As the decade of the 1960s gobbled up my youth, I knew I must venture out into the real world. My loving parents had sheltered me for more than two decades. Growing up in the South Bay, young men’s thoughts often drift towards the beautiful beaches. It so happened, a friend invited me to stay with him in Manhattan Beach until I could find more permanent accommodations. A place nearby his apartment instantly caught my attention. It was called Live Oak Park. It looked like the perfect setting for my basketball fixation and adventurous newborn plans.
My friend introduced me to his pal from their Coast Guard days who happened to own a lot of property in Manhattan Beach. It turned out that I had actually met Doug years before, but I had forgotten that until this most recent re-introduction by my friend Bill. The background of our previous acquaintance came quickly to mind when Doug reminded me of our former conversations and meetings.
I knew Doug then as a tennis player, and he often spoke of his achievements and life in the fast lane. He and Bill continually reminisced in my presence about their wild R&R Coast Guard encounters. I enjoyed their stories, picturing the descriptions of a lifestyle so very foreign to my own. They were seven years my elders, so the impressions were much like having two big brothers.
Another quick flashback came to me when I remembered the day Doug walked into the shop where I worked. He was on crutches. He said he had just been operated on for arthritis. I questioned why that would require surgery? He told me it was a “galloping arthritis,” and it had very degenerative characteristics. Little did we know the ugly reality that lay ahead.
Fast-forward five years, and I am meeting Doug again under completely different circumstances. His condition had put him in a wheelchair, and his first wife had left him by this time. His new girlfriend appeared to be a real sweetheart, and their affection for each other was apparent.
She never knew him as an athlete. Yet he had once bounded astride nets on tennis courts like a gazelle next to a river bed. He moved with grace, and stroked tennis balls with great precision. Ellen now obviously loved him for very different reasons.
There was no pity associated with her love. For his part, Doug had accepted his fate, and Ellen admired the way he dealt with adversity. Doug met her in the hospital after his first operation. Ellen was a rehab therapist assigned to helping him get back on his feet. During his regular therapy sessions there was plenty of time for idle chatting. Doug began sharing the details of a crumbling marriage. His wife was not very understanding of his plight, and was more concerned with how much his ambulatory restrictions might interfere with her life. Ellen was single and much younger, so she passively listened to Doug’s tormented stories of a callous wife and a strained marriage.
Doug never blamed his wife for her indiscretions. This impressed the idealistic Ellen. She herself entered a profession where caring for people remained essential.
Our mutual friend Bill at that time had suggested to Doug that he explore real estate opportunities in the beach market. At first this was only small talk, but eventually evolved into a plan to create an income source for the now totally disabled veteran.
It turned out that Doug was a genius in real estate. He quickly parlayed some inheritance money into several strong revenue producing apartments in the upscale beach community. He began a transition into rental income and real estate investments. It was truly remarkable how Doug knew every square inch of the properties he owned on all floors, even though he never ventured above the first floor. He had an incredible knack for design, development, and revenue. His properties soared in value, and his rentals gushed with cash-flow.
As his property portfolios grew, his body descended into chronic degeneration. Doug unfortunately had the most aggressive and crippling form of arthritis. Throughout his ordeal, he maintained a cheerful resignation to his fate, and continued to warm to Ellen’s loving care. His marriage eroded almost as fast as his joints. Divorce was a mere three years after the onset of his degenerative disease.
Ellen’s love grew with Doug’s physical demise. She admired his attitude, but the affection stemmed for his brilliant mind as much as his courage. She often sat in on strategy sessions between Bill and Doug. Their rapport was filled with the kind of humor that male bonding often generates. Bill seemed to bring out the best of Doug’s wit and wisdom.
Doug offered me a penthouse apartment on 19th Place for $150-a-month if I would help him with odd jobs around his other properties. No problem, and what a deal I got. I was going to be a block-and-a-half from the beach, and a few hundred feet from Live Oak Park. Life was beautiful. Speaking of which, Doug and Ellen married just a short time thereafter.
Our lives now intersected in ways we would never have imagined a few short years previously. Doug was thrilled with his new marriage, and I had the most lavish living conditions a young man in his mid-20s could ever envision. My minor jobs and errands for Doug never interfered with my lifestyle, and it brought us closer together as friends. He and Ellen appreciated everything I did for them, and my labor never even approached the value of the beautiful penthouse apartment I enjoyed during those years.
My days were spent on the beach, swimming laps beyond the breakers, getting tanned in the sand, and afternoons on the basketball courts of Live Oak Park. My nights were filled with recreation duties and sports activities at a new, state-of-the-art Community Center in Inglewood. That was also the city where my parents lived. So after the wonderful days I would spend in Manhattan Beach, I drove six short miles to the home of my youth, and get my laundry done along with home-cooked meals from mom. I then had a three minute trip to work for an evening of recreation activities that more than paid my bills, and the sensational extra-curricular activities that came with being in charge of a facility that served as my personal sports club.
You could not dream a better existence than I had during those years. With my personal workouts being able to extend into my working hours, I transitioned into the top physical condition of my life. My basketball passion got fulfillment from almost every stop I made, so I was able to parlay my work environment with my advantageous residence near the park. I was also able to squeeze in semi-romantic dates, which were always impressed with my luxurious abode and the 6-foot-6, hard, tanned body. This was my primary existence from 1972 through 1977. As with all phases of our lives, things eventually change no matter how well we think our roots are dug in.
During this 5-year period, Doug became estranged from his friend Bill. I remained close to both of them, but often had to play the role of mediator. Doug continued to gather real estate, and he even built another house just up the street with an art studio for Ellen. She liked to paint, and Doug designed the ideal art room overlooking the Pacific Ocean for his dear wife. He also encouraged her to take art lessons at a nearby college, so Ellen was well taken care of during the years I lived in the same building with them.
The only thing that could possibly change my entrenchment was the growing reality that I needed a foundation for a more substantial career. I had plans to get married eventually, own a home, and get a day-job that could support a family. This almost all came together on my 30th birthday in 1977, when I moved into my own home with my girlfriend. This meant bidding farewell to my penthouse, Doug and Ellen, and the basketball beach life I had grown so accustomed to in that last handful of years.
My first excursion into real estate was the primary motivation for dramatically altering my ideal lifestyle in Manhattan Beach. It would turn out to be the initial fortuitous piece in a three-phase move that ultimately secured a million dollar home, but I digress.
After two years testing my new investment and the living arrangements with my girlfriend, I decided the experiment was worth a full-blown commitment. Mary and I were married two years to the day that we moved in together. Our life has been a dream ever since.
One day, after I had not been back to my old beach neighborhood for years, I decided to visit Doug again at our building on 19th Place. It was purely an impulsive moment that made me turn up my old street.
Doug was where he always was — in his wheelchair on the first floor looking out at the beach. But he appeared distraught, and I immediately sensed the stress and tension in the air.
“Ellen left me yesterday,” he exclaimed.
I was stunned. I could hardly assimilate what I was hearing. He went on to tell me that she had met a guy in one of her art classes, and things must have evolved from there. They didn’t really talk much about it, and she never hinted at it becoming serious enough to leave him. Then suddenly, in the middle of the night, she packed all her belongings and left Doug alone just the morning before I visited.
As strong mentally as I always knew him to be, Doug was stripped at this point of everything and anything he had left to live for. Ellen had done everything for him, and provided 24/7 comfort. The blow was so unexpected, it caught him where it hurts the most–in heart, in the gut, and in the helpless reality of the unrequited love that his faulty foundation had been built upon.
A week later, Doug was in the hospital. I spoke to his parents, and they said that his condition was serious. I did not have to ask about the diagnosis, because it was quite clear to me what had put him down. There was no name for this condition, but it was as terminal as more common illnesses.
I phoned our mutual friend, Bill. Although they had not spoken in many years, he knew this was a mission we would both have to take. I met Bill at the hospital the next day.
Doug was not a big man. In his prime, we was probably 5-foot-9, 165 pounds. After his degenerative disease and relegation to a wheelchair, he probably dropped to 115 pounds. That was about his stature the day after Ellen left him. When Bill and I saw him in the hospital 10 days later, he could not have weighed 60 pounds. He couldn’t speak, but I can remember to this day what he looked like when Bill and I approached his hospital bed. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, and his face came alive with expression. We were as speechless as he was. Tears came down three faces.
Doug died the next day. That marked the end of an era for me, and it certainly signaled a turning point in the lives of three old friends. We can never relive the “best days of our lives,” but memories can sure endure enough for us to appreciate the best that life had to offer.
Live Oak Park is still there.
We are not. B
