Editor’s Notebook

Danette Goulet

He just didn’t see what the big deal was, what the fuss was all about.

All Mitch Cottrell was doing, after all, was offering to buy strings

of holiday lights and go to people’s homes and put them up free of

charge.

“It doesn’t seem that generous to me,” he said to me, clearly

perplexed.

Cottrell is the owner of Electrosystems Electric, a commercial

industrial electric system company that has been in Huntington Beach

since 1988. The idea occurred to him to offer to put lights up at

people’s homes, who might not otherwise be able to enjoy that sign of the

holidays.

When I read the news that was to go in the Independent today, of what

Cottrell was doing, I had questions.

Was this guy for real? Why was he doing this? Where did he get the

idea? Was he going to take them down too? Did he want to come put mine

up? Was he being bombarded with requests?

I couldn’t help it -- I called him.

And the conversation that ensued blew me away.

Yeah, he was offering to put up holiday lights, he said. No, he’d

never done this before, but . . . .

His shrug was nearly audible through the phone.

“We just put up a couple strings of lights. It’s not like we cover the

entire house in lights,” he said, as if I must be misunderstanding what

he was doing and that’s why I was so interested. “It’s just something to

add some cheer.”

What Cottrell fails to realize is that not everyone, even good

otherwise well-intentioned people, take the time to spread holiday cheer

to strangers.

Sure, they may hold the door for someone at a crowded mall, or stop to

let someone cross the street. They may even, in the spirit of the holiday

season, pick up a dropped item and hand it back to its owner.

But to send out an open invitation to the community, to string lights

at someone’s home is, in fact, generous.

He just didn’t get it.

“We thought it was just trying to help people out,” he said. “I think

maybe more people should give something back.” He assured me that they

weren’t spending thousands of dollars -- it was maybe a couple hundred

bucks.

He continued to answer my questions, while adding these tidbits, to

make sure I understood. I couldn’t help it.

I kept chuckling when he said these things.

Now, I know when someone is feeding me a line. I know when people are

“saying the right thing,” which even if they mean it, is 95% of the time.

So what shocked me was that Cottrell sounds like he is for real.

The fact is, that when people possess certain qualities whether it be

honesty, a work ethic or generous nature, for many it is unfathomable not

to be so.

Point is, it’s good to have people like Cottrell around. It is that

sort of attitude that makes Huntington Beach retain its small town feel.

Kudos.

* DANETTE GOULET is the assistant city editor. She can be reached at

(714) 965-7170 or by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .