My family moved to Manhattan Beach from Anchorage, Alaska, in 1960. To this day, I can remember the pungent smell of seaweed off the ocean the first time I came to the beach. It's still my favorite smell.

I attended Pacific Elementary, Center Street, and Mira Costa and Aviation highs. I started riding my 2-by-4 piece of lumber called a skateboard with roller skating wheels to Pacific Elementary.

It was a rough ride but that was the thing to do in those days. I guess it's still cool but with a much smoother ride.

The summer that I graduated from Center Street I had my front teeth knocked out while playing tackle football without pads or a helmet.

When I came home that day my mother almost fainted.

Here I was entering the big time, (Mira Costa) high school, without front teeth. Somehow I made it through high school, but not without transferring to Aviation my senior year.

I did finally graduate, then attended El Camino College.

Surfing, football and track were my main interests. Every street along the beach had a group of local surfers that made that street its own.

I surfed 16th Street mostly because my friend Buzzy Short lived on the Strand there. We would keep our boards under his house and surf all year-round.

Weather was no problem. We would be in the water every day - summer, fall, winter and spring.

Because we were just gremmies, (kid wannabes), we would stay away from streets

like 21st Street because the older guys (18- to 21-year-olds) would surf there.

If we got in their way they would run us over or, worse yet, beat us up on shore.

The Manhattan Pier, however, was the place to be in those days.

You could see guys like Greg Noll, Dewey Weber, Mike Doyle, Ricky Young, Bob Nall and many others dazzle the crowds with their awesome cutbacks and nose rides.

Wally Millikan was known as the "Mayor of the Pier." I don't know how he got that title, but he did. He was the man.

My seventh-grade teacher, Mrs. Wellinger, would tell us about the wild stuff Greg and Dewey would do during and after class at Center Street.

They were my heroes. The Dapper Dans and Double Deuce Danglers from 22nd Street in Hermosa were the happening surf clubs at the time.

Only the very elite surfers were allowed in those clubs.

Another fun thing we enjoyed doing during the summer was jumping off the old bait house at the end of the Manhattan pier at nighttime, especially when the red tide of summer was strong.

The water would burst forth with glistening color as we jumped in and swam to shore.

On Friday nights my friends and I would hang around the back alley of the La Mar Theater.

We would all put our money together and buy one ticket to get in. One of us with the ticket would go in and sneak down to the exit door and let the rest of us in.

This had to be perfectly timed so the usher on duty wouldn't see us streaming in.

One time six of us guys got in at the same time. If we were seen, we would just run out the exit and down the alley.

No one was ever caught. One night my friend Mike Wilson ran up onto the stage and mooned the audience during the cartoons.

He then ran out the exit and was chased all the way down to Manhattan Avenue, where he ran into Ercole's Bar. They never found him because it was impossible to identify him without taking his pants down.

We would sometimes ride our bikes down the Strand to Hermosa Beach to watch the latest surfing flick at the Pier Avenue Auditorium.

We would hoot and holler when shows like "Big Wednesday" came on with the background music of "Peter Gunn" playing.

What a rush that was for us gremmies. Sometimes we would ride our bikes to Hermosa just to get a taco burrito at Taco Bill's on Pier Avenue; now Hennessey's Tavern is there.

It only cost 50 cents for a huge taco burrito.

On another warm summer weekend, five of our surf gang were hanging out down at the Manhattan pier.

It was around midnight when a lowrider Fleetwood car with suicide doors pulled up.

A tall blond ho-dad dressed in a black leather jacket and motorcycle boots stepped out of the back seat. He had the largest jelly roll hairdo I had ever seen.

He walked up to us, pulled out a large switchblade, the blade flashing like a huge silver sword and said, "Hand over all your pennies, nickels and dimes, boys."

We looked at each other and ran in five different directions. I ran up to Ocean Drive and up the alley in back of the La Paz bar.

Wouldn't you know it, the ho-daddy ran after me! I slipped on some grease in the ally and he just barely got a hold of me, but I got away.

I ran into the La Mar Theatre and into the bathroom.

He looked in but couldn't see me straddling the toilet. That was one close call. I had a lot of close calls like that as a kid.

I did start noticing the opposite sex right about then as well. We would surf till the blackball flag was raised by the lifeguard, get out of the water and lie on the beach all day.

Then we'd go home, take a shower and go out looking for a good time.

One popular hangout was the Live Oak Park dances. There were all kinds of kids there looking for fun. My alter ego and I would walk into the dance, thinking every girl in the place would stop and adoringly gaze at me as I entered (not).

We would dance till it closed, then go looking for the best parties. I still have old friends that ask me, "Hey Barry, where's the party?"

For the most part, my partying days are long over, but I still get a great feeling when I think of those days when Manhattan Beach was just a quiet little bedroom community with average people who didn't think it was such a big deal to live at the beach. It was just a part of who we were.

As I grew up, got a job, got married and had kids I found, to my surprise, there really is life east of Sepulveda.

Barry Felis is a printing salesman and minister who has lived in Torrance for 38 years.

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