Rugged Fisherman

The telephone
rang at 3 a.m. Wednesday in the Venice home of Bill O’Connor. It was
Pat Lister, Santa Monica harbor master, informing him that gale winds
were whipping the bay and his boat was dragging its mooring.

O’Connor, 47, a former champion swimmer and lifeguard, is now a fisherman. He owns the 30-foot El Salvador.

He
dressed and rushed out in the rain to his car only to find his
headlights wouldn’t work. He grabbed his little girl’s bicycle and was
off, aided by a strong tailwind. Within minutes he was at the end of
the groaning pier.

Still clothed, without hesitation, he
jumped into Santa Monica Bay and headed for his boat, pitching in heavy
seas 200 yards away. The next time Lister saw him was in the eerie glow
of a flashlight on deck.

O’CONNOR SET a stern anchor, reinforcing his mooring lines, put stronger lashings on the deck gear, then too another header into the bay.

As
he climbed up the ladder to the dock, a $10,000 catamaran broke loose
from its mooring and swept toward the beach. O’Connor and Chad Merrill,
assistant harbor master, jumped onto its deck, threw lines to the dock,
and swam back to the pier.

After a look around to see that
everything else was secure, O’Connor got back on the bike and headed
home. Wonder how things are these days with Ernest Hemingway?

THE STRONG WINDS also awakened an advertising executive who suddenly remembered a newly planted 8-foot tree and rushed outside to the rescue.

On
reaching up to brace the tree against the wind his pajama pants dropped
around his ankles. When he reached down to retrieve them the tree
swayed dangerously in the gale. This happened over and over, like in an
old Laurel and Hardy movie, and his wife, who watched through the
living room window, is still laughing.

UNANIMOUS
Never a letter from a friend or foe,
They’re either ads or bills I owe.
– RALPH FREEMAN

REMEMBERED quotes from the lavish Sports Illustrated dinner acclaiming UCLA’s Rafer Johnson:

Art Linkletter introduced a celebrity as having "a greater rating than if Brigitte Bardot played ‘Lolita’ on TV." He also referred to Henry Luce as "the Vic Tanny of the publishing world."

An apt line by Luce: "The test of a high civilization is the pursuit of excellence — that’s why we honor Rafer."

Romain
Gary: "I saw Mr. Luce play golf a few days ago in Phoenix. If I were
the owner of Time, Life, Fortune and Sports Illustrated I’d hire
someone to play for me."

NEW YEARS 33 years ago — Jan. 1, 1929 — a young ensign named Edward V. Dockweiler drew the midwatch
(midnight to 4 a.m.) aboard the USS Idaho, anchored off San Pedro. This
was before the present nine-mile breakwater was completed.

An unwritten rule required that midwatch entries in the log be in rhyme and Dockweiler
wrote, "We are anchored in Pedro Harbor, though there isn’t much of a
fee, and why they call it a harbor, is something I never could see."

Imagine the surprise of Bernard J. Caughlin,
general manager of L.A. Harbor, to read this in the January 1959 issue
of U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, which reprinted it. Dockweiler, a retired admiral, is the Harbor’s chief engineer. Caughlin is his boss. 

MISCELLANY — Conductor Fritz Reiner’s appearance with the Philharmonic orchestra reminded Orlando Northcutt of the time Reiner
conducted at Hollywood Bowl. During rehearsal, the orchestra had
difficulty mastering tricky passages of a new symphony and after a
hectic session Reiner invited them to a beer bust, and unheard of gesture. But it relaxed everyone . . . A group of La Mirada residents have hastily joined forces to oppose incorporation of their community to be voted on Tuesday. They claim Gardena gambling interests are behind the proposal . . . Sign on a market in the 8300 block of Wes 3rd Street: "Tomorrow’s fish today."