5 years and 5 favorite columns reveal Laguna’s compelling people

Believe it or not, today is my five-year anniversary of writing this column about Laguna Beach.

So I thought it would be fitting to reflect on my five favorite columns. I went through more than 250 and selected the ones that mean the most to me.

Interestingly, each is about people. There’s not one political diatribe, government lampoon or tourist lament.

They are human-interest stories about the compelling characters of Laguna. Sadly, two subjects have died, one of cancer and the other, a homeless man, was hit by a car.

So here are the summaries, along with some commentary about why I like them. I hope they bring back memories for you, and if this is the first time you’ve seen them, I’ve provided links to the originals.

It’s been an honor writing about Laguna Beach, and I hope to continue this tradition for my 10-year anniversary.

5. Donna Morin. I met Donna in her gallery off Cress Street. She was new to the location, so I popped my head in one day and said hello. She was incredibly friendly, in a very authentic way. I asked her how she got into art, and she told me a remarkable story.

“It’s fitting that Donna Morin’s art gallery, DM Studio, sits squarely across the street from a drug recovery center where people are trying to rebuild their lives,” I wrote in 2014. “Morin, 74, found herself at a crossroads about 30 years ago, bitterly divorced, heartbroken and a stay-at-home mom with few options.”

But she dusted herself off, got a bachelor’s in painting, then an MFA, and landed a teaching job.

“When she taught, Morin used her life as an example to her students, trying to make meaningful connections and encourage them to apply the hard lessons they learn in life to their art,” I wrote.

Donna is a lesson in resilience and courage, someone who changed her life in middle age and became the woman she always wanted to be. While she has closed her gallery, she is still actively painting. I think about her often.

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4. Marilyn Sotto. Marilyn was a costume designer for Disney. She died just a few months after my profile at the age of 83. I didn’t know at the time that she had cancer. She never mentioned it, which is not surprising, given that she was gracious and self-effacing. She probably did not want to draw attention to herself.

I met her through a mutual friend, our hairstylist. I was chatting with him one day while getting my haircut about how I was running low on column ideas. He asked if I knew Marilyn Sotto. One thing led to another, and before long I was in her formal living room surrounded by original, fanciful drawings of Disney costumes.

She was, quite simply, an amazing woman. Google her. The other thing about this column is that it reinforces to me how many interesting people there are in Laguna, if you can only find them.

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3. Regan. I only knew him as Regan. Well, actually, I never met him, but I felt like I had. I walked in his hovel hidden between two restaurants.

“While patrons at Madison Square & Garden Cafe dine on $17 seared ahi salad, two feet away over a bamboo-covered wall is a cramped, squalid homeless camp littered with cheap vodka bottles, mouthwash containers and urine-soaked clothes,” I wrote. “Amid the debris, there is a pattern to the chaos. You can see the choices the homeless person has made, the things he likes and dislikes.

“He switches between vodka and whiskey. The vodka can be any kind, whatever is on sale, but the whiskey is always Kessler.”

I also found a personalized Christmas card with a phone number on it.

“We wish you a very Merry Christmas. Stay warm! Use the peroxide for your teeth! There are still people who care — Justa and Bo.”

I called the number and talked to Laguna resident Bo Calabrese, who said he likes to help a homeless person every Christmas.

Unfortunately, Regan never made it to another Christmas. Regan Philip Hess, 48, died in May 2014 after being hit by a vehicle in a crosswalk on South Coast Highway, not far from my house.

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2. Sindee Bartz. If you have lived in Laguna any length of time, you’ve seen Sindee. She’s a character but she’s not always friendly. I tried for three years to interview her before she finally said yes. The reason I like this story is that it reminds me never to judge. Everyone has a past. There are reasons the present can be hard. But there is always hope that the future will be easier.

“She used to be a hairdresser but now wears wigs,” I wrote. “Flamboyant wigs to match her clothes. Clothes that are not just clothes but statements. Whimsical, iconoclastic statements that defy description. And that’s the point: Sindee Bartz is in her own league.”

I remember trying very hard to portray the real Sindee, beneath the layers of assumption.

“Smart yet coy, private yet extravagant, she is her own luminous dichotomy. Her mind flits from one thing to the next at hyperactive speed, seemingly with no connection, but if you keep up, if you catch the quips and wry postulations, there is a crooked line to her meaning. You might not know it, but she leaves you intellectual breadcrumbs to find your way.”

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1. Jimmer Coombs. This started out as a fairly standard profile of an ex-roadie with lots of stories to tell. That would have been enough, but what turned this column into my all-time favorite — by far — is what happened about six months after it was published.

A granddaughter he never knew contacted me, and eventually Jimmer drove back to Oklahoma to reunite with his long-lost family after more than 50 years.

All because of my column.

I’m now Facebook friends with his daughter. Just this week, Jimmer figured out how to do FaceTime and showed off his Laguna ocean view to his family.

“Jimmer called my mom back and they reconnected,” the granddaughter wrote me at the time. “You and I helped my mom hear her father’s voice for the first time in almost 53 years. Words cannot express how grateful I am.”

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So those are my top five stories. I could have picked many others, but I hope you enjoyed them.

Because if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s always about the people.

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DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at hansen.dave@gmail.com.