There are days when the U.S. mail just doesn’t make it to the distant frontiers of North County, not if you inhabit a jurisdictional never-never land between worlds, as some of us do. For more than a decade I’ve lived in the Bungalows, a modest complex of townhomes at the edge of Los Alamitos. It’s a pleasant enough community with a secure gate, heated pool, and plethora of potted plants on balcony patios. There’s a quiet here that would be hard to find anywhere else. And I couldn’t ask for a more endearing set of neighbors. At least one aspect ... Read more

Alan and I have just emerged from the mouth of a slip in Dana Point Marina, each of us trying to control the drift and yaw of our kayak. The evening current is a rippled conveyor belt, taking us with it as we paddle between rows of yachts and sloops. We’re not long underway when I hear moist, heavy breathing from behind. I look back to find a lone sea lion trailing us, head lifted above water. A juvenile male, judging by his size and dark color. Something hangs from his mouth. Seeing it too, Alan asks, “Does he have ... Read more

I left Balboa Island on a hot September afternoon in 1955. I was driving my Ford—a car younger than I, but not by much—and I crossed the bridge and drove through an Orange County so vast, so rural, so empty of people that you would not recognize it today. I was off to become a man. A college man. I was 17.   Eisenhower was president. It was an uneasy time, as you may have read, or worse, recall. The Russians had the Bomb, China had gone Communist—there were things to worry about, even if you were a kid. In ... Read more