THE LEGEND OF THE LAGUNA MAN

That issue aside, most scholars agree that Fred was raised in rural Pennsylvania, where he may not have known every tree, but he certainly knew quite a few trees, certainly more trees than most people, other than of course, Davy Crockett. Davy Crockett was said to have known every tree, but then Old Davy is no longer with us, after his visit to the Alamo and introduction to General Santa Ana. Forgive me, I digress.

Legend has it that during his formative years, Fred raced a lot of sports cars on the country roads near his home. Later, while attending Penn State University, he learned runners were whole lot easier to beat than high performance cars. Once Fred switched to racing people, his success record improved dramatically.

Soon after college, Fred moved to California where he established an automobile dealership. That dealership thrives to this day and recently moved its headquarters to metropolitan Huntington Beach.

While living in Laguna, Fred returned to his first love, racing. Some scholars have reported that Fred was motivated to race to escape the mundane details of his dealership, while others have maintained Fred was really in pursuit of the perfect date. From what I have heard, his motivation was from the latter, rather than the former, if you catch my drift.

In any case, Fred has a great smile and an awesome body…and calves to die for, at least according some young women. Twenty years ago, in open competition, and at the Orange County Fair no less, Fred and nine "want to bee's," including that blow hard John Loeschhorn, were paraded around like prize pigs in front of a throng of screaming females. The result was that Fred's calves were judged the "Best of the Show," and he was awarded the Blue Ribbon. Cynical observers have insinuated that Fred employed that same Blue Ribbon to garner dates with many of Southern California's most attractive women. Less mean spirited reporters, many of whom are Democrats, have maintained that Fred's ample charm and wit attracted these women, and that his physical attributes had nothing to do with it.

Whatever the truth is about Fred's charm, I must tell you this journalist is still smarting from the Orange County Un-Fair defeat. I was robbed, Fred never should have won, his calves are over-muscular and poorly proportioned. Had the judges been anything other than nubile young women, in the prime of their reproductive lives, I would have won hands down. What do a bunch of co-eds know about masculine beauty?

Oh my, I digress again. As I said earlier, Fred started chasing skirts, I mean racing and before we were aware of what was happening we started reading headlines like, "Laguna Man Wins His Age Group at Local 10K," "Laguna Man Wins PCT 50 Mile," "Laguna Man Wins Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run," and etc.

The only thing Fred couldn't seem to win in those halcyon days was the "Nordstrom's Annual Sale - 2K Dash and Shop" at South Coast Plaza. To his credit though, he was the first runner-up three years in a row, losing each year to the Newport Beach Woman who raced in spiked heels. Fred has always maintained that although the spiked heels were not technically a violation of the rules, they were certainly not in the spirit of fair competition, and that he would have won had the competition been fair. Fred analyses everything.