Amazing Grace

Imagine that! At the tender age of 66 and 62 respectively, we are about to become great-grandparents…what a privilege! Our grandson, Zachary shared the news with us the other day.

“Hello from the Gold Country!
I wanted to tell you some news.
You are going to be a great-grandpa soon!
I just found out today and wanted to let you know...
 
Love to you both!
Your grandson,
Zachary”

And according to what we have found out…”soon” means sometime in December. And so the family grows…

More Pier

Here's the pier in 1937. I could have been found here ten years later.

More growing

Was it the perfect place to grow up? I can’t compare Manhattan Beach to many other places and so I have to say yes. It was a distant suburb of Los Angeles. The majority of the residents were middle class, working at the aircraft plants located north of the city. As far as I knew, there was only one family in town that had the wealth to be able to afford a swimming pool.

And why would you need a swimming pool? We had the Pacific Ocean and it was only a mile away. We had the freedom to come and go almost at will. We did have to tell mom where we were going and when we would be back. And we got in trouble if we didn’t remember to do it. You were expected to be home for dinner; naturally. At the age of eight, I walked all over the town and sometimes as far as the next town, Hermosa Beach. There were sand dunes everywhere, not just at the beach itself, so we could play any time and almost anywhere. And we were barefooted almost all of the time. Shoes were something you wore to school and shopping, otherwise they stayed in the closet.

If there was any crime, we were unaware of it. Manhattan had 3 policemen, with one on a motorcycle, which he would take home at night. The fire department was all-volunteer. There was one factory in town; Metlox (Poppy Trail) pottery and once a week the train would make its way down the rusty tracks to the factory. The only traffic signals were located on Sepulveda Boulevard, the main north/south artery and we were told to always cross at the signal!

The Pier

Since I started this blog, I have purchased a few Manhattan Beach history books, complete with old photos and they have generated some reminiscing. So, if you don’t mind, I may just meander around in my memories for awhile…hoping not to repeat myself.

One of the notable landmarks in Manhattan Beach is the pier. The main east/west road (Center Street) traveled directly to the pier and its location defined all locations in town, you were either north or south of the pier.

As a young boy, age 7, I would often walk down to the pier to go fishing. You didn’t need a pole or even a license. Most fishermen my age would use a simple gadget, a square wooden framework that held about 50 feet of deep green cotton fishing line, a lead sinker and a hook. Holding the wooden frame loosely, you could let the line revolve off of the frame. To retrieve the line, you wound it back on, a few inches at a time. Not at all high tech, but you could buy one at Oscar’s Bait shop for about a dime. And another dime would get you a package of sardines for bait. Or you could patrol the pier and easily find enough abandoned sardines to cut bait from.

My favorite place to fish was out near the end. Close by, there were wooden steps that led down to a floating dock. This had been used for a shuttle boat that took fishermen out to a barge, anchored further out and in prime fishing waters. Since the barge was no longer operating, you weren’t allowed to descend the stairs, but I enjoyed watching the waves swirl around the dock. And I imagined that the fish would be hanging out near its shelter.

I would spend the entire day on that pier if I could. Usually catching perch and mackerel. Once in awhile I would catch a Sand Dab, but those were only caught close to the surf line and that made keeping your hook baited problematic.

The big attraction for fishermen on the pier was presence of the halibut. And they were only caught at the end of the pier. There had been stories that small boys had caught very large halibut with just the same kind of fishing rig I used…though I had never met one of those boys. But I could certainly dream!

When one of those halibut were caught, we all ran, men and boys, to the spot where the lucky fisherman was battling his catch. A large round net was always available to slide under the fish and someone would always help the angler to get the fish from the water to the top of the pier, a distance of 20 feet or more.

A Coppertone Life

We didn't spend every summer at Lake Tahoe, living the life of the rich and famous...sometimes we stayed home all summer and went to the beach each day. We certainly weren't rich, but the beach was free and Manhattan Beach was very much a middle class suburb at that time.

We walked to the beach of course, in fact we walked everywhere! Mom didn't drive and so we really didn't think it "abnormal" to be on foot.

And at the beach we began to make certain class distinctions. There were "us" and there were were "tourists" or "Turistas". And those we made fun of. Certain beaches, such as Marine Avenue, attracted certain types and Marine Ave. attracted tourists. I was a member of the group that went to 15th Street, a premier location! From 15th Street you could barely see the tourists congregating beneath their beach umbrellas, sitting on their beach chairs and walking across the sand in SHOES! (shoes were for sissies!)

I could also mention that the Marine Ave. beachgoers were universally pale and white. No hint of a tan. We, being superior beings, were bronzed to perfection!

Life at the beach in the 1950's was perfect...just like our tans.

Neglect

As noted...I have been neglecting this blog for some time now. So this morning I reformatted the blog to show 100 posts instead of just a week at a time. Now I have to begin where I left off - in November of last year!

I was reminiscing about Lake Tahoe vacations at the time. And I suppose I can continue with the same theme. Let me think about it...

And what I think I need to do is to search out some old vacation photos to scan. That should revive some of my memories.

It's working...I just flashed back onto some memories of fishing at lake Tahoe with dad.

Our first year of fishing at the lake didn't gain us much in the way of dinners. We really didn't know how to fish this lake at all. It required long lines and slow trolling to capture the Mackinaw trout that lived at such great depths. The second year, dad decided to hire a guide; Hunter was his name and he had a boat that was designed for Tahoe fishing. We observed everything. And we caught fish every time we went out with him. Hunter used braided copper line on large reels that were not mounted on poles, but on the side of the boat. We would troll the largest Dave Davis or Ford Fenders made, with a Tahoe "Shiner" minnow on the hook behind the blades. The fish were found at depths of 300' or more and when you felt a tug on the line, you had to reel in to find out if the tug had been a strike or just the blades passing over a rock. You might have a thousand feet of line out and it would take quite awhile to get it all in. If it had been a fish, the fight didn't last very long, as the fish's air bladder had grown so large that it protruded from their mouth...because of the rapid change in depth.

Back and forth, we would troll slowly. We were usually just about 1/2 a mile off of the shore at Homewood, fishing in a deep canyon. And we would usually come home with 2 or 3 of the large, orange fleshed Mac's.

Now where are those pictures?