1966 - Lizzy

1966

When I was six my grandpa used to take me to the pier on Saturdays. We'd go to Berle's ceramics,next to the Merry-go-round and I would scurry over to the trillions of little bins of Tiki's,clowns and animals. Flat clown heads with a variety of expressions were Grandpa Clyde's favorite.Grandpa was a Big fan of Emmit Kelly,so Clyde Sr was all about clowns. I was , as any good six year old would be in 1966 Santa Monica,in love with Tiki's. They had little classes at the store and Berle would show you her technique for faux wood staining the teeni tini Tiki heads and then she would adorn them with two single red rhinestones in the eye sockets.The Teeni Tiki's had a little loop at the top and a length of lanyard could be run through the loop,making the most wonderful and exotic necklace I had ever seen. With huge sparkling ruby red eye's. Berl's was a huge vat of ceramic dust,creaky wooden floors and every shape of ceramic figure. Your nose blew white for day after an hour in the haze of the silky air.

We had a few ritual's at the pier. Grandpa would take me to visit the Portuguese and Japanese fish mongers,who would torture me by eating live fish. Grunyon maybe or just little minnows? And every time grandpa (the grand comspirator) would walk me up to the counter and I with my little kid amnesia would have forgotten about the little men and there sinister plot to scare the little blonde girl to death. I fell for it every time. "hey Lizzy Mr. Yamamoto has something really neat to show you".. and like a little dope I would bustle up to the counter where he would flip the small wriggling slip of silver into his mouth and swallow. I could even see the little fishes form bang and bandy down his throat and the small japanese man would laugh and say," ooh this is a good fish, you try this,ok little blondy,yes?" And he would waggle a little fish at me. I would shriek in terror and then laugh. Grandpa loved to torture me like this and I guess in falling for it,every single time, I loved it too. I always got a ride on the Merry-Go-Round as payment Gosh I loved the music. I remember falling in love with Scott Joplin's music at the carousel. Who wouldn't? It framed the who carousel experience with a sweet nostalgic air. The smell of popcorn,corn dogs, taffy and taqueto's. (When taqueto's were two for a quarter).

I miss the pier as it once was in all of it's rustic glory. I miss Sindbad's and the Pieces of Eight. I miss the Jumbo slide and and string of fish markets. I would sometimes go with my Mom,who would flirt her way into the best fish bits for her Bull-Bitch (bouillabaisse for the picky foodies) and it would end up costing her a fat six bits. Oh! What a wink and a smile could do back then.

The quarter tram that ran from the pier to the old P.O.P would crackle and slap over the wooden planking of the old board walk that run the length of the strip. Seven different artists did a black and white chalk profile of me growing up. Each costing about four bits.Grandpa always gave a generous tip. This was were I first learned about tipping."tipping is not a town in China Grandpa would say'" Yeah it's hocky,but it stuck.

Life was genuinely sweet and simple then. I could use the tattered pale green, Big Blue Bus pass I used to get me to St. Monica's every day,and ride to the pier and with fifty cents have a ball all day. I would slip my blue and grey wool skirt off and reveal my bright green shorts. The ones I had snuck on under my skirt before leaving for school that day. I would dig through my book bag and find my sailor hat with the cellophane green and blue sun shade eyes and then spend the rest of the day as a groovy kid immersed in the awe and wonder at the magic of the pier. Being a kid in Santa Monica will always be my favorite bit of heaven. And the pier was the cherry!

Lizzy Menzies