Disillusioned San Diegan Seeks His Eden Elsewhere

Steve Vaus wants to trade San Diego for Shangri-La. Now he needs help finding it.

He says he’s sick and tired of gangs and drive-by shootings, of ocean pollution, of crowded schools and highways and neighborhoods. He’s a San Diego booster-turned-basher.

And now he’s gone public with his problem. He’s put out the question nationwide: where exactly is paradise?

Recently, Vaus sent letters to the editors of six newspapers, including nationally circulated USA Today, asking readers to tell him where he can recapture a small slice of Americana, some Utopia that’s not quite as hokey as, say, Mayberry but with some of those same small-town values.

“For the past 15 years I’ve lived in San Diego, California. It’s nicknamed ‘America’s Finest City.’ God help us all if it is,” his letter to a national audience opens boldly.

Those who know Vaus in San Diego might be stunned by his approach. Here is a record producer and San Diego booster, a charity fund-raiser, whose songs and jingles about San Diego air on the local radio, and who is decorated by civic organizations for his local contributions.

But Vaus has changed his tune about the city.

His letter was a litany of San Diego’s liabilities that went on to describe the life for which he now lusts.

“We want to live somewhere where people care about their community, about their families, about each other, and about their country,” he wrote. “Somewhere where there’s space for kids to run, to play, to grow. Somewhere where people greet one another on the street. Somewhere where we can get to know the local policeman, the grocer, the postman, the minister, the doctor, the vet and the mayor.”

Vaus says he wants a place “with stately old homes and buildings; it should have a tree-lined main street of shops and businesses that the locals still support; there should be a park for summer concerts where senior citizens can gather on the benches to pass the time and the local gossip; four seasons (without too much of any one); and, hopefully, all this will be within an hour or two of big-city transportation and entertainment.

“Where has the old American dream gone to live these days? Can anyone tell me?”

And now they’re telling him.

“Stop your search,” a USA Today reader responded after Vaus’ letter appeared. “Your dream just came true. Pack your bags and head for ‘Our Town’--Plymouth, Mich.”

A woman from Cazenovia, N.Y., wrote about the hills and valleys situated around a small lake, and of the village park where concerts are held, and how Syracuse is just 45 minutes away. “To me, this is Shangri-La,” she offered.

Another reader wrote, “While Alpine, Tex. may not be exactly what you are looking for, I can assure you that Alpine meets all the qualifications you mentioned. This is a great town and area in which to live, work and play.”

A New York City reader asked Vaus to let him know where he ends up, so he can move there, too.

A Colorado man would only tease Vaus.

“Unfortunately, San Diego has been ruined over the past two decades by the huge influx of people searching for their place in the sun,” he wrote. “For that reason, even though we live in exactly the location Steve describes, it would be unwise to advertise ‘Our Town.’

“Steve, ‘Your Town” does exist, but you’ll have to search for it, as we did.”

The man said only that he lived in “Our Town,” Colorado.

Vaus is thrilled by the response to his letter--and curious that, so far, no one has come to the defense of San Diego.

“I kind of thought somebody, from somewhere in Southern California, would write and ask, ‘Are you kidding? You must have a loose screw to think about leaving San Diego.’

“But nobody has.”

One reader raved about vacationing in San Diego, but said his favorite place was Grinnell, Iowa, 50 miles or so from Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. In fact, it seemed that half of Grinnell joined in a letter-writing campaign to convince Vaus that their town could be his town.

Wrote the local police chief, who simply signed his letter with a friendly “Dan”: “Our major concern at this point in the year is what kind of new street lights should we put in the downtown area. It is a pretty darned important decision, and we’ll give it some good clean controversy for a while, at least until spring when we have to decide whether we want a water slide at the swimming pool.”

Vaus can only smile.

“I’ve learned a lot about America,” he said. “Number 1, that when you live in the same place for 15 years, you tend to become nearsighted. You project that a lot of the nation looks like San Diego. Blindered-vision.

“But it turns out there are towns out there where you know the mayor, the doc, the vet and the butcher by their first names. Old-fashioned America still exists. It’s not just the creation of a warm-fuzzy Walt Disney movie.

“And people are damn proud of it. They want to show off their towns.”

No place more, perhaps, than the folks in Plymouth, Mich., midway between Detroit and Ann Arbor.

They’ve offered to fly Vaus and his girlfriend to Plymouth, take them on a tour of town in a limousine, wine and dine them, and, if they decide to adopt Plymouth as their new town, be presented the key to the city.

Some people are calling Vaus directly.

“One lady said that, where she lives, her daughter fell off her bike after school and a stranger helped her up and took her home and took care of her until the mother got home,” said Vaus, a divorced father of two whose children live with his ex-wife. “And to think I worry about my kids going a quarter-mile to school--and that’s a nice neighborhood.”

Vaus, 39, was born in Los Angeles, but remembers most fondly living as a child in Oregon, where his parents owned a 100-acre ranch with a pond out front and Pokey, the swayback horse, out back.

Later he lived with his parents in the New York City suburb of Tarrytown and eventually followed them out to San Diego, 15 years ago, because he figured it was close enough to Los Angeles to pursue his music career.

“San Diego, then and now, has great attributes. Phenomenal attributes. The beach. Sunshine. Temperate climate.”

He’s a reserve San Diego police officer, volunteered in softball leagues, and helped raise money for local charities.

“But I experienced a growing sense of frustration that, no matter how much time and effort I was putting into the community, things weren’t getting any better,” Vaus said. “It’s not just true in San Diego, but in all big cities.”

He admits to second-guessing his decision, especially on gloriously sunny mornings when he looks out from his Tierrasanta home onto a 6,000-acre regional park.

But then came the sewage spill and the 180 million gallons of treated effluent it dumps daily into the Pacific.

“So this was what was happening in America’s Finest City, and I had to vent my frustration,” Vaus said of his decision to write the letter. He sent one to USA Today and duplicates to newspapers of five small towns that specifically had intrigued him.

Vaus says he’s in no hurry to leave San Diego, partly because of his and his girlfriends’ business commitments in town. “And I want to savor the search,” he said. “This has been a lot of fun.”

Will he visit Plymouth? “Oh yeah, you betcha.”

And, although he’s not sure where he’ll end up, “I’ll come back to San Diego. For vacation.”