Many cycles ago, in the Palo they call Alto, to parents living on the campus of the mighty sequoia, there was born a red-haired, freckle-faced boy named Noel Randolph Langle. Legend has it that his first spoken words were “howdy doody!” Some interloper thereby got the idea for a popular children’s TV show in the 1950s. Alas, Noel never got any royalties or residuals; he was doomed to work (“Würk!” –Maynard G. Krebs) for a living.
As a youngster he spent some time back east and down south, shuttling around cars and trucks. Eventually he settled at UCSB, earning a degree in Geography in 1980. When I was a TA he was in ES 3, The Air Environment, taught by Jeff Dozier and Mel Manalis, where he mastered the dread “Skew T-Log P” graph and nailed the extra-credit question on the final: “Did Cachuma Spill?” (given watershed area and runoff coefficient, storm intensity and duration, and capacity in the reservoir). No calculators were allowed. He didn’t need one. I’d say he flipped a coin, except that he showed his work.
In 1978 he got an internship with the mapping section of the Santa Barbara County Planning Department. He Langle-wrangled it into an extra-help position through one of the department’s most challenging periods: the review and adoption of new Land Use, Circulation, and Environmental Resource Management Elements for the county’s Comprehensive Plan. This was long before automated mapping and GIS, and revised maps often had to be generated weekly during hearings on the plan, using Rapidograph pens, colored pencils, burnish-on lettering, and occasional freehand notations.
In 1980 he finally (long story) landed a “regular” job with the county and continued to work on various projects in the Comprehensive Planning and Development Review Divisions, eventually rising to the exalted rank of County Zoning Administrator—“All Hail the Wise and Powerful ZA!” During much of this time he had a post outside his door: “The floggings will continue until morale improves.” The floggings continue.
In late April this year, he celebrated his 30th anniversary as a “regular” county employee.
Over the decades of his career, Noel has hardly been all nose-to-the-grindstone; all that gets you is a sore, flat nose. He helped coach the Santa Barbara Mudhens women’s soccer team and accompanied them on a storied trip to Hawai’i, whereby many ties were made between Northern Hemisphere women’s soccer and Southern Hemisphere men’s rugby. He was a regular at the East Beach volleyball courts on Friday evenings after work during the months without an “r,” and even in some months with an “r.” He also was a mainstay with the Santa Barbara Outrigger Club, and made several fishing trips with friends to southern Baja, earning the coveted rank of “Master Baiter” and surviving a hurricane one year.
In 1989 he married Peggy O’Halloran of the County Division of Environmental Health. I was privileged to be their Best Man but often mused, “If I was the Best Man, why wasn’t I getting hitched?” Before and since then, they’ve adopted untold numbers of cats and Dalmatians. Peggy currently is the Executive Director of the Santa Barbara Humane Society. Noel continues to soldier on in the Planning & Development Department, working on special projects and currently caught in a contest of wills between the County Board of Supervisors and the California Coastal Commission, involving specifics of the county’s new Land Use & Development Code (née “Coastal Zoning Ordinance”). Been there, done that—lotsa luck, old buddy!
Noel also can be found pumping the hand car at the Goleta Railroad Museum. All those years bulking up in the outrigger club are paying off!
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