It was 1964 and Barry Goldwater was running for president. I was in Pasadena at the home of a Republican state delegate who served me Goldwater soda. How did this brush with conservative Republicans come about? The delegate was an uncle of a friend I was visiting on Balboa Island. We had driven to Pasadena for the rally. I was along for the ride.
Just off Newport Beach, Balboa Island is a one-of-a-kind, unique place with 3 to 4,000 residents packed together. During my visit I had a number of La La Land experiences.
Some memories came back to me when I saw the Frozen Banana stand on the sitcom Arrested Development a few years ago. I visited the Frozen Banana stand on Balboa Island several times. Add the frozen banana coated with chocolate and crushed nuts to the Goldwater soda and this Hoosier/Indiana boy is way out West
But that was just the beginning. School age skateboarders were everywhere. I can still see one of the boards shooting out in front of a kid and catching a woman’s Achilles tendon. Damn! It was dangerous, it was crowded, and it was fun.
Walking around the little island was enjoyable. The cute cottages, the palm trees, and people watching made for good scenery. Balboa has celebrity residents — on one of my excursions I passed Edgar and Candace Bergen. She was 18 and cute as a button. Edgar was a TV favorite with his dummy, Charlie McCarthy. I now wonder if Charlie had a family member that later became the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Similar wooden nature. Maybe?
On that visit I took part in the annual Balboa Island Character Boat parade. Uniquely decorated boats and wild vessels cruised Balboa Bay. My host’s family were on small Chinese junk. Another passenger created hand-crafted string instruments with a very long neck. Very clever with a decent sound. There were several instruments on board.
Behind our junk was the McHales’s Navy PT boat! Seriously, standing in the bow of the boat was Ernest Borgnine. He was very interested in the long neck instrument and yelled down to me to hand one up. I stretched out and was able to get one to him. He returned it in time. I had this ongoing sense that I was no longer in Goshen, Indiana, where seeing an Amish horse and buggy could make my day.
It’s interesting to ponder that Ernie Borgnine got his start at the Barter Theatre a few blocks from where I am now writing.
My last memory of Balboa Island and the Character Boat parade was spotting Buddy Ebsen on the shore watching the parade. Ebsen who had a long movie and TV career, starring as Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies and Davy Crocketts’s sidekick in the Disney miniseries Davy Crockett, lived on the island.
The Britannica Dictionary defines name-dropping as act of trying to impress someone by saying the names of well-known people that you know or have met.
I hope I have impressed you, readers or listeners. Remember these are just tales from an average and ordinary life. What I have written about today happened 60 years ago. Maybe I don’t really remember these things. Maybe I made them up and am trying to impress myself.