Looking for The Beach Boys
It was just over three years ago (April, 2003) that I moved into a small beach house in Oxnard on Hollywood Beach. The neighborhood was not new to me as I'd lived there briefly 40 years earlier as a little boy. My family had moved cross country from New England via Maryland and we ended up in Oxnard for my father's new job as a dedicated civil servant. He would eventually make GS-12, whatever that was. All we knew was that we were going to live right on the beach for six weeks while my parents searched for a house to buy. We would eventually end up at the new Windsor North housing development, a gaggle of tract homes that we thought were magnificent but now look upon with disgust and derision. Cheap houses. They would fall apart in twenty years and need major upgrades but at the time they were the newest and latest thing to have in an America that was still drunk on it's post-war progress and modernity. From Gemini space capsules to TV dinners, we had to have the latest new gadget or invention and our latest trick was the acceptance of the tract home.
In 1963 the city of Oxnard was a more pleasant place to be. Life was simpler and the huge development craze of the 1970's was still ten years off. Ironically, the housing development where we lived was the very begining of that movement and years later we would see how out of control this rampant growth could be. The strawberry fields were disappearing fast being replaced by new housing developments and it would only get worse. We didn't see it as a problem back in 1963 because it wasn't our ox being gored but we would eventually.
I now find myself back in this hell pit of a city, one I used to love when it was smaller but now find too big and much too crowded. The stores and malls had that all too familiar sameness, mass produced kitsch that only makes one long for the good old Mom and Pop store of yore. Miles of parking lots and big-box stores with the cheapest goods Asia could produce. The beach house I occupied was shoehorned with many others into what once was a charming neighborhood of one story homes. Homes that were interesting and one of a kind. Not like the three story monstrosities that were crammed along the small narrow streets. Streets that had been originally designed for a completely different sense of scale and style. The homes I remembered from my youth were funky, with driftwood sculptures in the front yards and windchimes on the porch. The house we were staying in temporarily was that metal Quonset design that was popular during the war years and right after. I believe that these homes had actually been built by the military to accomodate active duty families who worked near the Naval Air Station. After the war the military sold them to the city and regular folks like us could move in.
To say I loved living on the beach was an understatement. What eight year old doesn't? A few memories stand out for me. My first few days at the local Catholic School, my first encounter with a newfangled single-lever spigot in the shower where I was a prisoner of scalding water until my parents rescued me. And the time I was swimming in the ocean but needed to go the men's room which was a good walk back towards the house. After relieving myself I was greeted by the frantic cries of my mother who not being able to see me in the water feared that I had drowned. A neighbor across the street who had two English Bulldogs which scared me half to death for I didn't realize yet that they are a gentle and friendly breed. My parents laughed as they saw our neighbor out for a walk with them, my father commenting that they look like they could bite off the bumper of our 1959 Rambler. We would soon leave this idllyic and peaceful place for the newfound bliss of our brand new, never-been-lived-in, four bedroom tract home. Unbeknownst to us, a wave was coming which would wash away the remnants and the memories of this little pocket of heaven. It was a wave made not of water but of asphalt, plastic, concrete, wood and people and it would take decades to wash this all away. Once gone however, it would be gone forever.
So I find myself back here, post millenium, alone now except for my trusty dog, Jackson. The folks are gone, both passing away within 1 1/2 years of each other. The old Rambler got replaced by the GM station wagon which got replaced by the Pontiac Gran Prix which was replaced by... . Since I now live in the very neighborhood where we crash landed in the early 1960's I figured I'd make the best of it and attempt to find that old Quonset house where we first experienced the joys of being Californians. The neighborhood is no longer the quaint and out of the way place it once was. The homeowners made their houses as big as the small lots would allow, demolishing the old funky houses and building new ones nearly to the property line. When that wasn't enough one of them thought it would be good to build a second story on his home, depriving someone else of their view of the beach. If you can't build out, then build up. This then became a series of one-upmanship, the next guy building a second story with his neighbor having to build to recover his original view. This then became Mutually Assured Destruction with new owners building a third story on their homes with the endgame of all the homes being three story and packed like sardines into their little properties. The quiet funkiness was gone now replaced by the only people who could afford to live there...those well heeled or making six figures. The visitors weren't much better, the beaches at the weekend turning into an overcrowded zoo of snarling dogs, speeding SUV's and noisy out of control little kids wanting to go home. Paradise Lost.
Many times I tried to find the old Quonset house but could not and it wasn't for lack of trying. Me and Jackson traipsed up and down the old narrow streets to no avail. I didn't have the exact address anymore but I thought that if any remnant of the house remained I would be able to find it. There is nothing. It had been completly devoured by the new development of these monster houses. I know that somewhere under a very large house along one of those streets is a seashell or two that I collected and threw away more than forty years earlier. That world was gone now replaced by this overcrowded, stressed out, Attention Deficit Disordered mess.
The more I experience this life the more I find that we throw away the best that life has to offer. Whether it's the old neighborhood, the bike with just too few gears or the best friend that just isn't cool enough for one's new social station. The best we can do is hunker down, hang on, and allow that big wave of progress to wash over us. And hope we all come out in one piece at the end.
In 1963 the city of Oxnard was a more pleasant place to be. Life was simpler and the huge development craze of the 1970's was still ten years off. Ironically, the housing development where we lived was the very begining of that movement and years later we would see how out of control this rampant growth could be. The strawberry fields were disappearing fast being replaced by new housing developments and it would only get worse. We didn't see it as a problem back in 1963 because it wasn't our ox being gored but we would eventually.
I now find myself back in this hell pit of a city, one I used to love when it was smaller but now find too big and much too crowded. The stores and malls had that all too familiar sameness, mass produced kitsch that only makes one long for the good old Mom and Pop store of yore. Miles of parking lots and big-box stores with the cheapest goods Asia could produce. The beach house I occupied was shoehorned with many others into what once was a charming neighborhood of one story homes. Homes that were interesting and one of a kind. Not like the three story monstrosities that were crammed along the small narrow streets. Streets that had been originally designed for a completely different sense of scale and style. The homes I remembered from my youth were funky, with driftwood sculptures in the front yards and windchimes on the porch. The house we were staying in temporarily was that metal Quonset design that was popular during the war years and right after. I believe that these homes had actually been built by the military to accomodate active duty families who worked near the Naval Air Station. After the war the military sold them to the city and regular folks like us could move in.
To say I loved living on the beach was an understatement. What eight year old doesn't? A few memories stand out for me. My first few days at the local Catholic School, my first encounter with a newfangled single-lever spigot in the shower where I was a prisoner of scalding water until my parents rescued me. And the time I was swimming in the ocean but needed to go the men's room which was a good walk back towards the house. After relieving myself I was greeted by the frantic cries of my mother who not being able to see me in the water feared that I had drowned. A neighbor across the street who had two English Bulldogs which scared me half to death for I didn't realize yet that they are a gentle and friendly breed. My parents laughed as they saw our neighbor out for a walk with them, my father commenting that they look like they could bite off the bumper of our 1959 Rambler. We would soon leave this idllyic and peaceful place for the newfound bliss of our brand new, never-been-lived-in, four bedroom tract home. Unbeknownst to us, a wave was coming which would wash away the remnants and the memories of this little pocket of heaven. It was a wave made not of water but of asphalt, plastic, concrete, wood and people and it would take decades to wash this all away. Once gone however, it would be gone forever.
So I find myself back here, post millenium, alone now except for my trusty dog, Jackson. The folks are gone, both passing away within 1 1/2 years of each other. The old Rambler got replaced by the GM station wagon which got replaced by the Pontiac Gran Prix which was replaced by... . Since I now live in the very neighborhood where we crash landed in the early 1960's I figured I'd make the best of it and attempt to find that old Quonset house where we first experienced the joys of being Californians. The neighborhood is no longer the quaint and out of the way place it once was. The homeowners made their houses as big as the small lots would allow, demolishing the old funky houses and building new ones nearly to the property line. When that wasn't enough one of them thought it would be good to build a second story on his home, depriving someone else of their view of the beach. If you can't build out, then build up. This then became a series of one-upmanship, the next guy building a second story with his neighbor having to build to recover his original view. This then became Mutually Assured Destruction with new owners building a third story on their homes with the endgame of all the homes being three story and packed like sardines into their little properties. The quiet funkiness was gone now replaced by the only people who could afford to live there...those well heeled or making six figures. The visitors weren't much better, the beaches at the weekend turning into an overcrowded zoo of snarling dogs, speeding SUV's and noisy out of control little kids wanting to go home. Paradise Lost.
Many times I tried to find the old Quonset house but could not and it wasn't for lack of trying. Me and Jackson traipsed up and down the old narrow streets to no avail. I didn't have the exact address anymore but I thought that if any remnant of the house remained I would be able to find it. There is nothing. It had been completly devoured by the new development of these monster houses. I know that somewhere under a very large house along one of those streets is a seashell or two that I collected and threw away more than forty years earlier. That world was gone now replaced by this overcrowded, stressed out, Attention Deficit Disordered mess.
The more I experience this life the more I find that we throw away the best that life has to offer. Whether it's the old neighborhood, the bike with just too few gears or the best friend that just isn't cool enough for one's new social station. The best we can do is hunker down, hang on, and allow that big wave of progress to wash over us. And hope we all come out in one piece at the end.
Comments