In O.C., Optimism Unfurled

At last, it was a happy small town again.

Under a bright, warm sun Saturday, they sat on towels and beach blankets and in folding chairs, lining the downtown streets for the annual Patriots Day Parade, one of those small-town affairs where locals joke that half the city marches while the other half watches.

There were kids and dogs and laughing grandpas and grandmas, and the smell of hot dogs cooking, somewhere, on a grill.

“This was something we needed to put our cares and troubles behind us,” Mayor Steve Dicterow said.

For many in Laguna Beach, it was a chance to awaken from a bad, bad dream.

At the deepest point of his nightmare, Charles Quilter had taken six mud-caked neighbors into his Laguna Canyon house and was trying to calm their fears and bed them down for the night.

That’s when an avalanche of mud crashed into his house, sweeping several of them away.

“It was just ‘BAM!’ ” said the soft-spoken airline pilot and retired Marine Corps colonel. Quilter escaped while clutching four others. Two more followed the beam of his flashlight to safety. But for moments that seemed like an eternity, Quilter’s wife was missing.

So on Saturday, far from the terror of Feb. 23, Quilter, who coincidentally is president of the Patriots Day Parade, and his wife, Ann, who is recovering from her injuries, rode in the parade’s lead car, a spotless and rare 1910 Mitchell, to the loud cheers of spectators along the half-mile course.

A few cars behind, in a red 1969 Buick convertible, rode June and Terry Neptune, owners of the Tivoli Terrace and Tivoli Too! restaurants, which were damaged in this year’s storms. The Neptunes had been named Citizens of the Year by the parade committee.

“We’re lucky we can be here,” June Neptune said.

The mudslides, sparked by heavy, unrelenting rains, damaged or destroyed more than 300 Laguna Beach houses, killed two and injured dozens. They are considered among the worst disasters ever to befall Laguna Beach.

But for at least a day, optimism triumphed over adversity, although the reminders of adversity were everywhere.

Becky Clarke spread a towel and chair along Forest Avenue to watch her husband, James “Shorty” Clarke, and granddaughter, 6-year-old Amy Congleton, march in the parade. Nearby were stacks of sandbags to protect downtown businesses at a moment’s notice.

At Tivoli Too! where awards were being given out for the best floats, huge sheets of plastic covered the adjacent hillside, which had shifted, damaging the business. On Laguna Canyon Road in front of the restaurant, two lanes remain closed because of dirt and debris, and traffic snakes along on half the roadway.

And throughout the parade route, volunteers with buckets, colorful shirts and parasols collected money for the Laguna Relief Resource Center.

“We needed this parade--and with no rain,” said parade committee member and relief organizer Sande St. John. “The survivors say this makes them feel whole again. They have their lives and the love of this community.”

Laguna Beach was just waiting for the opportunity to show it can overcome--something it has done more than once in its artistic but sometimes tragic past.

“The community has rallied,” relief worker and resident Eloise Woolcott said, collecting dollar bills from people at the start of the parade.

One contributor, Patricia Twitty, marching with the contingent from the Laguna Art Museum, claimed victory over the disaster.

“Some of us felt funny about having the parade after all of this, but life goes on, and we’re glad it does,” she said.

Many people recalled that in 1993, the parade came a few months after the catastrophic Laguna fire that damaged or destroyed more than 400 houses in many neighborhoods that still bear the scars.

But this was, after all, the 32nd annual Patriots Day Parade, a rite in Laguna Beach that honors the battles of Lexington and Concord that began the American Revolution.

Each year, the parade carries a theme. This year’s was “This Art of Freedom.” The parade committee chose Austrian-born sculptor Felix De Weldon as grand marshal. De Weldon is best known for his Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, known as the Iwo Jima monument.

Many residents turned out because it is a beloved local event. “It’s so small town. You’ve got your kids, you’ve got your dogs, you’ve got your Girl Scouts--you’ve got everything,” said Laurie Jacobs of San Clemente, who marched as Lu-Lu the Clown with the Volunteer Clowns of Orange County.

But it wasn’t a complete break from the tragedy of two weeks ago and the worry that has dogged Laguna Beach ever since.

Just up the road along Laguna Canyon, mud-streaked armies of work crews and property owners took advantage of a clear day and continued the grim work of digging out. Parts of the neighborhoods smelled of mud and decaying vegetation.

“A warm, sunny day gives us the illusion things are better,” said Laguna Canyon resident Penny Miln, who skipped the parade and spent the day helping shovel mud at the Blue Bell Foundation for Cats, which sustained heavy damage and which the city “red-tagged” as uninhabitable.

“But no one’s offering us any guarantees. You look at the slopes and you see the water still running. The ground is still saturated, and nobody knows what’s going to happen.”

A volunteer with a wheelbarrow full of mud walked by, dripping sweat and droplets of dirt.

“But we don’t want people to think of it as Laguna-the-troubled, Laguna-the-downtrodden,” Miln said, smiling through dusty lips. “People coming into town to watch a parade? That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Back at the parade, marching band members were peeling off hot band suits as they crossed the finish line. A 97-year-old reserve police officer directed traffic. The sun was shining and smiles beamed. Every few minutes, parade committee member Charles L. Howell, a Laguna Beach architect, waved another float into the start of the parade at the top of the hill on Park Avenue, which looks down to the Pacific Ocean.

A number of parade volunteers had trimmed back duties to clean up their homes or to help neighbors or relatives clean up theirs. Some floats were no-shows. To be sure, not everything was running smoothly.

But for the moment, the rain was a few days away, and the architect smiled and shrugged.

Said Howell: “With a view like that and a day like this, it all works.”

FO The California Regiment of Young Marines displays a giant flag at the Laguna Beach celebration.