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# Even ‘Beachtown USA’ bleeds and heals in tragedy
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/even-beachtown-usa-bleeds-and-heals-in-tragedy/
- Published: 2003-07-21T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T02:35:50.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import, Homeless

*By Thomas Brennan*

For our country, the last two years have been the most violent two years since the height of the Viet Nam War. But the one thing we haven’t seen through it all: Bodies broken and injured and bleeding on the ground.

Our wars of late have been sanitized to the point of ethereal. It took searing images from the horrible car accident in Santa Monica, California, to let us know, again, how precious and fleeting life is — how fragile our physical bodies are.

I am a Santa Monican. It is where my business is and where my home is.

It is this town on the coast of California that is the most accurate microcosm of America today and a barometer of extremes that can truly be called American.

This is the city where Stan Laurel lived. This is the city where O.J.’s civil trial took place. This is the city where Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda lived and thrived. This is the city where people store explosives in their bomb shelters. This is the city where there are church groups that never met a homeless person they didn’t like. This is the city where the Chamber of Commerce campaigns to make sure Hispanics who work at the lavish hotels don’t get a few pennies extra. This city has given us stars as diametrically different as Shirley Temple and Dustin Hoffman.

Santa Monica High School was used as James Dean’s school in “Rebel Without A Cause.” This is the city where Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe hung his hat. The City of Gidget and the City of Noir.

This city even puts up with Ed Begley, Jr. (we have a sense of humor — just don’t bring Woody Harrelson in).

In this city of opposites and contradictions, there have always been pockets where the millionaires and street people can co-exist in harmony. The Humvee next to the shopping cart. One of those pockets is a tradition of commerce that is Americana to the bone — the Wednesday Farmer’s Market on Arizona Avenue.

The Farmer’s Market is that serene village scene that connects with us as a tribal remembrance. “A continuity,” as the late Santa Monican John McGiver said in “Breakfast At Tiffany’s.” An unpretentious gathering of all kinds of people, coming together to buy and sell fresh fruit, flowers and vegetables in the open air. A Farmer’s Market is a celebration of our ancestral past. Like a barn-raising.

To see it torn and gutted by all the wreckage a motor vehicle can do at fast speeds was like receiving a knife in the gut. And then came a quick coastal rain on that Wednesday, falling on the wounded and the rescue workers to imprint the poignancy even more.

But as a microcosm and as a living town, we will heal. We’ll send all of our good thoughts to the families of the victims. And we will have a Farmer’s Market again, as a celebration for those who lost their lives. (Thomas Brennan is a Santa Monica resident and co-owner of Tom Brennan Media, a media placement firm based in Santa Monica.)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 21, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/072103.pdf?ref=smdp.com)