Grinning and cringing through ’07

To recall a phrase from the 1960s, that was the year that was.

We in the newsroom had a roller-coaster ride along with the community as the news unfolded in 2007.

Some of our favorite happenings include the zany 75th anniversary parade of artists from the Festival of Arts, who danced and played kazoos down Main Beach and through downtown to mark the signal day that Laguna launched itself into the world as a real art colony.

The opening of the Nix Nature Center in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park morphed into a reenactment of The Walk and The Tell, a landmark event that solidified support for open space back in the ’70s.

A scantily-clad men’s calendar contest sponsored by Save the Boom drew a lot of attention to the cause of preserving the city’s gay hot spot, but couldn’t hold off the closure of the historic Boom Boom Room.

The Pageant of the Masters gave the town a rare treat by staging a Pageant of the Monsters “haunted house” as only the artists of tableaux vivant can: with a blood-soaked opera complete with vampires and living statues. Chilling!

But it wasn’t all fun and games.

There were some big accomplishments and heavy losses this year — the highs were high and the lows very low.

This was also a year of one-of-a-kind, un-repeatable events that came out of the blue. Who would have ever predicted that a professional Orange County couple would be shot to death while brandishing a gun at police at the city’s most exclusive hotel?

Who would have ever thought that a visit to the beach would turn grisly with the discovery of some half dozen beheaded animals? “Why in Laguna?” was the groan heard ’round the town as word spread. “Why” remains a mystery, but it is possible the headless carcasses simply washed up, and nothing indicates the beheadings occurred here.

Again, who’d have dreamed that a local bank would be robbed by a gun-toting suspect — who, apparently thinking he was in the wild West, began firing at police in the middle of the street — and then the same bank would be robbed a week later?

Another out-of-the-blue event: city officials find out from TV that the city has been given a very high environmental award — the only “Beach buddy” honoree on the Pacific Coast no less — only to have local environmentalists bitterly complain that the award was given to Laguna at all. Go figure.

Proving that you never know what will really motivate people, or maybe you do in Laguna, the threatened closure of a popular rooftop bar drew howls of protest and forced the city to back down, letting the Roof Top remain in business — and the sky-high revelry continue. This is a town that definitely supports the right to party.

By the end of the year, the city had scaled the Bluebird Canyon landslide mountain and celebrated the end of a 2 1/2 -year rebuilding project, also considered unprecedented in its scope for Laguna.

Then there were the low points.

We were aghast when an unprecedented firestorm rolled through Southern California, eating up neighborhoods from Malibu to San Diego and beginning a march to the sea that could have ended in Laguna. But the city dodged that bullet, and was able to send its well-trained firefighters to help out in stricken areas.

When a homeless man was found dead at the Laguna Relief and Resource Center in August, the center’s staff was devastated. The victim had apparently bled to death after breaking a window to enter the center, evidently seeking help. The incident added urgency to the efforts already in progress to do more for those on the streets.

On a personal note, I also had an “out of the blue” occurrence, earning a highly coveted “sharpshooter” pin as “top gun” the very first time I ever fired a pistol, at the city’s police shooting range. This was during the marvelous Citizen’s Academy program offered by Laguna Beach police. I’m not even dreaming that that performance could ever be repeated, so it’s one for my personal record book.

Now it’s time for 2008 to show us what its got to offer.

CINDY FRAZIER is city editor of the Coastline Pilot. She can be contacted at cindy.frazier@latimes.com.