Tars

Roger Carlson

We have Sea Kings, as in Corona del Mar; Eagles, as in Estancia;

Mustangs, as in Costa Mesa, and Pirates, or Bucs (Buccaneers), for Orange

Coast College.

But for Newport Harbor High’s Sailors ... well, the Long Gray Line is

also filled with Tars, and for some reason, not just a few, but many,

even who hail from Newport Harbor in these days approaching the third

millennium, just don’t get it.

“What’s a Tar?” once again graced my answering system today.

What can I say? Across the school’s gymnasium wall is a Sailor, and the

message reads, “Newport Harbor, Home of the Tars.”

If you watch Newport Harbor’s baseball team, guess what’s across their

chests?

If you pick up a dictionary and peruse, you’ll find “Tar,” is a Sailor.

The name stuck to sailors during World War II when sailors, also known as

“Gobs,” dreaded only one task more than mess duty.

It was scraping the sides of the ship, where oil formed into tar, and

there were gobs of the sticky, black goo for the poor enlisted men to

deal with (sometimes on a daily basis) as scrapings piled up. For the

sake of the ship, it was an absolute necessity.

In these days and times, oil in the water is really considered pretty

tacky. But during World War II, with hundreds of major vessels and

thousands of airplanes going down, the seas across the world were not

blue, but tragically black with oil, which stuck to the sides of ships,

and anything else it touched.

It was everywhere, including the sands of Southern California.

Gobs? Yes, that’s in the dictionary, too. It’s slang for ... Sailors,

whose hands were filled with gobs of tar. Even the beaches would have

these gobs of tar strewn about.

Sailors were also known as “Bluejackets” ... but we’ve pretty well given

up on referring to the Sailors as Bluejackets, since there are so many

who haven’t yet figured out the “Tars.”

But, in the dictionary, you’ll find bluejackets, too, a definition of

“Sailors.”

Bluejackets were the coats enlisted men wore. They were thick, heavy

duty, almost black it was such a dark blue, warm, with a collar that

would come up over the ears and just under their white caps, and they

served a great purpose.

You might want one after Thanksgiving, when the Tars, Gobs, Bluejackets

and Sailors make their way through the CIF football playoffs and the

weather begins to bite.

Taking the issue a little further, from a Marine’s point of view, Sailors

were also referred to as the “Transportation Dept.” and “Taxi Service.”

But that’s another story.

While this seems reasonably easy to explain, here’s another for the

reader to think about.

Why is Compton High’s nickname the “Tarbabes?”

I would venture there are very few students, or teachers, at Compton High

who know.

In 1928, Compton High’s campus was split, with Compton College coming

aboard the campus to handle the first two years of college (ala Orange

Coast), leaving the balance of the campus for the 11th and 12th grades of

high school.

I don’t know what they did with the ninth and 10th-graders, maybe they

were bounced back to the junior high campuses.

The college’s nickname was the Tartars - as in some madmen running amok

on the other side of the world in the dark ages (as opposed to stained

teeth, or sauce for your fish). So the high school adopted the name

Tarbabes, as in “baby Tartars.”

Compton College eventually found its own campus in the mid-’50s or so,

but four-year Compton High proudly remains the Tarbabes at the same site.

Pasadena Junior College, which also had a split campus with Pasadena High

in the late ‘40s and ‘50s, was the Bulldogs, and the high school was the

Bullpups.

Now Pasadena City College is the Lancers and the high school, now at

another location, graduated into Bulldogs.

Well, no one to my knowledge, has ever questioned the reasoning for

Tarbabes, , a great deal. But when it comes to Tars, it just seems each

generation is a little more confused than the last one, and the darn

question just keeps coming up. Maybe I’ll just refer them to the History

Channel, or something.

One thing is for sure. Harbor will always be the Tars. And Sailors, too.