Dad and Mom met at East High in Wichita, Kansas, married in 1935. Dad built and flew small airplanes; Mom was a Wing Walker in several air shows. We lived on a small farm (40-60 acres, alfalfa and wheat) outside Valley Center, Kansas, population about 800. Dad commuted to the post office in Wichita until he was drafted in 1939 and sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to build airplanes for Douglas Aircraft during WWII.

 

Dad and Mom’s high school friends, Verne and Virginia Watson, started a business in CdM, and my parents came to visit. They decided to move here as someone told them my asthma would clear up—and they loved this area. Family and friends had a party (a “wake” really) in Valley Center to wish us luck and hoped we weren’t killed by the earthquakes—a friend told me he knew a boy who fell in a crack in the ground and was never heard of again.

 

It was 1948. Dad came to CdM first to work for Verne and run the Post Office (where the Corona del Mar flower shop at Marguerite on PCH is now), while Virginia and Verne ran “Virginia’s Snip and Stitch” across the street (in the block where BofA is now). The very old postmaster, Mr. Harry King, soon retired, and Vern and then Dad became postmaster.

 

Mom and I came in 1950. Our first home was above China Cove. My first beach had a Chinese Pagoda on one end and a castle building (Kerckhoff Lab) on the other! I told my friends in Kansas—they couldn’t believe me!

 

I had discovered the Kerckhoff Lab. A friend and I went down on a day the lab boat returned. The people sorting out the “catch” didn’t mind two very curious boys delighted by what we saw! I had never seen the Pacific Ocean and all its “creatures” that were revealed on the long aluminum sorting tray: kelp, seaweed, cucumbers (to eat? no.), sea urchins (ouch!), octopi of different colors, squid, starfish (which didn’t swim), snails, and many other slimy, colorful things. (Wow, I wasn’t sure I would ever go swimming in this ocean!) Kerckhoff Lab was my own private jewel. I sent pictures to friends in Kansas—most of whom didn’t believe the pictures, let alone that I’d touched and held these prizes.

 

I was to be in the 5th grade, but Ensign School was not complete yet. The only elementary was Newport Beach Grammar on the peninsula. I took pictures of the playground (the beach), and then turned and took pictures of snow-covered Mt. San Gorgonio—sent them to friends in Valley Center. They wanted to move in with me (since I wasn’t dead from earthquakes yet)!

 

Ensign School opened about 6 months after we moved here. I met friends in CdM, loved the woodshop, played saxophone, and tried out for sports. Then to Harbor High where kids were impressed because I had already had a Kansas driver’s license at about age 13—for farm trucks and equipment. (Dad had made wood blocks so I could reach the pedals.)

 

I held several jobs my first years here, including making sno-cones, renting umbrellas and beach chairs on Big Corona, and working at Kay Finch Ceramics Studios brushing and feeding her Afghan hounds. For fun, we surfed Little Corona and in front of Blackies.

 

CdM at that time was somewhat sparsely populated. There were lots in almost every block that were still sand. It was truly a village where pretty much everyone knew each other. —Walt