The running man...: The Wild West 1968

the artful car dodgers

The Long Beach Arena - Long Beach, CA

The Wild West - the Western U.S. in its frontier period (1865 - forever) characterized by roughness and lawlessness.

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Mid-70's Southern California; home of grasshopper-shaped oil derricks and the monthly smog alert. It was a period in time when Godzilla was king and Richard Pryor was on his third marriage. This is where my young friends and I pushed the limits of our possibilities. Our territory was defined by the Pacific and the surrounding mountains; Southern California, cradle of civilization.

Continued...

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The Southland

Home to fair weather, pristine beaches,
and the daily police helicopter chase.

Muriel Avenue, Compton, CA - (1974)
My cousins, my brother (left) and I (left rear)

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Stepfather 1.0 AKA "Mr. Rex" and my mother - (1973)
My stepfather was a hardworking man who'd moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma some years ago to seek his fortune. He worked in the insurance industry for many years until, eventually, starting his own insurance franchise. I recall, he was a real stickler about making my younger brother and I work in the back yard until everything was absolutely perfect.
"When you're done, I don't want to see one damn apricot on the ground!"

Me, my mother, and youngest brother - (1976)

Fast, shiny things...

.Locals always take things to the extremes..

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Los Angeles, California; a place where mechanical ingenuity thrives. Classic car restorers, surfers, and speed freaks inhabit the local neighborhoods. I spent thirteen impressionable years living here (Carson, Compton, Cypress, and Long Beach) so I was exposed to a little bit of everything. Naturally, I was affected by some of what I saw and motivated to partake. I was young, so I had to start out small; from my junior high school years onward I progressed from being my neighborhood's Tyco slot car champ to building custom Schwinns. My bicycle doubled as my prized boyhood possession and personal transportation. Aside from my slot car hobby, I'd never been exposed to real racing cars so I never had any interest; until I heard those screaming Formula One engines, that is.

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The Grand Prix...
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Every spring, since 1975, the streets of downtown Long Beach have been cordoned off and transformed into a road racing circuit; the name of the race has evolved over the years but it's basically known as the Long Beach Grand Prix. For the entire weekend, from dawn to dusk, local residents endure a marathon of screaming engines. Sundays are the main event when the open wheeled classes (Formula One, Indy, and CART) driven by the big names take to the streets.

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Spring 1978 - I was in the ninth grade when I landed a part-time job at the Long Beach Arena; I worked Disney on ice, the Ice follies, and some other minor events but the Grand Prix is what got my attention. My friends and I had always wanted to attend a race but the tickets were way beyond our means. The average Grand Prix fan was a middle aged tequila drinker with a golf club membership and a mortgage; we were 13 and 14 year-olds who barely had bus fare.

On the weekend of the race I'd been scheduled to work Saturday and was assigned to the ground floor interior concession stand. Luckily, the ground floor also served as the prep area for the racing teams so I could see the cars and everything up close; it was a gear head's paradise.

Formula One cars inside the arena

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The cool guy

My job was to sell hot dogs, popcorn, and soft drinks; we didn't have cash registers so we had to calculate our customer's change in our heads. The constant smell of hot dogs and counting money combined to make me sick. Because of our location most of our customers were affiliated with the racing teams. Though ignorant of auto racing at the time, I appreciated and understood the cars. I remember selling a hot dog to some guy in a red racing suit and wondering why he seemed so much cooler than everyone.
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Afternoon adventure...

Just another day at the races

The siren's call of Formula One engines was too much to ignore, even on a day off; emboldened by having one of our very own (me) come in close contact with the racing cars, my friends and I pooled our limited brain resources and hatched a plan. The Grand Prix, with its fortress of concrete barriers, roadblocks, and part-time security, would be breached on Sunday; it was a recipe for an afternoon of knucklehead adventure.

Inspiration

The THUMS Islands
off the coast of downtown Long Beach

Early Sunday, four junior high friends and I took a bus to the downtown area. Though short on details, our mission for the day was to go where the action was and experience the Grand Prix from up close. The only thing we were certain of was, other than bus fare, all we had in our pockets was candy money. When we arrived downtown the race hadn't started yet so we wandered the course to see where we might be able to gain access. From high ground, we determined the entire track was impregnable; although, it seemed it was accessible from the harbor. That's when the wheels in our little heads started turning.

After some further reconnaissance, we noticed a peninsula protruding from north of us about a hundred yards or so from shore. We figured, if we could, somehow, cross the harbor from the peninsula all that would remain between us and gaining access to the race would be a waist high concrete barrier and the fat security guys would never expect an amphibious beach landing. Crossing the harbor seemed possible but we didn't have a boat and swimming that distance was out of the question. Necessity being the mother of mischief, we scouted towards the end of the peninsula hoping to find something we could use. Once we arrived at the end of the peninsula we discovered some old railroad ties lying about; they were extremely heavy but since they were wooden we assumed they would float.

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Like miniature pallbearers, we lugged the cumbersome ties onto a nearby pier and shoved them into the harbor; the ties weighed about two-hundred pounds each and some of them were covered with a sticky tar like substance which stained our clothes. With a railroad tie per person we straddled them and started paddling for the opposite shore.

Our five strong armada struggled in the water that afternoon; it turned out, the wooden ties were barely buoyant and sitting upright on them was nearly impossible because they lacked a keel. We spent most of our time in the harbor floundering within twenty yards of where we started. As our paddling techniques evolved our speed increased; a hybrid butterfly breaststroke while lying lengthwise on the ties seemed to work best. We maintained our balance by spreading our legs out like outriggers.

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.The Vitruvian breaststroke

As we approached the mid-point of our crossing I glanced into the depths of the harbor and was shocked to discover, I couldn't see the bottom. I was an average swimmer but, for me, being unable to see the bottom indicated the potential for an endless descent into darkness; it had never occurred to us that drowning was a possibility.

After forty-five minutes of imaginary sharks and repentant prayer, we finally arrived at the opposite shore. So there we were; five exhausted and wet knuckleheads, hunkered down like commandos on a beachhead. Kevin B. was hungry, Kenny H. had lost a shoe, and Maurice V. wanted to call the quits. Despite our low morale we had no choice but to soldier on because we were trapped in no man's land between the harbor and the race track.

Our final death defying act of stupidity that afternoon was a group dash across the track during the race. We figured we could cross during traffic intervals since we could easily hear the wail of the engines as they approached. We didn't realize Formula One cars were capable of covering the distance between the chicane and where we planned to cross in seconds; as kids, we had no reference for anything that could cover ground that fast. Then, later, when the sounds of the racing engines were at their faintest and, seemingly, furthest we sprinted across the track; we crossed in plain sight just west of the grandstands on Shoreline Drive so its likely most of the spectators were looking the opposite direction anticipating the cars exiting the chicane. Once we crossed the track we vanished into the crowd.

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The Long Beach Arena

is the round structure in the middle

The narrow beach is to the right of the straightaway, on the
upper left, and the peninsula is in the harbor to the right

My buddies and I’s adventure evolved in unexpected ways that day; the amphibious landing and car dodging were top shelf in terms of stupidity. That's what often happens with kids; they start with good intentions and the next thing you know they're flirting with death. We sensed danger but the evolving situation egged us on. We spent so much time and energy trying to gain access to the track we forgot about watching the race; at least we lived to tell the tale.

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Gladiator 101 (1974 -1978)

choosing a weapon & entering the arena
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1970's Southern California; home of parched football fields and weekend swap meets. Skateboarding was in its infancy and BMX was all the rage. This is the time and place I was first exposed to organized sports. How does a young knucklehead go about choosing a sport? He just does what all the other kids are doing; everything.

The first organized sport I ever tried was soccer; I joined one of the local AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) teams in Cypress at the urging of my friends. Though new to the game, I started at midfielder. One of my teammates, D. Belshe, was a star in the league as well as a good friend. We went undefeated that year (1974); my instinct was to run fast and collide with others so I got penalized a lot. The officials just kept raising colored cards at me whenever I started to play hard. I also remember trying a header in my first game and nearly knocking myself out.

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The second sport I tried was track as a sixth grader at Christine Swain Elementary School in Cypress. I ran both the 50 and the 100-yard dash and was considered fast. My only significant track memory is wearing plaid slacks and Chuck Taylors in the Cypress Junior Olympics because I forgot my track uniform and my spikes. That day, while running the 100-yard dash, I slipped and fell out the starting blocks; then, I got up and finished second out of six runners. I hated training for track because it was too difficult and boring for my adolescent mind to comprehend; those days, I didn't understand the importance of preparation.
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In 1975 my family and I moved from Cypress to West Long Beach were I continued to run track at Bancroft Junior High. I never really understood out how to train properly for sprints. Once, I got tired running the 100-yard dash at practice; I finished the last 20 yards at a fast jog. My teammates joked the "invisible gorilla" had jumped on my back. It was rare for invisible gorillas to attack sprinters; they typically go after runners in the longer events like the 220 or the 440.
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Lessons learned from track...

Beware of invisible gorillas

Invisible gorillas often target middle and long distance runners at track meets. They typically ambush their victims by hiding in shrubbery, or tall grass, and jumping on the unsuspecting victim's back as they approach the finish line. The tell-tale signs of invisible gorilla attack are a complete loss of running form and wobbly legs.

Chuck Taylors

Not good for sprints

When you forget your track uniform
you run with what you have

Most kids in my neighborhood were ultra-competitive and all around athletes. Prior to discovering organized football my friends and I spent a lot of time on the neighborhood basketball courts. At one point, we all joined one of the local YMCA teams in Long Beach ("The YBA, where everybody plays") where we discovered organized basketball lacked the excitement of street ball. Naturally, I was given the nick name "hack master" because of the tenacious defense I played. Tellingly, I fouled out of my first game in ten minutes. My stint in the YBA only lasted three weeks..

As for baseball, I endured one lackluster season with the Cardinals of the Long Beach Pony League and never found my groove. Nothing about baseball appealed to me; the pace, the uniforms, nothing. Collisions while running the bases were all I had to look forward to. The coup de grace for my brief baseball adventure was my error in the championship game against the Long Beach Mets. I cracked under pressure; all I had to do for the win was field a lukewarm grounder at second base and throw the runner out at first. I bobbled the grounder, not once, but twice. The batter got on base and the winning run scored. I walked home alone, straight through the outfield and down the railroad tracks, and I never picked up a bat or glove again.

I had a brief foray into wrestling my sophomore year at Lakewood High School; my motivation for wrestling was simply to avoid the sadistic off season training regimen Lakewood's football team was notorious for. It was the bleacher work and conditioning in particular I sought to avoid. Going from football to wrestling to avoid difficult training turned out to be a mistake and a blessing.

The unforeseen irony of wrestling was, it helped me find my groove in the weight room. At Lakewood, wrestlers trained hard and I had no choice but to partake. Initially, as a sophomore, I weighed a lean 120 pounds but after a few months of training with other wrestlers my bench press increased to 280 pounds, well over double my body weight. More importantly, I'd become acclimated to training in a hot, dojo-like, environment. I recall being envious of my training partner, Donny H., because he busted a blood vessel in his eye during one of our intense weightlifting sessions; somehow, I thought his red eye was a badge of honor.

The best part of wrestling was the cool shoes

The temple

It was prior to the basketball, baseball, and wrestling experiments that my neighborhood pals and I made our way over to Admiral Kidd Park in West Long Beach. There, we found the sport that suited us perfectly; football.

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Super Mario

neighborhood hero

1975 - Every neighborhood has a hero; someone who reigns supreme above all athletically. He's a cheetah on the gridiron and on the basketball court he soars to the rim. Yeah, he's older than most of us; but he's the only one with biceps and pecs so he gets a pass. Even his afro is perfect; he is local playground and sandlot superstar, Mario B.

The Bad News Bears (1976 - 1977)

when just showing-up is a win

The Long Beach Bears of Admiral Kidd Park, West Long Beach, CA (Midget Division, 105 - 160 pounds) - Southern California Pop Warner football with all the trimmings; Saturday mornings, Chili Fritos, and the rhythmic stomping of dusty cheerleaders.
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My friends and I were playing tackle football with no equipment the day we noticed a kid wearing a football uniform cycling past the field we were playing on; the kid was wearing a yellow jersey over shoulder pads and he had a yellow football helmet dangling from his handlebars. Immediately, we stopped our game and ran him down. During the ensuing interrogation the kid told us there was a Pop Warner team practicing at Admiral Kidd Park and if we wanted to join we had to go there to get the applications. My friends and I had never heard of such a thing. Who was Pop Warner? We bolted home to get our bicycles so we could investigate.
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By nightfall I'd secured a football application and had begun the, all-important, sales pitch to my mother requesting her signature and the thirty dollar fee. As a master of persuasion I promised my mother the moon; recognizing a deal she succumbed. I haven't been the same since.

My very first organized football practice the coaches turned us all loose to see who could do what. On offense, I ran through, over, and around the other kids. The coaches were amazed at my aggression. On defense, I experienced great joy tracking down and hitting ball carriers, and we weren't even in pads. When we finally received our equipment I was in heaven. The helmets were from the late 60's early 70's era because in our neighborhood most Pop Warner teams were low budget.

Like most kids, my teammates and I took great pride in the equipment we had, especially, regarding certain jersey numbers and the types of facemasks on our helmets; we wanted to emulate everything the best pros at the positions we played were doing. The very first facemask I had was a white two bar like the one Gale Sayers wore; which, oddly, I didn't care for. My second season, I had a “U bar” facemask that I liked much better than the previous one. As a ritual, the night before a game, I'd clean my helmet inside and out. I was careful not to remove the colorful "stick marks" from the crown; to me, they were trophies of the hunt.

My first year, (1976) I beat out all challengers for the honor of wearing the coveted number thirty-two (32) jersey ("the Juice's" number when it was still fashionable). By the second season, my number thirty-two jersey was torn to shreds and I had to wear seventeen (17). On offense, I played tailback and wide receiver. On defense, I played safety and cornerback. We lost most of our games but we showed-up every week because we liked to hit and get stick marks on our helmets. I was voted MVP my very first year; although, I can't remember scoring. My specialty was running kids down and laying the wood.
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Long Beach Bears (#17)

Those days, as you can see, my football jersey

was my favorite shirt

Chili fries

After finishing our game we'd go up in the stands

and feast on these and watch the other teams play.

MVP (1976)

Banning HS Field - Wilmington
I spent many Saturday afternoons here

Wilson HS Field - Long Beach
...and here

A football coach was the first adult, other than my parents, I willingly spent time around; my first football coach's name was Nelson. Nelson was a good guy but, at times, was over-whelmed by my teammate's and I's behavior; he also had a stuttering problem that seemed to flare up whenever he got angry. The best part of playing for the Bears was intentionally making the coach angry just so we could hear him stutter. Despite our rascally behavior, he dutifully chauffeured us to all of our games in his old pick-up truck with the missing floorboards.

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We Bears played against teams from local municipalities such as Hawthorne, Lakewood (Rebels), Inglewood (Sentinels), Carson (Colts), Gardena (Stars), San Pedro (Dolphins), Lomita (Trojans), Compton, Lawndale (Bucs), Wilmington (Pilots), and numerous North Long Beach teams. In the mid 70's the ethnic composition of those teams varied, which, at times resulted in additional subplots on game day; nothing serious, just the ever present pockets of knuckleheads, on both teams, woofing at each other between plays. Because of California's mandatory integration policy many of the Bears players (myself included) were getting bused to the same schools our opponents attended. Despite coming from different cultural backgrounds, kids were being familiarized with one another through competing in football.

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We played Pop Warner teams from these municipalities

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.Old rivals, still going at it...
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Inglewood Sentinels vs Carson Colts (13 and under)

Long Beach Patriots vs South Bay Gauchos (14 and under)
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South Bay Whitehouse vs Wilmington Pilots (12 and under)

My teammates and I lived for game days and the "butterflies" would start fluttering at the pre-game weigh in. As a little guy, I was always anxious about making the minimum weight (105 pounds) so before weigh-in I always ate bananas and drank lots of water. Weigh-ins were always done without pads; although, our opponents, Compton teams in particular, would seem to morph into grown men after suiting-up. They'd look scrawny like us before weigh in; then, they'd go behind a wall and return bigger and muscle bound in full gear. Oddly, they never seemed to take their helmets off after weigh-in either. I still don't understand how a kid playing Midget Class Pop Warner football can have a beard and fully developed biceps.

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We Bears were basically a bunch of knuckleheads in matching uniforms with zero discipline. With us, it was the big play, or nothing, on both sides of the ball. On defense, we were on the field hunting for knock outs. On offense, our quarterback, T. Broussard, drew plays in the dirt, and he got mad when they didn't work, so he was always mad. The sustained offensive drive wasn’t in our vocabulary. By mid fourth quarter, a point by which our lowly status in the food chain of organized sports had been established, it became dangerous for our opponents; for my teammates and I it was hammer time. We figured since we were losing we might as well get some good licks in. The one thing we did well was "lay the wood" on our opponents.

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On the homeward journey from games (we always played away because of a lack of a regulation football field), for kicks, we tried to put each other's equipment through the holes in the floorboards of the Coach's pick-up truck; small items like mouthpieces and ear pads were typically targeted. We thought it was hilarious when somebody's mouthpiece bounced high in the air after hitting the highway at 70 miles per hour. Once, L. Coley tossed one of Kevin H's football cleats on the 405 freeway while returning from San Pedro; we cackled with laughter as Kevin's shoe bounced off a Ford Pinto and disappeared beneath the wheels of an 18-wheeler.

Nelson's pickup had a sophisticated communication system

He'd bang his fist on the cab's glass and yell…
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."sit your little a$$es down before I put you out!!"

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Nothing's funnier to a group of 13-year old knuckleheads

than watching a teammate's shoe disappear under an eighteen wheeler

Coley was always up to no good, jamming opponent's mouthpieces into their noses at the bottom of pile-ups. Coach Nelson would often threaten to take our jerseys from us as a kind of punishment; Coley was often his target. A typical threat from Coach Nelson went like this: “C, C, C, Coley!! Gi, Gi, Gi, Gimme ya (your) juh, juh, juh, juhsey (jersey)!!” Coley would always laughingly skip away. He'd continue his violent behavior as a defensive end for football powerhouse Long Beach Poly.
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Our quarterback, T. Broussard, he of the eternal scowl, would take off and run at the slightest hint of pocket pressure real or imagined. As a long running joke Broussard would often call out his teammate’s mother’s names during his QB cadence. It would go something like this: “Down!, Set!, Betty Vines!, Vera Fields!, hut!, hut!” Both the offensive and defensive players would snicker at this while waiting for the snap. We'd even do this in games. The guys would go to extreme lengths to find out each other’s mother’s names. That’s probably why we had a 1 - 9 record. There was something very wrong with all of us.
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There was this one kid called “Tweety” who played defensive back that was built like a golf tee with broad shoulders and toothpick legs. He'd always threaten to "lay someone out" if he got the chance. Tweety often liked comparing his helmet with others' to see who had the highest quality “stick marks”; only the broadest and most colorful were deemed acceptable. An unmarked helmet and a clean uniform were considered badges of shame. Then there was the infamous Kevin H.; Kevin was to the Long Beach Bears what “Pig pen” was to Charlie Brown, the perpetually dirty one. His uniform was always dirty, even before the game started.

Inspiration

It was on this team that I first met my longtime friend and teammate Brian B.. Together we de-cleated numerous opposing ball carriers. On defense we'd divide the field in half and "walk down" anyone who tried to go the distance. Whenever we caught a ball carrier near the sideline we'd try our best to knock them under the bench. We referred to it as removing a guy from the TV screen. On defense, Brian was a nose guard and I was a safety; it was the funniest thing to see a nose guard run down a tailback in the open field. Brian and I would remain teammates throughout our time at Lakewood High School. And the only team to fall victim to that Bears team of 1976? It was the lowly San Pedro Dolphins, fittingly, the last game of the season.

Misc...

Tailback (#26) Brian B. (1980)
a former nose guard, and nationally ranked hurdler

My younger brother Alan (Circa 1976)
Finding his way on the gridiron
with the Long Beach Saints

Alan (Circa 1978)
In the "temple" with the Garnet Valley (PA) Jaguars

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Freedom...

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Mini bikes, mopeds, go karts, and motorcycles; I piloted them all at some point. Growing up in Los Angeles I didn't have a choice. Southern California is Mecca for all manner of motorized expression. Long held as a haven for gear heads, the rules are different here; after all, it's the land of the no helmet law.

My first time in the driver's seat was during an early 70's visit to Disneyland in Anaheim. The go carts there were a popular "E ticket" ride and always had a long line in front waiting for admission. I was probably 10-years old at the time and there was a minimum height requirement to drive them without an adult; I barely made the cut. It would prove be an ongoing theme for me; barely meeting requirements.

Autopia at Disneyland

Anaheim, CA

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By the late 70's I'd owned and ridden pretty much every type of non-motorized transportation there was those days. Skateboards, BMX bikes, and custom Schwinns; you name it, I owned it. As I got older my needs changed. Riding a skateboard to the corner store had become old hat and the range of a bicycle was too limited; the situation dictated it was time for an upgrade.
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By the time I reached the eighth grade I graduated from my bicycle to a moped. There'd be no more pedaling for me; from then on my satisfaction would come from a simple twist of the wrist and a newfound sense of freedom. The range of my wanderings immediately quadrupled. I spent the next few years exploring and learning to stay alive in world class traffic.
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1977 Batavus moped

My very first motorized transportation

Sadly, I lost my moped due to operator error when a knucklehead acquaintance of mine (Eric B. you still owe me a thousand bucks plus 45 years interest buddy) crashed it into a car; he wasn't hurt but my precious moped was totaled. The kid had paid me fifty cents for a five minute ride; that was a hard lesson I never forgot.

Honda CB 125 (1974 - 75)

My passport beyond the neighborhood

By the time I reached the tenth grade I'd obtained my driving permit and somehow managed to weasel a motorcycle license out of the deal. My mother kept a Honda CB 125 in the garage she'd purchased a few years back; she bought it for herself but on her first day out she popped the clutch abruptly and the motorcycle took off without her. She wasn't hurt but her apprehension about riding it afterwards was my gain. Armed with my new motorcycle license I commandeered the Honda and found myself wandering LA with my Afro in the wind; maximum speed with a passenger was sixty miles per hour and I could cruise for two days on fifty cents. The rest is history.

(2015)

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The showman...

"Kawi man" cometh

When I was in high school there was this one kid in my neighborhood that my friends and I dubbed "Kawi man" who got his kicks buzzing school buses on the 405 freeway with his motorcycle. A fastidious fellow, he'd always meticulously orchestrate his antics for maximum effect. He typically started off by riding past the bus stops in the mornings as we high school students from the area waited for our buses. His attire was always distinctive; a highly sociable chap, he'd often stop to chat.

A bit later, as our student laden caravan of school buses heads east in the morning rush of the 405 freeway, the howl of a large displacement engine at full throttle pierces the air; the effect is dramatic and students strike curious poses. Then comes the shock wave; the entire bus shudders as Kawi man blows past in the next lane, helmet-less, going a hundred and thirty miles per hour. His shirt is flailing in the wind like a cape and his only safety gear is a pair of goggles. We catch a glimpse of him, then he's gone; all that remains of our caped hero is the diminishing wail of his engine. We crane our necks in a vain attempt to see more but it's too late; he's already over the horizon. He's an idiot but we all cheer him anyway; he is Kawi man.