Judge rules column is adjourned

ROBERT GARDNER

When I was 8 and living in Green River, Wyo., my parents put me on

the train to visit my sister Jesse in Balboa, Calif. I rode by

myself, changing trains, which often meant traipsing through a

strange city to the right train station. Looking back, it was a

challenging trip for an 8-year-old, but I made it safely, arriving

one afternoon at a place I thought I was visiting, but which became

my home for most of my life.

I no longer remember my first view of the ocean, but it took me

virtually no time to get used to my new town. Charley Plummer taught

me to swim. In those days, that meant the breaststroke, which was

probably a good thing, since everybody’s toilet flushed into the bay,

and you wanted to be able to see what was floating in the water in

front of you.

My brother-in-law Dick Whitson ran the Green Dragon, and soon I

was earning 10 cents an hour chipping ice for lime rickeys and other

soft drinks.

My folks moved to Maywood, and I went to live with them for

awhile, but it was a rough area, and before long I was back in Balboa

with Jesse and Dick. I learned to bodysurf at the Balboa Pier with my

friends Tagg Atwood, Spinney Richardson and Marco Anich, and

eventually we got into skin diving when Marco brought back the idea

of face plates from Hawaii. We’d scrape abalone off the rocks, cut

them into steaks and pound them for hours with a milk bottle -- then

bread them, fry them and have a feast, never thinking that some day

such a meal would be a rare and expensive thing.

Even when I was in college, Balboa was my home. I came down every

summer, spending my days at the beach and working nights at the

Rendezvous Ballroom. These were the days of Prohibition, when the rum

runners pulled up at city docks; the Drugless Drugstore provided

straight alcohol; and gambling was a major business. Balboa was “Sin

City,” which made it a popular place.

Of course, there were always party poopers, who wanted to clean

things up, and every so often they’d pressure the sheriff to do

something, and he’d come to town. Long before he arrived, we’d get

word he was coming, and everything was tidied up for his appearance.

He’d saunter through town, find nothing and go back and report that

everything was clean in Balboa, and as soon as he left, everyone went

back to having fun.

As can be imagined, city government was not the pristine operation

it is today, a fact I knew from personal experience.

Dick Whitson was city clerk for awhile, and my other

brother-in-law, Roland Hodgkinson, was chief of police until the feds

tried to bust him for income tax evasion, a polite way of saying

graft. He stepped down, although he was eventually exonerated by the

courts, largely on the testimony of my sister Marian, who looked the

perfect lady in her white gloves and was probably the biggest liar I

ever met.

I have seen amazing changes in the 80-plus years I’ve lived here.

Balboa was a place that came to life in the summer, when the

tourists came, and then slumbered all winter after their departure.

Newport was home to a fishing fleet. The fishing fleet has

disappeared; the mudflats of the bay have become a harbor crammed

with boats; and the town is busy summer, winter and every day in

between.

Cattle no longer graze the hills of the Irvine Ranch; toilets no

longer empty directly into the bay and ocean; and the city is run by

respected professionals and an upright council.

Corona del Mar, where I’ve lived since 1947, has gone from a place

with lots of vacant lots and dirt alleys to an area crammed with

expensive homes.

I’ve told some of these stories over the years. I hope you enjoyed

reading about them as much as I enjoyed living them.

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