On a farm the kitchen is a combination office, staging area and coffee shop and I was enjoying being at this hub of my brother’s Nevada dairy. In came Alex, his partner, straight from spraying the cornfield. “What did you spray it with?” the gardener in me wondered. “Roundup,” he replied matter-of-factly. “But won’t that […]
“If we all speak softly, everyone can be heard.” Besides being good advice for democracy and human relations in general, this phrase from former mayor Dan Kenney was specifically applied to signs, the issue he focused on during his terms on the city council, 1982-1990. Kenney saw that without controls, competitive sign making had the […]
Dateline Laguna Beach: On Monday, Jan. 13, as the South Laguna Civic Association board went over the agenda of proposed nearby projects, President Bill Rihn announced, “The 2008 great recession is officially over!” The Obama administration will be notified immediately. Economic indicators have been erected in our neighborhood in the form of two by […]
Life-changing Christmas By Ann Christoph For all you kids out there whose parents won’t let you have your own phone, or the latest computer game—I’m here to put that in perspective. I not only had to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways, but our family was the last in my class to […]
As I was riding my exercise bike Sunday evening I tuned in to Bill Moyers’ interview with Wendell Berry. How have I missed knowing of this inspiring man? Now nearly 80 years old, Berry is a novelist and poet, environmental advocate, farmer and professor. At age 30 he left his teaching position in New York […]
It was the day after the 1993 fire. There were fragments blowing in the wind. Half burned pieces of paper, part of someone’s life, fluttered down like sooty snowflakes. In the parking lot behind my office, I picked up one of them. There it said, “Reason” in large type. It was part of a headline. […]
We could trace the development of the town through the eyes of Laguna’s plein air painters, Kleitsch adding color, Hinkle subduing the landscape with white and black. Still the landscape was predominant as the buildings were fitted in and plantings made the cottages home. These plein air landscapes—views of canyons, mountains, village, coastline and ocean […]
It was the early ‘70s and neighbor Ralph Davis pleaded with the Orange County Planning Commission, “Remember the Bel Air fire!” Somehow he had been there, perhaps as a firefighter. Ridge and hill top development above South Laguna was being considered by the Commission. Davis was emphatic, “Ridge tops are in the most danger […]
At last week’s hearing about the village entrance there were repeated calls for hiring an urban designer. Someone who can lead us out of the morass of our own lack of consensus. Someone from somewhere else who has designed award-winning complexes all over the world. An urban messiah who can organize Laguna Beach and solve […]
Feb. 13, 1953 a Laguna Beach police officer, Gordon G. French, was shot in the line of duty and died en route to the Santa Ana Hospital. This tragic, presumably preventable, death was the catalyst for building South Coast Community Hospital. The community formed a corporation dedicated to funding and operating a hospital and […]
Ever feel like an anachronism? Out of place, out of step with those around you? As we see the community around us bit by bit losing the charming features that mark the best of our town, we may feel out of sync and ask, “Do we still belong here?” This weekend on Ken Burns “National […]
Ever wonder why Laguna Beach became an art colony? Yes, it’s beautiful but there’s more to it than that. The artists who sought out Laguna around the turn of the last century came not just to paint pretty pictures, but to experience and express their beliefs about the spirituality of nature. Laguna Beach in its isolation, […]
We’re not even in the top 14 happiest places nationwide, according to a University of Vermont study that correlated cities across the country with the numbers of positive and negative words in millions of tweets. San Clemente is among California’s seven happiest cities, but not Laguna Beach. What does San Clemente have that we […]
I dreaded the prospect of getting married, walking down that aisle. What if that man waiting for me at the altar was the wrong one? “How will I know when I’ve met ‘the one,’ the person I’m destined to spend a lifetime with?” “You’ll know, you will feel the magic…” came the answer from those […]
Were the famous founding fathers who wrote and voted for the Declaration of Independence that we celebrate this week just like some of the leaders of our home-created organizations? It’s hard to imagine but in the 1770s there were only 2.5 million people in the whole country—then the 13 original colonies. Similarly, Orange County today […]
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