Some of the great charms of of the Pacific Coast Highway in Orange County 30 years were its undeveloped beauty and unpretentious residents. As a reward for completing exams I would drive up the coast and stop at a date shake shack on bluff overlooking the beach, and if the shack was empty, I would get the attention of the surfers below, and after catching his wave, a surfer would clamber up and make one of the tastiest and sweetest milk shakes that ever existed. Sometimes I would head down to Crystal Cove Park and envy the residents by the beach. There was a tidy and small trailer park between the cliff and shore, with happy people in lawn chairs, drinking beer and chatting. The flag flew stiffly in the ocean winds, as if to herald that here lived a proud and free people. The El Morro Village trailer park was sold off decades ago, and the community knew it was a matter of time before they would be booted out to make room for more park land. A new and different era arrived, one that turned the Pacific Coast Highway into a crowded road going by condos and development communities with entrances straight out of Las Vegas. The newer, richer citizens of Newport Beach, Corona Del Mar, and Laguna Beach resented the trailer park, the people within it, and all they seemed to stand for; the ecology would be more in harmony, the privileged reasoned, if the shiny aluminum trailers and their denizens were to go away. Finally the end was near and the people of El Morro met to together to say good bye the only they knew how: they threw a party.
El Morro Residents Let It Go - Los Angeles Times: "A lot of the media has been sympathetic to the residents,' said Fern Pirkle, a spokeswoman for Friends of Newport Coast, a group that supported the conversion.
'But I'm sorry; it seems it's very selfish of them to have held on to those leases while we, the taxpayers, have waited so long.'"
1 comment:
Yes, sir, we can't have any low lifes, like those who live in trailer parks enjoying the beach. Everyone knows that beach is only for the rich or Hollywood stars.
Yes, this whole thing does smack of class war; however, the not the type you usually ready about. This is the ongoing effort to prevent middle and lower class people from using public lands.
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