A kid seven and a half, goin’ on eight doesn’t have a clue when paradigm shifts are descending on his world like the perfect storm on George Clooney’s fishing boat. Those days I was trippin’ around the beach with my best buddy, Chris, turnin’ in bottles for the 3-5¢ deposit. Rare was the day we didn’t combine to clear 20-30¢, which was enough for each of us to have a Coke, a Snickers Bar, and if we were really lucky that day, a Nestles Crunch.
Imagine a couple kids today, seven and eight, walkin’ the streets of a SoCal coastal community alone, body surfing with only surfers to watch ‘em, and all on a Wheaties breakfast — with a Coke and candy chaser.
We lived on the top of 17th Place, a very steep, dead end street. If we headed about 50 feet east it ended, at the peak of, for lack of a better description, a sand dune. It went steeply down into the area directly behind the third base dugout of our Little League Field — which was on the southern perimeter of Live Oak Park. The park, at least in those days, had adult supervision from almost first light ’till sunset. Made my first potholder there. 
They had basketball courts, tennis courts — including a cool practice wall, and a large rec-room which included an area for crafts, various games, and what I think was known as caroms.
Then there was the park part of the park. That’s where we flew our kites — you know, the ones we made from newspaper while at Cub Scout meetings. Mine were more like heavy diesel powered
Beach to the west, very cool park to the east,
That was life in the summer of ’59 — ’till it wasn’t.
Dad and Mom went their separate ways, which a seven year old translated into, ‘Dad lives somewhere else now, and we’re movin’ to a different house.’ Kids are resilient, aren’t they? Besides, the new house was in the rear unit of a duplex on the freakin’ BOARDWALK!! Plus, just in case the kid was wondering if there was a God, he learned the guy livin’ in the front unit had a bike, and would let him ride from the Manhattan Beach pier to the Redondo Beach pier on his cool, shiny red, one speed Schwinn. There was a God alright, and He clearly loved this toe-headed beach kidlet.
That was the year Dad transitioned from the pulpit to the real estate office. Talk about culture shock. One day I’m a preacher’s kid, church three times a week, the next I’ve got Wednesday nights free, AND get to watch The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. Broken home? Gimme a break. More like nirvana.
Mom hooked us up with a babysitter when we moved to the boardwalk duplex, but she’d been raised on the beach too, so never said a word when Chris and I would head out the door sayin’ we were goin’ to the liquor store for some money. Those were two carefree utopian years.
It was the summer of ’61 when I learned what culture shock meant in real life, in real time. A toe-headed, body surfin’, boardwalk-bike-ridin’ beach boy, was being rudely uprooted, (I was NEVER consulted, by the way, just for the record.) and transplanted into an L.A. suburb, Norwalk. For those who don’t have a clue about the area, movin’ from Manhattan Beach to Norwalk was akin to transitioning from steak and lobster to last week’s leftover hamburger helper — and that’s only minor hyperbole.
I remember sittin’ alone on the curb in front of our new house the day we moved, just a couple months from my 10th birthday. If it was possible for life to suck any harder, I didn’t wanna know about it. My friends? Gone. The beach? LONG gone. That day was my in-your-face intro to livin’ in a dime-a-dozen blue collar, middle America, suburban neighborhood.
That’s when I noticed a kid walkin’ my way. He sat down on the curb with me sayin’, “My name’s Tim, what’s yours?” I couldn’t hear it, but the page was turning…
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