Red Cross “Youth Good Samaritan” award.

Chris Kennedy Letter (Letter to the editor, Independent)

By Dale Ghere

March 28, 2006

I want to congratulate Christopher Kennedy for his nomination for the Red Cross “Youth Good Samaritan” award. I also want to thank him for taking the opportunity to gain the experience that allowed him to act appropriately in a time of crisis. Chris, like so many other watermen before him, was able to help another person because of the hours of preparation he was willing to do to become skilled. I commend him for the attitude that allows him to want to help others. I know the endless hours of training it took to develop good swimming skills.

Chris, how many laps have you done in the pool? How many hours have you played water polo? How many days have you spent body surfing, boogie boarding or surfing? How many summers have you spent in the junior guard program? How many mentors have been willing to teach you ocean skills? How many of your friends are also skilled watermen? Before you were able to help Trever you made a lot of good choices that prepared you for that moment. Well done Chris!

I would also like to congratulate all of those who have been willing to help young people like Chris develop good water skills. Chris did not just magically know how to help someone else. His ability to help was taught to him by a whole group of other people that call themselves teachers. As a community we should all take time to thank those people who have taught our kids to become skilled watermen. Our community is blessed to have many different opportunities available for our children: the city’s recreational summer swim programs, private swim teachers, youth swim and water polo programs, high school swim and water polo programs, local surfing, diving and kayaking schools and all of the various youth programs that are offered by the lifeguard department are designed to help kids become better waterman. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to teach!

Summer is coming. Parents I encourage you to get your kids involved in one of the programs that will help your sons and daughters to become skilled watermen. It will enrich their lives. Chris’ mom was correct when she said, “They have to look out for each other.” I believe that the more skilled watermen there are on the beach the safer the beach becomes for everyone.

Dale Ghere

915 Meadowlark Ln.

Laguna Beach

Hello Stu and Andrea,

Here is a letter for the "Letters to the Editor". I was impressed by the story about Chris Kennedy's rescue (page A1, 3/24/06). It was appropriate that it came out the same time as the lifeguard exchange training program article.

Dale Ghere

Hank Butch By Robin Williams

Hank Butch

By Robin Williams

The Sandpiper was the hang out for all the Marine pilots from El Toro during the Korean War and Vietnam and maybe even WWII for all I know. My first beer upon turning 21 years of age was celebrated in the Sandpiper!

One night I was sitting at the bar in the Sandpiper and enjoying conversation with the bar tender while a dozen or so Laguna High School people were hustling some great looking girls from South Pasadena. You can always tell the Pasadena girls...they are the ones with white shoes...and pink lipstick...and the scent of an uplifting odor in their neck and shoulders that sends us beach boys into a wild man frenzy of "head banging" on the nearest wall.

I was a Laguna Lifeguard and one of the types that grew up on the rocky coves of Laguna. I knew every handhold and every route through any rock mass which allowed me to rescue swimmers and scuba divers efficiently. In other words, I was before the LONG SWIM TESTS that allowed the big city pool swimmers to take our jobs and rule in our stead! I was of the era where we had the distinction of never losing a life to drowning. That was the same era as Westgaard and Sorrels and Jake Jacobsen and Phil Jones and Chad Burton. We all knew each other like the back of our own hands and when we called for help from the Main Tower we knew exactly who to send out on the long "RIPS" to pull three or four people in at one time. And we also knew whom to send over the rocks or into a swirling mass of white water and suction. We all knew each other's beach background and abilities.

Those were the great days of life guarding and they gave us a foundation for living our lives in the real world of swirling masses of business horror!

But one incident prepared me like no other. It happened at the Sandpiper. “The Captain” -- Hank Bucher, sat down beside me. Hank is the consummate man's man. He is the guy who should have been the star of every war movie ever made. If he looks at you without smiling, you find yourself running outside to puke. He scares the living puke out of anyone who receives his un-blinking gaze.

I was on Coast Inn beach that week. This is the beach where women come to drag us into their lair and turn us into either mountain men or send us into early retirement as unfit for duty...in anything other than lying in a fetal position and sobbing uncontrollably for the rest of our lives. The women of Coast Inn Beach should have been the recruiters for the Special Forces. They quickly determined the men from the piddlin' little boys. Coast Inn Beach was the dance of death for every lifeguard in Laguna.

Hank actually talked to me at the bar that night. I couldn't believe it. He actually engaged me in conversation. I was under the impression that he would only talk to me if he really wanted to know something important. But, here he was...talking and enjoying a beer right next to me at the Sandpiper!

Then he asked me a question. He said, "Volleyball sometimes is tempting isn't it? I mean, while you are on duty?" "Yeah!" I blurted out. But caught myself. "Yeah, but I never play volley ball no matter how tempting it is." I truly did not think I was lying. I truly believed what I had just said. I was probing my mind to see if I remembered playing volleyball while I was on duty but could not remember a single time. Hank said, "Good, that's good. Someone could just disappear under a wave and you would never see him if you were playing volleyball. I am glad you don't do it. Well, that's it for me. See you later, Robin." And....Hank walked out of the Sandpiper and disappeared into the night.

The next day at Coast Inn Beach, it was overcast and cool and nobody in the water. A game of volleyball started up and they all wanted me to play. I took a fast look around, saw that it was virtually void of swimmers and happily joined the game. I was having a great time and actually winning. Then I looked up and here came a vision akin to Tarzan walking up the beach with a cigar in his teeth and smiling at me with a broad smile. It was “The Captain”--Hank Bucher ...and I had no pulse. My mind went blank and I did not have any verbal skills whatsoever. He said a few words to me...no way to remember what they were...but it was something like..."Everything ok here?"

I said, "Oh braib dib the all right snuh fert if the sun hahshed moah cattinflaw braypte."

He didn't look at me....just whispered, 'Yeah, I thought so too. Well, keep on it. See you later." And he walked on toward Wood's Cove.

I stood by my tower for the rest of the day...not thinking. Not talking. Just standing there stunned at my own revelation about myself. It was beyond humiliation. It was heavier than any human emotion. It was pretty horrible. I felt something like a freight train that is stopped and just sitting on the tracks in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Eventually, my wheels began to turn and I began to move with a new vision.

I have never lied again in my damn life.

And nobody drowned during that time period. That was the “era.”

Thanks Hank!

And “thanks” all you big cats from the Main Tower who helped me out whenever I needed it. Especially that huge day at Crescent Cove on the 4th of July in 1957!

Gawd, I miss Westgaard. We ALL miss him.

Robin D. Williams

August 20, 2004

Laguna

A Mother’s Perspective

By Susan Campbell

Lifeguards

When I was pregnant with my son, one of my favorite things to do was walk barefoot on the beach. The little life growing inside of me was as real and alive as the Sea. The movements I felt inside of me, seemed to be in sink with the movements of the tide and the currents beside me. In me and beside me were life and beauty. One could not in a lifetime, experience the elation of those feelings, an expecting mother has.

Just after Davie was born, I’d try to work off those extra pounds by swimming in the ocean. My husband would sit on the beach with Davie, while I’d go for a swim. I’ll never forget one afternoon when I came back to out little spot on the beach. I asked Don, “Where’s Davie?” (He was only 6 days old) Don replied, “He’s right here…can’t you see him?” “No!” I said, “I can’t see him!” Then Don pointed to the lifeguard tower and sure enough, there was my 6 day old son, wrapped up like a cocoon and resting at the bottom of a little Mexican bag and hanging from the lifeguard tower. The wind was rocking him to sleep and he was perfectly content. That’s where Davie took his afternoon naps, until he out grew the little Mexican bag.

Only living two blocks from Rock Pile in North Laguna, made it easy for us to develop a pattern of walking along the beach. Part of our daily routine was to walk along the boardwalk, to the playground on the south side of Main Beach. As Davie grew older, we’d go for treasure hunts; looking for sea glass and then cashing the glass in for ice - cream cones.

Davie grew up saying hello to lifeguards. They became his friends at a very early age. One of the things I love most about Laguna is that you develop these casual “Friendships” over time. It’s those little daily encounters with people that enrich our lives. How little those lifeguards knew, how impressionable they were to my little boy.

Davie eventually grew more interested in the ocean. The ocean was his backyard. On our way to El Morrow Elementary School, we’d have to stop first at Divers Cove to skim board. I’d sit on the beach with my coffee, while Davie and his buddy Tanner would burn off some energy. I figured I was doing his teachers a service, by giving him this opportunity.

I gave him his first swimming lessons at the pool down the street from our home. He eventually took lessons locally and then joined the swim team and water polo team at the High School level.

I’ll never forget the day he tried out for his first job as a lifeguard. The tryouts were on his 16^th birthday; you had to be 16 to try out. The day before tryouts, he and his Dad decided to do a practice swim. Don went out in the kayak with a stop watch and paddled alongside Davie. He completed the practice swim in the required time. This gave him the confidence he needed, for the tryouts the next day. On the day of tryouts, the swells were huge! As all the boys started coming in from their swim, my anticipation grew. Where is he? Then I spotted him…he was on the backside of a huge set a waves! Would he be able to ride in on those waves? Did he know what he was doing? He could swim but could he get in safely in surf like that? He timed his run in perfectly and somehow seemed to dodge the dangerous swells. I realized then, how perfectly in sink he was with the sounds and rhythms of the sea. He had an understanding of the ocean, which I had not realized until that day.

I still take my walks along the boardwalk, but not with my son. He’s the guy I say hello to up in the Lifeguard tower. He’s the guy that now encourages and inspires other little boys to one day peruse the job as a Laguna Beach Lifeguard. He’s the guy that can now give back, what was once given to him as a child.

The training he received helped develop him into a responsible young man. I will forever be grateful for the Laguna Beach Lifeguard Department and the Jr. Lifeguard programs.

Sincerely,

Susan Campbell