Blog

Now…finally! Let’s cut to the chase! Fast forward to the present!
On April 5, 2018, there occurred a magnitude 5.3 earthquake in the Santa Barbara Channel. Let me now attempt to explain to you in layman’s terms what the underlining dynamics are at play here.
It was at this time in 1996, that Michael wrote again to Marc McGinnes. Michael had in 1994 hired a private investigator to take photographs of the Haskell’s shoreline and environs. To his amazement, there still remained pilings with their concrete footings scattered along the shore. Along with that, signs had been posted stating “Submerged Objects, Use Caution.” Michael urged Marc to utilize some of his interns at the university to investigate this matter and queried whether he could file a lawsuit in Michael’s behalf in District Court asking for injunctive relief to finally ameliorate these issues-once and for all. Marc declined his offer. To this day, Michael feels that this was the wrong decision.
During the next twenty-plus years, Michael worked diligently, getting married to a girl named Catherine; having a beautiful baby boy named Dennis, while working at the regional headquarters of Xerox as a telephone settler in their bad debt department. He took a six-month trip to the Big Island of Hawaii and a had month’s stay on the Isle Tau in the Samoan South Pacific. He married his second wife, Marilyn, a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. After his second divorce, he eventually moved to Eugene, Oregon, where he spent his leisure time soaking up the healing lithium vapors among the Old Growth forests of Terwilliger Hot Springs in the Cascades some sixty miles east of Eugene.
When Michael entered his first semester there at Santa Clara it would prove to be anything but normal. He came aboard ship highly distracted in his studies with the initial filing against the state. Adding to this, Michael’s Civil Procedure Professor, Marc Poche, was to become one of the newly elected Gov. Brown’s inner circle of advisors. The cumulative onus of all of this prompted him to withdraw after the first semester.
Also, during the during the summer of 1974, a representative from the State Lands Commission headquartered then in Long Beach for this region, came to pay me a visit. He asked me to point to the exact spot where the alleged submerged pier piling was–the state had no GPS bearing on this monstrosity and has none to this very day!
For the next four weeks, Michael hobbled to class with the aid of crutches, carrying his books in a knapsack. He did eventually graduate with the rest of his peers and Ralph Nader was the featured speaker that day. He stayed in Isla Vista that summer prior to his entering the University of Santa Clara School of Law the following fall.
During that time, he enlisted the services of Marc and eventually a lawsuit was filed against the state of California, et.al. in October
of 1974.
Since there were no cell phones, Michael was eventually transported by ambulance somehow to the nearest emergency room hospital in Santa Barbara. The surgeon, Dr. David Davidson, did an excellent job, requiring over forty stitches in three layers. He was also the brother of John Davidson, the host of the popular TV show “That’s Incredible!” at the time!
Michael finally reached his destination and layed down his beach towel. He was now ready to rock-and-roll bigtime! With the speed of a 100-meter dasher his head entered the breaking waves with a mighty splash! To celebrate further he went underwater for a further saltwater baptism on this beautiful spring day. He now took a few steps backwards toward the shoreline. “Oh God!” he screamed.
It was Spring again in 1974 and Michael was overjoyed with the once-again emergence of the plant kingdom with all its burst of
the many-splendored colors and hues. Easter had just passed some thirteen days earlier and Michael decided to take a walk!
He was now in the midst of finalizing and putting the finishing touches on his senior thesis and he needed a break. He decided this time to venture forth to Haskell’s!