Part 2
City Council candidate Loni Anderson has done so much in her life that in pursuing an understanding of her, an appropriate opening question was:
Puckishly, she paused before proceeding.
“I wanted to own my own business — and to rule the world.”
Diplomatically, Ms. Anderson quickly laughed, which she does easily, as if to almost, but not quite, quash the thought.
[img]90|left|Loni Anderson||no_popup[/img] Unlike the American calendar, every day is Independence Day for the City Council contender who seeks to distinguish herself from the nine-person field.
She may be driven, and there certainly is a no-nonsense aspect to her personality, but it always is served up with a fragrant, feminine-scented edge.
Loni Anderson’s experience tends to show you don’t necessarily have to know a candidate’s stance on all critical issues of the day because insights into the way she has lived her life may provide the needed clues before entering a voting booth.
Of Dreams and Skies
Dating back to that portion of her childhood when the Culver City native lived with her mother, stepfather and siblings in the much wider open world of Shadow Hills, young Ms. Anderson’s dreams of what could be just kept expanding.
Climbing aboard her favorite gentle pony, tossing her long, blonde hair to the side, she would gaze up at the undiluted azure skies over the San Fernando Valley. Now she was ready to play many a schoolchild’s game. Using her creative mind as a paintbrush, she sketched scenes of her future across the landscape of her elastic mind.
“I always thought I would have some sort of enterprise that I would have a hand in, like owning my own business,” said Ms. Anderson.
The youngest of four siblings, she said that “this was something that my father promoted with us. When you own your own business, you control your destiny.”
Family Record
It was a life lesson that took, as Ms. Anderson noted: “My sister started working for the Post Office here when she was 17. Now she has moved up, and she works in Henderson, NV. My brother in Long Beach has a very, very successful Thai restaurant there. My other brother has a hugely successful garage door business in Seaside, OR. And then I am a Doctor of Oriental Medicine here in Culver City, but I also have had businesses with my ex-husband in Japan, a coffee business. And I have done other enterprises myself.
“It always has been good to me, and it feels very right.”
A devout entrepreneur today, it was not always so. Along the way, “I have worked for other people. I worked in the public sector in the Post Office. I worked in the Municipal Court. I worked in the private sector, as a paralegal in a law firm, both here and abroad. So I have a broad base of experience.
Question: As you moved from room to room in your career, were you looking for a niche that just suited you, or was there another motivation?
“The reason I chose Oriental medicine over law is that the medicine is very powerful, and it helps a lot of people in a holistic way. But I always have loved law. When I separated from my husband (in Japan) and moved back to the United States
in 1996, I decided to go into Oriental medicine, though, instead of law. Partly, this was because, while having a law degree would have been satisfying on many levels, I thought I would probably end up being a D.A, and I wouldn’t have my own schedule.
“Lawyers put in a lot of hours. From the outside, people don’t realize that.
“Being a single Mom, I needed to have something that gave me flexibility.”
Question: You moved — by yourself — to Japan for four years. Why?
“I went to Japan because, as a paralegal, I felt having the Japanese language as a skill would be very helpful in terms of marketing myself. This was true in the 1980s, but when the economic bubble burst, it became less important. Now, having Mandarin language skills and connections is more powerful in some ways for young people than Japanese.”
Ms. Anderson discusses her bid for the City Council in Monday’s concluding installment.
