SURFING SOAPBOX: Don’t drop it: littering is not right

Maybe writing letters to the editor really does make a difference — as in Don Romero’s letter a few weeks ago (Sounding Off, Coastline Pilot, July 21) regarding litter on our beaches, and more specifically Thalia Street beach.

Thalia Street beach is the hangout for young Laguna Beach locals and it’s incredibly sad that they litter the beach where they spend so much of their time.

Today, Thalia Street beach was as clean as I have seen it in months.

For months I had meant to write about this problem and was more than thrilled to see another resident of Laguna Beach write about it. The question remains, how can people and/or kids litter the very place that they come back to every day? And why do they feel that it is OK?

As a kid I would have been “feasted” — my face pushed into the sand — by one of the older locals for littering. Or maybe have become a junior birdman — a junior bird thrown off the sea wall feet first into the sand — if I mouthed off. Yes, in the good old days, the older locals had ways of governing the younger crews and teaching them right from wrong.

They taught that littering your beach, and anything else for that matter, is not cool and will not be accepted. Maybe it’s time to begin teaching these kids right from wrong, beginning with picking up after themselves.

Next month will be another great chance for us to all clean up after ourselves — Sept. 16 from 9 a.m. to noon. It’s Coastal Clean Up Day administered by the Clean Water Now! Coalition.

Every day should be a coastal cleanup day.

In other Laguna news, the Rise and Shine benefit for Sunny Elizabeth Taylor will be from 7:30 until 11:30 p.m. Monday night at the Laguna School of Music on Laguna Canyon Road, with special guests including Common Sense’s Nick Hernandez, Brett Dennen and Jason Feddy, as well as others.

Sunny is a longtime resident of Laguna Beach who is quite ill and needs help to pay her medical bills. Please help her as she has helped our community time and time again through her efforts as a longtime activist.

For more information, call Rick at (949) 842-2260.

Peace.