Journal blue trane's Journal: Paradise Cove 1
January 5, 2014
One of the main goals of this road trip was to visit the site of Rockford's trailer.
In the 1970s, according to the evidence in the Rockford Files, Paradise Cove had free public access to the public beach. In one episode (The Queen of Peru) a motor home parks next to Rockford's trailer and Rockford, despite being annoyed by the kids' noise-making, nevertheless tells the father that he has a right to park there since it's a public beach.
Today, Paradise Cove seems to have been fully privatized. The Paradise Cove Cafe charges for beach access ($20 for walk-in, $30 for beach parking). There is a large trailer park in the Cove which now covers the hills behind Rockford's trailer, which in the 1970s were wild. In one episode, Rocky runs up the hill behind the trailer; today there are fences and roads and signs saying "No access to the General Public".
Things were better in 1970s pre-Reagan America.
I liked Rockford because money didn't faze him. He met a lot of very rich people, but he didn't want what they had. At the ends of lots of episodes he gets stiffed out of his fee or reward money; his reaction is invariably to laugh it off. Sometimes he wins, and celebrates. When he doesn't though he doesn't lose his cool. Money played some part in the game Rockford played, but it wasn't the goal. He didn't worship money or use it to keep score.
Another reason I like The Rockford Files is the sunshine under which a lot of the outdoor shots were filmed. It's 75 degrees here in the middle of winter. Looking at maps in the chilly Pacific Northwest, I wanted to see what some warm weather felt like. Today I went for a swim!
Some more pictures of Paradise Cove, and also the mudrock (?) formations in the adjacent Santa Monica hills, are in this folder of road trip pictures.
Jimmy (Score:2)
Funny how Rockford Files affected me. The first time someone offered me freelance work, I had no idea what to charge. I had never done freelance work before and just didn't know market prices.
So, when the fleeting opportunity presented itself, I was on the spot to come up with my rate, Jim Rockford came into my head and I just said, "Two hundred a day, plus expenses", which was what Rockford charged as a P.I.
I later learned that the $200 day plus expenses was a bit on the high side for my level of experie