no.
     We visited not only the Huntington, but also the Smiley Museum in Redlands and the Healdsburg Museum in Northern California and, in each of those institutions, there was clear evidence of financial duress – hours cut, limited paid staff, more dependence upon volunteers.  Shades of home!  But they were open, mounting new exhibits, even planning expanded services.  Also, shades of home!
     The one place that was clearly hurting was the large nail salon where I went for an emergency repair.  As opposed to the lively business I’d noted in past years, it was virtually empty.  Only the seven or eight Asian nail technicians were there, trying to stay busy by folding towels and reorganizing supplies.  “The economy,” Joanne told me in her hard-to-understand English.  But, she said, they are still open seven days a week and employ “very many.”  She went on to talk about the cost of her husband’s health insurance and how they were having to drop it.
     Other people talked “hard times,” too.  Charlie’s friends, most in the entertainment business – script writers, actors, designers – have been hard-pressed to find steady work.  But, as one fellow pointed out, that has more to do with the profession than the economy, even now.  Their most frequently expressed concern, also, was the cost of health care and of insurance.
     We finished our morning coffee without drawing any hard-and-fast conclusions about what we learned concerning our economic pulse.  People still seem to have money for many things we would consider luxuries and they are vociferous about health care costs.  But, mostly, it seemed to be ‘life as usual’ in the admittedly narrow lane we traveled.