Time to trade up motto

Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please, if I may. Thank you so

much.

Now then, it is my honor and privilege to announce, notify and

otherwise declare that the official city of Costa Mesa seal shall no

longer bear the motto “The Hub of the Harbor Area,” but will proclaim

the “City of the Arts.”

Further, by order of the Costa Mesa City Council (at this week’s

meeting), the new appellation shall be memorialized on a totally cool

flag, effective June 30.

In addition, the city ... what’s that? Can you see the flag? No

you can’t see the flag. Whaddayounuts? It’s not ready yet. Stop

bothering me.

At any rate, that’s the word and it comes from the top. Consider

yourself notified. It’s out with the harbor, in with the arts.

Be honest with me. Did you know there was a city seal? I say most

of you did not.

How about the city tree? Don’t peek. It’s the Indian laurel, a

species of ficus tree. Yikes, the “f” word.

The official flower? Tick, tick, tick, tick ... the fuchsia.

Official song? “At Last, My Love Has Come Along” by Etta James. No

it isn’t. I made that up. I love that song.

But wait. Does any of this really matter on a Memorial Day

weekend, with the terror alert rising and more reality TV shows in

the works everyday? Probably not. But every time this motto business

comes up, it’s deja vu all over again, and that “Hub of the Harbor

Area” thing always jumps out at me.

Return with us now to a simpler time, June 29, 1953, the very day

(it was a Monday) on which Costa Mesa became a city. I suspect there

was great celebration, jubilation and anticipation, along with much

gesticulating, speechifying and who knows what all. I can’t say for

certain. I was not there.

In 1953, I was five years old, planted firmly in front of a very

small television in the Bronx, watching “Kukla, Fran and Ollie” and

“Ding Dong School with Miss Frances,” an early version of “Mr.

Rogers” except her real name was Dr. Frances Horwich and she was much

chubbier than Mr. Rogers. Kukla, the one with the huge front tooth,

was the paterfamilias of the “Kuklapolitans,” which consisted of

Ollie, Beulah Witch, Fletcher Rabbit, Cecil Bill and Madame

Ooglepuss.

What does any of this have to do with “The Hub of the Harbor

Area?” Not a thing, as far as I can tell. The truth is, the city seal

has needed updating for many moons. And if you put enough moons

together, what do you get? Years, that’s what.

By the way, the credit for officially changing the motto to “City

of the Arts” goes to former Mayor Linda Dixon, who led the charge on

the name change in 1999.

But the original, now obsolete, city seal has a charming, innocent

quality to it, much like the times in which it was born. There is a

bushy thing at the bottom of the scene covered with oranges. I think

they’re oranges.

Oddly, the most prominent figures are two graduates in caps and

gowns, one male, one female -- a nod to Southern California College

(now Vanguard University) and the still-new Orange Coast College,

also five years old in 1953.

At the center of the seal is a sunny harbor scene, with a sailboat

heading toward what appears to be the bridge at the Arches. Was

anyone bothered by the fact that no such scene exists in Costa Mesa?

Apparently not. At the top of the scene is a building that’s either a

steel mill or the First United Methodist Church on 19th Street, so

I’ll go with the church.

Running through the heart of the seal is that enigmatic motto,

“The Hub of the Harbor Area.” Yes, an enigma, or, to borrow Winston

Churchill’s phrase, “a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an

enigma.”

Perhaps, but it was also very clever marketing on someone’s part.

And I do appreciate clever marketing. A brand new city is trying to

get its name out there and establish itself. Then and now and always,

you gotta have a hook. What exactly is “The Harbor Area?” The north

end of Newport Beach and the southern end of Costa Mesa?” Maybe. What

about Huntington Beach? They have a harbor. Is that the Harbor Area,

too? Could be.

Why stop there? Look at a map of the coast. Whether you’re talking

about the area around Newport Beach, or everything from Dana point to

Seal Beach, Costa Mesa is roughly the mid-point on a north-south

line. Pretty clever, eh? It’s like the “Bermuda Triangle.”

Do you know why it’s so hard to analyze what if anything, is so

darkly unique about the Bermuda Triangle? Because everybody just

picks a big patch of the southern Atlantic and calls it “the Bermuda

Triangle,” which, by now, has had more shapes and sizes than Oprah

Winfrey.

Is Costa Mesa the hub of the harbor area? Sure, why not? But 50

years later, we’re past all that. Our municipal insecurity complex

about not having a coastline is over, done, out, yesterday’s news.

In the intervening half-century, there’s been a whole lot of

moving and shaking going on -- like the most successful regional

shopping center in the world, South Coast Repertory, the Performing

Arts Center and Segerstrom Hall -- recognized as one of the premier

arts venues in the world, and that’s world, as in “world.” So it’s

goodbye Harbor, hello Art.

The new city flag, soon to be unfurled, trumpets the “City of the

Arts” perched on a mesa on the coast. No graduates, no steel mills,

not one orange.

Simple, clean, makes sense. I like it, Kukla likes it, and I’ll

bet even Mikey likes it.

I gotta go.