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Writer's pictureJill

Commuting in L.A. !


Oh lord. How did I leave the house this way? Nevermind...Not every day is a beauty day! It was a crazy commute but I'm used to it, so it didn't really bother me.


My first 23 years of my career, I was a high school English teacher in Bel Air, about 1/2 hour to 40 minutes (in good traffic) from my home. So I wasn't really that close to home. And because I was a mom to little ones, I wanted to make sure I could get home in any circumstance. Thus, I had an extra pair of tennis shoes and socks in my trunk in case there was a crisis (like an earthquake) where I would need to walk home. (In the '80's my boss required that all females wear hosiery to teach! Can you imagine???)


Later, after I got my doctorate, I worked at Loyola Marymount University for 12 years as a professor. That's quite a commute. It's right near LAX, Los Angeles Airport. It's about 20 miles, and in good traffic, it can be about 30 minutes. But the 405 Freeway rarely has "good traffic." So my commute to school was generally about 40 minutes, and my commute home was always an hour, and more often an hour and a half to two hours.


I still kept tennis shoes in my trunk, because my Julia was still living with us and I wanted to make sure I could get home in any case! Robert kept running shoes in his trunk too because he worked downtown! That would have been some walk for both of us!


So when I hear people complaining about a commute, I want to get out my tiny violin.We laughed on our recent trips when our readers would warn us about "traffic" in the area. We never saw any kind of traffic like we do here in L.A. So it all seemed a breeze to us!


I guess it's all what you're used to!

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