By Ann Christoph

My first remembrance of Arnold Hano is of standing in the kitchen of the Lamont Langworthy-designed house he and Bonnie had built in Bluebird Canyon.  It was the mid-1970s and Fred Lang was advising on the Hanos’ landscaping. I was tagging along, taking notes. I knew from Fred’s tone on the way up to the property that I was about to meet someone well-respected and important!

Arnold was just recovering from heart surgery.  He was the first person I knew who had had that bypass procedure and to me it seemed overwhelmingly life-threatening. I expressed sympathy and worry for him.  “Oh, he’ll be all right,” his wife Bonnie said nonchalantly, with a wave of her hand.  I was not so sure, because Arnold didn’t look all that robust. Now here it is almost 40 years later and Arnold still looks pretty much the same now as then–only now he is 91. As usual, Bonnie was right.

After South Laguna was annexed in 1987 I ran for Laguna Beach city council for the first time. The Hanos invited this neophyte to their home for a campaign “coffee.”  They were not at all sure that this girl who had been drafting for Fred Lang was up to such a challenging job. At the end of the session, after I had done my best to answer questions from the neighbors they had assembled, Arnold pulled me aside, “You’d better get a copy of the city budget and really study it,” he advised.  I did, and eventually, in 1990, I was elected to the city council.

Shortly afterwards, Bonnie and Arnold left town to serve in Costa Rica as Peace Corps volunteers.  They were back in town though in 1998 as a plan for a resort hotel, houses and condominiums on the Treasure Island property was being brought forward.  A referendum on the plan proposed “a better Treasure Island resort,” one with less density, and more park. Arnold was an experienced hand at all this.  After all, he and several other Lagunans had led the anti-high rise initiative in 1971 that established the 36-foot height limit that still applies throughout Laguna Beach.

So there we found Arnold at the Lumberyard with former mayor and fellow octogenarian Charlie Boyd charming referendum signatures from customers as they stood in line at the post office.

Decade after decade his activism and insight into the community continues. In 2003-04, he was writing “The Village Character” column for the Independent, penning some of the over 200 columns he’s written in our various local papers since 1961, appreciating how we as a village “march to our own cacophony” and urging us on.

When Arnold decided to forgo his Independent column, I was invited to write for that slot. His advice: “Do an introductory column about yourself so people know about you personally and then don’t try to write a certain way. Write the way you write.  People ask me about my writing style and how I do it;I don’t have a style.  I just write the way I write. I write what I think.”

This past Sunday during the Charm House Tour Arnold sat under the shade of an umbrella at the South Laguna Community Garden autographing his latest book, “It Takes a Villager,” a selection of his greatest columns.

The people coming through loved the garden, but the same questions came up over and over, “How much for a garden plot?”  “How much is the owner asking for the garden land?”  “How much is the owner of the “Floating Glass House” selling his house for? …”

It made me think there is too much asking, “How much?” and not enough appreciating and initiating.

Instead we could ask, “What can I do to make things better?’  Arnold asked this latter question and has answered with his insight and leadership.

By Ann Christoph

Ours is a town of causes and we’re often asked to contribute, sometimes by buying a chance on a raffle.  This time my friend won a three-day stay in a cabin in Big Bear Lake and invited me and two other women to enjoy this mountain get-away. Quiet in this off-season after the snow and before the summer influx, the area offered lesser-known points of interest to explore.  One of them was the Moon Ridge Animal Park and Wildlife Center where injured wildlife is cared for and where animals that cannot be released into the wild are housed and available for visitors to observe.

Three mule deer roamed inside the chain link enclosure looking soft and lovable.  The docent explained the double chain link fencing. The second fence, paralleling the first about three feet away, is to keep visitors from petting the deer through the fence.  “If a visitor gets nipped by one of the deer, the health department would make us euthanize all of them, so we have to make extra sure we are keeping people from touching these friendly animals.”

Killing all three deer over a minor offense seems excessive, but it made me think about how differently we consider the value of other living beings compared to ourselves.  The deer are disposable based on an arcane rule. Their lives are in our hands.

My thoughts returned to Laguna and the rules we often face. I am told large mature Torrey pines are being slated for removal at Mission Hospital Laguna Beach because there is a rule; they are too close to where the hospital stores oxygen.  Has it been considered to move the oxygen? Or to investigate the validity, the scientific basis for the rule?  Has it been appropriately applied in this situation?

Then there’s another tree that hasn’t been maintained for years.  It lost a limb that fell on someone’s car. There’s a plan afoot to remove that tree too.  Killing a tree because of a natural event that could have been prevented by proper maintenance seems also to be an over-reaction. Lightening the load on the branches with judicious pruning of limbs will make it possible for the tree to live on and for people to be safe.

With thoughtfulness and sympathy there are ways we can all live together. We can adjust to other living beings, and help them adjust to us rather than doing away with them over minor incidents or imagined possibilities.

The beauty and benefits of living with nature, even managed nature, even nature we ourselves have put in place, are valuable aspects of our lives.  Plants and animals, in fitting and adapting to their surroundings, provide lessons we can consider.

Rather than using our power to dispose of life over inconveniences, we can broaden our own lives to include these other forms of life.  In adapting and appreciating we become more humane.

We left the wildlife center grateful for the animals that were protected there, and for people who cared enough to fit them into their lives.

Ann Christoph is a landscape architect and former mayor of Laguna Beach.

By Ann Christoph.

Who was Nina Koshetz?  This world-famous Russian opera singer performed leading operatic roles in Russia and throughout Europe, and gave concerts accompanied by Rachmaninoff, her lover for a time.  Her dramatic escape from Russia included hiding jewels in her daughter’s diapers. In the United States in 1920 she built a new career that included performances at Carnegie Hall and the White House.  She came to California in 1934, and by 1942 had opened an “elegant music salon” in Laguna Beach.

This larger than life character was the subject of a photo feature in Life magazine in 1949 as she entertained with her daughter Marina in her South Laguna home. Hedda Hopper was a guest, and at this later stage of her life Koshetz was a well-sought-after voice teacher for actors such as Marlene Dietrich, Ann Blythe, and Claudette Colbert. A prominent figure in town and undeterred by “what people might think,” she once sang at the Festival of Arts flanked by her ex and present husbands, one a tenor and the other a baritone.

She lived just down the street, and notwithstanding her 300 pound physique, was often seen swimming at the beach below, then called Third Street beach, now known as Totuava.

Subsequent to Koshetz death in 1965, Nancy Galloway lived in the house. She often showed a copy of the Life magazine she had saved, pointing out how the patio was still the same as the photograph and how the wood stair railing is assembled to make the letters G and L, for Koshetz’s second husband Gabriel Leonoff.

The house is not architecturally remarkable, but is clearly of the late 1930s, ‘40s era.  Most important it comes with quite a story. To Nancy that history made the house special indeed. Now the house is being remodeled. Modern windows, shutters removed, beige and brown color scheme; the hints of history are neutralized. Will anyone ask if there is a story?

In north Laguna, at 445 Linden Street, is a turn of the century beach cottage.  Looking at its weathered siding, its tiny rooms, the porches, one can start to read the story of the house, and how it probably started out as an even smaller house. Summer projects pushed out little additions here and there. We can feel how those beach vacationers must have enjoyed their summers in a low-key relaxed way, pulling into the dirt driveway in their 1920s cars loaded up with all provisions they would need for several weeks of sun, sand and casual living.

Several years ago an applicant came to the Heritage Committee with a request to tear down the dilapidated beach cottage. It did indeed look terribly neglected. Windows were boarded up. The roof was compromised. The entry porch was sagging. Still it had the unmistakably quality of a building with the integrity of its origins. It had not been updated and remodeled, a rare find in Laguna Beach where “fixing up” is our local pastime. The Heritage Committee said, “no” to the demolition.

Years passed, code enforcement was invoked because the house was left unsecured.  Unauthorized visitors spent the night and left their detritus. The fear was there would be a fire, and that would be the end of this rare cottage.

Then a new application came forward—to restore the house, completely and correctly.  Someone had heard the story of the house and appreciated it. Now the work is underway.  The porches no longer sag. The roof has been replaced. The windows look out again on a south coast view.

It’s all a matter of matching people with an appreciation for being part of history, with a house that needs them to help it keep telling the story of our town and our culture.

Landscape architect Ann Christoph lives in South Laguna.

By Ann Christoph.

Growing up in a Victorian farmhouse was not as romantic as one might think.  For one thing there was only one bathroom and it was near the back door in the former “wash room.” In the days when the outhouse was the standard for toiletry this room accommodated the basin and pitcher for indoor cleanliness.  When indoor plumbing was added the fixtures were installed in that same room.  It was a long way to go from there, across the dining room, up the stairs, down the hall to the cold bedrooms.  Are you envisioning nice carpets on the stairs and floor?  Don’t.  It was wood or linoleum.  Warm and fuzzy on my bare feet it was not.

Many nights I was lying in that bedroom awake and cold watching the light beams from passing cars scan across my bedroom walls. The worst nights were shortly after we got our first television set.

All the other kids had had televisions for years but we were TV-less because my dad thought it would be a bad influence.  I was in seventh grade when my uncle from Chicago, a TV repairman, took it upon himself to deliver a used Motorola and hook it up.  Dad couldn’t object to his brother-in-law, and soon he was watching television along with the rest of us.

It was then that I saw the pictures of the Holocaust for the first time. I could not sleep. I would lie there in that lonely room shaking, shivering, unable to put the thoughts of the emaciated bodies and evidence of intense hatred and cruelty in any comfortable compartment of my mind. These feelings, those images and fears are embedded and come to mind every day, but Sunday it was even stronger.

It was Holocaust Remembrance Day and as I switched channels there was a film about the Red Cross visitors to Theresienstadt concentration camp.  The German captors staged a normal-looking town, with sports activities, children playing on rocking horses, good food and pleasant living conditions. It was all a deception, of course.  One survivor interviewed said, “The next week there were no more rocking horses—and there were no more children either.  All to the gas chamber.”

Earlier in the evening on “60 Minutes” we had heard the eloquently expressed thoughts of grieving parents whose children had been murdered in the Newtown massacre.

It reminded me of the day after that tragedy when I came to the office, my co-worker with two children at El Morro agonized, “I didn’t want to send them to school today. Will my kids be safe? The hope that it won’t happen here is not enough to feel safe.”

These parents are pleading for some change in our society to prevent these killings.  Background checks for gun purchases, limits on numbers of bullets that can be fired quickly, mental health upgrades. . .  Still, resistance to any change is tremendous, even after our nation has been confronted with gun-related tragedies time after time.

Our children and we are not safe. Our kids are not all right. We say we have an improved society, yet these Newtown victims are just as unjustly dead as those of the Holocaust.  We don’t invest in mental health. We allow unbalanced individuals to roam without restriction.  We don’t prevent dangerous weapons from falling into their hands.  As one of the parents said so well, “Someday it will not be someone else.”

Will we act, or just cower and wait for that day to come?

Landscape architect Ann Christoph grew up in the Midwest.

By Ann Christoph

There was some racket at last week’s Heritage Committee meeting in the council chambers.  Historical consultant Jan Ostashay spoke to a roomful of residents concerned about the status of their properties that have been on the city’s heritage structures inventory since a historical survey in 1981. Ostashay has been hired by the city to update the inventory.  She explained that she and her team will be visiting and researching the buildings designated on the 30-year-old list and making recommendations on whether or not each one is still a historic resource.

There were questions well asked and well answered, but the “racket” seemed to focus on the issue of windows. Speakers from the audience were frustrated with the prospect of not being allowed to replace the windows on their historic buildings with some type of modern window.  “What kinds of windows can I use? We’ve been getting confusing answers,” they complained.

Most of our historic buildings pre-date 1940; that makes them 70 plus years old by now.  It’s no wonder a delicate and movable item like a window might be worn out at this point.

There is the urge to modernize, weatherize, climatize, aluminize and vinylize when replacing the old wood windows, an urge promoted by the window replacement companies and aided by the emphasis on saving energy and thus protecting ourselves from climate change.

It seems to me that 70 years of service from a wood window is a pretty good run and way better than the limited guarantee I got on some double pane windows we bought for our historic office building.  Here I thought I was doing the right thing—replacing the worn out wood windows with wood double pane models.  The double panes were to provide sound buffering and insulation. But what they didn’t tell me when I ordered the windows was that the muntins (the narrow strips between the window panes) would be twice as wide as those in the original windows.  When I objected after they arrived, “Oh, we had to make them that wide to put in the double panes,” as though it was no big deal that the new windows now didn’t match the unreplaced windows elsewhere on the building.

But not only did we have to accept windows that didn’t really match, they proved to be defective.  After a year or so the new windows started leaking—the gap between the panes of glass began to mist up.  Water collected between the panes.  I joked I could have my own aquarium in my windows.

“Sorry, the guarantee is only good for a year.” the window company said.  We replaced all of the leaking panes at our own expense. It wasn’t long before those began to leak too.  Finally, I replaced them all a second time with laminated glass. So far, so good.

Is it any wonder I view the modern-window replacement business as a racket, causing unnecessary expense for homeowners and damage to historic buildings? For Laguna Beach, where our windows are open for breezes the majority of the time, the energy savings of the modern windows are minimal. Wood windows have passed the test of time; my 1933 house still has the original wood windows and they are still sliding up and down with their rope and weight system.  Will the new-fangled windows last longer?  Maybe, but my experience says probably not.

There are craftsmen who duplicate the historical wood windows. Let’s give them the business, keep our buildings looking and functioning just as they have since Laguna’s early days.  And don’t worry. Having your building on the city’s heritage list is an honor, and for us, with two buildings on the Historic Register, it has provided nothing but benefits. It is a privilege to be one in a chain of property owners who have appreciated and enjoyed these unique and character-giving buildings over decades, and who want to pass them on for owners and Laguna lovers to enjoy far into the future.

Former council member Ann Christoph lives in a historic bungalow in South Laguna and works in another historic structure on Coast Highway. 

By Ann Christoph.

“It’s all part of the trainee program.”  That was the phrase that has lingered as I think of that summer day on our farm in Wisconsin, the day the powers-that-be decided to butcher my whole flock of chickens.  There were 30 birds, not that many compared to Foster Farms, but still we had a little assembly line going in the back yard.

Removing feathers, innards, and feet. You could even see the eggs in various stages of development. No wonder I am a vegetarian now!

We had the help of three good sports for this unpleasant task, young “trainees” from Denmark: Jens, John, and Jenny.

The great chicken cleaning episode,  John, me, Jenny, my mom Marjorie and my dad Paul Christoph

My dad had an arrangement with the American Scandinavian Foundation that sent a series of young Danish men to come to our farm to work and to learn American farming methods. We usually had at least two Danes at any one time.  They would stay about six months and then go to California for another half-year of training, learning different methods of agriculture in each state. They lived up stairs at my grandmother’s house a quarter mile away, but my mom always fed them breakfast after the early morning milking.  So as a young girl I could listen to the conversations around the family breakfast table, learning something about a different culture as these young fellows struggled to perfect their English.

The most remarkable of these young men was John. (My dad would anglicize their names, so we never knew him by his real name, Johannes Bitsch Jensen.)  Full of humor and spunk, he would entertain us at breakfast with his 10 Words for the Day. Prepared with his dictionary, he would select the next 10 English words he wanted to learn.  Then he would have us explain the words, the pronunciation, and how the words would be used.  You see, he had a secret agenda. He really wanted to become an English teacher, not a farmer.  But he didn’t tell the American Scandinavian Foundation that.  Still, he was no slacker; he gave all he had to the farming tasks, such as the chicken butchering project, along with his humorous and upbeat comments.

John gets instructions from Jenny

But all was not completely well with John.  He started to mention his girlfriend Jenny who he missed terribly. My dad would urge him to add extra sugar to his coffee so he could get the sweetness he was missing another way. That was not enough, and soon John had persuaded us to have Jenny come too. She lived with us; it would not be proper for her to live at my grandmother’s in the same house as her boyfriend, after all.

John and Jenny and their own American car.

She was a delight, so lovable, and a thorough worker. After doing the supper dishes she would practically wash the whole kitchen. We all missed them when they left for California for the next stage of their U.S. experience.

Letters kept coming, and soon after they returned to Denmark we received a photo of John and Jenny in their wedding garb.  Three children followed and each Christmas there would be a letter from John detailing the progress of his family, and his job as a teacher and finally principal. My parents made several trips to Denmark to visit. One time they all met in Paris.  After college on my European tour I visited too. Jenny and John asked me to bake them an apple pie and they introduced me to a real smorgesboard and aquavit, a Scandinavian schnapps. Years passed and their youngest daughter came as an au pair to Santa Monica, and John and Jenny came to visit me here in Laguna.  I needed a lemon for the paella I was fixing and went outside to pick it. They took a photo of the lemon picking and still talk about that amazing event.

John and Jenny leave on the bus.

Alfredo and I spent several days with them in Denmark in 2002. We cooked a Mexican meal for the family including their grown daughter and grandkids. In the morning from the upstairs window of their farm house we could see John in his little cap, now retired from school and a gentleman farmer, walking his geese to their grazing area.

Months after we returned we had a telephone call from John. “The doctor says I won’t be having very many more birthdays.” He had cancer, he explained. Sad, powerless, and so far away, I sent him a packet including the book, “Tuesdays with Morrie.”  On his last call he said that he liked it and that he had gotten a Danish version for Jenny.  Then we learned that he had died.

Early this year amid all the usual junk mail we received a real letter, addressed by hand.  It was from Henrik, Jenny and John’s grandson. He had been working in the U.S. as a caregiver, to get some experience before deciding on his college studies, and was touring California before returning home.

Fortunately for him we had no chickens to butcher, but we did sit around the breakfast table and talk about old times.

By Ann Christoph.

Barbra Streisand’s lilting nostalgic song at the Oscars Sunday night brought back not only the first time I saw that movie “The Way We Were,” but memories of how I was then in 1973. An aspiring landscape architect working for Fred Lang, with who knows which boyfriend, engrossed in saving the South Laguna hills from development.  “We” at that time were Lang, and geologist Fred Pratley, transportation specialist Pete Fielding, architect and planner Alvin Wiehle, artist and vice president of the South Laguna Civic Association John Phelan, the association president Lorell Long, Jack and Barbara Heiser (now she’s Barbara Miller), Laura Wantz, Carol Thompson and others.

All of us were united in saving the environment of our community. Meeting after meeting, intense discussions way into the night, organizing, spreading the word, trip after trip to Santa Ana.  Looking back, I feel now it was a special era, a feeling of mutual commitment to pushing boundaries, promoting a cause that was treated as radical, even anti-American. Saving open space, planning with the characteristics of the land, limiting development–these were revolutionary ideas then.

There is a special bond with those I shared this work with, both departed and still available, and I wish there were “class reunions” for these landmark periods of life.

Saturday night was our annual “Dinner Across Laguna” benefiting Friendship Shelter.  Executive Director Dawn Price announced that the shelter is now in its 25^th year and asked who at the dinner was there at the beginning days of founding the Shelter.  Several people raised their hands, including our host and first director of the shelter, Colin Henderson. Can you imagine a group committed to developing a humane, problem-solving, permanent facility to help the homeless starting with nothing but their hearts?  Meeting after meeting, hammering out the details, getting the funding, purchasing a building (!), developing an innovative program that has been instrumental in helping nearly 7,000 people to self-sufficiency. It must have seemed overwhelming at the beginning, but step by step, with persistence and devotion, the Shelter came to be.

The shelter was a “way we were” radical idea also that has now transitioned into an accepted and respected Laguna Beach community asset.

We are in another one of those very meaningful periods in our lives.  I feel that some day I will look back on this time and treasure the inspiration, the challenges, the energy, and the wonderful people who are sharing this special moment in local history.

The community garden idea is blossoming. The South Laguna Community Garden Park committee is asked to share its experience with other neighborhoods’ hopeful gardeners and with groups as diverse as the real estate professionals, and the Laguna Canyon Conservancy.  As we meet more and more people and talk about the benefits of “cultivating community,” we build enthusiasm and energy.

Saturday was another stellar day. Beautiful weather, swarms of garden lovers from all over town, weeding, fixing up, tending plots, and learning about recycling food waste through vermicomposting. Michelle Haynes convinced us that keeping food waste from the landfill and recycling it is not only the right thing to do, it is healthy for your garden, and easy to incorporate into our way of life. Who knew worms could be so fascinating and lovable? Haynes suggests we name our worms, since these red wigglers are our living partners in this recycling; our waste is their food, their waste is food for our gardens.

One of our gardeners, Victor Reyes, brought his Mexican heritage into the garden by planting a chayote squash. This huge vine has been producing some very spiney fruit, shaped like a large avocado. What do you do with that? Victor gave us an impromptu demonstration.  After simmering for 2-3 hours the spiney skin is easily removed, revealing a large amount of semi-starchy, squash-like vegetable. Sally Coffey says it tastes like artichoke heart. Victor serves it with hot sauce, lime and salt. Many sampled these tasty chunks.

The garden is an informal forum for multi-cultural and neighborly interchanges.  This is where peace, harmony and deep appreciation for life takes place.

The garden property is up for sale, and we want to take advantage of this opportunity to make it a permanent community asset.  Fundraising is in progress.  This garden and others can be not only “The Way We Were,” but, “the way we are.”  You can be part of this era of Laguna community spirit, innovation and movement.  Go to SouthLaguna.org/garden to see how.

Ann Christoph is a landscape architect and former council member.  Contact: Ann@AC-LA.com 

By Ann Christoph.

My dad was a member of the Optimists Club because he really needed it.  Sometimes he just couldn’t resist putting a negative spin on things, “Those are really nice new shoes you have, much better than the ones you usually wear,” is a “compliment” that sticks in my mind.

But my dad’s not the only one.  I have a few more favorites from others:

“That’s a real nice photo of you. (at age 26) You looked so young!”

Or when someone is told of a generous gesture, “How nice. I wonder what he’s getting out of it.”

Or “Congratulations! So far so good.”

Or “I love Laguna, but I paid (x) for my house and now there’s this problem…”

“I wish (the city, the council, or “they”) would: get rid of dog poop, dogs barking, coyotes; get my neighbor to turn down the music, paint his house, cut his trees; keep people from parking in front of my house; or let me build a bigger house…”

I loved council member Elizabeth Pearson’s campaign slogan a few years back. “Keep it positive.”

Our city seems to have been founded by optimists, people who deeply appreciated the beauty of this almost-island, separated from the flat agricultural plains of the rest of the county by the sheltering San Joaquin Hills. Artists loved it with its coves, crashing waves, varied landscape and ever-changing light and perspective.  Residents sought a retreat and idyllic life.  Business could flourish and a community could be built, leaders thought. They all went about creating it part by part, step by step.

Homesteaded land was divided into lots. Some lots were sold and cottages were built.

Primitive water systems were installed. Some of the developments failed, only to be taken over by other optimists who sold more lots, one by one.  The water systems were given to the public.  Water districts were formed. Land like Heisler Park was dedicated to the city. Money was raised by donations for a variety of public improvements from the library to Bluebird Park. All this took dedication, organization, and enthusiastic working together.

A 100 years of this has created the Laguna Beach we now have. No single developer handed this community to its residents complete with planned shopping centers, schools, industrial parks, or even the basic things like curbs, streets, sidewalks, utilities, and drainage systems.  None of these community items has been perfectly solved, yet there is beauty in the imperfections.  The variety produced by innovative individual and community decision-making has given Laguna Beach the unique character that we so treasure.

Contrary to academic design-school theory, piecemeal, eclectic planning has turned out to be a very good thing—because it was done with a conscience and sympathy for the good qualities of the place we Lagunans found ourselves in decade after decade.

So rather than expecting perfection and adding that “but” after “I love Laguna” let’s make it a phrase that says what we are going to continue the Laguna tradition of volunteerism and enhanced community loveliness.

Landscape architect Ann Christoph is a former council member and community garden organizer.

By Ann Christoph.

We were desperate for new cats. In November of 2002 our two cats died of cancer within weeks of each other.  For a while we were just in shock and in our grief couldn’t think of any other cats. Then there was the holiday season. Finally we went on a search.  At the end we found ourselves at the Orange County shelter looking at row after row of caged kitties.   There was a black fluffy one pressed up against the wires reaching out as far as he could toward us. His big pleading eyes added to his beckoning paw, “Take me!”

We could not resist and maybe we overdid it.  A few days later we were introducing the black fluffy one, Maestro, along with two others, a blond named Bonita and a calico named Gretchen, to their new home in Laguna.

The search had been traumatic. At first I thought the Internet might reveal the perfect pets. After scrolling through page after page of photos and write-ups I settled on a pair of brothers, one orange and one black. There was an application to be filled out. We had to explain in detail how we would treat the cats. Where would they sleep? Would they be let outside?  As I carefully described our household “cat policies,” I became more and more invested in adopting these two.

In a few days the representative of Kitten Rescue called and we had a telephone interview.  In the end we were politely rejected. How could this be? I was told we were unacceptable cat parents because we revealed we would let the cats outside. We were hurt and disappointed.  Here I thought I was a good and loving cat caretaker!

Then I reflected on our cat history. There was Natasha who had been hit by a car and died traumatically several days later of a punctured lung.  Flash and Bisbee had both died instantly after run-ins with cars. We had found the remains of our neighbor’s cat Felix near our gate. He had been partially eaten.  With Margarita and Whisper living out their life spans, added to Mr. B and Shadow who had died of cancer, we brought the cat survival quotient up to 50 percent. Did we really want to continue to lose half of our cats to a violent death that was preventable?

We would reform our ways with Maestro, Bonita and Gretchen. A leash system allows them to go outdoors, but not outside the yard. When it’s time to come in we can easily retrieve them. For 10 years we have used this method. Up until last week, we still had three cats.  In recent months Maestro’s weight loss was pronounced and we had him checked by the vet. Again the diagnosis was cancer.  Finally last Friday Alfredo, Willa and I took the emaciated Maestro for his final visit to the vet. Willa stroked his head and I held his paw. I looked into his eyes as the light went out.  He was gone.

Last night, for the second time in a week I heard the short squeal and cry of a cat, then silence.  A coyote had found its prey again.  Someone’s cat would not come home the next morning.

Tears come when I look at the love seat where Maestro used to sleep, or when I think of how he would beckon with his paw, asking to be petted.

But I am a little consoled to think that Maestro had 10 years of not being hit by cars or eaten by a coyote. From wherever he is now I am imagining he is reaching out again telling us Lagunans, “Don’t let your cats out into the danger.”

Landscape architect Ann Christoph is a former council member.

By Ann Christoph.

Last week I had to hunt in the depths of my drawers and closet looking for my ballet outfit and shoes. There they were under piles of department store bags and exercise clothes from yoga and water aerobics. Although quite stiff, the slippers still fit. I could even get into the leotards despite disappointing silhouettes as viewed from both directions.

I was preparing for my first ballet class in more than 10 years. Gosh, maybe it’s been even more! For years I took lessons from Misha Sachnoff in the beautiful light-filled studio at Legion Hall. The classes were inspirational. With Misha we had the descendent of George Balanchine inspiring us to move, stretch our capabilities and appreciate the music.  Even though I didn’t have the talent or physique to excel at ballet, I loved it.  Then Misha left Laguna for New York, I injured my knee and it seemed my days of ballet were over.

There was an unsuccessful surgery and I struggled with a limp for five years before daring another operation. Then two years ago Dr. Gorab inserted a metal runner he invented into one side of my knee. It was called a partial knee replacement. Now no limp, no pain. Should I dare a ballet class?

Pilates, exercise machines, yoga, aerobics…all good and helpful, but none make me feel as good as ballet. I had to give it a try.

Now there’s another beautiful studio at the community center and another excellent teacher, Ondine Bierbaum. The familiar barres, rosin box, and earnest adult fellow  students subdued the uncertainty I felt. Then the music started, familiar moves began and tears welled up. How could I express the feeling of gratitude for knowing my body can again do what I had wanted to do all those years?

“It’s starting to come back, isn’t it?” the teacher said. I left hopeful and eager to improve, inspired to learn that a continuous downward slide in abilities is not inevitable.

Saturday the Planning Commission hosted a walk through our downtown. They are revisiting the Downtown Specific Plan, the document that sets the policies and regulations for development and businesses there. Commissioners and staff invited us, the public, to informally discuss our thoughts about what the future of the downtown should be. Comments in my group ranged from the creative to the impossible. And there would probably be disagreement about which suggestions fell into which of those two categories. The encouraging part was that so many Lagunans were there, people who value Laguna and care about the future of our city.

The event reminded me of the comment I have heard so many times from visitors or recently arrived residents, “I bet Laguna has changed a lot since you first moved here.”  The implication is that our town has changed for the worse.

Yes, it has changed, but there are changes for the good as well as those that some might regret. We’ve made many decisions that prove we don’t have to lose what we value about our town in the process of improving it. That’s the balance the Planning Commission will have to achieve as they plan for downtown’s future.

Change doesn’t have to mean that downward slide away from the Laguna that lives in our hearts and memories.

Landscape architect Ann Christoph is a former City Council member.

Yet when I think of days gone by, I think of some of those parts of that small town we have lost.  Perhaps they are so long lost that today’s residents don’t even know we had them.

Aliso Elementary School and the South Laguna Library are the two I most regret losing.  How can you replace the feeling of community that comes with being able to walk to school or to the library?  Or for parents to be able to dash over with a forgotten homework assignment, or to easily be there for their child’s special school event.  But both school and library were closed in efforts to support bigger and “better” facilities elsewhere.

Children from the south end of Laguna were not always bussed all the way to El Morro school on the opposite side of town. No, from 1948 until it was closed in 1981 Aliso School was a conveniently located neighborhood school.  That campus is now occupied by Fred Lang Park and the Vista Aliso senior housing complex.

They said we had declining enrollment, that the housing prices were rising so much that people with small children wouldn’t be living in the school district any more. The district needed funds to remodel the high school.  The answer? Close Aliso School to save money.  Objections to the closure were passionate and well organized, to no avail.  But don’t worry, “We won’t sell it,” they promised. They would evaluate the situation in five years, the board said.  Two years later they sold the school. Then ironically the enrollment went up and additions had to be made at El Morro to accommodate the uncalculated children.

What is the consolation?  In 2041 the school district can buy back the property for $1.  Perhaps our kids’ grandkids will be able to go to school in our neighborhood again.

South Laguna’s first library was started in 1938 by a committee of dedicated women.  Housed in the studio of artist Daisy Kearns, it had 600 donated books and was open every Wednesday afternoon.  Committee members took turns serving as librarians.

Then in 1958 the county opened a branch library at the corner of Second Avenue and Coast Highway.  There was a thriving commercial “downtown” area with the fire station, the water district offices, the village store, pharmacy, and the post office. The library became an important part of community life.  One could pay a water bill, mail a letter, and check out a book all on one walking trip.  (I know, now we can do all those things online, without leaving our homes.)

In the mid 1970s the county started rumbling about closing the South Laguna library.  Laguna Niguel and Dana Point were developing and the county built them a brand new Dana Niguel Library.  They thought South Lagunans should just drive over there.  Residents, led by Skip Hinchman and the South Laguna Civic Association, told the county how we valued our neighborhood library, so convenient to use, especially for children.  Petitions were signed and submitted and that delayed the closure for a few years.  Still in 1979 we had to hold a funeral for the South Laguna library at the downtown Laguna Beach branch.  Arnold Hano read “The Crate at Outpost One,” his short story about a society where books were kept from the people.

Now there’s a beauty salon where the library used to be, the village store and pharmacy are gone. The water district office is relocated up the hill and may even move to Dana Point. We still have the fire station and the Post Office, but the feds threaten that too. The businesses struggle in the shops along the highway. Part by part we have lost the components that make for a viable downtown.

No wonder we treasure our restaurants, the Village Green park and the South Laguna Community Garden.  These are places were we can still go and meet our neighbors and envision that maybe the ghost of Norman Rockwell might like to do a painting here someday.

Landscape architect Ann Christoph served on Laguna Beach’s City Council.

Photo acknowledgements:

Library photo by Birgitta and Ron Yeo

Aliso School photo courtesy Judy Michel Neeves

By Ann Christoph.

It was a “Leave it to Beaver” kitchen, Mexican style. Simple stained and varnished plywood cabinets, well-loved and clean. They had the original 1960s slim copper handles with the tapered ends. These and the matching hinges were polished bright. Aqua tiles and the aqua walls and ceiling added intense color, the Mexican touch. Ruffled cherry print curtains framed the window above the sink.  hese were what I noticed as I sat at the plastic covered kitchen table listening to the Spanish conversation between my husband, Alfredo and his comadre, Berta. Alfredo was godfather to Berta’s daughter, thus they are “co-parents” forever.

What we saw when we first entered the small kitchen was the stack of home made tortillas fresh off the grill. There were balls of dough still in the bowl, a floured board and small rolling pin. Several more tortillas were still in the works.  A pot of stew or soup was steaming on the counter.

Would we like something to drink, coffee or soda? I had an orange Fanta, and Alfredo a coffee. “How about some tortillas, some of that stew, some beans?” I remembered how similar situations had happened long ago, so many times, visiting Alfredo’s family, sitting down in his mother’s kitchen to a simple unplanned meal, one that could not have tasted better if it had been ordered in a fancy restaurant. Right before us casually manipulating that ball of dough into a perfect eight-inch disk, she laid it on the grill, talking all the while. “Will she remember to turn it before it burns?” I wondered. Quickly it was flipped over and soon there it was on top of the stack. Eating it hot off the grill, with a little butter, I was reminded that the cold tortillas in the plastic bags from the market are only placeholders in our memory, telling us that someday we might again be treated to the delicious real thing.

Berta is the widow of Alfredo’s cousin, Julian. She’s diminutive, lively, and although in her 80s, is very much in charge of this household and its decor. The front yard is a complete display of Christmas figures and decorations, and any space on the living room bookshelves that is not taken with framed photographs of members of the family is consumed with dozens of Christmas figurines. Next to the front door is a photograph of a young man and woman, perhaps from the 1940s.  Both are handsome and hopeful. Yes, this is Berta and Julian before they were married.

Since that photo was taken they had come to the United States from Mexico, sponsored by Alfredo’s uncle, who gave Julian his first job, driving trucks.  Berta was a hard-worker too, doing what needed to be done to keep the family going, from picking cotton to bundling onions. It was a long and happy life, but about two years ago Julian was taken with a heart attack.

As Berta told it, about a month after his death, while the family was gathered in the kitchen they heard a crash from the living room. They found the couple’s picture on the floor, unbroken. The nail was still on the wall and the wire on the back was intact.  A week later another crash–this time the glass fell out of the frame. Again it was unbroken on the floor below the rest of the frame.

Now the family stories go on.  Alfredo tells of his dad being seen in the living room after his death, turning on the porch light and explaining that his youngest daughter would be coming home soon.  And he was heard in the kitchen making breakfast.

Are there explanations for these mysteries?  Does the spirit remain and continue to try to make contact after death?

How do we just go on eating tortillas, stew and beans, thinking of the startling evidence of life’s mysteries?  We sit there wishing we could talk to those departed loved ones.

Our answer is to love a little extra those we still have here with us.

Landscape architect Ann Christoph is a former member of Laguna Beach’s City Council.

By Ann Christoph.

I had just washed my hair and was at the beginning stages of getting ready to go to work when the phone rang, “Channel 9 is down at the garden. They’re going to do a news story on saving it!” After a quick blow-dry, off I went to check it out.  Yes, indeed there was a reporter interviewing Morrie Granger and the “Coffee Dogs.”  Bright eyed and enthusiastic, she wanted to hear the garden story—to be shared with metropolitan LA on the evening news. All evening long the story repeated—interspersed with video shots of the garden—and tales of the generosity of the property owner, volunteers building the garden, the “For Sale” signs going up, our fundraising campaign to buy the property… the city’s recent rejection of our plea for park funds to help fund the purchase.  A compelling story travels and surprising echoes are coming back.

The “Coffee Dogs” are another surprise. This is a group of neighbors that meets every morning for coffee, and because their dogs are members too, they named themselves the Coffee Dogs. Café Vienna was their regular haunt. When it closed, what was to be done?  The group decided to move to the picnic table at the garden. Now they bring their own coffee and treats.  Every morning there they are, chatting as they overlook the ever-changing plantings.

Three years ago when we cleared the weeds and started the garden it seemed like a simple project: install planter boxes, grow vegetables. But then surprising things happened. Geoff and Julie Beckham donated a shed. Many other donors contributed money and materials, such as redwood, boulders, plants.  Smiling people showed up to help on Saturdays, week after week. It was like a mid-western barn-raising in spirit.  The garden became more and more beautiful.

Did we ever envision how many people would enjoy the garden in so many different ways?  The garden has become a park, where visitors stroll, sit, learn about plants and gardening, chat and get to know each other.

The weekend before last we had our annual December potluck, open to the public. There were many new faces. One of them was Cindy Obrand. She just happened by on her way back from a hike.  “I have a bluegrass show every Saturday at 10 on the new radio station. I’d like to interview you about the garden on my show next week! I’m Ida Mae on the air,” she explained.

Carly Andrews, the leader of the children’s garden, was standing near by and quickly Ida Mae and Carly were collaborating on how children and parents could be part of the interview.

So last Saturday we were down at the new Laguna Beach radio station KX 93.5. Who knew we needed a radio station?

It was a real studio with a sound proof room and lots of important looking equipment.  We got to put on headphones and speak into the mike. “How do bees help plants make food?” queried Ida Mae. “Pollinate!” 5-year-old Jack Borella spoke right up.

We learned that Evan and Julia Henry had a bee project where they recorded all the bees they sighted.  Evan concluded with a plea for buying the garden site so that kids after him could enjoy the garden the same way he has.

We told the garden story, about how, over 10 years ago, Ali Taghavi, who ran a vegetable stand on the corner of Eagle Rock and Coast Highway, decided to build a garden on the upper part of that same property where our garden is now. Who knew we needed a garden? We didn’t. Not until Ali and his friends showed us how delightful and community-building it could be. After a few heartwarming events at the garden we were hooked.

Then the land ownership changed and Ali had to remove the garden. A chain link fence went up. How could we create a garden again? Morrie Granger and the South Laguna Civic Association asked the owners of every vacant property for permission to use their land temporarily for a garden. Finally the site of Ali’s original garden was sold again and the new owner said yes. From then on, with volunteers, donations, creativity and enthusiasm the garden grew to the lovely spot we see today. Now the lot is for sale again and we’re trying to raise the funds to make it permanent.

Who knew we needed a garden, or a radio station…or LOCA, or Laguna Tunes, or…  We’re all adding something surprising to the mix that’s our community. When we keep looking at the good side we relish the gift of surprises. Who knows what wonderful thing could happen next?

Landscape architect Ann Christoph keeps a plot in the South Laguna garden.

By Ann Christoph.

Do we need the holidays to understand our world and our life?

We usually get a healthy dose of new perspectives. This year I return home with these: the details we stew over in our day to day lives are not all that important to most people; we confront recurring themes and conflicts; and we make those same choices over and over.  I am always hoping some of those choices mean something permanently.

At our Thanksgiving party of 27 in Sacramento not one person was interested in what is happening in our town, in Laguna Beach. All those important events and decisions that we agonize over had no relevance. There were the talkers and the listeners. The talkers want to talk about themselves and their problems, the listeners patiently look attentive hoping that someone, anyone, will ask them a question, give them an entrée into the conversation.

Still it was comforting, even relaxing: being part of the family, being welcomed, cooking, seeing familiar faces changed a little since the last time, and two good nights’ sleep even on an uncomfortable bed.

We saw “Cloud Atlas” a complex film depicting interrelationships between souls leading lives in different eras. “Death is one door closing, but another one opens,” is the message.  Doors open on a series of other lives where the characters seek fulfillment and struggle with the same companion characters recurring in different forms.

On the way home we stopped in Chowchilla, one of those towns along the 99 that we usually buzz by without a thought. But we had read about the Fossil Discovery Center.  There, surrounded by orchards and fields, is this small complex where fossils discovered in a nearby trash disposal site are exhibited. Skeleton replicas of a Columbian mammoth and short-faced bear loom over visitors. These, as well as early wolves, horses and camels demonstrate the animal life millions of years ago when the central valley was a huge savannah.

How did the fossil center come about?  It was a struggle that sounded familiar. An area for the landfill/dump was being excavated. There was a whistle blower who announced, “Hey, we’re scraping up fossils out there!”  There was a contingent that retorted, “They’re just a bunch of old bones. We can’t afford to stop work on the dump. Where are we going to put all that trash? And how much will it cost to deal with those fossils?”

A compromise was reached with the prodding of the California Environmental Quality Act. The excavating would be more careful and fossil deposits encountered would be flagged. Scientists would encase the fossils in plaster to protect them, and then carefully remove them for study and exhibition. Certainly some fossils would be overlooked and damaged in this process, but also many would be discovered and saved. These would be exhibited in the Fossil Discovery Center, opened in 2010.

This was a classic political, environmental decision we see over and over—balancing appreciation and preservation of a resource versus consuming it.

We have our very own “Cloud Atlas” events with different scripts, different appearing characters, but the same struggle repeats over and over.

Back at home at the Montage tree lighting event one guest was describing the wonder of swimming with giant sea turtles in Hawaii. Another chimed in, “I’d rather have turtle soup.”

How do you like your turtles?

Landscape architect Ann Christoph formerly served on Laguna Beach’s City Council.

By Ann Christoph.

Undecided on Laguna

How must Mitt Romney and his family feel, having fought so hard for so long?  Out there day after day, setting everything else aside, in the spotlight, pushing for his point of view.

Now he and millions of supporters are terribly disappointed.

That story repeats all across the country as everyone settles back down to create a semblance of business as usual.

Aren’t you glad you didn’t answer those mean jokes against your candidate on Facebook with some sarcastic comment?  Even the ones from friends and the much-loved people in your own family?  “How do you starve a welfare recipient? Hide the food stamps under the work shoes.” Or “Re-electing Obama is like backing up the Titanic and ramming the iceberg a second time.” Did you know those close to you across the table at every Thanksgiving were thinking these thoughts?

Still, I am glad I skipped the sarcasm.  Now at least I can still talk to my relatives and friends about other topics.

Are there mean and underhanded and sweet and well-intentioned people distributed across the spectrum of politics? It’s hard to see from one’s own perspective because all the well-intentioned ones seem to be on our side only.

Perhaps the enemy is not the other side, but the people who don’t do anything, who don’t get involved, those darn undecideds who get to decide everything!  Goodness! How could you still be undecided after months of politicking and debate?

Here in Laguna we’ll have two new members of the City Council and we won’t have Measure CC.  Worthy candidates did not win and they and their supporters are terribly disappointed.  Supporters of well-qualified winners rejoice, as they should, and we all look forward to working together toward a better, more harmonious town.

Support of open space preservation seemed universal, even though the details of Measure CC were questioned to death. Now we and the city will be following up on other ways to preserve open space. Opportunities are right around the corner, with one of the large dark green parcels on that open space map coming to the Planning Commission for a development permit very soon.

Both yes and no voters on CC should be there to see that the “other ways of preserving open space” come to fruition.

Laguna Beach doesn’t have a lot of those undecideds, the uninvolved. That is why we are such a great town.  We keep on plugging along optimistically, being directive in our communal decisions, working and donating, making our town better than ever.

P.S. I wrote this column before the City Council meeting on Tuesday. I was full of optimism, feeling that ultimately good will and human kindness will prevail if we can all just make positive contributions and work hard. Now I have to say that my optimism is badly bruised.

This relates to the South Laguna Community Garden and the request for a city allocation of the money generated from the sale of unused South Laguna parkland toward the purchase of the garden park site.  As of the council meeting of Oct. 16 there were three votes (Toni Iseman, Verna Rollinger and Jane Egly) supporting the allocation of funds. However, Mayor Egly stated that she needed to see an appraisal and reports about the soils conditions on the property.  Those items were supplied at the community’s expense as requested for this week’s council meeting. Public testimony was taken, abbreviated because of the late hour. Most of the children had to leave by that time, and we felt we had already addressed all the council’s concerns in previous meetings with extensive public testimony in favor of the garden. Supporters were from many areas of town and many did not have garden plots.

After the close of public testimony, Mayor Egly stated that she had received so many emails against funding the garden from people who said the city shouldn’t spend city money when the garden had only 52 garden plots. That’s why she was going to vote against the garden funding. Apparently now the appraisal and soils information she had asked for were no longer important. There was this new concern. There has been no public testimony opposing the funding and no opposing letters filed with the agenda bills. Is it fair to bring up this new concern at the end of the third hearing after the public had spoken, and to weight the comments from unknown individuals not shared with the public as being more important than the public testimony given within the prescribed format? This is not the democratic process nor is it transparent.

The garden is an optimistic venture. One of the gardeners said, “The reason I garden is that I believe in tomorrow, that the seeds will sprout and there will be a harvest.”

I hope we can bring this spirit into the coming year, resetting the tone. Laguna needs the garden and its life lessons more than they know.

Landscape architect Ann Christoph is a former council member.