If you don’t live in Seal Beach, can you identify the “heart” of your town? Because in my hometown, it is definitely our pier.
Its wooden frame juts proudly out into the ocean and many, many memories have been made there.
Babies have taken tentative first steps on its weathered planks. Marriage proposals have been accepted and rejected there. Junior Lifeguards have jumped off its end into the vast ocean as part of their certification. And although illegal, ashes have been scattered into the ocean from our pier, marking a final resting place to those who held the iconic landmark dear. As a community we have mourned its closing at the end after Ruby’s shut its doors. For over three years, residents and visitors alike have been asking when it will finally reopen. No one was ever able to definitively answer that question.
Today we are faced with a pier that is cordoned off at its base; closed due to a fire that apparently broke out near or in the abandoned restaurant building on the morning of May 20. And once again, the pier is closed.
This time the entire pier is closed, as investigators sift through the debris looking to see how the fire was started.
Our pier is so much more than just a wooden structure. It is old-fashioned wood, much like the old-fashioned feel of our town. One of our Post Office employees makes and sells art made from pier wood recovered after the 1983 storm. It is kind of funky, like Old Town, with its $2 million homes sitting next to small beach bungalows. It is free to use, unlike just about everything else in our hyper-consumer society.
The lawns on either side of the pier host many of our community functions. And because this is Southern California, it is used year-round.
The fire on the pier has crushed our collective hearts, but not broken them. As a city, and a community, I am confident we will do what needs to be done. And I hope it is done quickly. Seal Beach needs its heart back.
Dixie Redfearn is editor of the Sun.
