Historian Arthur Verge lectures a packed library convention room at the lifetime of mythical waterman George Freeth. Photograph by means of John Brooks
by means of David Mendez
Arthur Verge, a historical past professor at El Camino School, assumed that he and his spouse had been going to be greeted by means of an empty room on the Redondo Seaside Public Library, fearing his lecture at the existence and instances of surf and lifeguarding pioneer George Freeth could be brought to a room of empty seats.
As a substitute, library group of workers had been compelled to dig additional chairs out of garage, and nonetheless ended up with women and men pressed towards the partitions, as greater than 70 other folks crowded the second-floor assembly room.
“That is God’s nation,” Verge stated. “That is the neighborhood of the South Bay — browsing, lifeguarding, seashore tradition, are so necessary.”
For roughly an hour, Verge’s lecture was once the middle of the universe for South Bay watermen. Dozens of lifeguards and surfers and dozens of historical past buffs had been stoked to be told concerning the Hawaiian who, starting in 1907, redefined a waterman as now not only a professional sailor, however a happy swimmer, surfer, and diver — somebody who was once in point of fact one with the water. Additionally, Freeth took it upon himself to coach legions of younger other folks to be one with the water as smartly.
Redondo Seaside Mayor Invoice Emblem shakes palms with Arthur Verge following the lecture. Photograph by means of David Mendez
“He’s Junipero Serra to me, putting in place missions up and down the coast — however as a substitute of missions, they’re lifeguard products and services, up and down the coast,” Verge stated, relating to the Franciscan missionary who based missions up and down the California coast. “He stored lives, and he gave the impetus, telling communities they want skilled lifeguards. This isn’t an beginner’s recreation.”
Verge’s lecture was once the made from a minimum of six years of study, and just about twenty years past that of deep appreciation, into the arena of George Freeth. Attendees had been in a position to take in about 45 mins of Verge’s analysis, which debunked popularly held ideals (like the concept that Freeth was once delivered to California by means of developer Henry Huntington) and defined Freeth’s contributions to trendy lifeguarding.
An established Los Angeles County lifeguard himself, Verge defined how fashionable lifeguarding traditions — particularly among South Bay locals — may also be traced again to Freeth during the women and men who sat at his finding out tree.
“Most of the lifeguards of the age staff that had been right here as of late, our heroes had been the lifeguards,” stated Jim Graham, a retired lifeguard, and 2017 inductee into Hermosa Seaside’s Surfers Stroll of Repute. “I grew up in Hermosa Seaside within the ‘40s and ‘50s…our heroes had been the Dewey Webers and the Bud Stevensons and the Jim Baileys.”
The target market was once rapt during, with a couple of backseat historians once in a while chiming in. However the crown jewel of the presentation was once the virtual screening of “The Newest in Lifestyles Saving,” a comedic silent movie that featured demonstrations of then-revelatory lifeguarding tactics and kit (together with a respirator similar to one utilized by Redondo’s firefighters within the 1970s, consistent with retired Redondo Seaside Fireplace Leader Pat Aust). The plot is discreet: a lady, pursued by means of an undesirable suitor, scrambles across the Redondo waterfront of the 1910s till she stumbles at the pier and falls into the sea. Freeth and his pal, champion swimmer Ludwig Langer, dive in to scoop the damsel up and resuscitate her; absolutely recovered, she bops her pursuer within the face to the target market’s satisfaction.
In keeping with Verge, the film has yet another little bit of importance: the on-screen pairing of Freeth and damsel-in-distress Dolly Mings, who Verge believes to had been the unrequited love of Freeth’s existence. On the film’s finish, a couple of scant frames of the century-old, relatively worn movie, display Freeth shining a vast smile towards the digital camera, which was once in large part unseen in his portraits of the day.
“I really like finding out this, the real accounts of many, a few years in the past. It’s truly the roots of Redondo,” stated Mayor Invoice Emblem, who stated he cancelled all of his Tuesday evenings plans to make the lecture. “I will’t get sufficient of these items…I truly want to see a ancient e-book about Redondo, it’s attention-grabbing.”