CHASING DOWN THE MUSE:Teen memories of Laguna summers

Summertime in Laguna is sweet, especially if you are on vacation and/or are a kid who’s out of school for the season.

When Peter McMahon, a local attorney, called my office the other day, I was immediately sent down memory lane. Peter and I have been friends since we were classmates, first at Thurston Intermediate School when it was located where the municipal pool now stands, and then at Laguna Beach High School, from which we both graduated.

I laughed when I heard his voice, immediately transported back to the hallways and the cute brunette boy who was a great athlete and a smart student. After we talked business, we both wondered aloud why we weren’t at the beach like the kids.

Memories of salt and sand flooded my mind, as did memories of those easy days. Days unfettered by client demands and mortgages. Days of beach play and body surfing.

Everyone has a favorite beach to hang out at and a favorite spot for surfing, easy in Laguna, since they are all named. My 14th summer was spent at Oak Street beach learning to surf.

John Parlette was the lifeguard, and I’ve never been sure whether I was more interested in surfing or in John. His brother Punky was the guard at Victoria, and my girlfriend Kathy Nelson, down for the summer from Studio City, and I had crushes on them that wouldn’t stop.

We’d bop around, parading in front of the towers, tanned in our new bikinis, never thinking that we were too young or that they had other girlfriends.

The water was warm. The waves were good. The friendship was perfect. What more could a teenager ask?

Next summer, “the beach” was Pearl Street with Val Iverson and Sue Klassen. We had summer jobs at Vacation Village cleaning rooms and trying to dodge the never-ending instructions and reprimands of Mr. Hanlin. It was a perfect kind of summer employment. We started early in the morning and were done by 3 p.m. each day, which meant we had each afternoon for the beach.

When the last bed was made and the towels folded, we’d hop the bus to Pearl and set to our second goal of the summer (the first was getting a boyfriend) ? the darkest tan.

Drenched in coconut oil, we’d lay in the sun like mummies, playing hearts until the sun slipped from the sky. Our third goal, that of the whitest blonde hair, we worked by squeezing lemon after lemon on our lightening locks. I think even the guys sneaked some of our pungent yellow tonic searching for that blond surfer boy mystic.

When the south swell hit and the lifeguards raised the yellow flags, we’d climb up on the arch and leap off the stone top into the head of an oncoming wave. We’d wait for the next swell and ride it to the shore.

When we tired of climbing up, we’d race under the arch and scramble over the rock formations to the blow holes. Then it was only a matter of timing the surge. A leap into the hole and the outgoing water would whoosh us through to the other side.

The next summer, No. 16, was when I became aware of my father’s harangues about traffic. Since it was the first summer I could drive, I was enmeshed in the snakelike lines that backed up to Emerald Bay, slowly inching into town. But unlike my father, I loved the traffic. It meant new people ? er, new guys ? to meet and the potential for great parties.

Linda DeLacy and I got jobs at the Hotel Laguna as bus girls. We also had traded in lemons for Born Blonde, and with our matching hair color and long length were always being mistaken for sisters.

Her dad owned the Cellar on Forest Avenue, and when he left for work in the evenings, we’d have their apartment on Mermaid Street. We’d spend hours doing our hair just so, applying dark eye liner and ironing the aprons of our matching beige uniforms. Then we’d walk across the crowded streets and go to work.

Leon Tompkins was a fellow “busser” and we used to give him trouble. He’d head for a table to clear plates, and Linda and I would crouch down behind the set-up counter and fire olives at him over the tops of the potted plants. Sometimes we’d make our target; other times, we’d be slightly offline and the olives just might bounce off the back of an unwitting customer. Somehow, we never got caught, but Leon took some serious stares from the attacked patrons.

When our shift was over, we’d hurry back to her apartment, shed our beige wear, change into colorful bell-bottoms and crop tops, and grab one of the local shuttle buses for a tour of the town. Wherever we found the best action ? sometimes in the hollow, sometimes in the canyons ? we’d hop off and spend the evening with friends.

Thanks, Peter, for the phone call and the walk down memory lane. I watch the summer shuttle buses and the festival crowds, and I am filled with great joy.

Our sweet town is as grand a place to play in now as it was when I was growing up, and that says something magical about the people who live here and the way they love Laguna.