Redding and Yosemite aren’t the only things burning in California right now. Pleasure Point’s own Nextdoor site is beset by haters, all aflame over a single homeless man sleeping on a picnic table at a nearby lagoon. Everyone agrees he is a veteran, and No One Gives a Hoot. They want him and his “scruffy” belongings Out. Call the Sheriff! Call him again!

There are continuous disaster updates describing what this desperate fellow is up to at various times during the day, and endless warnings about our tiny lagoon becoming the next Lorenzo Park, a downtown Santa Cruz site with a large homeless population. My neighbors are posting and liking statements such as “These people like the vagabond life.”

It’s kind of They came for me in reverse.

But it’s moving toward The Oxbow Incident.

Since the sheriff hasn’t “put the guy on a bus” despite the organized phone banks, there is a serious discussion being held by suburbanites with an incendiary level of indignation about joining together to remove this fellow’s stuff, along with the picnic table he uses, probably in the dead of night.

Maybe they can then burn it all in someone’s front yard.

There are a few protesting voices, but really just a handful, and our candles of compassion are quickly snuffed out by the katabatic winds of fear. Fear has been the driving force of Pleasure Point Nextdoor as long as I’ve lived here. These people are afraid of strangers, of loud noises, of wild animals, of thieves, and of business development, to name a few.

This latest inferno has reached a new low. If operation Haters Gang Up actually goes off, I’m planning to film it, and hoping I won’t get burned.