I still have a home in Orange, California, with its quaint 1950’s – era downtown plaza and European-style traffic circle. The town has been used as the backdrop for dozens of movies and TV episodes.
During my last visit in February 2026, I was surprised to learn that the city was about to implement a system of paid parking. They claimed this would improve the availability of parking spaces. But I had never had much difficulty finding a space during the 35 years I’ve lived there. I suspect the prospect of adding over a million dollars a year to the city’s coffers was just too good to pass up.
So, on implementation day, Feb. 9, I decided to go check it out. I was a little disappointed to see that no actual parking meters had been installed. Too bad. They would have been more in keeping with the 1950s architecture. Besides, they were so simple to use. You just put in a coin and turned the knob. As a kid, I can remember being a Good Samaritan. If I saw a cop writing tickets, I’d run ahead for a block or two putting coins in any expired meters. In those days, you could pay with pennies. Now, the old-style meters have gone the way of the dodo, and pennies are not far behind.
The new system has kiosks scattered about half a block apart. I had encountered parking kiosks in several other communities and thought I knew the drill. You would go to the kiosk, select how much time you wanted, pay the fee, and be issued a small paper receipt that you would place on your dashboard.
I was pleased to find an open parking space near my favorite cappuccino shop. I like to sit in a cappuccino shop for an hour or two while writing my magazine articles. So, I parked the car and traipsed the half-block to the nearest kiosk with my coin purse in hand. But, right off the bat, there was a problem. The kiosk had a touch screen keyboard on which I had to enter a bunch of information. The screen was about four feet off the ground. I’m six feet tall. So, I had to squat to read the screen.
As I got started, the first question was “Which zone are you parked in?” It turns out, there were four different zones downtown, each of which had its own parking fee and time limit. You’d think the zones would simply be numbered one through four. But no. Each zone had its own five-digit number that I had to enter while doing my deep knee bends.
From that point, I thought I’d only need to pay the fee and get issued a receipt. But the city had decided to save the rain forests. The new system doesn’t print paper receipts. Instead, I would have to enter my license plate number into the kiosk. That way the meter reader could just point a scanner at my license plate and know if I’d paid the piper.
I wasn’t expecting that. Who the hell has memorized their license plate number? I haven’t even memorized my own cell phone number. I have it written on a piece of tape stuck to the back of my phone. So, I had to trot the half-block back to my car, find a scrap of paper and pencil, scribble down the damned number, and trot back to the kiosk. This was turning into quite the full-body workout for an 80-year-old couch potato.
When it finally came time to pay, the kiosk screen said my spot would cost $2 an hour. And the longest I could stay was two hours. So for my two-hour coffee break, I’d need 16 quarters. Who the hell carries 16 quarters in their coin purse? Fortunately, there was a credit card slot. Thank heavens it didn’t make me go through a two-step verification process to prove that it was actually me using my card.
To tell you the truth, there is hardly anything in downtown Orange anymore that is worth paying a $4 parking fee, much less the $65 fine if I overstayed my time limit. My bank has moved out of the 100-year-old neoclassical building on the plaza. My favorite old-fashioned ice cream parlor that had been featured in the Tom Hanks movie “That Thing You Do” had closed a couple of years ago. So had the Cuban restaurant where I used to see all the famous Central American baseball players who came when they were playing in nearby Anaheim. The local Lebanese restaurant has also closed. I’ll miss them, but not as much as the Cuban one. Let’s face it; there aren’t a lot of Lebanese baseball players.
I guess when you get to be my age, you have to expect things to change. But it is seldom for the better. For example, the new kiosk parking system doesn’t allow me, or anybody else, to add a few coins when my time limit expires. So how will the next generation learn what it feels like be a Good Samaritan?
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