I’ve lived in Santa Cruz for a long time- long enough to remember when we had a Pacific Ocean.

         Now we’ve got something better. We’ve got what you call your Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which looks much more exciting on a tourist brochure. I’m a big fan of the Sanctuary. It’s one of the best things I’ve seen come out of a political process. It’s good for fishies and the economy both, just like they promised. But the word “sanctuary” has never sounded quite right. It makes it sound like it’s a perpetually calm, serene place, with yoga classes at one end and a salmon petting area on the other. It doesn’t sound like something with super chilly water and big sharks and killer surf. But it helps bring in visitors.

         Sometimes it seems like the tourists get more out of Santa Cruz than the locals. I’m always surprised to hear people who’ve lived here for years claim that they’ve never ridden the Giant Dipper, or visited the Mystery Spot, or taken a whale watching cruise. They don’t say this with embarrassment, they say it with pride, because part of being a local is being careful to not be mistaken for a tourist.

         Sometimes people go to great lengths to not look like a tourist even when they are tourists. They say things like, “When I went to San Francisco, I didn’t do any of that touristy stuff like walk on the Golden Gate Bridge or visit Chinatown or have a drink at the top of the Hyatt. I went where the locals go.” What, they went to work? Safeway? What do the locals have that compares to the frickin Golden Gate? It seems so sad to avoid someplace interesting just because you feel uncool being labeled a tourist.

         I think if I owned a restaurant, I’d work hard to give it a “locals” vibe, complete with cranky waitstaff and old photos of the wharf, to attract tourists by the thousands. They’d all try to play it cool to blend in with the locals sitting around them, who are really other tourists pretending to be locals. They’d be happy; I’d be rich. Oh wait, there is a restaurant like that. I can’t name it here, of course, but you locals know where I’m talking about.

         I used to have a job where I traveled a lot, and I enjoyed it more when I gave in to being a tourist. Tourist attractions are usually among the more interesting features of any city, and market forces ensure there’s always good transportation and something to eat when you get there. They’re typically well kept up, and customer service is better than average.

         Here in town, some of my favorite attractions are the tourists themselves. People-watching at the Boardwalk is excellent, and watching the floating carpet of rented surfboards at Cowell’s can’t be beat. Sometimes there are so many people out there that you can hardly see the water. The surf is only visible as a bump covered with squealing people paddling blue foam longboards in different directions.

         Tourists are also all over the wharf, and if you listen closely you might overhear one telling their kids that the land they see across the water must be Hawaii. If you feel kind, you might point out that we’re at the top of a bay and they’re looking at Monterey. If not, hey, they saw Hawaii on their trip.

         It’s easy to generalize about tourists and locals, but it’s not so easy to say how long one has to live here before they can call themselves a local. A UCSC student might spend four years here and then buy a “locals only” bumper sticker, but it makes people who were born here wince. To them a “tranny” will never be a local. Never.

         I asked a few people how long a person had to be here before they could claim localhood.

         Bertrund Wilcox said, “It all comes down to what’s in your back yard. There must be a dinged up surfboard, an old unseaworthy boat, volunteer tomatoes amidst waist high grass, and an ancient redwood fence about to fall down upon it all.”

         “Anyone who bemoans ‘the way things used to be,’” is one way Mark Marinovich defines it, and Luke Kirley claims a local is anyone who can give reliable directions.

         Ward Willats has a simple definition shared by several others: “Well, they’re a local if they’ve been here as long as I have or longer. Otherwise they are wanna-be-locals poseurs.”

         Mr. Chip had a number of factors to consider. Do you know where the sign-in sheet is at Zachary’s? Do you still refer to buildings by their pre-earthquake incarnations? And most important, do you know where to find a bathroom downtown?