The country songs whirling in your head, Billie Joe McAlister, existence, "to believe in this misery is just the hard way to go." On Tuesday the Pope beatifies royalist casualties in the Spanish Civil War. Royalist casualties...the friends of Franco. What more could make this picture of life bleed sluggish metallic colors.

But then...a meeting, a despondency,...another meeting, an idea: Jump form Harper Valley to the 50's. Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise. Who we ? Who we baby Who we. And then more signs, small ones but pregnant with meaning. They were playing New York Dolls on the way to my destination this morning. New York Dolls! David Johansen.

We got this inflatable raft and dropped down like Bengal cats from LMU through ice plants so dense it was like we were on another planet. It was tropical. and then we saw an opening in the fence by Centinela Creek, above which Playa Vista has packed a couple dozen 50 gallon pitch black drums marked Hazardous Waste. Into the creek, Centinela Creek that is, across the empty road (which some envison as a gridlock waiting to happen), looking for that Windsock landmark and yes those memories of that crazy bastard Hughes and his aeroplanes. There it is through the PV rubbish dumps, pump up the raft ( "Five minutes inflate time" they told me at the boat store and I believed them!) Twenty minutes later we pushed off into the primal soup of the Area D wetland that is not supposed to exist. In a few moments we were sailors, or a sophisticated couple seeking escape form the concrete madness, or students of flora and fauna floating through pickleweed , or Angelenos recreating (such a Western concept to me a transplant from back East), or two activists trying to shadow and illuminate balance for others to see. Paddling around in the pondlet. Nobody around. Solitude. The sqawks of ducks blending with the sound of paddles in swamp water. Birds flying and then falling through the air to land so exquisitely onto perches they know better than any mere engineer.

We floated around for awhile. When they arrived they told us to leave. I told them they had no authority, that the wetlands were Federal and they had to talk to the Army Corps of Engineers. They had to get that Colonel Whatshisname to come down and tell us to leave because only the Corps had jurisdiction on federal waterways which are rivers and wetlands. We paddled around more.

Like people used to do. Get a boat, a friend, go for a float and listen to the birds, maybe do a little fishing or something else to relax in nature to regenerate.

Because that is what it is all about.

About two and a half hours.

Less time than an opera.

The PV slugslaves called the LAPD, like they always do. The cops arrive and told us to leave. Citizens complaint and arrest and all that. I said again about Federal waterways and jurisdiction and said I too wanted to make a complaint and initiate a police action leading to arrest of those guilty of fouling the Eden I was in. And then something kind of interesting happened. The LAPD said they were AGENTS of the complainant,the complainant being the corporate criminal Playa Vista. An agent. Like a hired gun I guess, or a Wilton Ave. huckster trying to push a mediocre talent "C'mon Jake, I'm telling you, I'm putting my reputation on the line, my name. My Name. This client of mine is gold. Solid gold." I thought it was interesting because right there and then I realized the emptiness of it all, the discrepency, the nullness/voidset, the comprehensible vacumelike quality of PVs vision. Against the relaxation I was feeling floating around there in the sun with my friend. So simple, so damn simple that even one of my special ed kids could see it.

Damn it, I was relaxed. The tension in my neck was starting to uncoil. The graceful flight of Herons and the waycool Coots paddling happily around and the frogs just beginning to chirp.

But we had to leave! I have to teach tomorrow and my friend needs to work too. Once we decided to leave the LAPD were quite friendly, even copacetic to our cause.

So I am not encouraging anyone to float a raft on Federal waterways but there is a past to LA that goes beyond James Ellroy's dark vision that happened to me today down in Ballona. The relaxation of paddling around in the wetland listening to birds and marvelling at the spring flowers made me realize that it is Springtime in LA and I am glad I am here!

I just hope I am not the last person to experience that wonderful tranquillity in this wetland.

Greg Sotir "The word for world is forest." -- Ursula LeGuin

Check out www.saveBallona.com. Now with pictures from 2.24 Area C cleanup. March calender is up! Take a moment RIGHT NOW to go to http://LAWetlands.org/ and dash off a letter! The software program addresses the letter and supplies some starting talking points, which you can change. [End message by doug korthof]