The sun set yesterday on a way of life in coastal California that is rapidly disappearing. The places where someone without a bundle of loot can enjoy an existence on the sand are... where?
Regardless of the fact that the land where El Morro sat now belongs to "the people," I have a great deal of empathy for those that have been displaced. They've lost their community, and they're in mourning.
I realize that I have empathy because I lived it myself. As I've mentioned previously I know all about being eminent domained by the state. On reflection, someone must have pored over a map of Southern California and decided to zero in on mobile home parks next to the ocean and make them public land.
This isn't something the wealthy have to worry about; they're not going to get eminent domained for public usage. They merely waited out the time they had to co-exist with a trailer park. It's amazing the folks in El Morro held on as long as they did.
We had an eclectic 
little community and didn't bag extended 20 year leases upon learning the state was after our site. Since this was North Malibu (what a hoot... it's north of the LA County line, yet all the same the address was North Malibu, and the area code and prefix was Malibu's) the majority of the people were from The Industry. (When you view the spot as it is now from the mountain top, it really wasn't that large of a swatch of sand, was it? To think how we laughed at my grandmother when she fretted that we would be washed out to sea in an earthquake...)
Anyway, there were craft people, stunt people, and actors who you saw regularly on TV or in the movies but didn't know their names. The biggest celebrity was Sheriff John (who had a widely viewed and loved daytime kiddie show in LA for a number of years). My personal favorite was Kitty Lou, a woman who was an actress from the '30s that maintained her old-world glamour by wrapping her hair in a turban and smoking from a jeweled holder.
Memories. Which is all the El Morro people will have now.
You're so right. I think the only affordable coastal property in this state is either way north or somewhere unstable, like La Conchita. Sad. And you know the whole Malibu Colony beach access saga, I'm sure. Laughable.
Posted by: Lin | March 03, 2006 at 11:32 PM
And La Conchita isn't even on the beach - it's across the freeway with the tunnels they used for access blocked off by the railroad company.
Posted by: shaunna | March 05, 2006 at 02:30 PM