It’s a dangerous proposition to create a “better of record” for Bob Pool tales in the Los Angeles Occasions.
Not solely are there too many to select from — greater than 4,000 — however there are few shortcuts for locating the true gems. That’s as a result of Pool hated writing for Web page 1. He favored economic system over size. And the headlines hardly ever did justice to tales he may weave manner inside the outdated Occasions Valley Version, say, on a web page subsequent to GE fridge adverts.
Readers may chuckle at one story Pool wrote for contained in the Metro part in 1984, then discover that was one among three bylines he had on the web page and that the true winner was on the backside. On this case, the story of a Canoga Park home-owner named Jeanette Kohane, whose discovery of chocolate cake smeared on her residence (she assumed it was vandalism) led to police to a hoop stealing meals from the native college’s cafeteria.
Pool, who died Sunday, was a legend in The Occasions newsroom for 3 many years. Most of that point, he didn’t have an outlined project. His beat was “the Bob Pool story,” an ideal slice of the Los Angeles human situation that many days made studying a newspaper chronicling wars, sleazy politicians, financial misery and atmosphere degradation considerably bearable.
He had an eye fixed for tales you’ll need to learn. He discovered individuals you needed to know. He revered your time. And he knew tips on how to make you smile (throughout his early days on the Thousand Oaks Information-Chronicle, he knew tips on how to get you interested by a municipal authorities piece: “Though they’re already as much as their knees in sewage effluent, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District leaders agreed Monday evening to think about increasing their sewer system to Topanga Canyon.”)
Bob had a desk within the newsroom, however he was most possible out within the area, discovering the surprising, the shocking and the marginally absurd. In West L.A., he caught up with the top of the Early Typewriter Collectors Assn. — a person in possession of greater than 70 machines. However Bob didn’t write it as a nostalgia piece. It turned out he produced the group’s publication on a Mac.
“A pc is so a lot better,” mentioned the Typewriter King.
As Occasions columnist Steve Lopez wrote of Pool on his 2014 retirement: He his the last word reminder to reporters that “good issues occur while you blow off information conferences, set fireplace to press releases, get out of the workplace and have a good time the day by day drama on what is likely to be the world’s best stage.”
Los Angeles Occasions reporter Bob Pool
(Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Occasions)
Bob, meet Bob. And one other Bob
Pool had a knack for orchestrating a narrative into one thing extra magical. So in 1991, Pool had an concept when David Rensin and Invoice Zehme printed the “The Bob E-book,” which he described as a paperback that aimed to discover the “title Bob back and forth.”
He organized to have Occasions photographer Bob Chamberlin take the images and editor Bob Welkos edited the story.
As for the title, Pool discovered benefit.
There has by no means been a President named Bob or a King Bob or a Pope Bob, in fact. However Rensin and Zehme have determined that males named Bob are males who get issues executed.
True, Bobs do “get pleasure from a strong sense of sameness.” However they’re respectable, reliable sorts who instinctively benefit from a nasty scenario, in line with the ebook. Bobs are smart, approachable, likable and dependable. To not point out predictable.
No person named Bob may have ever written “The Bob E-book,” mentioned Rensin, 41, of Sherman Oaks. That’s as a result of Bobs are too pragmatic and unpretentious. Bobs don’t put on berets or quote Nietzsche or hang around at Renaissance gala’s, he mentioned. “They don’t take themselves significantly.”
Pool used to inform colleagues he was grateful for being named “Bob.”
What would have occurred if his mother and father named him Seth, he joked.
The bellman from Bell who grew to become a bellwether in Bel-Air
Pool all the time most popular the little man over the massive title. That’s the reason he was drawn to the story of Tony Marquez:
As soon as the packages went within the field, Tony Marquez’s award was within the bag.
That’s the brief model of how a Los Angeles bellhop has received the title of finest lodge employee in America.
Marquez is bell captain on the Resort Bel-Air. It’s the sprawling hideaway in Stone Canyon north of Westwood the place cottage-like suites can go for $3,000 an evening — and superstar visitors can include a truckload of baggage.
However schlepping heavy suitcases and trunks across the Bel-Air’s 12-acre grounds isn’t what earned Marquez a nationwide hotel-rating service’s solely particular person five-star rating.
Pool ended the 2004 piece with one among his extra beloved kickers: “So says the bellman from Bell who grew to become a bellwether in Bel-Air.”
Santa Pool
In 1990, Pool spent weeks undercover as a retail Santa Claus, reporting a sequence of tales that may develop into Occasions Christmas classics:
By final weekend, I’d spent three weeks portraying Santa in buying facilities and elsewhere round city. I figured I had the slow-gaited Santa stroll down pat. Ditto the Santa speak — the patter about what youngsters need for Christmas, the milk and cookies they plan to go away out for me and the significance of brushing enamel and going to mattress on time.
“Santas all the time marvel about it, however I don’t assume it is best to have any fears about being acknowledged,” mentioned Jenny Zink, head of the Santa Division for Western Non permanent Companies, who has employed 3,500 St. Nicks throughout the nation this month. Costumed Santas even go unrecognized by their very own youngsters, she mentioned.
However Mrs. Claus was not a believer. “Rachel will know who you’re,” she fretted. “You’ll destroy her.”
I used to be undeterred. To make the check full, I organized for a number of of my nieces and nephews from Valencia to additionally go to with Santa. Mrs. Claus threw up her arms when she heard that.
Pool closed one other within the sequence this fashion: “On the finish of my shift, I took my aching again residence for a protracted, steaming bathe. My beard went for a soak in a shower of lukewarm water and Woolite.”
The visitor who by no means checked out
It’s no shock Pool was drawn to Thelma Becker, who as he reported in 1988, checked into downtown L.A.’s Biltmore Resort “on Jan. 7, 1940, and by no means checked out.”
Nowadays, lodge workers members take care of the 5-foot-tall Becker as if she was each’s mom. She is a visitor on the lodge’s annual worker Christmas social gathering. She has her personal mail field on the worker mail middle.
She was invited right into a closely guarded ballroom for a peek on the silver desk settings earlier than the Duke and Duchess of York arrived for a current formal dinner.
“She is aware of all the things concerning the lodge,” mentioned Evelyne Gibert, supervisor of the Biltmore’s pastry store. “If we do the pastry improper, she’s not afraid to tell us. She is aware of the components I put within the pastry. She even is aware of my husband.”
Becker remembers staff’ birthdays with presents or, within the case of Biltmore public relations director Victoria King, with a shock social gathering on Tuesday evening at a Mexican restaurant.
“She provides me the funnies from her paper each Sunday,” mentioned entrance desk clerk Teina Tahauri.
