BREAK AND ENTER

I AM NOT a particularly adventurous person. I have a gluten allergy. I can't go outside without slathering my many high-risk moles with SPF 1,000. I once brought my own sponge to the office kitchen because I felt my coworkers weren't properly caring for the communal one. Anyway, I'm a lot of fun.

- DANNY RICKER

I am also, however, a dad. One who doesn't want his children to inherit his limp personality. So, on rare occasions, I allow my kids to talk me into doing something way outside my comfort zone. A few years ago, that actually involved committing a crime.

This was several months into a pandemic (the COVID one...remember that?). I wanted to get my then-6-year-old daughter out of the house, so I took her to the most open-air place I could think of: L.A.'s historic Griffith Park.

If you're not familiar, Griffith Park is a beautiful nature space named after its founder, Griffith J. Griffith (not kidding).

He was a 19th-century mining tycoon with a big curly mustache who donated the land to L.A. after using it to run a failed ostrich farm and who remained a local hero until he drunkenly shot his wife because he believed she and the pope were trying to poison him (also not kidding—although we usually skip telling the kids that part of the story).

Griffith Park is home to the HOLLYWOOD sign, the L.A. Zoo, and the