THE GOOD OLD DAYS:Summer memories shared at senior center luau

Wearing festive summer outfits and red hibiscus flowers in their hair, Patricia Litten and Dolores Perlin reflected on their favorite summers in Newport Beach as they enjoyed Oasis Senior Center’s first-ever Summer Luau this week.

Nearly 200 seniors delighted in the music of ukulele group Instant Harmony, the graceful moves of the Manea Hawaiian Dancers and, most of all, each others’ company.

“We would body surf, swim, fish, pretty much anything that had to do with the water,” Litten, 77, said.

“In the summers, we did a lot of sitting around the campfire on the ocean front, playing our guitars and just enjoying ourselves,” Perlin added. “I was a beach bunny, and we all used to sit out in front of the Fun Zone, you know, where all the boys were.”

Perlin’s time in the water got that much better when her father — who worked as the manager at Christian’s Hut, a Tahitian-style restaurant on the bay front — gave her a paddle board he got from Johnny Weissmuller, the Olympic swimmer and actor who played Tarzan in numerous films.

As the summer of 1947 came to a close, the 78-year-old former peninsula resident was selected from 147 young women as Pirate Days Queen. For one week she reigned over the community, forcing several scalawags to “walk the plank” into the Pacific.

Paul Bryan Jr., who has lived in the area since 1949, has his own pirate memories, recalling when actor/producer William Cagney’s Schooner Yacht Swift — which Bryan described as a red pirate ship — was moved to the Newport Dunes Resort. It was used in films including “Treasure Island.”

“They had to squeeze it under Coast Highway to get it into the Back Bay,” he said.

Some of his other summer haunts included the Balboa Bay Club and the Projection Booth, a movie house on the peninsula that screened surf films.

“The sound there was never synchronized, so you would have someone wipe out at the same time some guy is saying, ‘Nice ride!’” he said.

UP AND COMING

The Oasis Senior Center will host a Big Band Barbecue and Birthday Bash at noon on July 14 in the courtyard at 800 Marguerite Ave., Corona del Mar. Tickets are on sale now for $5. For more information, call (949) 644-3244.