At the 30th anniversary celebration on Feb. 15, board members of Ocean Beach Historical Society shared personal reminiscences about their favorite beach community.
The usual suspects – teachers, writers, business owners, artists, designers, photographers, old-time hippies, etc. – were rounded up at Water’s Edge Faith Community Church for the occasion. They gave their takes on how – and why – Ocean Beach was, and remains, such a great place to grow up and live.
The evening began with a half-hour historical musical slideshow accompanying historic photos from OBHS’s archives. That was followed by lottery drawings that were a prelude to OBHS members coming up and relating their OB experiences from days of yore.
“Have we got some stories for you,” said OBHS president Eric DuVall introducing the evening’s first board member and guest speaker, Jonnie Wilson.
“These are snippets of memories I have of being an adolescent growing up in OB,” Wilson said referring to a slide showing her house on Long Branch Avenue in 1953 before the street was even paved. She recalled living on Cable Street, noting they were warned, concerning a poisonous oleander tree in their front yard, “Not to cut the branches off that tree and go down to the beach to roast marshmallows. So we used hangers from our closet to do our weenie roasts.”
Wilson recalled buying 10-cent comics at a local newsstand, paying a nickel for a pickle at the day and night market on Sunset Cliffs, and visiting the Coronet dime store when lots of things cost a dime or less. She also recalled going on lots of successful grunion runs “back in the day,” as well as “fishing all by myself on the jetty and all those rocks were sharp and I caught ugly fish (sculpin).”
Next came 88-year-old Dedi Ridenour who recalled memories of the day Pearl Harbor was bombed and life in OB during World War II. “How many of you want to go way back in my time machine?” she asked the audience. Ridenour pointed out that, on Dec. 7, 1941, she was a little girl living out on Sunset Cliffs when there were “no other houses around.”
On the day of the bombing, Ridenour said she and her military family were out on a Sunday drive (she was playing with the car radio) and they heard, “Attention, attention, the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. All military people must immediately go to their duty station ‘now.’ Ridenour remembered her mother saying, ‘This must mean tomorrow morning.’ But her father replied, ‘No, I’ve got to report in ‘right’ now.’”
Of the public’s mood after Pearl Harbor, Ridenour said there was a real feeling of togetherness in a common cause. “There was a housing shortage so they (authorities) told everyone it was OK to rent your extra bedroom, your garage, and even do triple bunking,” she said. “That was where three people shared one bed in eight-hour shifts.”
Added Ridenour: “What it felt like, even to a little girl, was that everybody was gung-ho. Everybody was determined to win the war. And people were really scared, in 1942, that we were not winning the war as we were fighting on two coasts. As a kid, I was impressed that everybody was going to do their best, do what they needed to do, and they would suffer ‘anything’ during the duration (of the war).”
Kathy Blavatt recalled that she helped “raise money for the 1960 Olympics as a swimming baby (shown in the slideshow).” She recounted that, while their house was being built in Sunset Cliffs, “We lived in the garage because they (parents) wanted us to start school on time. We had a hose come into the bathroom and it was a concrete shower.”
“I know there are people who don’t like the daises (in Sunset Cliffs),” noted Blavatt who added, “But it was gorgeous.”
A fond memory for Blavatt and her husband Ray was Villa Surf at 4401 Ladera St., where they were married. The property was constructed in the early 1950s as a grand house with an expansive view of the Pacific Ocean.
Six years later, Blavatt noted Villa Surf met an untimely end. “The City decided to bulldoze it and it happened very quickly,” she said. “A lot of people didn’t know about it. It’s really kind of sad because it would have been an incredible visitor center.”
A commonality among all those OBHS members who spoke was the importance – and need – for preserving the community’s heritage, which they pointed out, once lost, cannot be retrieved.
