Hector Alatorre, a cornerstone of the Hermosa Beach Little League, died tragically  in a multi-car accident on Saturday, December 14, 2024. He was 55 years-old.

For the past three seasons, Hector Alatorre and his family were the heart and soul of Clark Field. They ran the snack stand with unmatched dedication and joy. 

Hector often stayed until 11 p.m. to clean up, only to return the following morning at dawn to prepare his famous breakfast burritos for the 8 a.m. fans. He and  his family also owned  Hectors Tacos catering, which serves countless families and organizations throughout the South Bay. Hector’s breakfast burritos, burgers, and tacos were a highlight of visits to Clark Field. 

Hector knew the name of every player, sibling, and nearly every parent who stepped onto Clark Field. Whether from behind the grill or cheering from the stands, he made every kid feel special. His warm smile and positive energy embodied the spirit of Hermosa Beach Little League.

As news of his passing spread, the Hermosa community rallied around his family, raising more than $45,000 from 275 donations via a GoFundMe arranged by HBLL. For Hermosa Baseball kids, who have never experienced the loss of a friend or family member, Hector’s passing marks the first time they’ve faced the profound sadness of losing someone they cared about.  

Hector is survived by his wife Sol; his daughters, Kristy, Jazareth, Sophia, and Selina; his son, Hector Jr. and his grandsons Alejandro and Liam. –by Mark Mamber  ER

 

 

Vince Ray shared the stoke

As director of the Hermosa Surf Camp from 1991 to 2024, Vince Ray shared the stoke of surfing with more groms than anyone else in South Bay history. Each summer over 400 kids attended his camp in front of the 10th Street lifeguard tower, just south of the Hermosa Beach pier. Kids learned not only to stand on a surfboard, but also  to read the ocean, surfing etiquette, and some unconventional maneuvers like the coffin, the cockroach and Ray’s signature model pose.

Every holiday season, Ray further shared the stoke as Easy Reader’s Surfing Santa. He made sure Santa was in perfect trim on an overhead wave for the photo that would appear on the cover of Easy Reader’s holiday issue.

“I don’t want people to think Santa is a kook,” Ray said in explaining why it was so important that the surf be good on the day of his Santa shoot. 

Ray passed away Wednesday morning, January 4, at age 66,  after a brief fight with pancreatic cancer.

Saturday, February 24, on the beach at 10th Street in Hermosa, where he conducted his camp, hundreds of Ray’s former campers, surf instructors, and lifelong friends gathered for a paddleout in his memory. ER

 

 

Bergstrom kept Hermosa Hermosa

Katherine Bergstrom was among the last of the “Swedish Mafia,” which waged a 50-year battle to “Keep Hermosa Hermosa,” decades before the slogan was coined during the 2015 oil drilling debate.

Bergstrom, passed away January 5, 2024. She was 87.

Katherine Chappelear married into Hermosa’s “Swedish Mafia,” as the activist women were known, when she married Bob “The Beach Captain” Bergstrom in 1959. 

She was 22 when she saw him playing a ukulele on the beach under a palm frond shack at 21st Street, and introduced herself to him.

Katherine Bergstrom and fellow members of the Swedish Mafia were committed to preserving the beach culture they and their men created. In 1957, Coralee Ebey and Barbara Guild led the effort to defeat a ballot measure that would have allowed Shell Oil to drill in Hermosa’s tidelands. Though Ebey passed away in 2006, both Guild and Bergstrom would help stop oil drilling in Hermosa’s tidelands a second time, as part of the 2015 Keep Hermosa Hermosa movement.

But the Swedish Mafia’s most impactful work was in restraining what they regarded as over-development. Throughout the ‘70s, Bergstrom and Ebey wrote a column for Easy Reader called “Auntie Density,” in which they outed apartment owners with bootleg apartments, and convinced successive city councils to downzone R3 and R2 neighborhoods to R1.

Ironically, the “Swedish Mafia’s” efforts to decrease density in Hermosa threaten to be upended by laws newly passed in Sacramento to address the statewide housing shortage by increasing housing density. ER 

 

 

Woolley was Beach Cities teacher, artist, activist

Patricia Marie (Pat) Woolley was a teacher and artist in the Beach Cities for over six decades. She passed away January 5, 2024, at age 91, at her home in Manhattan Beach.

Born Patricia Marie Peu Duvallon on February 12, 1933, in Cannes, France,  the only child of a French father and an English mother. When France was occupied during WWII, she  came to the U.S. on one of the last ships to leave for America with her mother, English maternal grandparents, and one suitcase. Pat loved telling how she and a friend would ride their horses to school from Encino. After a year of finishing school in Switzerland, she studied French at the Sorbonne and art at the Académie Julian in Paris. She then went to Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles where she excelled in illustration. 

Pat met her first husband, John Woolley, when both were young immigrants in California.

With a young son and a Lakeland terrier, Pat and John moved back to the south of France where they raised chickens. Shortly thereafter, they welcomed a second son, Paul who was also born in Cannes. A year later, Pat and John decided to return to Southern California.

They settled in Manhattan Beach in 1961. Their return to the US brought them new experiences, including the ownership and management of the International House of Pancakes on PCH in Hermosa Beach.  Daughter Marie (Mimi) was born in 1964.

After John tragically passed away in 1980, Pat was introduced to Jack Belasco, a former Mayor of Hermosa Beach and long-time, beloved teacher at Cal State Dominguez Hills, and Morningside High School. They married in 1982 and shared a life of van camping, globe-trotting, and philanthropy. Pat was widowed for a second time in 2006. 

Pat taught art for children and adults through the Manhattan Beach Recreation Department, Pepperdine University, the South Bay Adult School, and other organizations. She was an original Manhattan Beach “Old Hometown Fair” organizer,  volunteer, and participant for many years. In the 1970s, Pat trained to be a docent at LA County Natural History Museum and did illustrations for the resident entomologist. Pat was also the illustrator of the award-winning “Thrift Store Bears” series of children’s books.

She was a member of the Hermosa Beach Sister City organization and, with husband Jack Belasco, was instrumental in creating the paramedics program in Loreto, Mexico.  In addition, Pat was an active member of the Hermosa Beach Women’s Club.

Pat Woolley Belasco at an opening for her art. Photo Courtesy of the family

She was the glue binding an international and culturally diverse family and the loving grandmother of 10 grandchildren. Pat was a devout Christian whose involvement in St. Cross Episcopal Church in Hermosa Beach spanned six decades.  

Patricia is survived by her three children and 10 grandchildren: Christopher Woolley of Jackson Hole WY (wife Jackie and children Amanda, Alex, Zev), Paul Woolley of Singapore (wife Lindsey and children James, Sydney, Chandra) and Marie “Mimi” Woolley of Vence, France (and children John, Mark, Paul and William). ER

 

 

Goldstein was Shorewood’s shepherd

In 1964, Arnold Goldstein was 31, living in West LA, and selling automotive parts when his friend, Herb Rosenkrantz, convinced him to get his real estate license. He then joined Rosenkrantz’s Harbor Realty on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach. 

“I didn’t know anybody, and didn’t know the street names, but somehow I had seven sales and nine listings during my first month,” Goldstein told Beach Reporter editor Paul Silva in a 2013 interview.

That first year Goldstein sold 60 homes, a South Bay record that will never be broken.

In 1969, he opened his own office, Shorewood Realtors, in Hermosa Beach. Over the next four years he opened four more offices.

Goldstein passed away on Tuesday, January 23, at age 91, from conditions related to old age. 

Real estate broker Ed Kaminski spoke at Goldstein’s memorial about what it meant to be a part of the Shorewood family. 

“Once you were in, you didn’t leave. And if you did, well…we won’t go there,” Kaminski said. 

“Arnold lived and died to recruit agents. He wanted to hear the word ‘yes’ as badly as an agent wants a yes on a Strand listing.

Shorewood veteran Fred Zuelich said at the memorial, “Arnold was  our shepherd. He guided us to wealth we never would have reached on our own.

“He did it by teaching us the work ethic of the ‘60s. It was all about hard core, pounding the pavement every day, being disciplined, and never giving up, not taking no for an answer, and if you did, knowing there was always a yes around the corner. So go find it.”

Goldstein preferred not to hire veteran Realtors. 

“I hired some experienced people and found I got their bodies but not their hearts and minds,” he told Silva in the 2013 interview. “I learned I could take the right people off the street and train them, teach them where to go, what to do and how to do it.” 

When Goldstein and partner Larry Wolf sold the company in 2014, it had grown to seven offices and 350 Realtors. It was the eighth largest real estate company, by dollar volume, in Los Angeles County, and the 75th largest in the country.

“Arnold didn’t die of old age. Selling Shorewood is what killed him. He told me it was the biggest mistake of his life,” Shorewood veteran Audrey Judson said.

Within two years of Shorewood’s sale, the buyer who promised Goldstein and Wolf he would preserve the family culture, filed for bankruptcy.

In 2021, a group of Shorewood veterans founded Pacifica Properties Group, and sought his counsel. 

“We were tired of the big companies trading Realtors like cattle,” said co-founder Karynne Thim, who started at Shorewood in 1993. “His big thing was to treat the agents fairly. After all those years, that’s what it all boiled it down to.”

Goldstein is survived by his wife Homeira, their son Joshua, and grandson Silas; his former wife Irene, son Mark, and granddaughters Jordan and Mia. His daughter Suzanne preceded him in death. ER

 

 

Gruzo an underappreciated talent

Tom Gruzo was a criminally underappreciated artist — a talented bop pianist, composer and transcriber, teacher, a dedicated single dad and a survivor – he regaled his Hermosa Beach neighbors on Palm Drive with tales of blowing up Soviet tanks with Molotov cocktails in Warsaw, Poland where he was born in 1957. Gruzo passed away February 11, 2024, at age 67.

He taught piano to students all over the South Bay for years, both young and old. He had a weekly gig at the old version of Splash in Redondo Beach. He always put a great band together. His eyes always naturally twinkled and sparkled. On stage, he shined gloriously. 

He had a multitude of health disasters over those years, which led him to quit all the bad stuff. The doctors and drugs nearly killed him several times, with misdiagnosis and wrong  prescriptions. Bravely and admirably, he became his own health advocate. He was an avid reader and researcher and figured out what was really going on – long story short, he needed to change what he put into his body.

He toured with the late great Clifford Jordan, the last great bop tenor sax player on the esteemed jazz label Blue Note. He made $1,000 a gig as a sideman touring Japan and Europe with Clifford only to come back and play $50 gigs in cigar stores around LA. 

Folks would hire this guy to transcribe works of classic jazz tunes by the likes of Monk and others – it looked like hieroglyphics.

He released only one album of originals, the highly regarded “Say When”  in 1987 on the New Winds label with LA jazz legends Bobby Shew on trumpet, Herman Riley on sax, Sam Most on flute, and clarinet, Louie Spears on bass, and Albert “Tootie” Heath on drums. If you dig Monk, Bill Evans, Horace Silver, Bud Powell, Phineas Newborn Jr. and the like, you’ll dig Gruzo’s music. He self-released two albums of Standards (Standards Volume III & Volume IV) with his trio in 2003; Clarence Robinson on bass and Giovanni Nickens on drums. ER

 

 

‘Beatle Bob’ founded Pier Music

Robert Gene Wagstaff opened Pier Music, at 127 Pier Avenue in 1979, and sold and repaired guitars. He was a gifted luthier and technician who repaired countless guitars and vintage amplifiers for South Bay professional and amateur musicians.

“Beatle Bob,” as he was popularly known, passed away on February 12 from natural causes.

Pier Music quickly became a place where local musicians gathered to hang out, play guitar, and talk shop. It was a convenient stop to get a pack of strings or to hang a flier for upcoming gigs at The Lighthouse and Pier 52. Wagstaff moved his shop to Redondo Beach, on Pacific Coast Highway, and renamed it Rhythm & Notes.

He attended Seaside Elementary School and Calle Mayor Middle School. He graduated from South High School in 1969 and then attended El Camino College.

His friends called him “Beatle Bob” because he could play any Beatles song you could name.

Wagstaff held a few odd jobs, including being an electrician before settling into a life devoted solely to guitar and music.

He is survived by his brother Alan and his sister in-law Imelda, his nephews Ryan and Keith and his niece Amanda. ER — Jim McGivern 

 

 

Ormondroyd was deeply rooted in Hermosa

Harold “Hal” Ormondroyd’s life was deeply rooted in Hermosa Beach, where he resided in the family home built by his parents in the mid 1930s. He attended elementary school in Hermosa Beach, graduated from Redondo Union High School, where he played basketball, and obtained a master’s degree from UC Santa Barbara.

He also proudly served his country in the Coast Guard.

Ormondroyd, a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, passed away on March 11 at the age of 93. 

He was a man of many passions, with deep-sea fishing and volleyball holding special places in his heart. 

In 1957, he was introduced to his future wife, Patricia, by one of her roommates at the Poop Deck on The Strand. They married in December 1961, embarking on a journey of love that lasted an incredible 62 years.

Ormondroyd helped found the annual 17th Street Labor Day tournament. The weekend began with neighborhood children parading on decorated bikes, singing the Mickey Mouse song. 

In his later years, Ormondroyd found solace in simpler pleasures, such as walking to the top of the street to watch the sunset and chat with some friendly faces. 

His life was a testament to the beauty of simple joys, the strength of enduring love, and the power of community in his forever home, Hermosa Beach.

He is survived by his wife Patricia, daughter Julie, son Mike, and granddaughter Kara. ER — Kara Shreckengast

 

 

Isley was adventurer, tillandsia expert

In July, 2020, Paul Isley Climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. Its 19,341-foot elevation makes it the highest mountain on the African continent. At the summit, the wind-chill factor was 29 degrees below zero, Isley recalled.

The Manhattan Beach resident thought of the climb as the biggest challenge of his life, until he returned home. The physical exam he took before going to Africa, and whose results he did not learn until he returned, showed he had prostate cancer.

Four years later he celebrated his cancer remission by joining an expedition with the Los Angeles Adventurers Club to climb Mt. Elbruus, in the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia. At 18,510, it is the highest mountain on the European continent.

Isley was a proud and enthusiastic member of the Adventurers Club, which traces its founding to a meeting of President Teddy Rooselvelt and likeminded “gentlemen adventurers” at Joe’s restaurant in New York in 1912. 

Through the Adventurers Club, he participated numerous expeditions, including a trek to the Mount Everest Base Camp, and a 1,200 meter dive in Lake Baikal in Russia in the three-person deep submersible Mir I, which director James Camon used in filming Titanic.

Isley subsequently edited and published a translation of Mir I captain Dr. Anatoly Sagalevich’s  “Deep Voyages to Titanic and Beyond.” 

Through out his adventurers of the past 20 years, Isley battled with recurrences of cancer, which finally took his life on March 18. He was 76.

Isley was co-owner, with Jerry Robinson, of Rainforest Flora in Torrance, and was a world renowned expert and author on tillandsias, commonly (and mistakenly) known as air plants.

He started selling tillandsias at the Rose Bowl swamp meet shortly after graduating from UCLA in 1970. He collected the tillandsias during climbs through the jungles of Central America and South America. After establishing Tillandsia nurseries in Torrance and San Diego, Rain Forest Flora became the only Tillandsia seller to grow the plants in the United States.

Consistent with his commitment to  traditional ways of exploration and business, Isley was a fervent adherent to Traditional Catholicism, which retains the Latin language Mass. He recently completed editing and publishing “The Reality of The Body and Blood of Christ in The Eucharist,” written in 1527 by Saint John Fisher. 

Isley is survived by his wife of 38 years, Betty; son Paul T. Isley IV; daughters Kimberly Simich (John Ryan Simich), and Kacey Tandy (Bradley Tandy), grandson John Jett Simich, brothers Chris and Tom Isley (Desti Overpeck) and sister Mary McCulloch (David McCulloch). ER

 

Donald Cormac Lagatree

Donald Cormac Lagatree grew up in Redondo Beach. He loved to cook, play music (he taught himself to play the piano), speaking to his many friends in their native languages and to act and dance. He was the piano-playing Noel Coward character in the Redondo Union High School production of “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” and a winsome, tail-holding Cowardly Lion in the school’s production of “The Wizard of Oz.”

Lagatree passed away on March 20, 2024, at age 69.

Lagatree served in the Air Force, and subsequently worked as a paralegal.

During his last hours he couldn’t speak but made his wishes and wants known using a “Ouija Board.”  

Donald is survived by his sisters, Marion, of Washington State; Kirsten, of New Jersey; a brother Bruce, of Torrance; and a nephew Leo, also of Torrance. ER 

 

 

Astor was ‘Queen of the Scene’ 

Patti Astor was the “Queen of the Scene” in New York City in the early 1980s, according to ARTnews; and for the past decade, a muse and mentor to the emerging Hermosa Beach art scene, according to ShockBoxx gallery owner Mike Collins. 

Astor passed away at her home in Hermosa Beach, in April, at age 74.

“Patti Astor was raw, beautiful, eloquent, intelligent, and poetically smooth with words. I can see her chillin’ in the clouds with Basquiat and Haring right now, with the widest grin on her face,” friend and body artist Paul Roustan said of Astor.

Roustan recalled one day helping Astor clean out her Jeep Cherokee and finding original drawings by graffiti artists Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Haring’s “Untitled (for Cy Twombly,)” sold for $6.5 million in 2017. A Basquiat triptych exhibited at Astor’s East Village FUN Gallery in 1982 was priced at $36 million by the Christie’s auction house.

The FUN Gallery, founded by Astor and friend Bill Stelling, was among the first to exhibit Basquiat, Haring and other graffiti artists. 

“At a time when few others believed in the value of graffiti art, she staked a claim for it,  elevating a multiracial cast of artists in a white world that had not accepted them before her,” Alex Geenberger, senior editor of ARTnews wrote in a remembrance of Astor.

“It was white wine, white walls, white people; the art world was closed off and boring. The success of the FUN Gallery was to open up the art world to everybody,” Astor said in a 2013 Bomb magazine.

In a 2018 interview with Easy Reader reporter Ryan McDonald, Astor recalled the night Paul Simon attended the Basquiat opening at her gallery, trailed by “kids from the neighborhood humming ‘Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.’”

“Andy Warhol, Matt Dillon, Johnny Rotten, the Beastie Boys would come. Basquiat would be off in a corner fighting with his blonde girlfriend, who called herself Madonna,” Astor recalled in a 2007 documentary about her FUN Gallery.

Collins met Astor at an exhibit at Harmony Yoga in Hermosa, and was inspired by her stories to host a show at ShockBoxx in 2018 titled “FUN (in the sun).” The show featured recent art by local artists in the spirit of FUN Gallery.

Astor left New York for Los Angeles, eventually settling in Hermosa Beach after FUN Gallery closed in 1983.

She continued acting in underground films. She starred with rapper Ice-T in the 1987 film “Get Tux’d,” directed by Anita Rosenberg. 

She also co-wrote with Rosenberg, and starred as Poodles in “Assault of the Killer Bimbos.” Chicago Sun Times critic Roger Egbert wrote of the film, “It is the most simpleminded movie in many a moon, a vacant and brainless exercise in dreck, and I almost enjoyed myself sometimes, sort of. The movie is so cheerfully dim-witted and the characters are so enthusiastically sleazoid that the film takes on a kind of awful charm.”

During most of her time in Hermosa, Astor lived in the trailer park behind the former Big Boy’s, and served as a docent at the Hermosa Historical Museum. 

In 2022, the museum premiered “Patti Astor’s True Story,” a 40 minute documentary about the FUN Gallery and the New York art scene in the early 1980s. In February of this year, she spoke of that period, wearing  a black beret, at the Historical Museum Insomniac Open Mic night. (The Insomniac was a beatnik coffeehouse in Hermosa in the late 1960s.)

“Fun is my weapon of choice,” she told her audience that night. ER

 

 

Siddiq’s owned popular Pet Mart 

Asked in 2019 if competing against pet chain stores was a challenge, Pet Mart owner Abu Siddiq answered, “It’s a challenge for them to compete against us. We own our property and our labor costs are low.”

Siddiq’s wife Maria had owned Pet Mart in Hermosa Beach since 1975. 

Maria passed away from cancer in 2020. 

Abu passed from cancer in April, 2024 at age 70. 

Siddiq came to the United States from Pakistan when he was 19. After working as a mechanic for the Air Force, he bought the Texaco gas station on Aviation Boulevard in Hermosa Beach, across the street from Pet Mart.

His son Dan said he frequented the pet store as a child, resulting in Abu meeting Maria and the two of them marrying.

Like Siddiq, Maria was an immigrant business owner who moved to Hermosa in the early 1970s. 

Maria, was born in Portugal and grew up in Mozambique before moving to Hermosa Beach.

“I had to leave. They were killing all the native Portuguese,” Maria said in the 2019 interview.

After Abu and Maria married, Abu sold the gas station. Over the  subsequent four decades Pet Mart became a destination for pet supplies, and pet conversation with the affable couple. 

In addition to dog and cat supplies, Pet Mart sold reptiles and its nearly 50 lighted aquariums were the South Bay’s only source of pet fish.

But Abu never gave up his love of auto mechanics. The Pet Mart parking lot always had a dozen used cars Abu repaired, and frequently sold to Pet Mar customers.

Abu was also a popular fixture on the Hermosa Beach Strand, where he met up with fellow walkers at 5 a.m. every morning.

Abu is survived by his son Dan’s family, including daughters June, 15, and Skyler 11. ER

 

 

Miller trailblazer on the slopes

In the mid-1950s, Dorothy “Dottie” Miller (née Roberts) took up  skiing, surfing, and other adventures at a time when that lifestyle was the nearly exclusive province of men. One day, while surfing in San Onofre, she met Warren Miller, who invited her to join him in a tandem surf contest over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. They married soon afterwards, on December 21, 1955, and settled on The Strand in Hermosa Beach, where they raised their three children, Scott, Chris, and Kurt.

Warren Miller became the trailblazing, extreme sports filmmaker. 

Dottie Miller passed away peacefully on May 22, at age 93. 

Though best known as the wife of her filmmaker husband, family and friends knew her as the strong, independent person who first attracted him.

As a decades-long member of the Sandpipers service club, her leadership and dedication were instrumental in the club’s fundraisers. In the 1960s she chaired the annual Fashion Show, Design House, and Holiday Basket. On the tennis courts at Live Oak Park, she developed  another circle of friends. 

Dottie also was a critical support person for husband’s ski film company, based in an office on Pier Avenue, in Hermosa Beach.

Following her marriage, Dottie returned to her passion for teaching in the Manhattan Beach School District and later worked in real estate development. 

Dottie is survived by her children Chris (Dave Lucero) and Kurt (Alison), her grandchildren Jenna (Kyle De Jane) and Ryan, her sister Patricia (Steve Reno), Lori and Eric Denman, grand niece Dionysius and her longtime companion Bill Winterhalter. ER

 

Silva made family a priority

Victor “Vic” Manuel Silva passed away September 9, at the age of 93, in the Hermosa Beach home where he lived for 55 years.

His early years in East Los Angeles were filled with poverty and illness. Vic’s father, who escaped the Mexican revolution by riding on top of a railroad box car to the U. S., went blind before Vic was born and died when Vic was 2. At the age of 5, Vic was diagnosed with tuberculosis. There was no treatment for TB other than isolation, so he was separated from his family for the next five years. He returned to live with his mother in 1941, but a year later she tragically died of the disease he had survived. He then lived with his grandmother in the Ramona Gardens housing projects. 

Vic attended John Muir Jr. High and Manual Arts High. Despite having had TB, Vic made the B football team and became a top high jumper. He also wrote for the school paper and provided art for the yearbook. Vic joined the National Guard while in high school and subsequently served in the Korean War as an infantry squad leader. At age 19, he was a sergeant responsible for leading men much older than him, many of them veterans of WWII, in active combat. 

After Korea, Vic attended L.A. Trade Tech, learning hand lettering and sign painting. These skills landed him a job at Hughes Aircraft, where he met his future wife, Ann Williamson. They were married in 1958 and had three children: Mike in 1961 and twins Mark and Paul in 1962. 

The two divorced in 1965 and Vic was awarded custody of all three boys. Vic managed to buy a home on Valley Park Avenue in Hermosa Beach in 1969 for $23,000. His graphic arts and leadership skills earned him a job at TRW where he worked for 36 years and became head of the video production department, until his retirement at age 62. 

He was a founder of Manhattan Beach Youth Basketball and coached his sons while also serving as commissioner. He attended every single event his sons took part in. On weekends, he would play 3-on-3 basketball at Live Oak Park, often with his son Mark. Although he would never take credit, Vic’s stern guidance and steadfast support resulted in three sons who achieved things he could never have imagined growing up as a “poor Mexican kid,” which is how he often described himself. Mike went to the Naval Academy, graduated from Top Gun training and Columbia Law School, and became Chief of Staff at the Federal Reserve Bank before holding a series of high-level positions in the banking and corporate fields. Paul attended UCLA and became editor of The Beach Reporter, where he wrote a weekly column for decades, and later moved into corporate communications. Mark is still the shortest person to make the varsity basketball team at Mira Costa. He also attended UCLA and went on to have a long and impactful career as a teacher and school principal. 

Vic was deeply devoted to and proud of his 6 grandchildren. He never passed up an opportunity to babysit. He co-coached their basketball teams with his sons. He attended every soccer game, baseball game, play, and surf and skate contest. He was a fixture at Mira Costa basketball and volleyball games and theatre productions long after his own sons and their children graduated. He served as the official scorer for Mira Costa and Redondo Union basketball teams. After his kids moved out, Vic owned a series of dogs who provided him with less troublesome and very satisfying company. The dogs on the block knew who walked past Vic’s house were bound to get a treat. Some people think that Vic loved dogs more than people. 

Vic is survived by his sons and their wives, Mike (Liz), Mark (Diane), and Paul (Kim) as well as six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

 

 

Greenwald was ‘Queen of Hermosa’

Thelma Greenwald and her husband Richard bought the 17-room Seasprite Hotel, on the Strand in Hermosa Beach, as an investment property in 1964. 

Thelma told her husband she couldn’t  possibly show the rooms to guests because the carpets were so worn and the counters so badly burned by cigarettes she wouldn’t stay in the motel herself.

“Honey,” her husband told her, “as you’re leading the guests up the stairs, just point to the ocean and say, ‘Isn’t that beautiful.’ They’ll never notice the carpets.”

“I used to stand on the holes in the carpet and use picture frames to cover the burns on the counters,” she told Easy Reader in a 2004 interview.

Soon, the Sea Sprite was profitable enough for the couple to buy the 14-room Breakers Hotel on The Strand to the north of them. Then they bought the 28-room Del Mar Hotel to the south of them. 

Thelma B. Greenwald passed away on Wednesday, October 23, 2024, at age 94.

From time to time, Thelma said in the 2004 interview, she and her husband entertained the idea of remodeling their, pink, meticulously maintained motel, whose architecture suggested it was built in Bakersfield during the Dust Bowl years and trucked over the Grapevine.

“What’s stopped us is we have grandmothers who stayed with us when they were children who now bring their grandchildren. We get thank you notes all the time for holding the prices down, because otherwise our old guests couldn’t afford to vacation with their families at the beach,” she said.

“We don’t need the money. I have everything I want right here. I walk to my hairdresser. I walk to the Mermaid every Friday for lunch with my lady friends,” she said. She also walked to the Easy Reader office interview.  

The couple contributed to countless community organizations and was named the Hermosa Beach Man and Woman of the Year in 1997.

“Thelma was a very classy, dignified woman. She dressed every day like she was going to a wedding. I visited her the night before she died, and she was having her nails done. They don’t make people like her and Richard anymore. A light has gone out,” Rabbi Mintz said. 

The couple’s extensive family included children Darrell, Cathy Hier, Liz Powell and Roberta Perkins-Greenwald gave the couple 19 grandchildren and one great grandchild. ER

 

 

Rock star Pinera played  for Mama Liz  

Mike Pinera, the singer and guitarist who wrote the 1970 hit “Ride Captain Ride” for his band Blues Image, passed away November 20 at the age of 76.

Pinera performed the song for many years during his volunteer performances at the annual Easy Reader Mama Liz Thanksgiving Dinner at the Hermosa Beach Kiwanis hall. 

After recording his band’s second album, Pinera recalled in a Goldmine magazine interview shortly before his death, the album’s producer told him, “I don’t hear a hit.”

“I went into the bathroom and locked the door,” Pinera said. “I was in there for 10 to 15 minutes and all the words and melody came to me for ‘Ride Captain Ride.’

“It came at a good time because my parents were financially strapped. I made enough money from that gold single to pay off my father and mother’s house,” he said.

Blues Image opened for the ‘70s top bands, including Cream, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin. After leaving Blues Image, Pinera joined Iron Butterfly. He was among the first to make use of the talk box device. In 1980 he joined the Alice Cooper Band. 

Pinera continued touring across the United States, while living in Hermosa, until he was stopped by illness about two years ago. ER

 

Double Deuce Dangler 

Jim “Fats” Eick

James “Fats” Eick was born in Hermosa Beach, where he attended Valley Vista, Pier Avenue Junior High and then, Mira Costa High (Class of 1959).

He passed away November 10, 2024 from  metastatic brain cancer. He was 83 years old.

Eick was a founding member of the Double Deuce Danglers, at 22nd Street in Hermosa, and continued to surf into his 80s.

After serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, he participated in the  explosive growth of Silicon Valley. Just six weeks after he cashed out and entered retirement, at age 55,  a massive stock market crash wiped out the fortunes of many he had left behind. It was just another example of his combination of grit, intelligence, and dumb luck.

In retirement, Eick moved to Aptos, California to surf the Santa Cruz coastline, and travel around the world with his wife, Catherine. 

Eick is survived by Catherine, his loving wife of 40 years; his two sons; three grandchildren; his brother and best friend, Jeff “Peff” Eick. ER

 

 

Kovac was a quintessential Hermosan 

At the paddleout for Pat Kovac, his son Kris describe him as the quintessential Hermosa Beach native.

The avid music lover frequented Saint-Rocke, the BeachLife Festival, and Concerts in the Park and Concerts on the Beach. He was a Hermosa Beach Ironman judge, and his favorite activities were beach volleyball with his family and friends and watching the Raiders win. He loved being a true South Bay Local.

Patrick Raymond Kovac passed away August 8, 2024, at age 61, from a heart attack.

Kovac attended Hermosa Valley Vista, Pier Avenue, and Mira Costa High School (Class of 1981).

His proudest moment was becoming a father in 1993 to his son, Kristopher Kovac, and found equal joy in watching his daughter, Sara, grow into a young woman. 2013 marked his sobriety date and rebirth.

Kovak began his work at Vasek Polak BMW in Hermosa Beach and later worked as the parts manager at  South Bay BMW. He also donated his time to the Hermosa Beach Museum and Hermosa Beach Historical Foundation. 

Kovac is survived by his son, Kristopher “Kris” Kovac, Kelly Kovac-Reedy, Sara Reedy, and Dewayne Reedy, as well as his mother, Bonnie Jean Kovac, and sisters Angel Johnston and Katrina Deist-Zemar. ER

 

 

Courtney was a

Hermosa icon 

Robert Eugene Courtney, 89, passed away peacefully at home in Hermosa Beach December 1, 2024. Known to family and friends as “Bubsy,” he moved to Hermosa Beach in 1955 and declared he would never live anywhere else. He became a pillar of the South Bay community – a revered criminal defense attorney, a husband and father of four, co-founder of the Labor Day volleyball tournament, and a friend and supporter to everyone he met.

He attended Loyola High School and Loyola University, where he starred in several school plays, including “Rumpelstiltskin,” where he met future wife, Dorothy. During college, he was a working actor, appearing in the 1956 film “Rock Pretty Baby” and joining the Screen Actors Guild, where he remained a lifelong member.
He left acting to become an attorney, graduating from Loyola Law School in 1960. Bubsy was equally invested in the lives of his large family and his even larger community of friends. At Richstone Family Center events, graduations, volleyball tournaments, soccer games, track meets, crew races, art shows, theater productions, dance recitals, and ice hockey games, Bubsy didn’t just show up, he dressed up, often wearing a carefully selected shirt or hat with the name of the group he was there to support. He was everyone’s number one fan.  
Courtney is survived by his wife Dorothy, his children and their spouses Colleen and Jay Cole, Jake and Patricia Courtney, Mary and Michael Burke, Erin Courtney and Scott Adkins, his seven grandchildren, Carter, Katie, Courtney, Tommy, Devon, Charlie and Dora, and his wide community of friends. ER

 

 

Palm was a

‘Community Warrior’

Sally Palm, along with her husband Noel, lived one of the great love stories the South Bay has known. The Palms were married for 71 years before Noel’s passing in 2021. Sally departed last March. She was a mother of 5 children, grandmother of 10, great-grandfather of 13. 

The Palms courtship began as teenagers in post WWII Santa Ana. Sally took notice of the dashing tall track star, but at first dismissed him because he liked math. 

“Art and music and stuff like that was what I liked. I hated math,” Sally recalled in 2019. “I thought Noel was a brain because he liked it. And I hated it, so I didn’t pay too much attention to him. I thought we’d never get along.” 

“She was the brain,” Noel said. 

But the two ended up going steady for a while in high school, and then for the next seven decades. Entering their 90s, they still possessed the sweet spark of high school sweethearts. 

“She had her eye on me, I think,” Noel said. 

“I was the plotter,” Sally said, laughing. “He was a young innocent guy who just went along.” 

They were married in 1949, honeymooned on Catalina Island, and arrived in Manhattan Beach in 1960 when they bought a little 1,400 sq. ft. cottage on 9th Street. 

“My heart sank when I saw it because it was so small,” Sally said. “Because we had four kids already. I remember we paid $41.50 a month, and that just seemed like so much money.” 

Noel worked in the early Hi-Fi sound system industry and Sally was a stay-at-home mom until the kids got older, then taught art in Redondo Schools and became a renowned muralist locally, completing the beloved historical mural that graced Redondo’s Veteran’s Park bandshell, among others. She also designed stage sets for the Manhattan Beach Community Church for decades. 

One of the secrets of the Palms’ enduring love story was their deep sense of community. Noel served on the Manhattan Beach Board of Education for 16 years, and both he and Sally were key players in the establishment of the South Bay Free Clinic. 

“They were sort of the community warriors for the underserved,” said Brooke McIntyre Tuley, the director of outreach and volunteers for the clinic, now known as South Bay Family Health Care . “I was a kid when I met them, and it was heady stuff, being around people like that —  who had such stature within the community, who were so in tune with the community, and who could see things before anyone else could. They created opportunities and surrounded themselves with people who they know could start to take charge. And they stuck to it. They never backed down. I think maybe it’s the same quality they brought to their marriage: we are going to work through this.” 

Sally Palm was 94 when she passed away last spring, surrounded by family. Her family described her as “the unexpected culprit behind most of the pranks in the Palm household” and noted that she identified with the Dylan Thomas verse, “Do not go gently into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Sally herself wrote,  “Above all, I love light. The world is so beautiful – rain or shine, day or night.” 

 

“Big Wave” Dave Holden a beach athlete

Dave “Big Wave” Holden ran cross country and track at Mira Costa High School and in college. But his greatest passions however were surfing and volleyball.

He played volleyball in high school at Mira Costa, and in college at El Camino, Pepperdine and Cal State Dominquez Hills where his team won the NAIA National Championship. Being from Hermosa Beach, he was also a fixture on the beach courts.

He passed away in January from a combination of cancer and COVID.

He entered the draft thinking he was going to be a member of the Army track team. However, he was put on a bus to Camp Pendleton and Marine Corp basic training. Like many who served in Vietnam, he was reluctant to talk about many of the details. After returning to Hermosa Beach, he spent the next couple years sampling beers and playing beach volleyball. After running out of beer money, Dave embarked on his career in aerospace beginning, with Hughes Helicopters and eventually with Boeing. He also owned Wave Printz designs. His stylish, custom T-shirts, hoodies and hats were popular throughout the South Bay.

He leaves behind his sister Laura, girlfriend of many years Cathy Stillinger, his beloved cats, Homer, Trina and Tootie and a large number of very good friends. ER

 

 

Bill Brand; mayor, activist

Mayor Bill Brand, a two-term city councilman and longtime Redondo Beach waterfront “hyperactivist,” as deemed by Planning Commission member Rob Gaddis, died after a five-year battle with lung cancer in February, 13 months before the completion of his second term as mayor. 

On Dec. 31, 2023, Southern California Edison permanently shutdown the AES Redondo Beach power plant, a milestone that drove Brand for more than 20 years. 

Brand first came to Redondo Beach in 1966 as an eight-year-old boy, hanging out the window of his parents’ station wagon, marveling that he was about to live here. After two weeks at the Portofino Hotel, the family moved to Palos Verdes. 

Bill moved back to Redondo at age 21, and spent most of his working life as a crew chief for American Airlines, flying around the world on surf trips.

His focused turned to his own coastline in the early 2000s, looking to defend it from what he thought was overdevelopment.

“I gave him health insurance, he gave me flight benefits,” said widow Diedre at his city memorial March 3 at RUHS auditorium.

She talked of his determination to pursue his causes, city and domestic.

“… You were a major pain in the ass, but I loved you,” she said.
The crowd stood and applauded.

City Manager Mike Witzansky spoke, who has worked for the city longer than Brand represented it.

“He didn’t do any of this for him. He did it out of love for Redondo Beach, and all of us, and we’re forever grateful for it,” he said. 

State Senator Ben Allen was last to speak at the memorial.  

He told of Brand’s “friendliness, doggedness, kindness and relentlessness.”

“It was a lot of work and a lot of fun,” Allen said. “We’re going to miss him, tremendously. God bless you, Bill Brand.” ER

 

Austin Cronkrite was a young LAPD officer

Redondo Union High School alumnus and LAPD officer Austin Cronkrite died at age 29 on Dec. 17, 2023 after a three-month battle with a rare form of cancer. 

Cronkrite was born and raised in Redondo Beach; Beryl Heights Elementary, Parras Middle School, and RUHS – captain of the J.V. golf team.

He went to El Camino College for mechanics and worked at Motor Trend before being accepted to the LAPD Academy. When sworn in as an officer, he joined his grandfather, great uncle and uncle as LAPD officers before him.

Cronkrite is survived by his grandmother, Connie Bertram, father Mark, mother Jackie (Morgan), brother Zack and sister, Courtney Barnet (Jon).  ER

 

Opdahl was a South Bay Cancer Support director

Judith Opdahl was selected from among 40 applicants as executive director of the Wellness Community (now the South Bay Cancer Support Community) in 1994.

She was familiar with the organization’s services from her her own ordeal with fourth stage colo-rectal cancer only four years before she was offered the job.

“After about six weeks of aggressive treatment in and out of the hospital at UCLA, I truly didn’t know whether I would live,” she said. “I needed help to deal with all the remaining unknowns.”

A friend referred her to The Wellness Community.

“I began attending a weekly support group. It was the best decision I made in my fight for recovery.” 

During her 25 years of years of leadership, the Community grew from nine programs a month to more than 140 offered throughout the area including satellite locations in Harbor City, Torrance, Long Beach and San Pedro.

Opdahl died November. 8, 2024 at age 82. 

She was named Redondo Beach Woman of the Year in 2014.

She is survived by two sons, Damon Howe of Redondo Beach and Daren Howe of Torrance, and a grandson. — Betty Lucas ER

 

 

“Hot Rod Legend”

Pat Porter

Class of 1972 Redondo Union High School graduate and “Hot Rod Legend” Pat Porter died March 16.

Growing up in the South Bay of the 1960s, he found an early passion in cars – hot rods and classics. 

He worked at brake and alignment shops as an adult and then, in 1990, founded Porter’s Alignment & Brake Service in Redondo Beach. 

On the side, Porter worked on hot rods for friends and acquaintances, then got his own, a 1929 Ford rat rod, then a 1954 Chevy, both of which he drove as a frequent participant in the Friday night car shows at the former Ruby’s parking lot in Redondo Beach.  

He was a 22-year member of the Centinela Valley Lodge Sons of Italy, an avid golfer. He is survived by wife Annette, a daughter and a son, and two grandchildren.

Former Porter’s Alignment employee Mario Arbor now owns and operates the shop. ER

 

 

Arlene Staich was RBUSD school trustee, MCHS teacher

Former Redondo Unified School District boardmember Arlene Staich died March 12 at age 81.

A retired physics teacher at Mira Costa High School, she served on the Redondo school board from 2003-11 and later on the district’s Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee.

“Arlene was extremely dedicated to the betterment of the students, staff and community,” said Jane Diehl, a current Beach Cities Health District boardmember, who served with Staich on the school board.

Staich taught at Mira Costa High School beginning in the 1960s, with one physics class. She took several years off after her children were born, then returned to MCHS, teaching four physics classes and A.P. Physics. Staich coached Academic Decathlon and robotics, and served as president of the teachers’ union, retiring in 1999. Afterwards, she joined the board of the Southern California Regional Occupational Center (SOCAL ROC), serving two stints as board president.

In later years, Staich split time between Redondo Beach and Elk Rapids, Michigan, where her father had bought land, cleared it and built a summer home when Staich was a child. ER

 

 

Hector fed the stomach and the soul

Hector Alatorre, a cornerstone of the Hermosa Beach Little League, died tragically  in a multi-car accident on Saturday, December 14, 2024. He was 55 years-old.

For the past three seasons, Hector Alatorre and his family have been the heart and soul of Clark Field. They ran the snack stand with unmatched dedication and joy. 

Hector often stayed until 11 p.m. to clean up, only to return the following morning at dawn to prepare his famous breakfast burritos for the 8 a.m. fans. He and  his family also owned  Hectors Tacos catering business, which serves countless families and organizations throughout the South Bay.

Hector’s breakfast burritos, burgers, and tacos were a highlight of visits to Clark Field. 

Hector knew the name of every player, sibling, and nearly every parent who stepped onto Clark Field. Whether from behind the grill or cheering from the stands, he made every kid feel special. His warm smile and positive energy embodied the spirit of Hermosa Beach Little League.

As news of his passing spread, the Hermosa community rallied around his family, raising more than $45,000 from 275 donations via a GoFundMe arranged by HBLL. For Hermosa Baseball kids, who have never experienced the loss of a friend or family member, Hector’s passing marks the first time they’ve faced the profound sadness of losing someone they cared about.  

Hector is survived by his wife Sol; his daughters, Kristy, Jazareth, Sophia, and Selina; his son, Hector Jr. and his grandsons Alejandro and Liam. — Mark Mamber. ER

 

 

Forrest was a builder, athlete

Dave Forrest was a natural athlete. He was a professional skateboarder who became a triathlete, and later embraced golf and skiing. Dave cherished his friendships within the skateboarding community and attended many local events honoring longtime skateboarders. Another of his early passions was long-distance running. He was a proud member of the Second Sole Running Club, and participated in numerous marathons, including the Catalina, Los Angeles, and Palos Verdes marathons. He completed the Hawaii Ironman three times. He also played baseball and was a member of the Ercoles Sloths for many years.

Dave passed away peacefully on September 8, 2024, at home, surrounded by family and friends, after a courageous six-year journey with cancer. He was 64.

Dave was born November 9, 1959, in San Diego, California, to adoptive parents Jeanne and Thomas Forrest. He graduated from Mira Costa High School in 1977 and attended classes at El Camino College. He planned to be a firefighter. However, in 1982, Dave began framing with John Lee Construction, where he discovered his passion for building beautiful homes. His career culminated at KKC Development, where he worked closely with Kim Komick, Tracy Chaplin, and Pablo Escutia. Dave’s ability to lead with calmness and grace, no matter the situation, became his hallmark. More than a skilled professional in the construction industry, Dave was known for bringing joy and laughter to every room he created and entered.

Dave married the love of his life, Melissa Dunbar, on October 30, 1999 at the Neighborhood Church in Palos Verdes. Soon after, he began his proudest role as a father to identical twin daughters, Savannah and Sierra, born in November 2000. His daughters were the center of his world, whether at the beach, the river, building a treehouse the size of a condo, teaching them to ski, or cheering them on at every sports game. 

Dave is survived by his beloved wife, Melissa, his daughters, Savannah and Sierra, his sister Sharon McBride, and numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, and colleagues. ER

 

 

Keith Marco was RUHS, Cal Poly football player

Keith Marco, a 2021 Redondo Union High School graduate and Cal Poly football player, died June 6, at age 21, from a pulmonary embolism. 

RUHS gives 40 character awards each year, nominated by teachers. Marco won two of these in one year, the only student in the 43-year history of the awards to do so.

“He was a great young man,” said Keith Ellison, RUHS head football coach, who was defensive coordinator during the three years Marco started on the defensive and offensive lines. “Always in the best of spirits, always with a smile on his face, I never saw him in a bad mood. I can’t say enough good things about the type of young man he was. He brought a lot of joy to a lot of people. It’s tremendously sad.”

The 6-foot-4, 290-pound lineman at RUHS, played both offense and defense. Marco was a food science major at Cal Poly, and member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He redshirted for the football team in 2021 and 2022, and last played at left guard in a Sept. 9, 2023 game against San Jose State. 

Keith’s father, John, died two years before of cancer. Keith’s survivors include his mother, Audrey Marco, and older sister, Emma Marco. 

A pulmonary embolism is the result of a blood clot in an artery in the lung. Marco was rushed to UCLA Medical Center in Westwood May 23, but his surgery was unsuccessful. 

He was set to do an internship last summer with Symrise in Newport Beach, a global fragrance, flavor and nutrition company. 

“Live Like Keith” was a recurring theme at his celebration of life. ER