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-like oil derricks and the monthly smog alert. It was a period when Godzilla was king and Richard Pryor was still on his third marriage. This is the time, and place, where my young friends and I pushed the limits of 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 come 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 all day in the back yard until everything was 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; where mechanical ingenuity thrives. Classic car restorers, surfers, and speed freaks inhabit the local neighborhoods. I spent thirteen impressionable years here (Carson, Compton, Cypress, and Long Beach) so I was exposed to a bit of everything. Naturally, I was affected by some of what I saw and motivated to partake. I was young, so I started out small; from junior high onward I progressed from being the neighborhood Tyco slot car champ to building custom Schwinns. The 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 developed an 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 are cordoned off and transformed into a road racing circuit; the name of the race has evolved but it's basically known as the Long Beach Grand Prix. For a whole weekend, from dawn to dusk, Long Beach 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 really got my attention. My friends and I had always wanted to see a race but the tickets were 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 money for 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 for me, the interior ground floor happened to be 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 Formula One racing at the time, I appreciated and understood the cars. I remember selling a hot dog to some guy wearing 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 downtown. Though short on details, our mission was to go to where the action was and experience the Grand Prix 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 so we wandered the course to see where it might be possible to gain access. From high ground, we determined the course was impregnable; although, it seemed accessible from the harbor. That's when the wheels in our little heads started to turn.

After some further reconnaissance, we noticed a peninsula protruding from north of us about a hundred yards or so from the shore. We figured, if we could, somehow, cross the harbor from that peninsula all that would remain between us and gaining access to the track 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 was out of the question. Necessity being the mother of mischief, we scouted towards the tip of the peninsula hoping to find something useful. 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 water; they weighed about two-hundred pounds each and some of them were covered with a sticky tar like substance. With one railroad tie per person we straddled them and started paddling for the opposite shore.

Our five strong armada struggled mightily that afternoon; it turned out, the railroad ties were barely buoyant and sitting upright in the water was difficult because they lacked a keel. We spent most of our time in the harbor floundering in circles within twenty yards of where we started. As our paddling techniques evolved our speed increased; a hybrid butterfly-breaststroke while lying lengthwise 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 the crossing I looked down into the murky harbor water 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 any of us that drowning was a possibility.

After forty-five minutes of imaginary shark sightings and repentant prayer, we finally reached the opposite shore. So there we were; five exhausted and wet knuckleheads, hunkered down on a beachhead. Kevin B. was hungry, Kenny H. had lost his shoe, and Maurice V. wanted to call the quits. Despite our low morale we had to soldier on because we were trapped in no man's land between the harbor and the 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 racing engines as they approached. We didn't realize Formula One cars were capable of covering the distance from the chicane to where we planned to make our crossing in mere seconds; as knuckleheads, we had no reference for anything that could cover ground that fast. Then, later, when the wail of the engines was at its faintest and, seemingly, furthest we sprinted across the track; we'd 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; 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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It was 1970's Southern California; home of parched yellow football fields and weekend swap meets. Skateboarding was in its infancy and BMX was all the rage. This is the time, and place, in which I was first exposed to sports. How does a young knucklehead go about choosing a sport? He just does what the other kids are doing; everything.

The first team sport I 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 quite a bit. The officials 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 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 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 actually got tired running the 100-yard dash at practice; I finished the last 20 yards at a fast jog. My teammates joked that the "invisible gorilla" had jumped on my back. It was rare for invisible gorillas to attack sprinters; they typically went 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 I never found my groove. Nothing about baseball appealed to me; the pace, the uniforms, nothing. Collisions while running the bases were all I looked forward to. The coup de grace for my brief baseball adventure was my error in the championship game against our rival, the Long Beach Mets. I cracked under pressure; all I had to do for the victory was field a lukewarm grounder from second base and throw the batter 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; my motivation for wrestling was simply to avoid the sadistic off season training regimen Lakewood's football program was known for. It was the bleacher work and conditioning, in particular, I sought to avoid. Going from football to wrestling in the off season to avoid training turned out to be a mistake.

The unforeseen irony was, wrestling helped me find my groove in the weight room. At Lakewood, wrestlers trained hard so 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 wrestlers my bench press increased to 280 pounds, over double my body weight. More importantly, I was learning to push myself; it totally changed my thinking. I remember being envious of my wrestling training partner, Donny H., because he'd busted a blood vessel in his eye during one of our intense weight training sessions; somehow, I thought his red eye was a badge of honor.

The best part of wrestling was the shoes

The barbell 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 on a local field with no equipment the afternoon we saw a kid in a football uniform cycling past; he was wearing a mesh jersey over his shoulder pads and had a football helmet hooked on his handlebars. Immediately, we stopped our game and ran him down; he told us there was a Pop Warner football team practicing at Admiral Kidd Park and if we wanted to join we had to go there to sign up. My friends and I had never heard of such a thing. Who was Pop Warner? We all 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 registration 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 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 levelling ball carriers, and we weren't even in pads yet. 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 those days 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 tried to emulate everything the best pros at the positions we played were doing. I remember my first facemask was a white two bar like the one Gale Sayers wore; which, I didn't care for. My second year, I had a “U bar” facemask that I liked better. 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" on the helmet 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 old number thirty-two jersey was torn to shreds and I had to wear a new number seventeen (17). On offense, I played tailback and receiver, and 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 collect stick marks. I was voted MVP my first year (1976); although, I can't remember scoring. My specialty was running kids down and laying the wood.
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Long Beach Bears (#17)

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, CA
I spent many Saturday afternoons on this field.
No artificial turf those days; just parched yellow grass.

Wilson HS Field - Long Beach

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

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

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We played against teams from these cities

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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 day and the butterflies would start to flutter at 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 a lot 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 out there 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 us Bears it was hammer time. We figured since we were going to lose 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, after games (we always played away because we didn't have a regulation football field), we tried to put each other's equipment through the holes made from the missing floorboards in back of our Coach's pick-up truck; smaller items like mouthpieces, and ear pads, were, typically, targeted. We thought it was hilarious the way mouthpieces 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 out on the 405 freeway while returning from San Pedro; we cackled with laughter as Kevin's shoe bounced off of a Ford Pinto and disappeared beneath the wheels of an 18-wheeler.

Nelson's pickup truck 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, often jamming opponent's mouthpieces into their noses at the bottom of pile-ups. As a form of punishment, Coach Nelson would often threaten to take our jerseys away from us; Coley was often his target. A typical threat from Coach 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 go on to continue his violent behavior as a defensive end for high school 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 our 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 awaiting 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 one kid we called “Tweety” who played defensive back; he was built like a golf tee with broad shoulders and toothpick legs. He'd always threaten to "lay you out" if he got the chance. Tweety liked to compare his football helmet with others' to see who had the best “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. He was always dirty, even before the game started.

Inspiration

It was on this team that I met my 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 played nose guard and I played in the secondary; 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. So, what was the only team to fall victim to that 1976 Bears team? The, lowly, San Pedro Dolphins; fittingly, the last game of the season.

Misc...

Lakewood H.S. 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 Pop Warner Long Beach Saints

Alan (Circa 1978)
In the barbell "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.