What is special about San Clemente? The small-town atmosphere and middle American neighborhood values—or the people who live them?

I first encountered this Little Spanish Village-by-the-Sea more than 30 years ago, looking for a place to live closer to my new job at Surfer Magazine. The deeply embedded sense of community was immediately obvious. My wife Jann and I spent first months here driving around the town watching softball games on the local fields, eating at Sonny’s brand-new pizza place and walking on the beach and pier. We were young, confident and upwardly mobile—the kind of couple who back then was more likely to move to a hipper Laguna Beach.

But we loved the down-home neighborliness here, the red tile roofed buildings, clean beaches and welcoming locals. We made friends fast. Back in the late-70s this was an even smaller local place where you found the same regulars at the Red Fox Lounge on Saturday night and St. Clement’s Church on Sunday morning. We liked places like David and Nayer Henderson’s Burger Stop where the family homemade authentic American fast-food has been served since before Ray Kroc sold the Golden Arches.

One of our first friends, Doug Smith, knew where the perfect little real estate deal was hidden. As we bought our first home in 1978 (a $70,000 Ole Hanson bungalow near T-Street), we met Mark Lewis, the local tile specialist and Kenny Nielsen, the fisherman.

The surf community I worked in was tiny—the Casino (now gloriously reopened) could squeeze in the entire surf industry for the Surfer Poll Party—all 300 of us. Billy Stewart or Tom Whitaker would shape your board; Rich Chew was on lifeguard duty and Jeff Bartlett could repair dings like the Renoir of resin. Steve Pezman, my visionary boss at Surfer became one of my best friends.

As we raised our children we met the Indian Guides Dads and the Girl Scout Den Mothers, the AYSO coaches and the Elementary School teachers. Our entrenchment in the community verified our first impression that this was the kind of place where friends like Jeanie Stavron and Julie Reed work at the local market and the checkout line is where you catch up on the kids and the business and recent vacation. We are still friends with our brood’s Middle School Principal, Cheryl Baughn and Presbyterian Youth Group leader, Bernie Wohlfarth.

This is a town where the entire Ramos family can be found behind the counter of La Tiendita serving the cheapest taco in town for 14 years straight. Or the ultra-upscale Vine where despite renowned chef/owner Justin Monson’s knowledge of the finest wines and sauces, the conversation will turn to where you surfed that day—and where he did as well. 

No matter where you go—to the Boys & Girls Club, Library, Post Office, DMV, North Beach or San Onofre—chances are you’ll see someone you know. And the local drug store, barber shop, doctor’s office, Thai take-out, local bar or breakfast spot? Well if you make yourself a regular, not only will the patrons know you, the owners most certainly will too. 

This is a town where you actually call your mailman (or maillady in our case) Cathie by name, and where you can call ahead to ask your butcher at Billy’s Meats to cut double thick fillets.

The amazing thing, 30 years later? The place is still essentially the same—a little bigger, but maybe a little nicer too. Timmy Patterson’s Surf Shop, Holly’s Car Repair, Keith’s Flowers, Michael Kaupp’s Stanford Court Antiques, Adele’s Café, Arons Restaurant Supply, Chuck Mitchell’s Insurance office—each of these (and too many more to name) have been neighbors and friends for decades here. They make this whole town feel like the Cheers bar. To patronize their establishments is to be where everybody knows your name.

I love capitalism. Getting capital resources (money, talent, machinery, work forces) to visionary entrepreneurs creates the opportunity for progress that has transformed the world. The spread of capital markets has been the engine of modern growth, enabling innovators to build a product, create a service or discover a cure for a disease. Capitalization is the method by which a vast segment of the first world has pulled itself out of poverty and ignorance into the affluence, health and well being we now enjoy.

‘Corporatism’ is another story. Although corporations are a perfectly fine idea, the reliance on stock trading as a way to create wealth built on short-term returns rather than long-term strategic development has not proven such a good idea. Companies worry about their stock price value rather than whether their core competency is being maximized. Growth fuels short-term stock prices, and so becomes the dominant focus for many public companies.

The easiest way to grow is to acquire other companies. But when growth is the primary criteria for stock valuation, the incentive for public companies is to just keep buying more brands (like consumers convinced they need more things.) The danger is that acquisition can become the only method of growth to keep the stock price rising ever higher. The real qualities of a great business get lost in the process—until the corporation purchases assets that turns out to be bad. Then the stock (and the parent corporation) is in real trouble. This is what many banks did over the last decade. It is what local OC surf icon Quiksilver did when it bought Rossignol, a 50-year-old French ski company that had no real relation to the corporate culture of the parent surf brand, and couldn’t assimilate quickly enough for the rapacious expectations of shareholders.

Like Lehman Brothers, the Soviet Empire or a gluttonous gourmand, you can grow into an unhealthy, overextended or dysfunctional entity quite easily. Bigger (as we painfully learned two years ago) is not always better. Have Americans learned from this or will we return to our previous and perilous ways?

San Clemente is in the same boat, living with the same limitations. Creating our future will require making decisions about how big we want to get, and how we want to grow. 

We should be careful as a city not to take on short term benefits that engender long term costs. But we should never fear taking risks, capitalizing on our strengths and reaching for the best we can be. We should support and respect the businesses and citizens that have ideas about how to not only provide good products and services for us but how to make our lives safer, healthier, and more enjoyable. Putting resources in the hands of visionaries—now that would be a capital idea.

The next time you wish you were king for a day, be sure you’re in the right century

When we talk of living like kings, we underestimate ourselves. Today we live better than kings. Better than the richest man in the world ever did a century ago. Every day when we get in our automobile, more 200 horses slip into their harness and race us to our destination at the tap of a pedal. Julius Caesar and all his legions never rode in a leather-cushioned chariot that could go zero-to-sixty in less than ten seconds. And there were no airbags when Roman rigs collided with armored cavalry.

In the course of history, we working stiffs of today are a lucky bunch. Consider the Pharaohs: all-powerful near deities, they built the largest structures on earth. But King Tutankhamen never lived in an air-conditioned bedroom or slept on an orthopedic mattress. He would have built the sphinx in the shape of a Sub Zero had he ever been able to drink a glass of iced lemonade. Or take Alexander the Great—he may have conquered the world, but he is assumed to have died in agony of Typhoid Fever—which would have been treatable today if he was not already vaccinated.

And is there any doubt that the King of Siam would have whistled a happy tune if he could have seen Anna and the King on the big screen or heard the soundtrack on his iPod at the wave of his royal finger?

There are just so many things we have that king-types never did. For instance, convenience stores: Genghis Khan may have had a thousand temples built in his name but he would have mortgaged his birthright for a Slurpee machine from the local 7-11 store. Not to mention 31 flavors.

And you talk about eating like kings? Before Columbus no European sovereign had ever tasted a strawberry, an avocado, pineapple or a Sees chocolate bar. They all came from the new world. Would Henry the VIII have traded his six wives for half a dozen bushels of plums, pecans, or fresh heirloom tomatoes? It’s a good bet.

Queen Elizabeth was known to brag that she “bathed once a month whether she needed to or not.” Unfortunately her subjects were not nearly so lucky to have that luxury. Princess Pocahontas bathed daily—but in the icy currents of Virginian Rivers. Neither she, nor any other royalty ever experienced a heated pool (or hot shower) so common to us all today. Plus Queen Lizzie never surfed. (No wetsuit.)

Shah Jahan, the 18th Century Mogul ruler of India, built the Peacock Throne from solid bars of gold encrusted with priceless diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Unfortunately he suffered from headaches and never having a simple aspirin he lived his days in pain.

Erasing pain seems so simple today—but it wasn’t always. Take toothaches: Queen Marie Antoinette demanded the finest sweets in Paris. But the resulting cavities made her suffer all her short life—when dental fillings would have been a piece of… relief. Speaking of relief, imagine running without Nike’s, sunning without Wayfarers, brushing without Crest, sneezing without Kleenex or skiing without Gortex—small luxuries most world rulers never enjoyed.

And when you compare Royal luxury to modern convenience, envision this: In 1921, just after the fall of Czar Alexander of Russia, only 1 percent (that’s right ONE percent) of the USA’s population had indoor plumbing—and that did not include the Czar.

So you can still say it’s good to be king—as long as you reign in the 21st century. I mean let’s be truthful: Would you trade your refrigerator, automobile, stereo, movies, or Penicillin to run an 18th Century Empire? Probably not. Would you give up aspirin, heated pools, indoor toilets and dental fillings to be ‘Ruler of the World’ without them? Pretty unlikely. But going without ice cream, hot showers, surfboards and guacamole? Forget about it.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not. —Mark Twain

Good health and good sense are two of life’s greatest blessings. Sometimes I wonder whether we have badly used the latter in the attempt to achieve the former.

Fact: Repeated national and state polls have shown that between 60 and 75 percent of Americans would like a universal health care system. (see: The Harris Poll)

Why would the Democrats - the party of supposed “social responsibility” - vote for a bill that does little to curb the backbreaking costs of medical insurance with little control or reform? Why would the Republicans—the supposed party of “fiscal responsibility”—vote for a bill that costs taxpayers more than if they had put in the items the Democrats wanted?

I am perplexed by those who tell us that they don’t want the Government meddling in our health care or in our private lives—and then demand that women who have abortions should be put in jail. And I don’t buy the notion that Government is incapable of operating anything well. The Government runs the US Marine Corps and by Jove I’d like to see a private enterprise that can outperform that organization.

I love Homer Simpson’s quote on the subject:  “America’s health care system is second only to Japan, Canada, Sweden, Great Britain… well…all of Europe. But you can thank your lucky stars we don’t live in Paraguay!”

But here is a worthwhile concept put forward by George Swan, Republican Doctor and Hospital Administrator with 40 years experience. Speaking for “Republicans for Single-Payer Universal Healthcare with Informed Choice” he says that universal health care is a fiscally conservative Republican value. With thousands of conservative physicians in support, he asserts that “a healthy community has and needs incentives to develop a wholesome infrastructure for residents that promote employability and productivity, empowerment for safety, security, health and education systems.” He continues:

“Individuals have and need incentives to look after their own personal health as well: To become reasonably self-sufficient (healthy, wealthy and wise) fulfill their civic responsibilities with shared responsibility.” This organization contends that making sure everyone gets quality health insurance will drive costs down rather than increase them.

One argument used by the Health Insurance and Pharmaceutical industry is that if any restraints are put on their profits it will take away the incentive to find cures and innovate treatments. For some odd reason I suspect that doctors who spend their life dedicated to helping the sick may not be quite as focused on how much money they can make on research results at the expense of suffering patients.

Jonas Salk the great medical scientist, studied tirelessly throughout his career. His life work culminated in the discovery of a polio vaccine. Rather than patent his priceless breakthrough, (and make himself a multi-millionaire) he shared it freely with humanity.

The world cheaply and quickly eradicated a scourge of disease that had maimed a thousand generations before him. Should scientists working for the big drug companies follow this noble path today? Do Americans really believe that someone should make billions for doing what the kind Doctor Salk did for nothing? Two things are certain: Plenty of differing opinions are out there—and I am sure to be hearing some of them from you soon.