‘Best Seats’ for Pope’s Mission Visit Have Some Strings Attached

Marguerite Ewing dressed her toy poodle in the Vatican colors and clutched it tightly to keep it from being blown away when the Pope landed in her San Fernando Valley neighborhood Wednesday morning.

Helicopters carrying Pope John Paul II and U.S. bishops to the San Fernando Mission landed on a ball field about 100 yards from a 130-home subdivision where Ewing lives. Residents of the community of Mission Hills had a clear view of the pontiff’s arrival from 15 backyards that curved around the landing zone.

“The Secret Service told uswe’d have the best seats in California to see the Pope, and they were right,” said Ewing, who invited a dozen friends to her house to watch.

Along with the view and the excitement came a lot of bother.

Los Angeles police officers were also in each of the backyards along Kalisher Street and Bartee Avenue. They were watching the homeowners.

“They said if they see a curtain open up, they’d fire,” said Erik Twitchell, 26, who watched the landing with about 30 others from the backyard of his parents’ home.

“We got everybody out of the upstairs before the Pope got here,” said his father, Bob Twitchell, who said he is not Catholic. “The security didn’t really matter though. Here’s a man who speaks for mankind on the right to live in peace. This is one of the biggest things that can happen in a lifetime in any neighborhood.”

Cinda Redman agreed. She arranged for daughters Melissa, 7, and Jennifer, 9, to arrive late to Granada Hills Baptist Elementary School so they could see the Pope.

“It’s historic. It’s more exciting than when the mission’s eucalyptus grove caught fire,” Redman said.

Residents of the 10-year-old neighborhood had been abuzz about the papal visit for six weeks. Police and Secret Service agents had gone door-to-door to tell them of special restrictions they would face during the Pope’s 5 1/2-hour stay at the mission’s Our Lady Queen of the Angels Seminary.

Streets leading to their homes would be sealed off, the agents said. Only residents and authorized guests, whose names and drivers’ license numbers were submitted to police in advance, would be admitted.

Besides staying away from upstairs windows, residents were instructed to keep their distance from their backyard fences and stay out of shadows. They were warned against carrying objects that “could be mistaken for firearms and cause unnecessary concern among security personnel.”

Two of the 15 families living next to the ball field balked at the restrictions and the police presence, neighbors said. One family left town to avoid the Pope’s visit.

Despite the warnings, several of Pam Loftus’ sons slipped onto the mission grounds a few hours before the Pope’s arrival to tape a computer-printed welcoming sign on the fence.

When the big moment arrived a few minutes after 9 a.m., a crowd of about 30 friends from St. Ferdinand’s Catholic Church in San Fernando cheered and waved balloons from a wooden deck behind the Loftus home.

“They are neat people,” said Police Officer Abel Caron, who was on duty on the Loftus deck.

He munched with the guests on a brunch of sweet rolls, scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit.

“I’d like to do this on a regular basis,” Caron said.

Down the street, Steve Slinsky, 17, and brothers, Ed, 22, and Mike, 20, had attached a 15-foot-long paper banner reading, “We Love Pope,” to their roof. They watched in dismay as the helicopter rotor blast ripped it loose. The gust also knocked Slinsky from a backyard playhouse roof, where he had climbed to photograph the Pope with a video camera.

Neighbor Ron Ruffner made certain his rooftop sign stayed put. He spelled out the word “welcome” in big letters with leftover wallpaper strips from a bedroom renovation project. For good measure, he also stapled the wallpaper to the roofing shingles.

The parked helicopters partially blocked John Buiatti’s view from his backyard vantage point.

“I saw the Pope’s feet. That’s better than nothing,” Buiatti, 21, said.