It was the first week of January 1981. My friend Ann asked if I would drive to California with her because she was moving back to Orange County to help her mother take care of her elderly grandmother. She had a drive-away car, a car that someone owned but did not want to drive across the country themselves, so they hired her to drive it for them. She needed help with the driving, so I said, “Sure!” We had one week to get there and two weeks to visit, which was more than enough. We took a southerly route through Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The day before we were due to arrive in Southern California, we stopped in Las Vegas.

You would think that, coming from New York City, I had seen it all, but Vegas was very different. It was in the middle of nowhere, and all the lights on what is now called the old Strip were exciting. Well, I’ll spare you the details, but the historian and talk show host Hal Rothman once said, “Las Vegas was and is a hard town that will make you pay for your inability to restrain your desires. If you have a weakness, Las Vegas will punish you.” And punish me it did. I arrived in Newport Beach with 10 cents to my name.

I remember my first impression when I arrived in Newport Beach from NYC: “It is only 9 p.m. Why are all these sidewalks rolled up?” Newport Beach was the land of big boats and bigger boats. At least boats were up my alley, but it was like hitting a brick wall. It took me 18 months to get back to the East Coast.