Getting neighborly on the Fourth

The Fourth of July approaches, and with it, the city’s efforts to see that the celebration is a decorous affair. Not only do we have signs announcing no fireworks, but the signs also say there is no alcohol in public places. I gather this is to keep private parties from spilling out into the streets and getting too loud. This was not always the case. Loud parties were a way of life in Balboa during the 1920s and ‘30s.

Of course, we didn’t have amplified music, which drives even the deaf to distraction. Nevertheless, when you jam 20 or 30 people into a single room and they all try to talk or yell at the same time, the neighbors do tend to get a tad testy.

This was particularly true in the old days because most of the houses were single-frame beach cottages. Sound carried. Without intending to, you could eavesdrop on most of your neighbors’ conversations, and you knew the condition of that neighbor’s health by the number of times he flushed his toilet. A party next door might as well have been a party in your own living room.

Then, as now, indignant neighbors called the police. I don’t know what the response time is today, but in those days, it wasn’t very prompt. This was before police radios. You called the Police Department in Newport and the officer answering pushed a button, and a red light on a long pole over the Balboa fire station lighted up. Assuming an officer in the Balboa area happened to look up and see the light, he would go find a telephone and call the police station. Then, if he wasn’t busy arresting drunks or breaking up a mini-riot on Main Street, he would go to the offending house. By that time, the party was probably over. If not, he took action.

My personal favorite loud-party-busting cop was George Callihan. Cal would rap on the front door with his nightstick (in those days a baton was something you waved vigorously when leading a philharmonic orchestra) and yell, “Police!”

Then he’d run around to the back door, and as we loud partyers streamed out, he would whack us on our rumps as we passed. This was a reminder not to do it again. Of course, if he did it today, the city would face millions of dollars in lawsuits, but in those days, instead of looking in the Yellow Pages for your favorite advertising lawyer, you went home, undressed in front of a mirror, gazed proudly at the welt on your fanny, and thought, “Some party!” If you didn’t accumulate at least a few of those welts every summer, you were a social failure.

The party tradition carried over after the war to Bal Week. It seemed like every student in Southern California came down here over spring break. I don’t know if it ever got to be as out-of-control as in Florida, but I do know there were complaints. The police began to crack down on even the most minor misdemeanor, and finally the discouraged students took themselves off to Palm Springs and the Colorado River.

And then, just as everyone was thinking, “Peace at last,” Newport became a magnet for a multitude of young patriots wanting to celebrate the Fourth of July. We don’t see much action in Corona del Mar, so it’s a little hard for us to understand what all the fuss is about, but I guess if you live in West Newport it’s 24 hours of chaos.

As residents gear up for the invasion, it’s probably hard for them to think of this as an extension, albeit an unwelcome one, of our city’s history, so I would advise them to get out the ear plugs, put the Police Department number on speed dial, and give thanks for police radios.