HandiCapable

Every morning I hike a local park called Runyon Canyon. I've been going here about 15 years, almost since I arrived in LA. There have been a lot of changes, most for the worst. And the worst of the worst is the number of people. Used to be you could get up the hill and back with only a few faces and if you were early enough, without seeing anybody. Now it is packed.

I guess I can't expect things to stay the same forever and I am being a little selfish but I can't help myself.

A few years ago there was an uproar with the people living on one street demanding that parking be restricted from visitors. I objected to that at first for various reasons but then my selfish desire to see the number of visitors decline made me reconsider. I used to get a laugh out of watching people in their $50,000 LandCruisers, wearing $150 hiking boots and other hiking accessories sit at the top of the hill for 20 minutes waiting for a parking space to open so that they could exercise. I would witness this as I walked up the hill from my ever available parking spots 2 blocks away.

Things have changed. The street is indeed restricted now and very few cars are parked on it. Well, there are a few. I assumed they were locals with parking stickers as I was approached but that wasn't the case. There was a line of 4 cars and they all were parking under the same privileges. Here is one.



I only snapped a picture of the one but trust me, there were 4. This is as close to the entrance gate of the park that you can get and the vanity plate gives an idea of the type of person driving.



2 Fit? Surely they are going up the hill, probably running before hitting the gym, taking a pilates class and exfoliating.

Then I realized why 2 Fit and friends are granted the rare privilige of parking where nobody else is allowed.



4 handicapped people parked at the entrance of the park. Now either we had a wheelchair club on a field trip or somebody's bought themselves a handicap tag. Its common in the land of Prius' and vegans.

This is the kind of person I'd like to see somebody from the wheelchair rugby movie "Murderball" yank out of their car and bitchslap.