Felt the glory yet of scoring one of the prime new parking spots in front of the Malibu Country Mart?
One of the most awesome walks in Malibu is the Headlands Preserve on Point Dume. Several sandy trails criss-cross the dunes. The flat top, where there is a plaque tribute to explorer George Vancouver, has a 270-degree ocean view. Take the steep stairs on the Cliffside bluff down to Big Dume, or Pirates Cove, for nearly a mile of fabulous beach walking, particularly to see the marooned sailboat that is half buried in the sand.
Malibu Pier won the Santa Barbara Handicap at Santa Anita Race Track in April and was the favorite in the Gamely Stakes on opening day of the Hollywood Park spring season in May. She is a 4-year old filly owned by a Malibu resident and has a pedigree that includes Triple Crown winners Secretariat and Seattle Slew, as well as AP Indy, which won a Breeder’s Cup Classic. Malibu Pier lost in May, but won the Beverly Hills Handicap in June to make it five wins out of 10 races in her career.
There are more than 300 homes in Malibu that are for sale this summer. The last time the tally was so high was in 1997.
The impeccably maintained Malibu Racquet Club is celebrating its 37th year. The club has eight lighted tennis courts and boasts surfaces used in all four major tournaments around the world (grass, clay, hard court and plexicushion).
Malibu is on the same latitudinal line as Abbotabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was killed (about 34 degrees, north). Also located on the same line as Malibu, north of the equator: Columbia, South Carolina; Rabat, Morocco; Beirut, Lebanon; Xuchang, China; and Hiroshima, Japan.
Would it be so bad to have the west end of Malibu Road open again for ingress and egress? Being closed off for entry from the west serves no useful purpose. The road would get significant extra traffic only in necessary emergency situations, were it free flowing both ways. The five-mile round trip to go 200 feet from Corral Beach to the west end of Malibu Road is ridiculous.
Regarding Legacy Park, I am not yet in the crowd that cries, “What good is it to have a big central park full of weeds?” But I would say this: It sure would be beautiful if it were all grass. Not that it is not a local gem, begging for more attention. I would submit that 90 percent of the people in Malibu have not yet pulled over a single time along the PCH to spend 20 relaxing minutes strolling around the darn thing.
Bad things no longer in Malibu, besides Sara Wan on the Coastal Commission: graffiti everywhere; hillsides falling; fire protection without air support; the broken down Malibu Pier for 10 years, the threat of a nuclear plant and freeway in Malibu in the sixties; the threat of the LNG plant off the coast. And paparazzi? Are they gone yet?
If you are a frequent user of the hundreds of miles of hiking trails surrounding Malibu, you will notice something on most hikes: few other people are on the trail. If you are a frequent beach stroller, no matter where in Malibu, you will also notice how few walk the beach, even though all 30 miles of sand from Topanga to Yerba Buena are accessible. So is there really any true demand for more trails and more beach access? We don’t use what we already have.
Mind you, millions of people live within an hour of this area, easily able to use these resources. And there is no chance that demand will increase much. It is virtually impossible to build in Malibu; the local population can’t increase much under current restrictions. Within an hour of Malibu, it is similarly restrictive; any population growth would be negligible. Meanwhile, all recreational expansions invariably cost us in private property liberties, though those costs are never discussed. The government controls virtually everything you do on your property now, in the name of common good, or environmental or recreational needs. Have we really created a better society by sacrificing those individual liberties for a never-ending expansion of recreational areas that get little use?
Furthermore, is Malibu really a better place to live when a small group of people deem themselves the ultimate authority on what stores are best for us to shop at? When we are told how big the stores must be, whom the owners should be, and what quality must be sold to us?
Is Malibu a better place when the extremist environmental groups sue us to death because they are not satisfied with city efforts in park construction and water clean up? What would they do if they actually had a legitimate complaint, such as if the city approved a new factory? Imagine.
Remember, tell your visitors to Malibu to never stand in the middle of the highway. Cross the whole road at one time, even if you must wait a few minutes for all clear.
The Malibu Times, before the days of Arnold and Karen York, ran a weekly spot called “25 years ago in Malibu.” An example is from the June 28, 1981, edition, a story noting the second annual Malibu Colony Association party at the Malibu Sports Club. The Sports Club was at the foot of the pier. This particular party drew “many motion picture celebrities.” Such as it was in summer, 1956.
For many decades, numerous locals were involved all around Malibu and in the news regularly. Now their names have faded away. Randomly, and certainly incomplete, here are many of them from the old days: Edgar Cohn, Chris Polos, Roy Crummer, George Coatsworth, Wayne Wilcox, Bill Bonozo, Bill Gaylord, Jeanette Gunn, Frank Longo, Henry Guttman, Bill McKee, Fred May, Tom Doyle and Ed Debutts.