ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : When the Party’s Over, Who Cleans Up?

At the tea party in “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice is baffled at the number of place settings per number of guests until the Mad Hatter explains: “It’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”

“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.

“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”

Here in Laguna Beach, and all over Orange County, things are getting used up. I have a number of friends who have dealt with that problem by the Mad Hatter’s method. They have moved round. They have bailed. As in, “I’m outta here.”

Some of my friends were prescient about things getting used up in Orange County while the rest of us were still too busy having a great time at the tea party. But now with the traffic congestion, and the houses marching over the hills into the ocean, I’ve started to think about bailing too.

But there are problems. My friend who moved up to Carmel over a decade ago, claiming she couldn’t breath the air down here, now writes to say she’s bailing to Oregon or Washington. Carmel is used up, she says. She sounds a lot like the Hatter: “I want a clean cup, let’s all move one place on.” I hear the same refrain from my friends who bailed to Santa Fe and Mendocino. Things are getting used up there too.

If you’re going to bail, you’d better be sure to bail far enough away from your fellow bailers to avoid landing on them, lest the place one bails to begins to look just like the place one bailed from.

Why do the bailers re-create the very conditions they seek to escape? It’s simple. You can’t get away from it all because you are it. You can’t not take it with you.

I have tried to convince myself that I would be the exception. I would bail to the one remaining pristine spot on Earth and bring the drawbridge up behind me. Of course, it would have to be someplace that no one else found very attractive, or else I’d risk landing on fellow bailers. Once there, I would be sure not to despoil the land. I would buy green, and recycle everything. But even if I could get used to the idea of being a dog sled ride from the store, not to mention poppy seed bagels, repertory theaters and carnitas (you need population for these), I still don’t think I’ll bail.

Even if you move on several times, eventually you’ll be back to your own seat again. Alice realized this. “But when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask. “Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted.

But suppose we don’t. What does happen when you come to the beginning again? Or your children do? The planet isn’t large enough to offer everyone a clean plate at the buffet of life. Eventually someone’s got to do the dishes.

I can understand why the people in Washington and Oregon are upset with California immigrants who cash in on their metropolitan homes and metropolitan incomes and move on to greener pastures which they then turn brown.

I’m upset with the bailers too. What I’m upset about is that they came to the tea party and left before time to clean up. That’s why I’m not bailing. Somebody’s got to do the dishes.