ROBERT GARDNER -- The Verdict

One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is watching teams of

horses pulling nets full of fish onto the beach in front of the 14th

Street grammar school on the Balboa Peninsula.

I think it was about 1922, and I think I was in the fourth grade. If I

seem a little unsure of the details, it’s because following my father,

who was a railroad worker, from one grubby little railroad town to

another, I went to a lot of grammar schools. But I remember the horses

dragging in fish, and that certainly didn’t happen in Wyoming, Nebraska,

Utah or Nevada.

Regardless of the exact date, when school let out, we would always run

out and try to pick up those slippery fish. All the while, the Newport

kids threw jellyfish at us Balboa kids.

Years later, Marco Anich, my childhood friend, told me the facts about

that operation. Marco’s father was a fisherman and the teams of horses

belonged to him. Marco got to ride one of the horses during the

operation.

It seems that the fish involved were jack smelt. During jack smelt

season -- and as far as I am concerned, jellyfish season -- the local

fishermen kept a man stationed at the end of the Newport Pier. His job

was to spot schools of jack smelt, which appear as underwater clouds just

outside the breaker line.

Once a school was spotted -- and not necessarily in front of the 14th

Street grammar school -- fishermen dragged big nets to the scene. Men in

dories pulled the net through the surf and surrounded the school of fish.

The net was too heavy to be pulled in by hand. That’s where the horses

get into the act.

As the net was being pulled in by the horses, the assembled fishermen

waded out and scooped the fish into tubs. The tubs were taken to either

John Horman’s or Frank Suttora’s commercial fish dock. There, they were

packed with crushed ice and hauled by the Pacific Electric to the big Los

Angeles Market -- located, as I remember, on 7th Street, but I could be

way off on that.

Marco always denied that the Newport kids threw jellyfish at us Balboa

kids. However, my recollection of that part of the operation is still

pretty vivid. You don’t get smashed in the face with a jellyfish and not

remember the incident with some clarity.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.