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Holding Hands This is my 301st Village Matters column. I started these in 2004 at the request of former Indy editor Stu Saffer when Arnold Hano decided to stop writing “The Village Character” column. At first I was reluctant. Hano is a professional and famous writer, I am just a...

Get Out Your Clipboard Your clipboard, your shovel, your social connections; whatever it takes to make a difference, set things right. That is the message of President Obama’s farewell address, and the theme of the Martin Luther King Jr. gathering at Main Beach this past Sunday....

As Good a Place as Any Every Christmas we trek to be with our families to Arizona, the least favorite of any of the places I have lived. Yet, this week there we were, checking out our “final resting place,” walking through Mountain View, “Mesa’s Best Cemetery.” “As good a place...

Love it All Like loving that perfect person we chose to spend our life with, who it turns out has some qualities we wish we could “adjust,” loving Laguna means loving it all, the whole package. Quaint charming neighborhoods come with small houses, tiny rooms and eccentric floor...

Unexpectedly Making History We don’t know we’re part of history when we’re in it. We’re just living our lives and dealing with what is laid before us, with glimmers of leadership and inspiration offered to add innovation and meaning to our existence. Then years later someone...

Battles before Us “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” Galatians 6:9, quoted by Hillary Clinton the day after her defeat, Nov. 8. Some of our best candidates don’t get elected. Some of the most worthy causes are...

Last Minute Tricks Laguna Beach has had its share of last minute political dirty tricks. Perpetrators know that even when they are found to have spread erroneous information the tricks can leave impressions on voters that are negative and lasting. I have experienced some of them...

Preservation Heroes Local retired firefighter Eugene “Diz” D’Isabella is famous for his devotion to the 1931 Seagrave Suburbanite, the antique fire engine he drives in the Patriot’s Day Parade. He brought it to a South Laguna Community Garden potluck a few years ago, patiently...

Somethin’s Got to Give The village entrance, a project that has resulted in more alternatives being drawn than any other. Council candidates from the 1990s on have promised to finish it. After the first four years, they found themselves asking for more terms to keep th...

Masters of Time On a recent Saturday we walked up the street for the memorial service for our neighbor Bill Ives. Friends and family gathered under a beautiful tent that had been erected in front of the Ives home to work out together what missing him means. His daughter Alexis...

Obscure Linkages Embellish Understanding Last week I went to Rockford, Ill., for my uncle Danny’s memorial gathering. My cousin George handed me a small red box that had come from his father’s collection. When I opened it I saw that it contained two decks of cards. “Zimmermann’s...

Projections Can Lead Us Astray They said house prices in Laguna were so high that families with children wouldn’t be buying here any more. We will have declining enrollment, with not enough students to operate our three elementary schools, the superintendent of Laguna Beach...

Carrots Needed Have you complained about cell phone antennas being located too close to homes? About the impact of sober-living facilities in residential neighborhoods? Second residential units added to single-family houses without design review? Only to be told that the city is...

It’s a Jungle Out There Never before have I heard so many bird conversations in the Torrey pine across the street from us. We have a pair of Cooper’s hawks that must have a nest there. We’ve seen them eating their breakfast of some other fluffy bird on the branches high above our...

Obstacles to Being on Foot Long time resident Hilde Keneley walks along the ocean side of Coast Highway in South Laguna twice a day with her dog Ginger. This is not an easy pleasant walk, with the speeding traffic on one side and walls and obstacles on the other. From her home...