Vermont News Guide by Hersam Acorn

From my Corner ��

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— by Susan J. Coons My hairdresser took last week as an all expenses paid trip to Santa Monica, California. She was attending special classes, and was very excited to be returning for another visit. She had spent a week there a couple of years ago and loved every minute of it! I don’t blame her! The smell of the salt air and the breeze off the Pacific Ocean hitting your face as you stand facing the world renowned entry to the Santa Monica Pier is truly exhilarating! You know from frequently reading this column that I love the beach. I was fortunate enough to grow up during the time when beach movies reflected the real thing. Well, sort of. Boys did bring their surf boards to the beach and stand them up in the sand, and girls did make a fuss over them. But we didn’t stand around singing and dancing, there was no moondoggie! Instead we threw one another in the water, chased each other around, and brought sandwiches, chips and coke for food and beverage. We listened to music on the radio, gossiped and told stories until 11 or midnight around a fire. The following Saturday we did the same thing all over again and never got tired of it. Annette and Bobbie made the movies, we had all the fun! Most of the time we went to Malibu Beach or Zuma Beach. When we had a little cash, we went to the Santa Monica Pier. You could get a real, hand-patted hamburger and fries for $1.25 and a coke for a dime at Al’s Kitchen. Not bad. Sometimes we’d just order a cup of fries and eat them as we walked up and down the pier. There was an arcade with take-a-chance games along the left side of the pier interspersed with several palm readers who lived in little shacks along the way. There were a couple of dusty gift shops with windows so dirty from the salt air you could barely see in or see out. The most nostalgic ride was on the hand-carved carousel housed in a over-sized yellow building that is now on the National Register of Historic Places. In the center of the carousel stood the original calliope pumping out all the wonderful tunes that can’t be forgotten in a lifetime. Gives me goose bumps to think of it now. No amusement area could be without bumper cars and as teenagers without driver’s licenses, we loved to crash and bump! When developers began buying up beach front property during the 1970s, and converting homes to condos, raising the rent (throwing out the poor souls with fixed incomes who had lived there for many years, and some of them becoming homeless), there was an effort by the City Council to tear down the pier. Developers wanted to create an “island” where the pier stood and erect a high-rise, exclusive resort hotel. We were living in Pasadena at that time, and became involved with the group that wanted to save the pier. A fierce battle raged. The developers had so much money and our little opposition had very little. Among those who wanted to save the pier were folks left homeless by the developers, actors, writers, local artists, and many long-time residents of Santa Monica. In the mid-seventies, a terrible storm ripped out nearly one-third of the pier, leaving the project to save the pier doomed. But better sense prevailed and the pier was rebuilt. I still have a menu that was printed by Al’s Kitchen in the mid 70s. The cover became the poster for the cause. It’s a photograph of a naked man struggling to hold up one of the pilings of the pier as he faces the storming ocean swirling about his body. I learned recently that the Santa Monica Pier had been restored. I checked it out on the Internet, and it looks great. The amusements and arcade are referred to collectively as Pacific Park. Gone is Al’s Kitchen (a

Vermont News Guide

February 3, 2010