Jenny MarderVirginia Whipple’s got it all planned...

Jenny Marder

Virginia Whipple’s got it all planned out.

If she leaves the house at 9:45 a.m. on the dot, walks quickly and

makes the first walk signal, then she’s sure to catch the 10 a.m. bus

and make it to work on time.

She knows the bus routes like she knows her grandchildren’s

favorite toys. The 21 goes to Buena Park. The 57 and the 29 are

crowded when the weather is warm. The 72 passes her local Ralphs

supermarket and the Stater Bros. store that she shopped at during the

20-week grocery worker’s strike. The produce was more fresh there

anyway, she said.

For Whipple, 87, independence means “not depending on anyone to go

anywhere,” she said. She lives in a large, sprawling city with no car

and no driver’s license. But that’s not stopping her. She’s got too

many places to go.

She is one of Surf City’s most dedicated, hard-working

philanthropists. On Mondays and Thursdays, she works at the

Assistance League, a nonprofit organization that provides clothes to

needy children, single mothers and victims of domestic abuse. On

Tuesdays and Fridays, she mans the children’s section of the

Huntington Beach library’s Helen Murphy branch. And on Wednesdays,

she helps out at the Central Library’s gift shop.

Over the years, she’s also been involved with the League of Women

Voters, the Newland Garden, the Huntington Beach Historical Society

and the Amigos de Bolsa Chica.

Fellow volunteers say they are amazed at the ease with which she

travels through her day, eternally upbeat and always on time -- an

emblem of self-sufficiency.

“I don’t know how she does it,” said Betty Jane Riker, a volunteer

at at the Assistance League. “She’s amazing.”

Many of the older volunteers only work half a day, Riker said, but

Whipple never cuts out early.

On Monday, Whipple walked with short, brisk steps to the bus stop

near her house, a paper sack full of bags in one arm and a large

purse around the other shoulder. The bags were for the schoolchildren

at the Assistance League, so they’d have something to carry their

clothes in.

She stopped at the crosswalk.

“You have to push that button,” she said. “And we just missed a

signal, so we’ll have to wait a little bit. This is a long signal,

because it’s a left turn signal, too.”

Whipple makes it to the stop at about 9:58 a.m., with just about a

minute to spare. Whipple’s bus stop, at the corner of Algonquin

Street and Warner Avenue, is a scenic one, featuring a panoramic view

of the beach and the wetlands. She proudly waves her bus pass in the

air.

“When you’re old, it’s the best bargain in the world, because you

can get a monthly pass for just $10,” Whipple said. “You can’t beat

that for transportation.”

The bus pulls to the curb, and Whipple uses both hands to pull

herself up. She pauses by the driver to swipe her pass.

“When I was younger, to swipe meant to steal,” she says,

chuckling, and settles into a seat near the front of the bus.

It’s not that Whipple never tried to learn to drive a car. Driving

just wasn’t for her.

“When I was young, my husband tried to teach me how to drive,” she

recalls. “But he hollered a lot, and I just said, ‘I’m not going to

do this anymore.’”

Besides, with her busy lifestyle, riding the bus is the only spare

time she has these days for one of her favorite pastimes -- reading.

Right now, she’s reading Adeline Yen Mah’s “Falling Leaves: The

Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter.” She also enjoys biographies

and “anything about France,” she said. She’s an avid lover of all

that is French, and tries to get to the country as much as possible.

Jan Stolzenburg, who also volunteers at the Assistance League,

said it takes a lot of convincing to get Whipple to accept a ride.

Last week, he said, he ran into her at the post office after she’d

been working all day.

“I ran and caught up with her,” Stolzenburg said. “I had to talk

her into taking a ride. I needed to do something for somebody who’s

offering so much time to everyone else.”

In 2003, she was honored as the Huntington Beach library’s

Volunteer of the Year.

“That’s been my real interest,” she said. “You can find out

anything that you want to find out at the libraries. There are just

all sorts of good things that happen at the library, and there are

good people that go to the library.”

She also takes a deep pride in her work at the Assistance League.

At the building on Beach Boulevard and Slater Avenue, she sorts

clothes and old records and works at the cashier, greeting people as

they come in. “Over the past year, we have clothed 1,000 children,” she said, proudly.

Whipple admitted she was stubborn, but said she wouldn’t have it

any other way.

“Most, if not all, of the people that I know wouldn’t be caught

dead riding the bus,” she said. “They often want to take me places. I

just have to argue with them sometimes, when they live in the other

end of town. They don’t believe me when I tell them it’s not that

bad.”

* JENNY MARDER covers City Hall. She can be reached at (714)

965-7173 or by e-mail at [email protected].