Community is harmed when tradition is disrespected

I saw children using a stick to knock down antique glass ornaments from the Christmas tree at the La Jolla Recreation Center.

That moment mattered. Not because the ornaments were fragile glass but because they reflected the community care of that seasonal project year after year, quietly linking one generation to the next. When things like that are casually disregarded and destroyed, something invisible is lost as well: continuity, reverence and the sense that what came before us deserves respect and protection.

I gently asked the children to stop and told them that breaking glass could hurt people and that it mattered. The children stopped.

I want to thank the Dewhurst family, their company, GDC Construction, and the La Jolla Sunrise Rotary Club for decorating that tree across four generations. Their quiet stewardship is a reminder that our community memory survives when people choose to protect what they did not create but are responsible for carrying forward.

Diann Shipione

Preserve what’s left of La Jolla’s heritage

I have lived here in The Shores of La Jolla for more than 50 years, raised my kids here and love our community. Over the last 20 years or more I’ve watched as our history is being erased.

So many original homes in many areas of our town are used by developers for rentals and only as moneymakers in real estate.

We all who have lived here so long are dismayed.

Please help us keep the community in all our different areas of this beautiful village.

The wonderful Colonial Revival cottage on the cover of the Jan. 8 La Jolla Light (“San Diego board to determine whether 1928 La Jolla cottage is historic”) has been here since before we came. Please support it to be preserved as a historic part of our town.

Linda Janon

What’s on YOUR mind?

Letters published in the La Jolla Light express views from readers about community matters. Submissions of related photos also are welcome. Letters reflect the writers’ opinions and not necessarily those of the newspaper staff or publisher. Letters are subject to editing. To share your thoughts in this public forum, email them with your first and last names and city or neighborhood of residence to robert.vardon@lajollalight.com. The deadline is 5 p.m. Friday for publication in the following Thursday’s paper. Letters without the writer’s name cannot be published. Letters from the same person are limited to one in a 30-day period. ♦