Postlog: Two years ago, a long time dear friend,
Mitch Hammond, was visiting me during the summer (he lived in Beverly Hills then, and now lives near Chicago, Illinois). He was a "tourist" when we met in about 1960. When I was diving he was taking the passengers’ suitcases to their hotels in his little red wagon.Anyway, we were having dinner at "Armstrong's Seafood Restaurant", which is located where the "Steamer Pier" used to stand and were enjoying a wonderful fish dinner, seated on a balcony right over the water.
Suddenly, I head "THROW A COIN". Mitch and I looked at each other, in hopes that the other one had also heard it, and we both did! Remember, I hadn't heard those words since 1965!
We looked down into the water to see three young boys, with masks and snorkels (we never used snorkels in the good old days) and they were actually "diving for coins"! Mitch and I couldn’t believe our ears or eyes. They weren't trying to get the attention of the other tables along the railing…they were concentrating solely on us!
I quickly pulled out all of the silver (quarters) that I had on me and urged the other patrons to do like wise and throw them to the boys. I then instructed these "wannabe divers" about "how" to yell, "THROOOOOOOOW A COOOOOOIN"!, not, "Throw A Coin".
I asked our server how often these boys had been doing this. She had been with the restaurant for years and this was the first time that she had ever seen this happen. I then turned back around with the idea of asking these young divers how they knew that this was the spot where I used to dive and how come they were only diving for Mitch and me…and they were GONE!
Mitch and I looked at each other shocked, as if we had just experienced an episode of the "Twilight Zone". After a few minutes to catch my thoughts, I told him that I had the feeling that if I had reached too far over the side, to throw the coins, that I would have fallen into the ocean and then, when I had come to the surface, I would have been a ten year old coin diver!!!!!
He then wondered what would happen if, after dinner, when we left the restaurant, there was a nine year old Mitch, asking to take our luggage to our hotel.
Here's a beautiful movie about the S. S. Catalina and its final resting place.
"THR00000000000W A
C000000000000IN!"
5 comments:
CHUCK! Hi, just stumbled across your blog on the net today when I was checking stats on our website. Wish I had known about it before! so many great stories! Thanks for being our island historian!
-Jared Ruplinger
I love this story! Were the kids island kids, or tourists?
I too was a "Coin Diver" My mother would take me to Catalina frequently during the summer. While she was sunbating, I would swim out to the Steamship and yell "Throoooo a Cooooooin" I used to fill my pockets with silver and then walk over to the Arcade to spend it all on games and candy.
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I too was a coin diver during the 60's and also helped "Big Mike" (as we called him back then)sort out and distribute all the baggage from the ship in the plaza and make sure it was delivered to the right place. I had hand carved bamboo goggles from the phillipines that my dad brought back when he was in the military. I had a total advantage over all the other kids that were with dive masks cuz if we were going for the same coin, i could just knock their mask a little and it would fill up with water...the coin was mine! LOL I always shared the wealth though and bought everyone an ice cream or a candy bar. that was back when ice cream was a dime and 5 cents bought a huge 3 musketeers candy bar! I was a "summer local" that spent all my no skool days of summer on the island with my grandparents who retired there in a home my great grandpa built in 1921. Still in the family and Michelle Bestudik of the SCIC is my cousin. I will never forget those carefree days of riding bikes between the 2 arcades, diving for coins and making $$$ any other way possible so I could pay my own way to the show...which I think was only 2 bucks for kids back then! Johnny and Hazel Tucker were my grandparents...RIP. <3
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