Upper Newport Bay

A very rare exception to the sad decline of Southern California. When my grandmother had started her little brood her brother Art Parsons was developing residential properties in Newport Bay. Sadly for me, Art's initial success was swallowed up by a financial panic; or we'd be Princes of Real Estate in Golden County.

When I was a boy, one of her girls had clawed back a foothold with a nice house in Newport Bay. She did her level best to kill one of our catalina channel swordfish; but passed on without any stain on her immortal soul. Her kids sailed Sabots in the bay, ate frozen bananas and dreamed of carousing freely over spring break. At that time, the 'Back Bay' was a fetid garbage dump, diked off at one point to attempt a salt harvest. i think of this whenever one of my dear friends pays the huge bonus to by a rare artisanal sea salt: what kind of fool want to consume the concentrated residue of the modern oceans? If the stuff has any taste not derived from Sodium Chloride, what taste do you suppose that might be?

Today, the estuary is looking remarkably like old Bolinas Lagoon. We met an older friend who'd retired from this area to Santa Barbara. She said that the matter hung a long time in the balance, with a single couple standing athwart the course of history, yelling "STOP!". What's your opinion? Is it a lost cause down there? How much money do you think might have been made if the whole thing had been developed? Speaking as the scion of an old LA family: why spoil the party at 5' to midnight?

Posted on March 30, 2011 07:39 PM by icosahedron