Dr. Roy Mills, a longtime surgical surgeon, loves to move his legs. He climbed mountains and ran three marathons.
But when he shared his latest scheme with his wife a couple of years ago, she immediately understood it.
“You're crazy,” she said.
Maybe so. He was approaching the 80 mark and his plan was to take his trekking poles and do a solo hike around the 342-mile Los Angeles perimeter. His wife found the idea less crazy after Mills agreed to meet fellow hikers here and there.
Dr. Roy Mills with his book Walking the Line: Discoveries within the City of Los Angeles.
But you might be interested in the obvious:
Why would anyone walk across a huge, car-clogged, pedestrian-unfriendly metropolis of roughly 500 square miles?
The food had its reasons. For starters, curiosity and concern. There is also the belief that it is impossible to truly know a city through a windshield, and the belief that staying physically and mentally fit is the best way to stop Father Time from working.
And one more thing: Mills' patients over the years came from all over the city, and the Kansas City native considered it a personal disadvantage that he was unfamiliar with much of Los Angeles, despite calling it home for half his life.
To plot his course, Mills unfolded the map accordion style and then walked towards navigationla.lacity.org to outline the exact outlines of the city's boundaries. The border frames an oddly shaped space resembling a torn kite, with San Pedro and Wilmington dangling by a rope at the southern ends.
Dr. Roy Mills takes a break from his walk to talk with Louis Lee, owner of the JD Hobbies Store on West 6th Street in downtown San Pedro.
Mills divided his route into 10-mile segments, 34 in total, and intended to walk two segments each week for four months, moving counterclockwise from the summit of 5,075-foot Mount Lukens on the north side of the city.
The first day began, so to speak, with a hurricane.
The food slipped on loose rocks near the summit of Mount Lukens and fell, hitting his elbows and knees and breaking the aluminum shaft of one of his canes.
But Mills is not one to wave a white flag or call for a helicopter evacuation.
“Later, at home, I used my orthopedic skills to fix the broken pole,” Mills writes in his book. “Walking the line: Discoveries within the City of Los Angeles,” his just published book about his travels.
Dr. Roy Mills walks down West 6th Street in San Pedro.
Meads, now 80 and still seeing patients once a week at the UCLA clinic, remained upright for much of the rest of the trip, adhering to a self-imposed rule of not straying more than one mile from the city limits. In order to return to his starting point each day, he often took buses and found that although the traffic was slow, passengers often alighted with words of gratitude to the driver, which seemed to him “wonderful notes of recognition.”
The doctor walked with two trekking poles like a skier across a vast sea of pavement. He carried a small backpack, wore a baseball cap that said “Los Angeles” and a shirt with an outline of the city on the front, and handed out business cards with a link to his book project.
Those who clicked the link were advised to leave their neighborhoods and follow Mills's prescription for life: “Go out on foot and make interesting, life-enriching discoveries. Wherever you live, be friendly, curious, healthy and busy!”
Food was all of this, and as his last name suggests, he was never shy about sampling Los Angeles' bountiful offerings.
He sampled pork intestine skewers at Big Mouth Pinoy in Wilmington, tasted tongue and lips at Tacos y Birria taco truck in Boyle Heights, enjoyed a cheeseburger and peach cobbler at Hawkins House of Burgers in Watts and stopped at Ranch Side Cafe in Sylmar, interested in a sign advertising American, Mexican and Ethiopian food.
Food tried hang gliding at Dockweiler Beach, fencing on the Santa Monica border, rock climbing in Chatsworth, boxing and go-karting in Sylmar, weightlifting at Butter Beach in Venice.
Dr. Roy Mills stops to explore the Wall of Honor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Veterans Memorial while walking one of the many trails he wrote about in his book.
In each sector, Mills searched for statues and plaques and researched moments of history dating back to the Gabrielino and Chumash, as well as Mexican and Spanish rule. He also explored the history of these peculiar perimeters and bends around the city's perimeter, making sense of Los Angeles' long-simmering mess of real estate grabs, water policies and annexation schemes.
What remained of the foundations of Campo de Cahuenga in Studio City was one of several places that “stirred up my emotions,” Meals writes in Walking the Line. There, in 1847, Andres Pico and John C. Fremont signed a treaty that ceded part of Mexico to the United States, changing the shape of both countries.
In Venice, Mills was similarly moved when he chanced upon an obelisk marking the spot where, in April 1942, more than a thousand Japanese Americans boarded buses to Manzanar.
“Let this monument… remind us of the need to always be vigilant in defending our constitutional rights,” it said. “Government authorities must never again commit injustice against any group based solely on ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, race or religion.”
At firehouse museums, Mills learned of instances where “black firefighters were met with extreme hostility in mixed-race firehouses, including being forced to eat separately… Little did I know that visiting firehouse museums would provide a lesson in the history of racism in Los Angeles,” he writes.
Dr. Roy Mills walks past the armor-piercing shell exhibit in San Pedro.
Although Mills visited such famous sites as the Watts Towers and the Getty Villa, some of his most pleasant experiences were, as he put it, discoveries “by the way” that were not on his original list of attractions, such as the obelisk in Venice.
“Among the ones I came across,” Meals writes, “were Platinum Props, the Sims Poetry House, and warehouses stuffed with spices, buttons, candy, Christmas ornaments or boxes. These owners, along with museum docents and those who care for disadvantaged children, bees, rescued guinea pigs, and the wounded marine mammals who truly love what they do; and their level of commitment.” inspiring and infectious.”
His book is also infectious. In a city with miles of crumbling sidewalks and countless tent cities, among other obvious shortcomings, we can all find a thousand things to complain about. But Mills put his stethoscope to the heart of Los Angeles and found a thousand reasons to rejoice.
When I asked the good doctor if he would be willing to revisit part of his journey with me, he suggested we meet in the area to which he presented his gold medal for its many attractions: San Pedro and Wilmington. There he visited the Banning Mansion, the Drum Barracks, the Point Fermin Lighthouse, the Friendship Bell given to Los Angeles by Korea, the varied architecture of Vinegar Hill, a WWII bunker, a sunken city, the Maritime Museum, etc., etc., etc.
When we met at 6th and Gaffey in San Pedro, Mials was in full form. Trekking poles, a T-shirt with a map of Los Angeles, a modest “Los Angeles” hat.
“Let’s go,” he said, and we headed towards the embankment, but didn’t go far.
Dr. Roy Mills takes a break from his walk to visit prominent San Pedro resident John Papadakis, 75, former owner of the now-closed Greek tavern next door.
The gentleman was leaving the office and we exchanged “good morning.” He introduced himself as John Papadakis, owner of the now-closed Greek Tavern, a longtime local establishment. He invited us back to his office, a museum of photographs, Greek statues and sports memorabilia (he and his son Petros, a popular radio talk show host, were grinders at the University of Southern California).
San Pedro “This is the seaside soul of the city,” Papsakis proclaimed.
And we were on our way, eyes wide open to the wonders of a limitless city that opens up more and more every time you turn a corner, say hello, and hear the first line of a never-ending story.
Down the street we watched the art deco renovation of the Warner Grand Theater, which will soon be 100 years old. We checked out vintage copies of Life magazine at Louis Lee's JD Hobbies, talked to Adrian Garcia about his Dog Groomer store's “senior dog specialization” and got details on 50 private schools whose uniforms are from Norman's Clothing, circa 1937.
At the post office we saw a 1938 mural by Fletcher Martin depicting mail delivery. Back outside, overlooking the port and the sunlit open sea, we met a merchant sailor relaxing on a bench who told us that his son worked for the New York Times. I later found this reporter's touching story about his long search for a man we had just met.
“Walking allowed me to think about and respect Los Angeles like never before,” Mills wrote in his book.
During our walk, discussing what to do next, Mills said he was thinking of exploring San Francisco in the same way.
We were approaching Cape Fermin, where Mills noted the serene splendor of the Moreton Bay fig tree, which cast an acre of shade and was cooled by a refreshing salt breeze.
Dr. Roy Mills walks the Los Angeles Harbor West Trail in San Pedro, one of many trails he wrote about in his book.
“If anything,” Mills told me, “I'm quicker at seeing little things. You know, stop and appreciate a flower or even just an interesting pattern of shadows on the street.”
The message of his book, he says, is simple.
“Basically, just slow down and watch.”
