Hold on a sec — let me just pull this marine layer back over Santa Monica — OK, cool.

What was I saying? I forget. Fog brain. Happens when you’ve been hanging out between the Pacific plate and the North American plate for a few geological epochs. You lose track of details. Is it August? Is it May gray? Does time even exist when you’re pounding shale into sand?

Now I remember why I’m taking a quick break from slowly eroding Big Sur. It’s because people have been talking about me lately, and not always nicely. The occasion seems to be that the people of California and I have hit a big milestone: 50 years of the California Coastal Act.

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Fifty years, dude! For a state law, that’s ancient. For me? A blink. But honestly? It’s been the best half-century of my life. (Well, at least since the pre-human Mesozoic Era). 

Before 1976, as California’s post-war population boomed, everyone was carving me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Gated communities, private beaches, industrial hellscapes, seawalls that starve my surf … it was so un-chill. Then the people of California — bless your sun-drenched, taco-loving hearts — passed Proposition 20 in 1972. The state Legislature made the Coastal Act and the Coastal Commission permanent in 1976.

If you want to........

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