Despite the prohibition, the soldiers allowed my mother to pass through a fence on the pier and snag herring
by John Shearer
1940 – Wide open spaces
My grandparents lived in Los Angeles, but they owned a beach house just up from the beach on the 20th Street walk street in Manhattan Beach. After each school year ended, my grandmother and her seven children (six daughters and one son) spent the entire summer in Manhattan Beach. They frolicked on the beach, swimming in the ocean, playing volleyball, fishing off the Manhattan Pier, and building sand castles.
My grandfather spent the work week in L.A., but he drove to Manhattan Beach every Friday afternoon to enjoy the weekend with his wife and children. When my mom and her siblings anticipated their father’s Friday arrival, they walked up the 20th Street hill, crossed Highland Avenue and climbed the sand dune above what is now Live Oak Park.
From the top of the sand dune, they gazed about one mile over empty fields into the distance to the intersection of Rosecrans and Sepulveda. They waited to see their father’s black Desoto coming to Manhattan Beach for the weekend. Because the roads were virtually empty, they could see their father’s car appear on Rosecrans heading east, turn left on Sepulveda, and then make a quick right on Valley Drive. From the top of the sand dune, my mom and her siblings jumped up and down in excitement when they saw the Desoto, then raced downhill to their mother, crying joyously, “Mommy, Daddy’s coming home! Daddy’s coming home!”
1941-45 – World War II
My mom’s siblings spent most summer days at the beach, but my grandmother and mother often walked the eight blocks from 20th Street to the Manhattan Pier to go fishing.
The Pier was a popular and productive fishing location. At the time, the Pier seemed much longer because the beach was much narrower than it is today. A wooden extension west of the Round House added more fishing space in deeper water.
However, during WWII the military prohibited access to the round part of the pier and the adjoining wooden extension. The military kept a constant watch on the ocean, looking for Japanese submarines, ships, and planes.
Despite the prohibition, the soldiers showed sympathy to the cute, sweet, innocent, pre-teen girl who walked out to fish throughout the summer (my mother), and they allowed her to pass through a fence and snag herring, which were abundant in the deeper water. My mom would put the herring in a bucket of seawater, walk back through the fence, and sell the herring for five cents each. The fishermen were eager to buy the herring,which that they used as live bait to catch halibut and sea bass. That was my mom’s first job.
1959 – Boys will be boys
Manhattan Beach grew rapidly during the 1950s. New houses and businesses sprang up on every block. We baby-boomers had plenty of playmates in every neighborhood. We had a lot of fun, but sometimes we got in trouble.
There was a big vacant lot on the north side of Manhattan Beach Boulevard between Elm Avenue (where my family lived) and Pine Avenue. We neighborhood kids used the vacant lot for a variety of activities, including riding our bicycles in the dirt, having dirt clod fights, playing marbles, flying kites, playing army, and playing with matches.
Many parents smoked in the 1950s, so kids had plentiful access to matches. After Christmas, people took down their Christmas trees, hauled them to the vacant lot, and left them there. One dry, Santa Ana wind day some kids started a small fire fueled with Bazooka bubble gum wrappers. They fed the flames with some dry twigs. An older boy picked up a Christmas tree and put it in the fire, and WHOOSH! Suddenly, the little fire exploded into a conflagration that threatened to spread to the other discarded Christmas trees.
The vacant lot immediately emptied of children as everyone fled home at full speed in the middle of the afternoon, much to the surprise of parents who normally had to search the neighborhood to call their kids home for dinner. Meanwhile, a neighbor called the fire department, a fire truck with a piercing siren quickly responded, and fortunately the fire was rapidly extinguished. Most of the children who had run home from the vacant lot got in trouble from their parents who had heard the siren and had seen the guilty looks on their kids’ faces. The neighborhood children learned a valuable lesson that day.
1962 – Moving to the Strand
My family’s three-bedroom house on Elm Avenue wasn’t big enough in 1962 when my mom was pregnant with her fifth child. My parents began looking for a four-bedroom house, but most houses in Manhattan Beach weren’t that large in 1962.
They ended up buying an old home built just south of the Manhattan Beach Pier on The Strand. I was disappointed at the time because we were moving away from our fun, active baby-boomer neighborhood to the empty, quiet beach. Sure, the beach was fun in the summer, but there was nobody at the beach for nine months of the year. Very few people went on the sand or walked on The Strand at the time. The only beach regulars at the Pier were the derelict crew who pooled their change each day, went up to the liquor store on Manhattan Avenue and Manhattan Beach Boulevard (where the Skechers retail store is today), bought a gallon bottle of Red Mountain wine, and sat in a circle and passed around the bottle until it was empty.
The Strand house that my parents bought was fundamentally solid, but it had not been maintained for many years. It desperately needed new shingles, a paint job inside and out, new carpeting, and some plumbing, electrical, and carpentry repairs. The house was on the market following the previous owner’s death. The house had been passed on to two sisters and one brother. The sisters had no interest in hanging on to the large home and repairing it, but the brother did not want to lose the house. It was two against one, and the house was for sale.
The Strand home had plenty of room since it occupied a full lot and was three stories tall on the ocean-facing front. At $36,000, the price seemed high for my family on my father’s single income as a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department. However, the house turned out to be a magnificent purchase. My parents made their mortgage payments, they fixed up and maintained the property, and today it is the oldest house in Manhattan Beach. It would be impossible to afford the house today on a police officer’s salary. My mother is very happy to continue to live in “the vestibule to Heaven” as Monsignor Barry of American Martyrs called it when he administered Last Rites to my father in 2001.
1964 – The Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association
The oldest bodysurfing association in the world, the Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association, came into its glory at the Manhattan Beach Pier. Former Manhattan Beach mayor Bob Holmes, John Rogers of Hermosa Beach, and Bruce Macklin of Carlsbad, attended Westchester High School and bodysurfed waves at the Gillis Street Jetty every day in the summer during their high school years. They founded the Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association in 1964.
With the construction of Marina Del Rey Harbor in 1965, the natural sand flow was disrupted and the quality of waves at the Gillis Jetty deteriorated. The Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association moved south to Manhattan Beach Pier, and the Gillis members quickly became the most avid wave riders at the Pier.
They became a major influence in my life. Instead of joining the Red Mountain derelict circle hanging out at the Pier, I was invited to become a member of the Gillis Beach Bodysurfing Association. Gaining membership into the GBBA was a great honor. Prospective members were nominated based on their proficiency in the ocean or their dedication to the pursuit of bodysurfing and their social compatibility (being able to hold their own at Gillis functions). Potential members sometimes had to wait or prove their Gillis caliber for many years, and if even one member voted against a Gillis candidate, membership was denied to that person.
Over the years, Gillis members (men and women) have won many world bodysurfing championships, and the association still is going strong. Gillis sponsors a bodysurfing contest at the Manhattan Beach Pier every year during the International Surf Festival..
Epilogue
I wish I could tell you about the TRW rabbit fields, the springtime north wind parachute sand skiing from Manhattan to Hermosa, the sandboarding runs on the west side Los Angeles Airport sand dunes, the sundown Destruction Derby bicycle races along the Strand from Manhattan Beach Pier to the old Foster Freeze in Hermosa Beach, the years of basketball on the empty Strand in the 1960s (weekdays and also weekends), the dangers of playing volleyball on the narrow beach during high tide during the 1950s and 1960s when errant spikes could send the leather ball into the shorebreak. In the meantime, cherish your life, actions, and adventures, and share your stories with new generations. ER
