Terminal Island

The island is still there under the six lane elevated bridge that connects Long Beach to San Pedro. It is a narrow strip of land which is now a forest of warehouses and industrial buildings. There is little to identify it as the summer place it used to be for my family in the early thirties. The camping site that was in the seaward side of the island is gone and probably no one remembers it but me.

I looked forward to each summer when in early August we would load up the car with provisions and camping gear and Dad would drive us to Terminal Island. He would set up two tents, one for sleeping and the other for storage and cooking. Then he would leave us, me, my Mom, and Nana, my grandmother, and return to the city where he worked as a cook. He would return on Saturday and go back to work late Sunday evening.

First thing in the morning just as the sun was rising, I would take my surf fishing pole along with the bait I had bought the night before and head for the water’s edge. I would attach two baited hooks to long leader and a two ounce sinker and cast out into surf that rippled onto the shore. I would dig a hole in the sand to hold the pole and settle down to wait for some hapless hungry fish to strike my bait. More often than not I would return to the camp site empty handed.

Later in the day I would join the other kids in the camp to play in the surf or hunt for shells or other treasures washed in by the high tide. All of that was fun but it was later after supper when the magic started. The campers would drag out their chairs and encircle the communal fire pit to gossip and sing or just enjoy the starlit sky and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach. Us kids would play tag in the dark beyond fire light and maybe toast some marshmallows as the fire logs turned to embers. When the fire finally died we would head back to our tent to sleep and wait for a new dawn.