Cal Porter's Then & Now
Biography
There are many famous opening lines from great works of literature: “It was a dark and stormy night”, Bulwer-Lytton, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, Charles Dickens, “Call me Ishmael”, from Moby Dick, but ever was there a line more to the point than, “I Am Born”, in Chapter 1 of David Copperfield. So that’s where I will start. It happened to me in the year 1924, and by my calculation that makes me 85 this year.Lifeguards
The Return of the Lifeguard
Last night I dreamt of the lobsters again. I was once more under the sea and the water was warm and the water was clear. And below me lined up in abundance I saw that they were all there, beneath the rock crevice on the ocean floor. And of all sizes they were, from the big bulls to the juveniles, and in my dream they were waiting for me and hoping that I would come. And I wanted to spend a while with them at the bottom of the sea, and I lingered for a bit enjoying their welcome as time passed imperceptibly. And then after some passage of that time I knew they would help me and it would soon take little effort to fill the bag attached to the float that was drifting above, dancing between ocean and sky. And then too soon the dream is over. And the dream was good.
In another dream one night I am diving again. As I approach the sea floor I see that the abalone are many. The whites, the reds, the pinks, the greens are all there for me in this my long ago day under the sea. They are crowded together on the reefs, sometimes one upon another. And in my dream as with the lobsters I know they want me to stay with them for a while and enjoy their company and this I do. And then afterwards, with each dive, with each held breath, I bring two or three to the surface, and soon many have joined me above and I have what I want. The dream is over. And the dream was good.
photo source: UCSB photo source: eebweb.arizona.edu
It is true that older people often dream of pleasant memories of their younger days. In Ernest Hemmingway’s, The Old Man and the Sea, when Santiago sleeps he always returns to his dream of lions at play on the beaches of Africa, something he witnessed in his youth as a sailor in those waters. And in the famous opening line of Daphne du Maurier’s novel, Rebecca, “Last Night I Dreamt I Go to Manderley Again”, the former mistress of this beautiful mansion on the English Coast brings up memories of her first sight of Manderley with her new husband. Literature is full of allusions to the dreams of former times. And there is one dream of mine that reoccurs often, and far more often than any other.
I am sitting in my lifeguard tower. I am in no certain tower or area, it is probably a compilation of many of them, or all of them. And I am older, retired for thirty-five years now, but still I am needed badly on the beach once again in a crucial situation. I have been earnestly and desperately requested to return to duty in a position which perhaps only I can handle. I am needed. I could not refuse this summons. And the sun is hot and the surf is strong. The crowd is swelling to capacity. The water is dense with humanity. The whiteflowing riptides are beautiful but are now showing their strength and their trickery as they await their prey. We must show them our respect but we must also show our power over them. And as I watch I see around me the faces that I worked with those many years ago. And on this day we will affect many spectacular and miraculous rescues, and the comradery will run high. And all day I am running and swimming faster than I did sixty or seventy years ago. The years have disappeared. There is no question of becoming weary, it will not happen. And then the dream is over. And the dream was good.
A riptide A tower
photo source: watchthewater.org
The dream is over for now, but I’m not concerned, the dream will return. It always does.
Unless noted, all photos courtesy of the Cal Porter collection.
Submitted By Cal Porter on June 26 , 2010
© Cal Porter 2010, all rights reserved
Comments (0)
Lifeguards
THE WATERMEN OF VENICE, CALIFORNIA
I suppose that it was not at all unusual that my two brothers and I would become swimmers and lifeguards some day. So many from the Venice area and Venice High School did just that. Actually we lived a couple of miles south of Venice on the beach at Playa del Rey but we went to elementary, junior high and high school in Venice. In addition we spent a good deal of our time swimming and surfing on the beaches of Venice where all of our friends were. And when we were not on the beach you would find us swimming in the Venice Salt Water Plunge which was on the sand next to the Venice Amusement Pier. Since we were in the water all the time it was only natural that we eventually became members of the Venice High School Swimming and Water Polo Teams which held forth at the Venice Plunge. We were seldom beaten in that warm salt water element, and I became a lifeguard there while still in high school. We also had a good many older heroes in the Venice area to look up to, admire, and try to emulate in the aquatic field, they left a lasting impression. Here are just a few.
Venice Plunge
George Freeth
I guess the best place to start would be with George Freeth. I knew little about him when I was a kid but I knew the name and that his accomplishments were legendary. I learned much more about him later when I was older. He died in 1919, a bit before my time, but I knew people who had known him and had worked with him in those early 1900’s, and they would talk to me about him. On July 3, 1907 Freeth left his home in Hawaii for new opportunities and adventures on the beaches of Southern California. He was one of Hawaii’s best swimmers and surfers, and later in that month of July he became, most likely, the first surfer in the United States when he rode the waves alongside the rock breakwater in front of the Venice Plunge. In the newspapers he became known as “The Man Who Could Walk on Water”, since most of the spectators had never seen or heard of anything like this before. He became a lifeguard at the plunges in Redondo and Venice, and he accomplished something never done before. Freeth organized and was captain of the first ever volunteer lifeguard force on the beach; there were no paid beach lifeguards then or any others at that time. In addition, he invented a great many lifesaving devices. He also received the United States Congressional Gold Medal of Honor for single-handedly rescuing seven fishermen from three overturned boats far from shore on a cold, stormy December day. He was in the icy water for two and a half hours. This was a man to admire.
Freeth, 1910
Wally O’Connor
I got to know Wally O’Connor quite well when I was a teenager. He and I were the last to ever swim in the Venice Plunge that he had known all his life. The plunge was condemned, boarded up and slated for demolition. We sneaked in a nailed up entrance just to be able to say that we were the last to swim in the pool that had been there since 1906, and where we both had been lifeguards. Wally was also a Venice Beach Lifeguard and former Venice High swimmer. He had accomplished something no other athlete had ever done at that time, he qualified and participated in five consecutive Olympic Games as a swimmer and water polo player; 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936 and 1940, the last of which was cancelled for World War II. He was the captain of each of these water polo teams and was the flag bearer in the 1936 Berlin Games, refusing to dip the American Flag toward Adolph Hitler. In 1924 his Olympic swimming medal was gold. He is rated as the greatest water polo player of all time. He also won several national championships as a Stanford University swimmer. He is in the Hall of Fame as the number 1 water polo player. He was quite an influence on this teenager.
The United States Water Polo Team
In 1932 the Southern California Water Polo Team made up mostly of Venice and former Venice High School swimmers won the West Coast Championships. That same year the majority of the U.S. Water Polo Team for the 1932 Olympics at Los Angeles was comprised of these same Venice swimmers and lifeguards: Wally O’Connor (captain), Phil Daubenspeck, Charlie Finn, Herb Wildman and Bill O’Connor. The team went all the way in the Olympics, winning the bronze medal. I attended those 1932 Olympics but failed to see water polo; I was only eight so I blame my father who insisted on track and field and other events. I knew and looked up to all these men in later years when they swam and worked out in the Venice Plunge while I was a swimmer and lifeguard there.
The Wolf Brothers
Paul Wolf was another Venice High swimmer, a few years before my time. He was one of the fastest freestyle swimmers in the world, very close to the world record in the 50 yard sprint. He did hold the world record in the 800 meter freestyle relay. For three years he was an All American swimmer at USC in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle, 1938, 39 and 40. In the 1936 Berlin Olympics he silver medaled.
Paul’s older brother, George Wolf, holds a unique record in the history of lifeguarding. He was an outstanding swimmer, and in 1925 he became the first and only paid, professional lifeguard on the Los Angeles Beaches of Santa Monica Bay. Before this time any lifesaving that was done was by volunteers who were not always available or well trained, resulting in many drownings. That first year George by himself covered an area of several miles from Ocean Park to El Segundo Beach. He was the first of a team of lifeguards to follow that today comprise the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Service, the largest, best equipped, and best trained lifeguard force in the world with more than 700 lifeguards and a dozen Baywatch Rescue Boats protecting seventy miles of beaches. As a teenager I knew the Wolf brothers and loved to hear their stories of the early days.
George Wolf, 1925
.jpg)
George McManus
George lived in Venice, California all of his life. I first met him in the late 1930’s when he would work out in the Venice Plunge after his shift on the beach as a Los Angeles County Lifeguard. Later I worked with him for many years when I was a County Guard myself. In 1909 he was working as a lifeguard at the Plunge when the Venice Water Polo Team was formed with George as a member. On that team and also lifeguarding there was George Freeth. Freeth was his friend. Just knowing somebody who actually had known George Freeth and could talk about him and those old days was an inspiration to me. Also on that 1909 team were two other swimmers I knew slightly in later years and who would talk about those days of Freeth and his contemporaries were Frank Holborrow, who later became the Santa Monica City Recreation Director, and Sherwood Kinney, the son of Venice’s founder, Abbott Kinney. Another colorful part of George McManus’s life was as a gondolier. On his time off from lifeguarding he would row the tourists along the many Venice canal waterways that existed right through town at that time and are now gone. I would listen when George talked about knowing and swimming with such people as movie star, swimmer, Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan in the movies), movie star, swimmer, Buster Crabbe (Buck Rogers in the movies), surfer and Olympic swimmer, Duke Kahanamoku, and so many others. He did a good bit of movie stunt work himself. George joined the Los Angeles County Lifeguards the year it was formed, and retired from the force during his last assignment at Zuma Beach after working as a lifeguard since 1908, nearly fifty years.
McManus, bottom. O’Connor, next, 1920’s
.jpg)
Others
There were so many others that were inspirational to us young aquatic hopefuls. Most of them were lifeguards and swam in the Venice Plunge for workouts. Movie Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, was not a Venice product but I became acquainted with him when he would come to Venice and other venues to cheer on our Venice Swim Club where his friend and stunt double, Paul Stader, was a competitor. Weissmuller was an inspiration since he held sixty-seven world swim records at one time or another in his career and dominated his sport like no one else ever, not even Michael Phelps. For eight years, 1921 to 1928, he won every freestyle event he entered. Paul Stader was a Venice guy and lifeguard who thrilled us kids starting in 1937 with movie stunts diving off cliffs and off the masts of sailing ships in the movie, “The Hurricane” or fighting sea monsters in “Reap the Wild Wind” and many other films. He doubled as Tarzan and was a heck of a swimmer. Pete Peterson was another inspirational lifeguard who also worked out in the Venice Plunge where I first knew him and looked up to him. He was the greatest all-around waterman of his era. He could do it all. He was the best surfer, a great swimmer and free diver, and an aquatic stunt man as good as any. Repairing my surfboards for me didn’t hurt either.
Pete
There are many others that could be mentioned, but just those that I knew and described above would be enough to inspire and convince any kid that he wanted to follow in their aquatic footsteps; we wanted to be just like them.
My brothers and I all became Los Angeles County Beach Lifeguards.
Unless noted all photos courtesy of the Cal Porter collection
Submitted By Cal Porter on April 11 , 2010
© Cal Porter 2010, all rights reserved
Comments (0)
Lifeguards
THE MARCH OF THE LOBSTERS
The late 1940’s or early 1950’s is as close as I can come to recalling the date, probably a day in early Spring. I was working at Zuma Beach and it was going to be a fine, clear beach day. There was almost no one on the beach at that early hour but we always kept the area well covered, and when the lieutenant came out with his usual, “I think we’re going to need a pair of eyes up on the north end” (he said this a lot), I volunteered. We were all permanent, full time Los Angeles County Lifeguards on duty at that time of year, and we took turns in the towers when needed in the off season. This was before we had sand vehicles for patrol, so when it appeared that we might have swimmers one guard would head down to a south tower and one to the north, leaving the lieutenant and two guards for the emergency car at headquarters. There were many winter days when a total of only three guards were on duty at Zuma, including the lieutenant; or without the lieutenant, with no replacement, if it was his days off. The crowds at Zuma in those days were nothing like today. At that time there were no Malibu Canyon and Kanan Dume Roads through the Santa Monica Mountains that bring the bulk of today’s visitors to Zuma from the valleys. I drove past Zuma recently on a week day in the middle of March and the crowd on the beach and in the water looked like a day in July compared with then, sixty years ago.
Zuma Winter Crew, 1949
I drove my car up to the last tower and parked on the highway. This was long before Zuma had parking lots. I believe the last tower number was six or seven at that time; we originally had just four towers, whereas now it’s more like fifteen. Zuma was then the entire northern division for the county. When the beach opened in 1945 the first and only lifeguard worked out of a hunting lodge that was once there on the bank of Zuma Creek and the lagoon. This story takes place just a few years later. The public, county lifeguard operated beaches of Topanga, Las Tunas, Surfrider, Corral, Westward and Nicholas Canyon didn’t exist then, they were all privately owned. There were six private homes on the sands of Zuma; the county by then had purchased three of them. One was converted into the old, original lifeguard headquarters, the second one was lived in by the lieutenant, and my family and I lived in the third, the most northerly of the six for which I paid the county twenty-five dollars a month in rent. Of the three remaining private homes one was owned by a well-known orchestra conductor, another was owned by the president of the many Bullock’s Department Stores, and the third was rented out to various entertainment figures. The county eventually purchased these last three and the four on Westward Beach, and in time demolished all ten of them for parking lots and such.
The Original Zuma Lifeguard Hdqts.
Now back to the story. I parked my car (a nifty 1948, white convertible Ford V8) behind the tower which was just down the beach from where Trancas Creek meets the Pacific Ocean, and a few hundred yards north of my beach home. I opened the tower and did the usual: put up the flag, swept the tower, washed the windows, and put out the equipment. There was no one on the beach or near the water so I called back to headquarters to inform them it was workout time. I planned to swim some distance down the beach and then run back to the tower in the soft sand, the usual. I wore my diving mask for the swim because the water in those days at Zuma was crystal clear (and often still is) and I liked to check on the number of slumbering halibut I would encounter below me to keep them in mind for a future spear fishing episode. I also took note of the other edible fish and the plentiful beds of giant Pismo clams that were everywhere at that end of the beach in those days. What I wasn’t expecting to see was a lobster. The nearest rocky bottom that lobsters would frequent, and where we did our abalone and “bug” diving, was a mile north at Trancas Point. And to the south it was another mile or so to the rocky bottom at Point Dume. I was in quite shallow water with almost no surf that day to rile the visibility. I didn’t know why he was there but he was a nice legal size lobster so I grabbed him with my hands, trying not to get cut by his spikes, and proceeded shoreward to throw him up on the beach for retrieval on my run back to the tower. Resuming my swim, I immediately came upon another lobster, and ahead of him another, and I suddenly realized that there was a whole line of lobsters ahead of me bunched together as far as I could see under water. They were everywhere, and almost in single file heading south, dozens and dozens and dozens of them. It was perplexing to say the least but what was a fellow to do but make the most of the situation. I swam along above them, picked out a large one here and there, and then cast them up on the beach for harvesting on my run back to the tower. I don’t know how long the lobster line continued; it seemed to go on forever but my workout swim was now over and I figured a dozen lobsters on the beach was plenty for now. My house was near the end of my swim so I ran there, picked up my lobster bag and hurried back to pick up my plunder. I had a very large freezer at my house for just such sea life occasions as this, and after work and boiling a lot of water that’s where these fellows would end up. There was still no one on the beach to witness this phenomenon.
My Zuma House, 1952
Lobsters live in, around and under rocks and pilings. They don’t do a whole lot during the daytime but they do get active at night. So what were these lobsters doing in broad daylight on a sandy bottom far from home? Just out for a three mile stroll? Most of the divers and lifeguards I talked to had no idea, had never seen such a thing. They probably thought I made the whole thing up anyway, since later that day, on an afternoon swim, there was not a lobster to be seen. But in speaking to experts later, who knew much more about the life of lobsters than I did, I learned that it is not uncommon at all, and that lobsters do migrate from time to time for one reason or another, often going to safer water. But usually the journey is at night, and they sometimes travel far greater distances than my caravan on its little three or four mile hike. The process has also now been filmed.
Lobster March, photo source: webshots
I had done a lot of diving before and a lot since this march of the lobsters at Zuma Beach sixty years ago but I have never seen a mass migration of this magnitude again. What I can say about it is that this was the easiest bug diving I have ever encountered; couldn’t have been easier unless they just left the water and walked up to my house. The aftermath was that these lobsters were greatly appreciated by family and friends for many a tasty dinner.
All photos unless noted are courtesy of the Cal Porter collection.
Submitted By Cal Porter on March 22 , 2010
© Cal Porter 2010, all rights reserved
Comments (0)
Lifeguards
THE RACE
After working many years and many beaches as a Los Angeles City and County Lifeguard, in 1946 I was assigned to State Beach at Santa Monica Canyon.
State Beach lifeguard crew 1946. Cal 5th from left.
This is where the road branches off from Pacific Coast Highway and heads up the hill from the beach to the town of Pacific Palisades. The lifeguards at state beach had two swimming workout courses laid out, a short course and a long course. The short course covered the distance from the lifeguard station south to the Santa Monica Swimming Club and back, a distance of perhaps 400 yards.
Photo source: www.lapl.org. CA Incline upper center left.
The long course started about three quarters of a mile north of the station and consisted of swimming that distance back to the station. I was introduced to the lifeguard who had never been bested on this long course and had worked this area for many years. It was soon proposed that the two of us have a swim-off since I had arrived with something of a minor reputation. The jeep transported us to the starting point the very next morning. The course started just north of the old Long Wharf that had been built in 1893 and was The Port of Los Angeles until San Pedro was later selected as a better location. The Long Wharf was the longest pier in the world and had tracks for a train to run to its end. It had been torn down many years before our swim and only some submerged pilings remained. On the rocky site where the entrance to this pier once stood there was now a building containing a cafeteria type restaurant and a bath house with rentals and changing rooms.
Photo source: www.lapl.org
A lighthouse also remained on the rocky promontory which had been converted to a lifeguard headquarters. This lighthouse was dismantled in 1972 with the intent of reassembling it on the campus of Pepperdine University in the beach town of Malibu. This plan never came to fruition. All else on the site was torn down many years ago. A modern lifeguard station is on the site today with only the rocky base as a reminder of what once was there. The television show Baywatch was filmed there for many years. The earthen berm that bordered the highway and sloped down to the beach has been replaced by a massive asphalt parking lot.
Our swim commenced at this point unaccompanied by fanfare, paddleboard escorts or boats, just a friendly workout. We rounded the rocky promontory with the lighthouse and headed south, three fourths of a mile of swimming ahead of us. We passed over what were at that time great diving reefs (now covered with sand), with crystal clear water beneath us and the surf breaking inshore to our left. We reached our destination in good time with a large crowd of two or three people there to greet us. Since I reached the finish line some twenty-five yards or so ahead of my friend I was declared the new king of the long course. The media was not alerted. My reign was short-lived anyway when the following year a fast, young college swimmer took me apart.
Today the Santa Monica Swimming Club, where beach volleyball got its start, is gone, torn down years ago. The excellent surfing and lobster diving is no more due to the expansion of the beach which covered the reefs with many feet of sand. The Long Wharf is a memory as is the fishing village that once existed on the beach there. But the lifeguard building at Santa Monica Canyon where I worked all those years ago is there today, mostly unchanged. And the ocean is still there, and if you have a mind to, you can still go out and swim The Long Course for a really fine workout.
Submitted By Cal Porter on June 25 , 2009
© Cal Porter 2010, all rights reserved
Comments (0)
Lifeguards
LIFEGUARD
Photo: R - L Nate Shargo, George McManus, Cal Porter leaning against a Tom Blake paddle board. Santa Monica Canyon State Beach, 1946. At the foot of PCH and Chatauqua, Pacific Palisades.
In 1909 George McManus was a gondolier on the Venice canals, rowing the tourists along the many colorful waterways that existed at that time in the heyday of the newly created beach resort of Venice, California. He was 24 years old at the time, and between that date and August of 1951, when he retired from the Los Angeles County Lifeguards at the age of 66, he led a colorful and exciting life.
He also became a lifeguard in 1909 for the Venice Salt Water Plunge, guarding not only the pool but the ocean beach in front of the swimming pool. There were no other lifeguards along the sands in those days so the swimmers gathered in front of the plunges that dotted the Southern California coastline. Mac recalled that there weren’t as many swimmers then as now but there were a high number of rescues due to the greater majority of poor swimmers, if they could swim at all.
In the off season, Mac worked as a fireman but was always within earshot of a loud, shrill whistle that was placed above the pier, and when sounded meant trouble at the beach and lifeguards needed. Since he lived in a hotel room one block from the beach, he was often contacted there to effect a rescue. He lived in that room from 1909 until he died, over 50 years later. The building is still there.
Mac often retold the story of the Great Venice Pier Fire of 1921 when the flames were extinguished by pumping the water out of the Venice Plunge. And then there was the Ocean Park Pier fire of 1914 with the Metropole Hotel collapsing completely seconds after Mac had descended from its rooftop where he had fought the fire for hours.
Probably the most dramatic water rescue of Mac’s long career occurred during the
San Gabriel Flood of 1911, at which time he and a fellow lifeguard saved a family of three, stranded when their house was engulfed by the torrent. Mac was rushed to the scene by the sheriff’s department and made the rescue in a skiff, ending up a mile down the river.
Mac knew and swam with all the great watermen down through the years, including movie Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, Olympic swimmer and the movie’s Buck Rogers, Buster Crabbe, and Duke Kahanamoku from Hawaii. For a time he was in great demand at the studios due to his knowledge of boat handling, and appeared in many feature films.
Mac worked most of the Southern California beaches from Redondo to Zuma in Malibu, and was known by all for his know-how in all phases of water work. He closed out his career in charge of the Zuma Beach station, and was with the LA County Lifeguards since the day the organization was created. Mac spent 42 years as a lifeguard; he won’t be forgotten.
Submitted By Cal Porter on June 24 , 2008
© Cal Porter 2010, all rights reserved
Comments (1)
Lifeguards
Swimming, the Early Days
There were no lifeguards along the beaches of Playa del Rey when I was growing up there as a child. The ocean was often rough, with huge waves breaking far out, and strong currents pulling hard from shallow water out to sea. You were on your own or depended on those watching you if you got into trouble and couldn’t make it back to shore. My mother worried a lot since she couldn’t swim. The first lifeguards, in their red trunks, arrived in the late 1920’s and sat in small, wooden, open towers where they watched for signs of swimmers in distress. I immediately decided that I would be one of them when I grew up.
On the east coast in the 1700’s, where there were few swimmers ever venturing into the water, dories were sometimes launched to rescue shipwreck victims from drowning. These men could be called the first lifeguards. It wasn’t until the late 1800’s that ocean swimming began to be thought of as a form of recreation. In the early 1900’s, with beach towns, amusement zones and long piers springing up along the coast of California, ocean bathing became a popular pastime thereby creating a problem. With no lifeguards in those days, 18 swimmers drowned over one weekend in Newport Beach. In 1918, 13 people drowned in one day in San Diego. Volunteer lifesaving groups were formed in the towns of Redondo, Venice and Santa Monica, which helped at times when they were available. Paid lifeguards who worked in the saltwater plunges along the beach were oftentimes called upon to leave their indoor posts and effect ocean rescues when they were informed that someone was drowning and needed help. On some beaches they were summoned by the sound of a large gong being struck by a spectator to the problem. Floating lifelines, that stretched far out into the ocean from the beach were placed at intervals, which made matters even worse when poor swimmers would venture too far out, lose their grip on the line and find themselves in deep-water trouble. Something had to be done.
The first professional, paid lifesaving force in California was established in Long Beach in 1908 with one lifeguard. It quickly expanded in ensuing years. The other beach towns of Los Angeles County from Redondo to Santa Monica did not form lifeguard services until the mid 1920’s. These early lifeguards had little training but were good swimmers and did an excellent job under the circumstances and with primitive equipment.
Today The Los Angeles County Lifeguard Service is the largest, best equipped and trained lifeguard force in the world, with more than 700 lifeguards and a dozen Baywatch rescue boats protecting 72 miles of beaches. More than 10,000 ocean rescues are performed each year out of the millions of swimmers, surfers, divers and sailors that enter the ocean from San Pedro to Ventura County. A drowning is a very rare occurrence. How times have changed from the time I was a kid swimming in unprotected waters to what we have today.
Submitted By Cal Porter on June 03 , 2008
© Cal Porter 2010, all rights reserved
Comments (1)