Today the valley will be abuzz with a flurry of romantic activity ranging from true love to Fear For Your Life guilt. It’s Valentine’s Day. On paper, it’s designed to favor both genders, but, it’s actually skewed toward little kids, kindergarten teachers, women and those identifying as women. I’ve oft and unsuccessfully fought for a National Guy Valentine’s Day. Simply? It entails women just leaving us men alone, letting us drink beer and watch TV all day on a Wednesday and not going 40 miles near a place that sells, “brunch.”
“Brunch” is where a guy can buy eggs at $28.50 per.
Petrified heart Crabby Appleton I am, I can appreciate romance. Alas, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and Santa Clarita highways are no different. Oddly enough, I have a gal pal. She’s a, hock-ptooey, feminine rights attorney and was set up by friends on a blind date — on Valentine’s Day. She met Mr. Right at a five-star restaurant. Did the obligatory out-of-context smiles and curtsies. Ordered drinks. Her date excuses himself to hit the little boys’ room and not just the hands on the clock started moving, so did the calendar pages. About 20 minutes went by. She waited another five then assumed the Possible Future Father Of Her Children had been stricken with cold feet and he ducked out on her. My barrister amiga headed toward the front door of the large and snooty eatery, noticing that there were cops and paramedics by the restroom. They wheel the gurney past her. Under the sheet?
It’s. Her. Date.
He’d been murdered in the men’s room. Top that. Worse? She had to pay the bar tab.
Upstairs management has asked if I could insert “Southwest Palmdale” for Canyon Country when referring to Things Hillbilly. Alas, this happened in Canyon Country. In the 1980s, a guy was arrested for littering and distributing pornography without the proper licenses. Seems his recent ex was getting married and the reception was held at the HOA community center. Claiming they were, “… a wedding present,” the former boyfriend was calmly strolling, porch to lawn strip to windshield, placing — HUNDREDS — of 8×10 photocopies of the two of them, naked and in desperate reproductive mode. I still fault The Signal’s management for not printing said publicity shots on the front page, with the black little rectangles covering the naughty parts. Sometimes, editors just carry this “family newspaper” justification too far …
I can’t press my luck so I’ll just note that this happened in Way Southeast Palmdale. August, 1975, a woman and her 18-year-old stepson, with whom she had been — ahem — dating, had hired a hitman to kill her 54-year-old husband. She offered the contract killer $500 cash, a Honda motorcycle and a second-hand AMC Gremlin to 86 her beloved hubbie.
Cripes. How can you say no to a Gremlin?
The hitman snitched to local police. Wifey was arrested. The teen son/lover was later captured in Lennox. This is such a tale of True Love it ought to be in the New Testament. When the husband learned his wife tried to kill him for a $5,000 life insurance policy, he went to the Valencia Sheriff’s HQ, attempting to bail her out.
I’ve often suspected that love can be much more than affection, fidelity and service. Sometimes, love can be darkly karmic. In April 1973, Richard Tefft, mental patient (and don’t that look good on a resume), was arrested en route to Pennsylvania to attend his wife’s funeral. A few days earlier, Richard had bludgeoned the missus to death in their Valencia home. Before being extradited back to Santa Clarita for his murder trial, Tefft had been held in Pennsylvania’s Fayette County Prison. His cell had a window with a direct view of the cemetery where his better half, Mrs. Tefft, would rest for eternity.
Love in the SCV is not always a dark thing. We made national headlines in 1953 when Fred J. Friedmeyer was out for a joy ride and obeying all the laws when a local jackbooted California Highway Patrol officer pulled him over. He ticketed Friedmeyer for, “driving with his arm around a woman.” Friedmeyer fought the ticket at our little Market Street courthouse, claiming the old one-liner as a defense: “… that wasn’t some woman, that was his wife.” The ticket was overturned by California’s Supreme Court and soon national headlines as, “The Right To Cuddle Case.”
This following truism goes back to the Cave Man Days.
You don’t just marry the person.
You marry the family.
In 1946, an eyeblink from Valentine’s Day, there was the Mary Logan Case. We were about as conservative as a Bible Belt county in Texas back then and the leggy/hubba-hubba redhead Mary Logan had moved in with her much younger lover, Bob Hathcock.
Small favor? Don’t ANY of you dare make any snickering one-liner Old Testament puns about Bob’s last name.
Actually, the house Mary moved into belonged to Bob’s older sister, Amelia Zemik. Did I mention that the temptress Ms. Logan had five young children who now lived with Amelia? The town was abuzz with gossip and one-liners. Amelia was about to pop and, one night at dinner, she did. While Bob, Mary and the five little ’uns were supping, the church-going Amelia excused herself from the table, went upstairs, came down with a shotgun and blew pretty Mary Logan to smithereens. Amelia calmly sat herself down and was finishing dinner (solo) when local deputies arrived. Corpse akimbo across the table, the deputies asked the obvious — “Why, Amelia?”
Mrs. Zemik reportedly shrugged and said, “I just didn’t particularly care for her attitude anymore.”
In some cases? That strikes me as justifiable homicide.
Darn it anyway. Sometimes, love just doesn’t go as planned. Happy Valentine’s Day to all my Santa Clarita lovebirds, enjoy the tacky cards, flowers, endless I-Wub-Youses, pastries, chocolates, Eskimo nose rubs and champagne.
And, whatever you do, don’t forget.
Sleep with one eye open …
Visit John Boston, earth’s most prolific satirist, at his online store, book shop and commentary/humor website — johnlovesamerica.com.
