Homeward bound for Spring Break '98

Couldn't make it to Daytona this year? Neither could these five kids, but we don't hear them complainin'.

When visiting L.A., I find it is best to start with the stereotypes, because in L.A., the stereotypes are the real thing. On a visit to our country's most magnanimous city, you have to be absolutely certain of one thing: have a car...or at least access to one. Without a car you will find yourself confined to a three-mile square area whose only redeeming value will be a couple of 7-11s and a nail salon. Actually walking farther than this distance will make you the object of ridicule and scorn.

Head out to San Vicente in Santa Monica/Brentwood to see L.A.'s finest collection of cosmetically-enhanced women on their daily jogs. Then stroll down to the Venice Beach boardwalk, where you can pick up everything from a $3 T-shirt to a spritually-enlightening high-colonic. One place where you will not find stereotypes is Hollywood itself, where the better part of your time will be spent battling busloads of foreign tourists for a chance to get a picture taken next to Robert Loggia's star.

If you like sports, then perhaps you can get your hands on some 87th-row Lakers tickets where you can see the people being seen. I, however, recommend that you score some slightly more obtainable Clippers tickets. At the Sports Arena, when you yell at the players, you know they hear you.

Finally, no trip to L.A. is complete without experiencing the city's culinary delights. The first stop must always be the In-N-Out Burger, home of the Double-Double and the finest fast food in the world. Anyone saying otherwise is a fool. If you want to see celebrities eat, you can hassle yourself for reservations at Spago, or you can just go to the Taco Bell across from Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, where this author has seen everyone from Jay Leno to the little nerd from Step by Step.

--Al St. Germain

Middle-America Style

When you spend your teenage years in a town of 8,000 people, you learn to create your own fun. My pals and I used to get our kicks by piling into the back of my friend Todd's pickup truck and holding on for dear life while he whipped around corners, looking out for cops. When Todd wasn't allowed to use the truck, he played around with explosives. I remember a few nights spent crouching in fields, setting off homemade bombs in lieu of fireworks.

Without a ne'er-do-well friend for diversion, however, pickings get pretty slim in Oberlin, Ohio. But the town has its charms, even if everything closes at 9 p.m. You can spend a Saturday sunning yourself in the town square, nursing a pop from Gibson's Bakery, and watching unwashed Oberlin College students frolic on the grass--the grass on the ground, that is. Take a minute to inhale the dust at Laverne's Fashions, a women's clothing store that stopped buying new inventory in 1962, if only because you'll be the first patron ever spotted inside that place (the locals will be talking about it for weeks!). Pine for the now-defunct Minimart, a dank basement emporium run by a compulsive pack-rat that sold everything from broken snowglobes to decades-old fake eyelashes at prices that would be absurdly low if the goods on sale weren't completely worthless.

Better yet, leave the confines of the pinko campus and enter the Midwest. Before you leave town, stop at Bunny's Flowers and Gifts and gawk at some of the tackiest window displays this side of the Appalachians (a cross-eyed mannequin in a Santa suit; a five-foot-tall plastic bunny holding a basket of fake flowers). Don't forget to refuel at the Campus Restaurant, a greasy-spoon diner with the worst food and the lowest prices in town. Indeed, there are cheap dates aplenty in Ohio, if you know how to look for them. Better yet, find a friend who likes to break the law.

--Darby Saxbe

Tragically hip Pacific Northwest Style

Soundgarden. Not the band, the place. Depending on how you count, how you reckon the ridges run, you can name between five and eight hills in the city of Seattle. The streets in town conform like a loose-knit grid net draped over and around these mounds. Several roads of negotiable size snake around the periphery, marking off the split between slope and flatland; every hill is braced by neighborhood tutus, fraying out to meet the water on all sides.

There's a lot of water in Seattle: five lakes, three canals, and one ocean. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rests on a lobe where these bodies overlap. Someone at NOAA has a peculiar penchant for public art; a number of Seattle sculptors have found a home for experimental works on NOAA property. Since NOAA sits right next to Magnuson, one of Seattle's most frequented parks, people actually see those sculptures.

One sculpture gets everyone to hop the fence. Erected in 1984 to the tune of half a million dollars, Soundgarden stands at the edge of NOAA property leaning into the wind driven around a nearby spit. Soundgarden is 12 30-foot silver windcocks fashioned to scream in unison notes born out of a 12-tone system. The effect is surreal. In a storm, the giant tubes swing about, salute the current, and squeal out madness. I go to Soundgarden every time I go home. I'll be there next week.

--Seth Gordon

Bergen County Style

Mahwah. Woodcliff Lake. Ho-ho-kus. Allendale. The Route 4 interchange. These are the exits of northern New Jersey's Route 17 South. These are the exits I intend to drive past every day of Spring Break '98. While you'll be sipping margaritas in Acapulco, I'll be slurping banana smoothies in the Paramus Park food court.

While your hair will be tousled by warm Caribbean breezes, my hair will be teased by Denise at "The Mane Attraction" in the Garden State Plaza. Sure, the March weather in New Jersey sucks. But inside a mall, you would never know.

What sets 17 South apart from other low-numbered north Jersey highways (the lame 23, the seedy 4) is the staggering nature of consumer opportunities it throws at you. In addition to approximately 85,000 shopping centers, the 20-mile stretch between Ramsey and Paramus boasts three full-fledged indoor shopping malls. Two--the aforementioned Park and Plaza--are behemoths, containing Gaps and Foot Lockers for every gender and age group, as well as two truly amazing food courts. Every major country--China, Mexico, Philadelphia, the Republic of Chick-Fil-A--is represented, and it's hard to imagine a nicer eating environment than the Park's elevated Terrace on the Mall. Or, if you're super-hungry, go outside the mall, and eat mozzarella sticks at one of 17 South's Greek diners, which are situated at 30-foot intervals along the side of the highway.

But there are more things to do on Route 17 than just eat greasy food and spend money on useless crap. You can play the Great Jersey Mall Game. Count the number of forest-green Jeep Grand Cherokees in the parking lot. See how many seriously disillusioned kids you can spot. Try and find people wearing Starter jackets until you've seen parkas for all 30 NFL teams. Look for couples with their hands in each other's back pockets. It's easier than you might think.

--Brian Levinson

Rural Style

In the summer of 1996, a tabloid army bore down on Staunton, Virg. Catherine Anne Christianson-Chittum, an actress who has appeared on All My Children, had attempted to hire a hit man to murder her husband, Rick. The details of the case began to emerge just as representatives from The Globe, The Sun, and The Star entered the Shenandoah Valley, saliva trickling from their undead lips. However, the mightiest forces available to supermarket journalism could reveal little--the locals refused to give interviews to the vulture-like outside media. And so, the "Queen City" repulsed the forces of mass culture until a few weeks later, when a woman dressed as a giant cake danced the Macarena in Staunton's 250th Anniversary Celebration.

Even before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Staunton was a battleground between the old and the new. Certainly the road signs of surrounding Augusta County have never recovered from the Industrial Age's easy availability of firearms. Commercial development is an especially complex issue; the same people who decried the construction of housing developments that worsened flooding along the Middle River regularly visit the new Wal-Mart Supercenter and its three-acre parking lot.

Still, old traditions have not entirely fled the region. The advent of hunting season in November brings increased absences from Buffalo Gap High School as teenagers drive pickup trucks into the Blue Ridge mountains and blast deer amidships with their shotguns. And as the spring sun warms the land, so too does it warm the hearts of the friendlier locals, who are happy to welcome non-Yankee vacationers into their homes, just as long as they help polish off the last of the Bambi burgers in the freezer.

--Matt Wiegle

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