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Beyond the Threshold   If Cornell is any example, Ivy League graduations are impressive with pageantry.  But more than that, all this beauty, color and tradition is reinforcing the importance and significance of the threshold the degree candidates are crossing. One week my...

Strapless in Laguna   Those nuns were determined to see to it that everyone was paired up for the prom.  I had waited most of junior year for Alfredo to ask me out and he had finally done it. He’d even asked me what color my dress was so he could get a matching corsage.  But...

Weeding works wonders   There is a sloping area on the edge of the South Laguna Community Garden where a year ago we were pulling out castor bean plants, Bermuda grass, and the usual garden variety weeds. We had tiny native plant starts in small pots and garden volunteers...

Effecting Change   I had a mysterious call last week from someone who wanted to know what the chances are that change can happen at city hall. Not only did he want the answer to that question, but there was a condition in his question, “Can we make change happen without the...

Heart and Soul Live On   The view outside our kitchen window on the farm where I grew up was of the rolling Wisconsin fields, farmhouses and barns, interspersed with patches of woods.  Most striking of all, on the horizon, was a stone country church with a tall steeple, an...

It’s all connected   To reassure the reader who was concerned about the fate of the our late neighbor Paul Pflueger’s chickens mentioned in my last column, I am told they have been taken to their new home in Santa Barbara.  The coop has been dissembled.  Our neighborhood is...

Editor, I just had the chance to read Ann Christoph’s column for the Independent (“View from the Coop,” Village Matters, March 9. The sweet, flowing verse was like a wonderful warm blanket. Really, thank you so much for taking the time and effort to remember Paul and to express...

View from the Coop When on our early morning walks one of our favorite stops is to check on Paul Pflueger’s chickens. We’d hear their cluck-clucking, a comforting sound that says that all is well in the world of hens. Peering over the fence in the back yard, we’d see them...

Much hinges on Stonehenge   The historic “Stonehenge” house, marked by the octagonal cupola and sunroom just north of Laguna Royale, was stripped of its interior without permits in June of 2009.  Then in 2010, demolition resumed, also without permits, removing the exterior...

The Rhythm of Change   When do they realize you’re not going away? That you’re going to nag and keep at it until things change? It’s hard to know because even when you win it’s so subtle usually no one notices.   Environmental activism is not like the Super Bowl. No...

Loose in Laguna   The ocean view is not the only advantage of having an office in Laguna.  Our neighborhood of shops, offices and homes is a beehive of intrigue and melodrama.   I feel like I’m on stage, except I don’t know the lines or the plot.  I never know what or...

A Shared History   Guard at a state prison, mechanic at a copper mine, child day-care provider. Kids working as security guards while attending school, grade-school janitor and Mexican restaurant waiter, someone who does something having to do with making technical...

The House that’s not a Home Across the street from us is a vacant house.  The couple that lived there with their little boy has moved out as part of a foreclosure.  Now I guess the bank owns it. They posted no trespassing signs with threats of jail time.  Last week a crew cleaned...

 Home is Here   When I climbed the steps to the Congregational Church on Thanksgiving day, I didn’t know what to expect.  In all the years I have lived in Laguna, I’ve never gone to the community potluck.  Hesitating at the upper landing while carefully balancing my recently...

Ganka Brown’s letter “Keeping Score,” in the Oct. 28 edition misquoted the end of Ann Christoph’s Village Matters column of Oct. 21.   Christoph signed off saying, “Love it. Live it. Be Laguna,” rather than Brown’s summation “Love it or leave it.”