Venice, where everyone is welcome

Venice, CA

It's a sweet and in some ways bittersweet return to my old stomping grounds, where I lived from about May 1977 to September 1978. [You're saying to yourself, 1977--how could that be? He only looks about 28 years old! LOL, YAC (You Are Clueless.)]

Strolling down Ocean Front Walk in Venice is something that everyone should experience. With the palm trees lining the walk, the beach and the ocean everpresent on one side, the sun and the breeze filtering through the moist morning air, one feels as if all is right with the world (especially when it's the middle of winter in Minnesota!). But the real treasure of Venice is that it's a place where everyone shows up, and to the extent that it's possible, everyone is welcome.

Ocean Front Walk is humanity on parade, and all can be part of the procession. That includes accountants, street musicians, palm readers and psychics, T-shirt vendors, bikers and in-line skaters, Latinos, LAPD officers (often on bicycles), body builders (at Muscle Beach) and other "beautiful people," paddle tennis players, little kids, tourists from the US and abroad, African-Americans, old folks with walkers, and a definite contingent of "street people"--people with skin wrinkled and bronzed from years in the sun (and years of substance abuse, no doubt) who literally carry their world on their backs, or in their sleeping bags, or attached to their bikes, or piled on top of their rusty 30-year-old campers. If there are still "hippies" left in this world, they are to be found on Venice Beach. Unlike Santa Monica just to the north or Marina del Rey just to the south, there is a feeling in Venice that you can be exactly who you want to be--even if that's a transsexual with spider tattoos and bells in your hair. It is a liberating feeling, and one that speaks to a Midwesterner who often feels the pressure to "be normal" and "fit in."

And the bittersweet part: that Venice represents a period in my life when everything felt possible--when there were few rules, responsibilities, or expectations. The summer of 1977, when I was basically a beach bum and in love with much in the world, had a certain innocence that is hard to recapture. But, with this current visit as an inspiration, maybe I can re-claim at least some of that! Although some of the details have changed, I am happy to report that some three decades later, the spirit of Venice is alive and well.