The First Laguna Beach Lifeguards

Bud Kerrigan

The First Laguna Beach Lifeguards

1920’s and the 1930’s

By William Wallace Kerrigan, Jr.

AKA “Bud” or “Wally”

2005

My parents built the third house in Three Arch Bay in 1926. My mother and brothers spent the summers, with my father commuting from Hollywood on the week ends. There were no paved roads. The area was so lonely and isolated that my mother demanded that we move to Laguna Beach where they had a grocery store, drug store and the Bird’s White House Café. In 1930 they built a home at 235 Calliope, above Fisherman’s Cove. The entire area was unpaved and virtually open fields up to Emerald Bay. There were less than 50 homes in North Laguna.

When my wife’s parents built their home across the highway from the old Jahrus home there was no Pacific Coast Highway.

To my knowledge, Laguna’s first lifeguard was Dana Lamb. He was hired in the twenties. Dana’s father was the County Treasurer, but never strayed far from Laguna. He built kayaks in the winter out of steamed oak strips and heavy canvas, which he diligently water proofed and painted a powder blue. Dana quit in the thirties to try to kayak to Panama and maybe, with great fortune, make it all the way to Chile. He had a tiny tri-sail, two sets of paddles, a crystal radio, a sterno stove, two large jugs of water and a box of canned goods. He planned to stop at beaches at night and live off of the land.

In 1933 a reporter from the Santa Ana Register was at Divers Cove as we pushed him into the water. His first venture ended at Oceanside. The second time he got as far as Ensenada and we never heard from him again.

Ed Hobert succeeded Dana in 1931. The next year he was joined by Bill “Skinny” Walters, George Bronner, Windy Brown and Orville Skidmore. Ed’s starting salary was $100 per month and he worked seven days a week. He was given a bathing suit as a perk. Anything else he had to purchase out of his own pocket.

In 1934 Curtis Burns was hired to guard Divers Cove and Freddy Schwankowsky was hired by the property owners association at Emerald Bay. I was hired to work weekends in 1935. My pay was 50 cents per hour and I had to buy my own bathing suit. Since the kelp beds were so extensive off shore we were given a pitchfork and told to have the beach free of kelp and sea grass by 8:00 a.m. All of this was on our own time.

In 1936, the City decreed, for the first time in history, we could wear gabardine red trunks with “Life Guard” stitched on the left leg. My number was four. We were given one pair and we could purchase another pair for$2.50.

I guarded full time at Divers Cove (Which at the time was known as Boat Cove.) in 1937 and 1938. The cove always had five or six skiffs, punts and dories tied to stakes driven into the bank. We had a community box where all of our oars kapok pillows, spears, dive gear and outboard motors were stored. It was never locked. Nothing was ever stolen during my time there. My full pay was $85.00 per month.

In 1937 Day Tawney, Jack Chamberlain and Lester “Bus” McKnight were added to the corps.

Fish, lobsters and abalone were plentiful, virtually there for the taking. One night Bus and I rowed up to Emerald Bay and speared a 40lb halibut. Many of the guards would get a tire-rod and a Japanese diving goggle and after work would swim out to the reef about a 100 yards west of the blow hole to fill a gunny sack full of 12” to 14” abalone. As a child I can remember taking a jack pole with a small lure and catching 8 or 10 four pound yellowtails in an hour while fishing off the rocks at Fisherman’s Cove.

All of the guards had a support group of beach regulars. The Main Beach had the willing help of the Watkin brothers, the Delany brothers and Dale Micklewait. At Divers Cove Dink Reisner, the Abrahm brothers, the Shipkey brothers, Bill Watts, Albert Frech, Bobbie Peacock and Tommy Peden would frequently get to someone in distress before I could. At Emerald Bay Freddie had the support of Ralph Kinney and a group of Pomona College athletes.

Ed Hobart was the father of professional lifeguards in Laguna. He arranged American Red Cross classes in first aid and artificial resuscitation. We had a meeting early Monday mornings all through he season to compare notes and see how we could increase our skills. We would frequently meet at 6:00 a.m. at Emerald Bay and swim to the Main Beach so Ed could check on our condition. We did not have a phone or a tower at Divers Cove. In an emergency we had someone on the beach run up to the Honnald House and call the Main Beach. Ed was, simply stated, the best of the best. In 1936 Ed got a tower build and a phone installed. It made a big difference to the guards.

Anyone who guarded at Divers Cove has had his Kodak moment. One of the tests of manhood in the 30’s was to go to the cliff above the Blow Hole. Then one of us would watch down below and when the tide filled the blow Hole we would signal it was safe to jump. Curt Burns and Dink Riesner bloodied themselves badly on several occasions executing this dump (at least in retrospect) jump.

Our first aid training was, at best, cursory. Doc Mallow’s drug store supplied us with first-aid kits that consisted of a bottle of mercurochrome, a bottle of iodine, a large roll of sterilized cotton, a roll of gauze a box of ammonia capsules and a tourniquet. Every Monday morning Doc Mallow’s drug store would refill what we had used and bill the city. Our artificial resuscitation instructor directed us to lay a rescue victim on his back. We then were to lay his arms at his side. Next we would raise and lower the arms above his head and then put then back to the side. We were to vigorously continue this until he started to breathe again. Later one of my longtime golfing partners, who was a doctor of emergency services at a major hospital, said he wondered how anyone survived this treatment.

My Two Most Memorable Guarding Moments

One Sunday we had the red flag up at Divers Cove. The surf was up. Ten foot waves were curling and the rip current (in those days it was called a rip tide) was very strong. A lady who was about thirty years old swam around the point and got sucked into the blow Hole. She was badly chewed up by the time I got her out. In the process of the rescue I lost two fingernails and one toenail. I carried her up to the tower and got a blanket from one of the beach goers. She was breathing, but had a terrible wound in her left breast. She had a one-piece bathing suit that was crimson red and blood was gushing out. I told someone to call an ambulance. I then pulled her suit down. She had a hole in her breast and all I could think of was to stuff it full of cotton to stop the hemorrhaging. Suddenly someone put a hammerlock around my neck and screamed, “You Bastard! You exposed my wife in public.” I actually started to turn blue. People were crowded around, but no one made a move. Some of the beach regulars saw I was in trouble and finally pulled him off of me. During the struggle I managed to keep the wound from bleeding. Doctor Mason said I had saved her from going in shock and possibly dying. They patched me up and gave me Monday off with pay.

The other rescue that has stuck in my mind these last 65+ years occurred on another busy Sunday with an unusually large crowd. The wind, tide and surf made for a very rough sea. I noticed a man fishing off of rocks on the south end of Picnic Beach. I left the tower and ran down and shouted to him to get back on the beach. He gave me the finger.

About an hour later a kid ran up to the tower and said a man had just been swept off the rocks and was screaming for help. Before this year we were given a soldered tin “torpedo” which was attached to a winch on the shore. It had a small rope around it and the person in trouble was to hang onto the rope while the people on the beach pulled both the victim and the guard back to the beach. In 1936, after years of guard’s complaints, we were assigned a long slim rubber tube that we could snap around someone to pull then into shore. I took my tube and jumped into the water and finally reached the fisherman. He was so large I could not wrap the tube around him. He still had his wading pants on and could not swim. Both of us were being ground into the rocks. I finally pulled him into deep water just as Day Tawney and Jack Chamberlain arrived in the dory from Main Beach. Together we pulled him on board. Day told me that I was bleeding. I swam ashore. My girl friend (later my wife for 55 years) got someone to cover my by beach and then she drove me down to Dr. Mason’s office. He put a few stitches in me and I went back to work. About a hour later the fisherman’s wife came to the tower and thanked me. She then asked me if I would mind swimming out to try to locate his fishing pole!

When I look back at those summers so long ago, my thoughts can be summed up in the song from my father’s old Vaudville act; Those Hazy, Crazy, Lazy Days of Summer” and the words from Fiddler on the Roof, “Those were the days my friend, I thought they’d never end…”

P.S. When I went full time as a guard I was paid $85 per month. I worked six days a week from 8:30a.m. to 5:30 p.m. In 1938 I was given a raise to $100 per month. Cleaning the beach every day was my responsibility. This was done on my own time. Still it was the best job of my life, including my tenure as a corporate president.

In writing this “Remembrances of Things Past” I must recognize several people.

Refugio Coronado

This gentleman was of an indeterminate age. Supposedly he was a 100 years old when he died; a true old man of the sea. He appeared in Laguna after World War I and specialized in building boats dories, skiffs and punts. He constructed all the lifeguard ship-lap dories from San Diego to Santa Monica. A Coronado built boat was a thing of beauty and a true work of art. Although this may be an apocalyptic story it is worth repeating. It was said that his wife was fixing tortillas for dinner in an outside oven on his small spread in Laguna Canyon when she said, “I am going now Refugio.” He said goodbye, ate his dinner and walked to the police station to report her death.

Pat Ford

Another mystery man. He lived in the YMCA in San Pedro. His whole life revolved around beach volleyball. From Cabrillo Beach to Oceanside, he was the apostle of volleyball. He would arrive on the beach with a net, lines, ropes and Voit volleyball. Soon a game was underway. He finally formed a league with my father’s financial help. The league included Laguna, San Clemente, Capistrano, Huntington Beach, San Pedro and Santa Monica. Curtis Burns, Dink Reisner, Dale Micklewait, Jimmy Lu, Bob Peacock and I played in the League for many summers.

Foot note: Bud died in December 2008.