Chapter 1

It's easy to fall in love with Laguna Beach. A small town tucked almost in a corner of the California Riviera. There are three ways in and three ways out and depending on the time of year and depending on just where in town you are, only one may be truly available. I came to Laguna almost four years ago. Those that knew me may have considered me, on the surface, to be a broken man; a failed marriage and two beautiful young children less than two months behind me and suddenly 8,000 miles away. It wouldn't be fair to the marriage and definitely not fair to the children to say that it was not true, but I certainly did not feel broken, and Laguna was a big part of it. What you see is not necessarily what you get.

Laguna is also pretty easy to judge on the surface. It is arguably one of the most beautiful places in the world. The beaches and coves, the hills and houses, the stunning sunsets and the great art houses that cover the town are second to none. The bordering beach cities and the mountains and desert to the East make it a perfect place to live. Perfect if all you are looking for is nirvana. What you see though is not necessarily all you get and it's the people that truly make it what it is.

Depending on whom you ask, Laguna is an art colony, a haven for gays and lesbians, a hideout for the rich and famous or a strong candidate for surf-city USA. Each has it's place and more than maybe any city in this great country of ours, each seems to co-exist just perfectly with the other.

My first eye opening moment though concerning the make-up of this great little town came only a few days after I moved in. A knock on the door just prior to an election day Tuesday in March sought to open my mind to the great evil of pollution. Not just any pollution, but the pollution of the most important piece of Laguna's beauty - it's beaches and it's water. Growing up as a staunch conservative I will be the first to admit the environment rarely found its way to the top of my list of issues at any give time. The top of my list typically being reserved for things such as taxes, small government and the next unconquered bastion of anti-democratic rule.

It did get me thinking though. One of the biggest reasons I moved to Laguna was because of the beautiful beaches and the proximity of the ocean which, at the end of the day, was made up largely of water. Sensing the importance of the small piece of legislation that my knock-knock visitor was proposing I dutifully signed away.

Despite my list of top level issues being dominated by those more important to the left than the right, I had always considered myself to be fairly moderate Republican. Pro-choice and anti-gun being two major areas of departure from what is the typical Republican platform at any given convention. I have never really understood the inability of people in this country to embrace the idea that diversity is not particularly well represented by a two party system. Nonetheless, always feeling that the Republican party was more the party of acceptance and even once I realized that I was more than just my father’s son, I have always considered myself to be more conservative than liberal. I have been face at times with moments of reflection that have pushed me further to the right but typically reality sets in and I realize that a women’s right to choose matches more with my belief of when life begins that an outright ban on abortion. Realized that gun control is more important that allowing a deer hunter to own and operate a fully-automatic machine gun.

Laguna was not necessarily a perfect fit for this set of ideals, especially if you wanted to enter it’s realm of politics. It may however be a microcosm of the country as a whole.