A Long Goodbye Kiss to LA - The Sequel

This morning, I took a long, thoughtful stroll with my little buddy Hampton through Palisades Park. We paused at a favorite spot overlooking the Pacific. I scooped him up, squeezed him tight, rested his furry little bum on the fence, and we simply breathed together like a shaggy pair of happy animals.

These windswept cliffs above the Pacific Coast Highway, with their sparkling panoramic views, have been my thinking spot for half a century.

Fifty years ago, in 1976, I was a 21-year-old punk kid, freshly armed with a literature degree from Loyola Marymount. My first apartment was just a few blocks away, in the suburban Eden of northern Santa Monica. For $150 a month, I rented a cozy little Hobbit nook, crammed with books, art supplies, sketches, paintings, empty canvases, and heaps of record albums.

Every night after my delivery gig, I’d spark a J and spin Dark Side of the Moon. I’ve long been haunted by the music and lyrics of Pink Floyd’s Time: Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown / Waiting for something or someone to show you the way.

I was never one to hang out. I haunted the local library and wandered foothills and fields. Perhaps that restless sense of squandering precious time and seeking deeper meaning began much earlier.

As a five-year-old kid standing in the front yard of my childhood home in Culver City, I watched the dull, repetitive routines of workaday life unfolding around me. Suddenly, out of the wild blue, I experienced something I can describe only as mystical. A deep, eerie rumbling voice from somewhere—or nowhere—declared: “There’s more to life than this.”

But what? Even at that tender age, I couldn’t see the point of living without some deeper purpose.

Years later, at 21, I often stood at this very spot in Palisades Park, contemplating the immensities and mysteries of human existence—the joys, sorrows, and suffering of what Scottish poet Robert Burns called “man’s inhumanity to man,” and the raw, naked meaning of this impossibly glorious gift of life when all the BS is stripped away.

I wondered, dreamed, plotted, and schemed about how best to live my life.

Today, as a half-deaf old-fart rock-and-roller, 71 going on 17, I find myself contemplating a different set of questions: How do I pare down a lifetime of cherished possessions? How do I part with my beloved books, paintings, and assorted treasures? How do I say goodbye to the people and places that have become part of who I am?

Because, after a lifetime rooted in Southern California, I’m leaving Los Angeles.

Again.

On November 22, Hampton and I will hit the road for our third cross-country adventure in ten years. Our destination is Easton, Pennsylvania, where Crystal and I are beginning a new chapter.

Crystal will fly ahead to facilitate a smooth transition into our new digs in Easton. My furry wingman and I have already crossed the US together twice, traveling some 6,000 miles along a patchwork of Interstate 40 and old Route 66.

In 2017, we left Venice Beach for Savannah, Georgia. In 2021, we headed back to California, settling first in Huntington Beach and eventually Santa Monica.

These weren’t impulsive moves or whims. Family illness brought us to Georgia. A profound longing to return to California brought us west again. Now, the financial realities of trying to maintain a decent life in Los Angeles are sending us east once more.

Why Easton?

Crystal’s best friends from the old days in New York City migrated to Easton 20-odd years ago, for many of the same reasons. Her sis still lives in New York, just 70 miles away. Her mom, sneaking up on 90, lives in Savannah and may eventually relocate too, bringing her considerably closer to family and friends.

Crystal, Hampton, and I visited Easton together, spending about a week exploring the area. I loved it.

It’s a historic town dating back to colonial America, with roots in the 1750s. My father was born in Pennsylvania, too, so there’s a certain full-circle feeling heading back toward the state where Pop’s life journey began. And after spending most of my life in the land of eternal sunshine, I’m genuinely looking forward to experiencing four distinct seasons in a small town.

Autumn leaves. Winter snow. Spring blossoms. The annual transformation of the landscape.

Despite dire warnings about the dreaded Pennsylvania winter, I feel cautiously optimistic. I heard horror stories about sci-fi-sized bugs, heat, and humidity in Savannah. But I toughed it out and drove three assigned 90-minute tours a day in an open trolley with no AC. And not one mosquito bite in hundreds of tours.

Still, I am shopping for reliable, budget-friendly winter gear and scouring my closet for long-lost, basically-useless-in-LA wool socks and long johns. Feel free to share any hot tips.

And no doubt about it, leaving my hometown is hard.

I’ve watched neighborhoods evolve, familiar landmarks disappear, and seen whole suburbs like Century City and Marina del Rey rise from wild open places where I once played as a kid.

I’ve seen entire ways of life come and go. And I've watched something else disappear along the way: the quirky, colorful, gloriously eccentric character of the Los Angeles I grew up in. It’s as if LA were competing with another planet for the title of Strip Mall Capital of the Known Universe.

For the past few years, I've had the privilege of working at 66 to Cali, a little shop on Santa Monica Pier at the western end of historic Route 66. I've served as an informal ambassador for the Mother Road, welcoming travelers from around the world, swapping stories, and sharing my lifelong affection for the roadside Americana they came thousands of miles to experience.

It's a wonderful gig, and one I'll miss dearly. I've recently given notice, and saying goodbye to my little outpost at the End of the Trail won't be easy.

In June, Crystal and I joined fellow enthusiasts from across America and around the world on a Route 66 Centennial Caravan, exploring historic places lovingly restored by dedicated preservationists. Along the way, we also passed abandoned storefronts and once-thriving communities struggling against harsh climates, the passage of time, and economic hardship.

One night, we stayed at a humble motel in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Just up Route 66 was a battered inn, boarded up and in shambles. I teared up when I realized it was the same cozy Mom & Pop joint where Hampton and I spent a restful night on our 2021 trip from Savannah to LA.

While readily identified with the jaunty tune Get Your Kicks on Route 66, the Mother Road and hardship often go hand in hand. As Angel Delgadillo aptly put it, “This highway, if you just think about it, is peppered with hope; it is peppered with tears.”

In 1985, Route 66 was officially decommissioned, having been largely bypassed by the Interstate Highway System. Businesses that once depended on passing travelers struggled, and many disappeared.

But a barber named Angel Delgadillo, who had spent his life along Route 66 in Seligman, Arizona, refused to let the old highway or his family-run barbershop vanish without a fight.

He helped organize the movement to preserve and promote Historic Route 66, inspiring communities along the Mother Road to recognize the value of what they still had.

Today, travelers from around the world make pilgrimages to Seligman to meet the man affectionately known as the Guardian Angel of Route 66. He helped rally a movement that brought Historic Route 66 back into the public eye.

And right here at home, the iconic Santa Monica Pier nearly vanished in 1972, when city officials proposed demolishing it and replacing it with a bridge to a 35-acre artificial island featuring a 30-story hotel, convention center, and upscale commercial attractions.

A determined band of Santa Monicans revolted. They defeated the island proposal, only to discover that the City Council still intended to demolish the Pier. So they fought back again, ultimately saving what became affectionately known as “The People's Pier.”

Every day I've worked on that Pier, I've enjoyed the company of visitors who might never have experienced this extraordinary place had those citizens not stood their ground.

But the struggle to preserve our history never really ends.

Just down the road, the old Penguin Coffee Shop, now Mel's Drive-In, faces an uncertain future. Preservationists are fighting to save this splendid example of 1950s Googie architecture from a proposed redevelopment.

I understand that cities must grow and change. I don't expect Los Angeles to remain frozen in time. But surely there's room for progress that doesn't require erasing every trace of the past.

What troubles me isn't simply the disappearance of old buildings. It's the loss of the memories, traditions, characters, and communities that gave those places their distinctive souls.

Perhaps that's one reason I've spent so much of my life painting the Venice Canals, old neighborhoods, and the vanishing landmarks of Southern California. My paintings have become a way of holding on to places and moments that might otherwise disappear.

And yet, for all my affection for the familiar streets, old buildings, and roadside landmarks, I know that the deepest attachments aren't to bricks and mortar.

They're to people. There are friends, family members, neighbors, musicians, artists, and kindred spirits I'll miss terribly.

During my remaining weeks in Los Angeles, I hope to reconnect with friends, family, and members of my local artistic and musical tribes. Some of you I’ll see when I deliver copies of my 2027 Spirit of Venice Calendar, featuring digitally remastered paintings created during my forty years living and working in Venice.

It’s a curious coincidence that I began putting this collection together before I knew I’d be leaving. What started as a celebration of a place I love has become something of a personal farewell to a place I lived longer than anywhere else on earth, more than half my life.

My younger brother, whom I haven’t seen in several years, will also be visiting LA for a few days. We’ll undoubtedly make a pilgrimage to Tito’s Tacos or Johnny’s Pastrami and visit our mom, dad, and sister Chris, who rest peacefully and eternally at Holy Cross Cemetery in the rolling green hills above our childhood home in Culver City.

So, along with the sadness of goodbyes and the trepidation of an unknown road ahead, I must confess there’s excitement too. I’ve come to believe that home isn’t necessarily a permanent address. It’s a spirit, a feeling, something we create and recreate through the people we love, the experiences we share, and our willingness to adapt to changing circumstances.

Perhaps that’s one of the most important lessons my travels have taught me.

In September 2017, Hampton and I drove across the country toward Savannah, Georgia, only to find Category 5 Hurricane Irma bearing down on our destination. We waited out the storm in Memphis, Tennessee, and eventually drove over 600 miles through howling winds and torrential rain to arrive in a city strewn with fallen branches and soaked to the bone.

During that visit, Crystal suggested I consider moving there.

After returning to Venice and weighing the possibilities, I decided to take the plunge.

I spent November dismantling 40 years of life in my Venice art studio, packing, selling, giving away possessions, and giving a long goodbye kiss to the city where I lived, loved, lost, and came of age for 40 remarkable years.

On my final evening, after a long, thoughtful walk through the Venice Canals and out onto Venice Pier, a dear old musician friend drove me to LAX.

Following a sleepless redeye flight that connected in New York, I arrived in Savannah at dawn on December 1, 2017. I sat on my suitcase outside the airport, squinting into the blinding morning sunlight.

WTF Had I Just Done?

I’d left behind a lifetime of friends, connections, and familiar places. I was starting over in a city where I knew one woman, one dog, and one vicious hurricane named Irma.

Then my Uber pulled up. The driver was a nimble, spry fellow who resembled Colonel Sanders and spoke with a buttery Southern drawl. Within minutes, our conversation led to an unexpected employment opportunity with Old Town Trolley, conducting historical tours of Savannah.

Before long, I was studying three centuries of local history, passing examinations, and learning to maneuver a commercial trolley through obstacle courses in torrential rain—navigating narrow and harrowing cobblestone lanes while narrating tours of an unfamiliar but fascinating city. I spent three years working with people who remain friends today.

A strange new city became familiar. Strangers became friends. And gradually, Savannah became home.

This morning, standing above the Pacific with Hampton in my arms, I found myself looking across 50 years of memories while contemplating a future I can’t yet imagine. The 21-year-old kid who stood here in 1976 couldn’t possibly have predicted the life awaiting him. And the 71-year-old standing here today doesn’t know precisely what’s waiting around the next bend, either.

But the road is calling again. And for a third time, I’ve got a good traveling companion.

As strange as it may seem to folks accustomed to the steady comfort of familiar surroundings, I sometimes feel as at home on a wide-open stretch of highway as I do in any place I’ve ever gotten mail delivered to. As poet Emily Dickinson wrote: “Where thou art—that—is home.”

Being 2,700 miles from my beloved Pacific Ocean, I’ll have to find a new thinking place. I did find one where I walked Hampton every day after work in Savannah. So there’s hope.

Happy trails, Los Angeles. It’s been one hell of a ride.

And who knows…that open stretch of highway leads a lot of places, and it goes both ways.

Frank Strasser — October 13, 2026

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