50 Years Later, Beach Trip with Dad Comes Full Circle

Throughout my childhood, there were long trips down from Santa Monica to Corona Del Mar with Mom, Dad and my two sisters, Janet and Debbie.

All us kids sat in the back of my dad’s white flatbed truck, clinging to the wooden guardrails while we whipped down the highway at 70 mph. Can’t do anything fun like that nowadays.

The beach at Corona del Mar was magnificent. High cliffs surrounded white sand that spread out like a big toe poking into the Pacific. The road from the highway was this steep drop to the beach that seemed like the first 40 feet down into the Grand Canyon. Straight down. Dad would edge the truck over the lip, put it in neutral and let it gain speed while yelling, “The brakes, the brakes! Oh God, we’re not going to make it!” with all of us screaming in terror from the back.

While Mom made tuna fish sandwiches, I made buildings in the wet sand. I dripped wet sand onto them for hours, building intricate structures from outer space, sand streaming from my fingers in wet gobs.

I would always forget the beast’s imminent arrival no matter how painfully its memory etched itself into my young mind year after year after year. Perhaps the meditative drip, drip, drip of the sand through my fingers caused my vigilance to wander.

Boom! “No, no! Dad, no!” Stone-hearted, he whisked me up, over his shoulder, me bouncing, screaming, crying, tears flowing in disbelief, overcome with the inhumanity of it all.

Lovingly, he threw me far into the cold Pacific, the happy crashing of the waves choking my sobbing cries of despair. Dad laughed in glee, “Don’t be a crybaby. It’s only water!”

After the initial shock, I recovered quickly. The temperature wasn’t actually that bad, and I’d spend the rest of the day in the surf or having fun in the wet sand, just loving it.

Fifty years later, Dad and I made it back to Corona del Mar. It looked pretty much the same. This time, I was driving and screamed from the top of the hill all the way down to the beach, “Oh, my gawd! Oh, my gawd! The brakes!” Dad laughing out loud.

We settled ourselves onto beach towels on the hot dry sand. It was a glorious day. We had Cokes and tuna fish sandwiches while the gulls screeched overhead. When it was about time for a swim, I looked at Dad lying there in the sand. He was getting pretty dang old. He had lost weight and looked a bit boney … and light. I thought, it wouldn’t take much to lift him in the air.

I noticed Dad noticing me noticing him. He seemed uneasy. Maybe he could read my thoughts. “Johnny, little Johnny . . . please don’t.”

“Dad, don’t be a crybaby…”

John King writes and draws and remembers in Eureka.