Who could forget Don Vaughn?

A while ago, I reminisced about lifeguards I had known. I left out

one of the more remarkable ones, Don Vaughn.

Don was the son of Tiny Vaughn, the Constable of Newport Beach

Township. This was before municipal courts and municipal court

marshals. Our local justice of the peace was Donald Dodge, and Tiny

Vaughn was his constable.

Tiny’s actual name was Frank, but I never heard anyone call him by

that name. Tiny wasn’t tiny. At 6-foot-7, he was a huge slab of a man

who must have weighed well over 300 pounds. He also had an artificial

leg. One of his favorite tricks was to whip out his pocket knife and

bury the blade to its hilt in his leg. For someone who didn’t know it

was an artificial leg, it was an unnerving experience, to say the

least. When he did it in bars, strong men vowed to give up drinking.

Like father, like son. Don Vaughn also wasn’t tiny. He was

6-foot-7 and played professional football at one point, but he also

spent several years as a lifeguard at Big Corona.

One day, a drunk staggered down to the beach. He sat on the sand

at the water’s edge, yelling comments and making himself obnoxious.

The police were called and drove down to the beach. Now, it is a

well-known fact that police hate to walk on the sand. Maybe they

don’t want to get their shoes dirty. Anyway, they asked Don to bring

the man from the water’s edge to the parking lot where the police

unit was standing.

Don walked over to the drunk and told him the police wanted him.

Too inebriated to properly appreciate Don’s size, the drunk told Don

to go to hell. Don repeated his request. The drunk looked up and

finally took in all 6 feet 7 inches of the man before him.

“Carry me,” he said with a smirk.

“No,” said Don. “I won’t carry you.”

“How are you going to get me over there, then?” the drunk

inquired.

“I’m going to throw you.”

The drunk looked at the about 200 yards of sand between him and

the police unit and said, with perfect confidence, “You can’t throw

me that far.”

“Oh, yes, I can,” said Don. He picked up the drunk and threw him

about 8 feet. The drunk landed in the sand with a clatter. Don walked

over, picked him up and threw him another 8 feet. This time, the

drunk looked at that 200 yards of hard sand between them and the

police unit and said, “You going to do this all the way over there?”

“Yes I am,” Don replied.

The drunk got up and staggered to the police unit.

In his later years, Don became a world-class sailor. One night, he

went overboard, a fact that wasn’t discovered until the next morning.

They turned the boat around and, by some miracle, actually managed to

find him.

Don, none the worse for five or six hours of treading water,

greeted their arrival quite casually, as if finding a person, even a

large person, in the middle of the ocean was no particular feat. But

then, what else would you expect from the son of Tiny Vaughn?

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

His column runs Tuesdays.