SURFING SOAPBOX:Classic Laguna reality

Every once in a while I see a wonderful reminder of the old Laguna, as I did yesterday — it made me smile and then laugh.

Ice cream Wendy was driving down Coast Highway, in what was once a vehicle driven by our meter maids, and has now been retrofitted into a mobile ice cream machine.

It’s a kind of scooter, a three-wheel machine. I don’t know what you’d call it, but “classic.”

In a time when most people are driving big fancy cars there’s Wendy cruising the highway in her three-wheeler, with a little yellow siren on top, painted or plastered with stickers of the different types of ice cream that Wendy sells.

Then there’s Wendy herself, sitting there smiling, driving along with no concern about the line of people behind her, just waiting for the chance to speed past.

I thought to myself, this is the classic Laguna that I remember and the type of characters that made Laguna unique.

I see these types as a better representation of the character and charm of Laguna — and a more accurate one — than the so-called characters I see on MTV’s show, “Laguna Beach.”

If it’s reality you want to show, MTV, then show it. Because there’s plenty of it here.

Reality, that is — from the homeless, to those who lost their homes in the Bluebird Canyon landslide. It is the reality of the 1993 fire and the 300-and-something people who lost their homes then.

In reality, the fire was one of the defining moments in Laguna history — introducing new, modern homes in the rebuilding process and replacing the old, more subtle Laguna cottage neighborhoods that we used to know.

Also, there’s the fact that a whole generation of Laguna-born folk have been priced out of being able to afford to buy a home here.

Now that’s reality in Laguna Beach. Peace.