thoughts on the Imus thing / continuation

Today, I was going to continue where I left off - but, I'm going on a tangent. What a phenomenal waste of time this Imus thing is. For three days now, everybody from the ordinary citizen to Jesse Jackson has demanded media time. Just fire the bastard and move on. Besides, I could never understand why the folks here are so thoroughly engrossed with words and gesticulations. Somebody flips the finger - or tells somebody to fuck off. So what??? Why waste time responding? Apparently he said something about the non-whites on a college women's basketball team. Whoopedy doo. The media is trying to incite another riot!!

Now on to more productive thoughts. The last few posts bring me to my teens. My teenage years were filled with being a mediocre (at best) athlete, drugs, mediocre grades and drugs. I enjoyed all of it. The bottles of Annie Green Springs, Ripple, Thunderbird, Yago Santgria and when I had a few bucks - Mateus and Lancers(both Rose and White). I worked at Tosh's Chevron on the corner of Normandie and Redondo Beach Boulevard. I went fishing too - just not quite as often. I recall frequenting Payne's Sporting Goods in Gardena, as well as Yo's. I made a skateboard in Mr. Creasy's Wood shop at Peary Junior High School. I rode that damn thing everywhere. I was even voted Home Room President one semester in Mr. Reagan's homeroom. All right, so was everybody else. I don't care - I felt pretty good about it. About this time the family moved from Gardena to Torrance. From Peary to North Torrance High School. This is now 1970. From here on, I lost a portion of my grey matter to drugs. Absolutely no regrets - that's another waste of time thing.

Back to fishing. In San Pedro, there was two landings - 22nd Street Landing and Norm's Landing. 22nd Street was home to a couple of legendary (in fishing anyway) skippers - Frank Hall and Russ Izor. Frank ran the Sharpshooter and Russ the Indian. I always wanted to ride the Sharpshooter - but it always seemed to be full. Those two always caught the seabass and yellows. Norm's had the two Drakes - Toronado and Electra, Roger Hess and Dick Helgren. Those guys were good too. I don't have many regrets - but, I do regret not fishing more during these years. I recall a charter on the Indian. Izor took us to Catalina. Matter of fact, I don't think Izor took his boats anywhere else. Catalina was HIS island. In my life, I have never seen anyone with such intimate knowlege of Catalina. A bit later in life, Izor and I would become good friends. He was already out of the skippering business and became a tackle peddler. I was to be there during his last few months. This is the first time I watched a passing. What an enlightening experience.

I didn't have much experience with fishing San Diego. Around 1967 or 1968, when the family was renting a house in Gardena - the owner of the property was a fisherman, Hiro Hirabayashi. He took me to San Diego to fish the Point Loma (Eddie Diehl) in the wintertime. In those days, the seabass would bite every year at Tijuana Flats. We would yoyo 6X heavy Salas tipped with live squid and drift. I caught my first seabass - 25 and 32 lbs. Very exciting. Hiro gave me two nice Fenwicks (rods) - which were later stolen on Redondo Pier. To be continued.