Kidding around

Young Chang

Barbara Birnie pointed to the pier off which children jumped and dove

Tuesday, and she laughed.

It was on that exact South Bay Front pier that she broke her nose

while doing a back flip in the 1930s. This is also where Birnie, who

reminisced while scoring the Balboa Island Yacht Club’s diving

competition this week, learned to swim when she, too, was a member of the

club. She made friends there and wore fashionable little blue and white

checked swimsuits that had lace on the top piece.

Her granddaughter, Tasha Bock, a third-generationer of the club, was

the one making friends and swimming this time. But as a diving judge and

grandmother of six (that’s right, four of these grandkids, as well as

their parents, all grew up hanging out at the club), Birnie was the one

reminiscing.

“It’s fun for me to watch them grow up,” she said.

About 100 children, their parents and some older-generation alumni

hung out in the sun Tuesday to celebrate the last week of the yacht

club’s 80th anniversary.

The landscape has changed since Birnie was a young girl. The area

where the Fun Zone and surrounding houses lie, which is across the water

from Balboa Island, used to be mostly beach. There was a Ferris wheel,

Birnie remembers, and little else other than a few carnival booths.

But over the last 80 years, the yacht club hasn’t changed its ways.

A club run by kids and for kids, children between the ages of 4 and 16

get together to paddle boat, dive, swim, sail and row almost every day

during the summer, just as the first batch of young yacht club members

did in 1922.

Local resident Seymour Beek’s father, Joe, started the club so

children would have something to do. Kids today still use the Beeks’ pier

to swim.

“Kids didn’t have much to do in the summer in those days,” Seymour

Beek said.

His daughter, Cynthia, serves as the club’s commodore. She delegates

jobs, ensures events are running smoothly and, of course, has some water

fun herself. But the 16-year-old remembers when a local named Danny

Donovan reigned as commodore way back when.

“He used to throw me in the water all the time,” she said. “I just

hope the little kids remember us.”

On Tuesday, young children draped in towels even taller than their

little selves lined up to dive (or in some cases, belly flop) off the

pier. Mothers in lawn chairs formed a beachfront audience with their

all-purpose, all-carrying nylon beach bags.

Teens in red sweatshirts and white towels wrapped around the waist

made sure the little ones stayed in line. Others hung out in the water to

catch the divers who were scared.

“That’s the greatest thing that hasn’t changed for 80 years,” said

Seymour Beek’s wife, Pat. “The teens help the little kids, and the kids

learn from them.”

* Young Chang writes features. She may be reached at (949) 574-4268 or

by e-mail at o7 young.chang@latimes.comf7 .