Blast from the Past ...

Had a really nice Saturday morning as one Mr. Randy Russell just happened to be in town on vacation. Randy was one of the neighborhood kids that lived on our street when we were growing up in the northern section of Huntington Beach. He moved to Long Beach just before High School but we kept in touch throughout the High School years and I jumped over to Long Beach on occasion for visits and such. We ended up sharing an apartment in both Laguna Hills and Seal Beach at some point in our 20’s. I knew he would be in town this weekend so kept some time free on the calendar.

Got a call from him Saturday morning and we decided to meet in Huntington Beach and cruise PCH looking for landmarks from our distant past. We met up in the shopping center at PCH and Warner and took his rental car out for a spin. Headed up towards Seal Beach and ended up at Ruby’s on the pier for breakfast. Mad Shrimp Omelette I must say. Nice walk on the pier watching folks fish and just hang out. Lots of surfers as well.

From there we decided to cruise up and down the main drag to see how much if at all the place had changed over the years. Couldn’t even remember where our apartment was. The placed looked that different. Spent about 30 min. driving up and down various streets but nothing was ringing any bells so we continued north and started out for another hangout from wayback. Belmont Shores in Long Beach. Made a left on Santa Ana off of 2nd Street and drove down to East Ocean where we found some parking. A stroll up the blvd. ensued in which we were trying to locate a little flat that he had rented for a couple of summers way back when. That area had changed a little bit as well and though we were pretty sure we had pinpointed the place, neither of us could say for sure. The parking lot across the street was a helpful frame of reference but the places we were looking at didn’t match what was in my memory. Of course that was many, many years ago and I didn’t reside there in those years. Actually, we should have kept going on up to Signal Hill. I know I could find the place he rented up there. That didn’t come to mind so we hit the beach as there was some kind of event taking place and we decided to burn every minute on the parking meter. So we hit the sand where the EZ-Ups and sponsor trailers were to find out that there was a Lifeguard competition of sorts taking place. So what the heck, we decided to watch a couple of races.

Took in the Mens and Ladies Run, Swim, Run which was pretty fun to watch. Competitors started much like a track meet. Standing start run down the beach to a marker and back then made a right and jumped into the ocean. Pretty good swim out to and around a buoy and back and then one more run up the same path as before. If I were to participate it would have to be renamed the Run, Crawl, Sink and Drown competition. We were somewhat pressed for time as he had to spend some time with the inlaws that afternoon but we did manage to watch the first lap of the Dory race. That was a hoot to watch. Looked grueling as well.

Headed back to the car and then back to H.B. where Randy dropped me off at my truck. Had a great time that morning visiting old haunts and reminiscing about days gone by. Especially our conquests of the ladies back in our youth. I hope he visits again and has more time to goof off. I hope it's not another 10 to 15 years this time around. As usual a short picture gallery of the morning's doings can be found here.

-Scott