Saved From an Aching Back by the No Vote on A

The defeat at the polls of the Irvine Co.’s intended commercial and residential expansion in Newport Beach has not only saved my precious back but other critical parts of my anatomy from muscular pain.

Gratefully, in this public print, I congratulate all those dear obstructionist voters who did not want more density of population, with its automobiles, noise, pollution and litter. You good people have saved me from building a Japanese garden, complete with waterfall and pond, in my front yard, such as it is.

My wife conceived the idea of such a garden several days before last Tuesday’s special election. I first heard it from her as we were riding home with a busload of some friends, who are also Friends of the UC Irvine Library. We had been on a special outing to the J. Paul Getty Museum and the UCLA Hannah Carter Japanese Garden.

The Japanese Garden in Bel-Air had been opened especially for our group’s visit, and it was our last stop before heading for home. The garden’s peaceful and undeniable charms were fresh in my wife’s mind, which had been boggled by the Romanesque sumptuousness of Mr. Getty’s collection. “Did you notice how quiet it was in that wonderful Japanese Garden, with all its trees and waterfalls, even though it was right beside a busy road?� my wife asked me.

I allowed as how I’d noticed and thought no more about it, until we reached home.

It was then she proposed that “we�--it’s always “we� who lift heavy things and perform dirty tasks, but any husband knows who really does these things--build ourselves a Japanese garden, with waterfall and pond, in what amounts to no more than a patio in front of our house. We live, as you may recall, on Balboa Island, a kind of high density rabbit warren, built on a reclaimed mud flat in Newport Harbor. Residents here soon learn to ignore their close neighbor’s toilet flushings and family fights--unless, of course, they prove to be interesting listening.

Congestion of people and automobiles is a generally accepted fact of life on Balboa Island. It becomes generally unacceptable (except to island merchants) during the summer months and on sunny weekends the year around when hordes of visitors drive over the bridge or brave the pleasant perils of crossing the bay to our island on the ferryboats. During these periods the island can become so overly congested that people take to strolling in the streets, while they eat their frozen bananas, Balboa bars or a more recent popular comestible, enormous cinnamon buns. I have described life on Balboa Island so you’ll understand why almost all of our neighbors were opposed to the Irvine Co.’s expansive expansion. My wife and I were among this majority. Unfortunately for the Irvine Co., the special election came at the end of a particularly fine summer and fall, which attracted, it seemed, more island visitors than usual, with all of the attendant shortage of street parking, noise and litter left by our visitors. Therefore, the prospect of even more congestion, which probably would be brought by the Irvine Co. expansion, was an anathema to many islanders.

My wife and I were pretty certain that voters of Newport Beach would approve of the Irvine Co.’s plans, the extensive mailings prior to the election dangling so many enticing carrots, like a new public library, art and natural history museums, teen and cultural centers, not to mention all that wonderful new shopping!

The Japanese garden, with waterfall and pond, was my wife’s notion of an effective barrier against the noise of increasing hordes of visitors that the Irvine people were bound to release upon our little island. She envisioned an oasis of beauty and peace, shut off from the madding crowd by a high cedar gate and fence.

If any of you have ever visited the UCLA Hannah Carter Japanese Garden and have seen the tons and tons of beautiful rocks that went into the building of it, you will, I’m sure, understand why I’m grateful to Newport’s voters for their decision. Even one lichen-covered dark brown stone, one big enough to make a small waterfall look nice coursing down it, would overstrain “our� old back. Thank you, all, for the reprieve.