Tarzan never came back from Balboa Island

A few weeks ago I said that as a young man living in Balboa, I viewed Balboa Island as a pretty poky place. That jaundiced perspective may have been colored by an earlier incident.

As a child, all I knew about Balboa Island was that it was across the bay, and that on the Fourth of July everyone on the Balboa side where I lived shot skyrockets over there trying to burn the place down. That was the extent of my consideration. Then, something happened that colored my thinking about the place.

I was going through my Tarzan stage. I had thought playing Tarzan was tough in Wyoming, where I had lived before coming to Balboa. There, I had only sagebrush to climb while waiting to pounce on Numa the lion.

In Balboa, it was even more difficult. There was not even any sagebrush, just a lot of sand, so I resorted to the rooftops, running over the roofs of the houses of the summer visitors. That was all right during the winter, but when summer came, the visitors proved to be real spoilsports, taking a dim view of some kid running over their roofs.

I thought those summer visitors were pretty unreasonable, although in retrospect, I suppose it was a little disconcerting to be having lunch with the family and hear some 10-year-old kid clatter over the roof and leap down on the family cat screaming, “Numa! You die!”

Finally, after several complaints to my parents, I was banned from the roofs. It was a sad day. As I was moping down Central Avenue near the library, a big car pulled up and stopped. A voice said, “Son, can you direct me to the Balboa Island ferry?”

I looked up and my heart almost stopped. It was Elmo Lincoln! For the uninitiated, Elmo Lincoln was the first movie Tarzan. Lincoln was a rather rotund man who stalked around on the screen wearing a lion-skin cape and carrying a spear. With that spear, he killed countless natives while saving Jane.

Since these were silent films, we never heard him let out the kind of scream made famous by a later Tarzan, one Johnny Weissmuller.

Nor did Lincoln dive in the water and wrestle with crocodiles. Lincoln was no Olympic champion like Weissmuller, and I’m not sure he could even swim.

Neither did he swing from handy vines on jungle trees. I’ll venture a guess that Lincoln couldn’t even climb a tree.

Actually, all I can remember him doing was stalking ? almost strutting ? around in that lion-skin cape carrying that spear. Be that as it may, he was Tarzan and, thus, my boyhood hero.

In reply to his question, I stammered out directions. Lincoln thanked me and took off. I raced after him as fast as my spindly legs would carry me. Alas, I got there too late. The ferry was just pulling out with Elmo Lincoln’s car as its only passenger.

I waited all day there at the ferry landing for Lincoln to return. He never did. I didn’t know at the time that there was a bridge on the other side of the island over which Lincoln had undoubtedly escaped. Be that as it may, he didn’t return on the ferry, and I cursed Balboa Island for swallowing my hero.

With all the determination of a thwarted 10-year-old, I made a particular effort with my fireworks that Fourth of July to burn the place down ? to no avail ? and the incident undoubtedly contributed to my later condescending attitude toward the place.