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