First the Flood, Now the Looky-Loos

Recently Ben Brown’s Restaurant/Aliso Creek Resort suffered millions of dollars in damage due to the heavy rains and flooding. Lately, the tired and overworked employees at the resort have had to deal with the onslaught of another type of flood. This being a flood of people, not rain.

There seem to be two types of people. The people in the first category have been coming to this establishment for years or in recent months. These people offer themselves or their services in a sincere effort to comfort and encourage the folks at Ben Brown’s Restaurant and Aliso Creek Resort.

Then there are the other ones. Some come alone, others in groups, and some bring the wife and kids almost as if it were a carnival atmosphere or a Sunday picnic. They usually have a camera in hand and a smile on their faces. It has become a morbid sight for the workers at the resort, who themselves are busy trying to salvage and clean what Mother Nature has coated in mud, to see these people giggling and laughing as they point to the devastation and snap their numerous pictures of this tragedy.

I wonder if they will paste this picture in their scrapbook next to the picture of the three-car pileup they happened to pass one day when they were out searching the land for the results of others’ misfortunes, or maybe next to the pictures of the burning homes they visited while a portion of Oakland burned several months ago.

To the people I talked about in the first category, my deepest thanks and appreciation goes out for their sincere help and encouragement. To the others I have a suggestion: I was told of a place where the fire is said to burn for eternity. If you want some good pictures of pain and torment, I’d be glad to tell you where to go.

STEVEN HABETLER, Laguna Beach