FOREVER SUMMER

A young designer in 1964, John Van Hamersveld got it exactly right. Then and now, his poster image for the now classic movie perfectly reflects the beach culture.

photo published by the Orange County Register

Three generations of my family lived that life in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. My father says his favorite time of childhood was learning to snorkel and body surf in Laguna Beach with his big brother.

My older brother and sister were beach babies from the beginning.

Grandpa ran a beach concession at 18th Street along Newport bay.

Grandpa in the captain's hat, center

We lived up in the heights, overlooking the bay and the Newport peninsula.

On clear days in Newport, Catalina Island rose clearly from the Pacific.

The Upper Newport Bay (the Back Bay) cliffs and tideland marshes made for great exploring.

by Cindy Carrillo of Arizona

We could jump off the docks of the bay and swim in and around the boats.

by Catherine Dzialo-Haller of Southern California

The fish were plentiful then.

by Elizabeth Blaylock of Alabama

Dad bought a little Sabot sailboat, and he, my mom, and I squeezed into it with a picnic lunch packed, and spent leisurely afternoons sailing around the bay.

My brother took up surfing, towing his board on a rack he built for his bike, pedaling across the Arches bridge and on down the Peninsula.

by Kevin Short of San Juan Capistrano

Then and now was the little car ferry that went from Balboa Island to the Peninsula where the Fun Zone was.

by Frank Dalton of Southern California

By Karen Werner of Southern California

Perfect for long walks or bicycling, sidewalks run along the oceanfront the length of Newport's beaches.

My sister is a regular walker of the perimeter of Balboa Island.

by Stephen Parker of Texas

by Michele Byrne

At Laguna's Crescent Bay, my father taught me to snorkel. One summer he and his buddies and wives and kids would go there nearly every weekend for scuba diving. While the guys were diving, the kids were hunting around the tide pools, and the wives sunned on the beach and chatted.

by Justin Clayton

A walk along Laguna's Main Beach was always an interesting experience. Laguna has always been a magnet for the creative and the eccentric.

by Elaine Hughes of Laguna Beach

Or just a day of lazing around the water and the beach was just wonderful. We'd come home tired and burned.

by Ann Sullivan of Florida

by Nicole White Kennedy of North Carolina

by Nancy Colella of Massachusetts

Down by the Balboa jetty is a surf spot called The Wedge, where the waves can grow unusually large, and break almost right onto the sand. Not for the faint of heart.

by Hannah Vokey

The Newport pier and the old downtown nearby were the stomping grounds of my grandparents, parents, and siblings. 

by Steve Simon of Newport Beach

photo by Larry Vogel

As a teenager, my brother spent some time employed at this landmark restaurant.

by Amanda Fish of Southern California

This spot is the true old soul of Newport.

by Tom Brown of Southern California

No matter what our ages, or where we roam, we will always be those beach kids.

TURNING POINTS

    With the recent 70th anniversary and remembrances of the D-Day invasion of World War II, I was also thinking about my grandfather who fought in the First World War. I recently obtained a photo of him in his Army uniform. I also pulled out a yellowed newspaper clipping of his obituary, which I hadn't read in a long time. The article recalled that my grandfather was the only survivor of his machine gun battery.

    The only survivor. I suddenly realized that if he hadn't survived that battle in France, my mother would not have been born, nor would I have.

Mom on left

    Points in time that turn the stream of existence or of the psyche one way or the other. I began listing those global moments during my lifetime that are indelible.

    The first of these that I can remember is the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. Being 10 years old, I had never imagined a bombing threat to the U.S. or to California, but our grade school teachers were giving us instructions on what to do if a nuclear blast coming from Los Angeles hit our school. The grocery store shelves became barren as our mothers all rushed to fashion bomb shelter areas in our homes. Because of this experience I had occasional but recurring nuclear attack dreams until I was around 30 years old.

    Then a little more than one year later, again in our grade school classroom, our teacher pulled a big lumbering TV cart to the front of the classroom and turned it on for our twice a week Spanish lesson. Instead we got the news that the president had been shot and killed. I remember thinking that things like that were not supposed to happen in the United States.

    But the next thing we knew, the British came along to lighten our spirits. In 1964 I begged my parents to get us home in time to see that first appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, even though I had no idea what I would be seeing or hearing. I became a lifelong fan. Thank goodness for them and all the other music groups that came along and were inspired by the creativity and success of the Beatles.

by Tad Grabnik 

    Year by year the U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia became bigger and uglier. Not being a fully formed individual yet, I had a hard time knowing what to think or feel about it. That is, until just before my high school graduation, in May of 1970. Four student anti-war protesters were shot and killed by National Guardsmen on the Kent State college campus. Rip. That was it. Our generation versus their generation. Completely torn apart.

moments before

    So we all do some growing up and years go by. Then the fantasies of our youth are suddenly demolished when a madman kills our icon, John Lennon. Dead. Gone forever. No more. We are all kicked in the gut.

earlier that day, by Annie Liebovitz

    Years and years, many events, life evolves. I turn on the TV one morning as my son is getting ready for school, and I see both World Trade Center buildings with copious amounts of smoke billowing up from them. We figure out what was happening, and as we sit on our couch mesmerized, the first building goes down. In horror we realize that we have just seen thousands of people die.

by Amy Sancetta

    I used to watch the TV series "24" with much enthusiasm, and I used to think to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if the United States would elect a black president, like President Palmer?" I didn't see it coming though. I didn't have faith that the American people would really elect Barack Obama, especially with that funny name. But I cried like a baby when he and his family walked out on that stage on election night.

by Patty Vicknair

    My family and I speculated for years about how American families were making it. It seemed that it was a must that both members of a couple had to have a good job, and people were taking out huge mortgages for ever more expensive houses. And they were leveraging out any gains they made on the value of these homes. I remember saying that a lot of people were making a big bet that nothing was going to go wrong. No one would get sick. No one would lose their job. Well the greedies knocked down the house of cards, and I think just about everyone has paid one way or the other. And we're mad as hell. Still.

    The combination of the rise of technology and the fear of Obamacare has turned my own life around. The department I worked in for many, many years was eliminated because much of our work was now being done by physicians at computers. Add to that the fear of the coming Obamacare that our organization had, and we were goners. The irony is that now I am being taken care of by Obamacare.

    These turning points in our lives, sometimes there are hints that they are coming, sometimes they arrive like the blow of a sledgehammer. The road turns and we must travel around the bend.

THE ART OF BEING HUMAN

    Just as I think that the artistic experience should be primarily between the viewer and the art piece, I also believe that the purest relationship in poetry is between the reader and the printed words. Therefore I am not a fan of poetry jams and readings. The whole dynamic of poetry is changed when a person stands and reads the words out loud. Not my cup of tea, with one exception: Maya Angelou.

Maya mural

    One can talk about the fascinating story of her life. But what won me over was when she read her poem, On the Pulse of Morning, at the Clinton inaugural in 1993. I was completely mesmerized and deeply moved by both the beauty of the words and her presentation of them.

    Stanza nine of that poem:

Each of you, descendant of some passed

On traveler, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you,

Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you

Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then

Forced on bloody feet,

Left me to the employment of 

Other seekers -- desperate for gain,

Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot,

You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought,

Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare

Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am that Tree planted by the River,

Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree

I am yours -- your passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain

Cannot be unlived, but if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.

    With her recent passing, many video clips were shown of Ms. Angelou, and in many of them she was talking about what it is to be human. She reflected our journey on this planet back for us all to ponder.

    Some painted musings on the human condition:

by Winslow Homer

self portrait by Mary Cassatt

by Charles Sprague Pierce

by Edward Hopper

by Edward Hopper

by John Wehrle

by Michelle Irwin of Sonoma Coast

by Jason Avery Kelch of Santa Rosa

by James Bama

by Marylu Downing of Sebastopol

by Mylette Welch of Sonoma County

by Jerry Ballaine of Sebastopol

by Jennie Philpott of Canada

by Rebecca Love of Sonoma County