When We Were Young With Our Corvettes - Chapter #6
The Beach Boys - Chapter #6
My roomie, who as I mentioned was a USC graduate and a native Californian, knew all the local stuff. And he’s the one who said we were going to the 1961 New Year’s Eve concert held at the Long Beach Civic Auditorium as a memorial to Ritchie Valens. But the real show, said he, was a new singing group called The Beach Boys, making one of their first appearances. He drove his 1961 VW (sun roof for our boards) and I drove my new ’62 Vette. If there are any videos around of this concert, you will not believe the girl turnout. The Beach Boys sang for the first time;
“ Surfin” with lyrics about “ baggies” (in the Car Story I tell you where you can still get the BEST) and “huaraches sandals” (these are still available but no longer with soles made out of tire treads). It was crazy, and we were outnumbered two to one.
In keeping with our Technical Discussion theme, “making out” as the kids use to say was not easy in a Vette. You had to let the driver’s seat back as far as it would go. Your girl friend would have to straddle you with her back against the horn button and you had to look over her left shoulder to keep the car on the road. I was out in the garage sitting in Vette the other night with the seat all the way back, thinking how could we have done this.….but when you are 25 and moving at 65 mph with all those hormones you didn’t give it a second thought.
The Vette got us back to Belmont Shore in 15 minutes and the next morning after breakfast at Hof’s Hut we headed to Signal Hill where she lived. In those days you could smell the oil. I remember coming back down in third gear with the pipes singing. I never saw her again but my roomie and I made every local Beach Boys concert there was over the next two years.
In 1994 the "original" Beach Boys appeared at our Hospital Benefit here in town. Mike Love was still in the group. We stood and danced through the entire concert. I thought about the first time I had seen them and my trip back to my apartment that night in the Vette. Dennis Yost of The Classics IV, who died last week, said it all with “Traces”. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qKtrMd4Gs
and play it.
Forgive us, merciful Heavens…we were just kids.
My roomie, who as I mentioned was a USC graduate and a native Californian, knew all the local stuff. And he’s the one who said we were going to the 1961 New Year’s Eve concert held at the Long Beach Civic Auditorium as a memorial to Ritchie Valens. But the real show, said he, was a new singing group called The Beach Boys, making one of their first appearances. He drove his 1961 VW (sun roof for our boards) and I drove my new ’62 Vette. If there are any videos around of this concert, you will not believe the girl turnout. The Beach Boys sang for the first time;
“ Surfin” with lyrics about “ baggies” (in the Car Story I tell you where you can still get the BEST) and “huaraches sandals” (these are still available but no longer with soles made out of tire treads). It was crazy, and we were outnumbered two to one.
In keeping with our Technical Discussion theme, “making out” as the kids use to say was not easy in a Vette. You had to let the driver’s seat back as far as it would go. Your girl friend would have to straddle you with her back against the horn button and you had to look over her left shoulder to keep the car on the road. I was out in the garage sitting in Vette the other night with the seat all the way back, thinking how could we have done this.….but when you are 25 and moving at 65 mph with all those hormones you didn’t give it a second thought.
The Vette got us back to Belmont Shore in 15 minutes and the next morning after breakfast at Hof’s Hut we headed to Signal Hill where she lived. In those days you could smell the oil. I remember coming back down in third gear with the pipes singing. I never saw her again but my roomie and I made every local Beach Boys concert there was over the next two years.
In 1994 the "original" Beach Boys appeared at our Hospital Benefit here in town. Mike Love was still in the group. We stood and danced through the entire concert. I thought about the first time I had seen them and my trip back to my apartment that night in the Vette. Dennis Yost of The Classics IV, who died last week, said it all with “Traces”. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2qKtrMd4Gs
and play it.
Forgive us, merciful Heavens…we were just kids.
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