Commentary: The summer of ’67 was something to behold in Corona del Mar

Fifty years ago this month, three of my USC fraternity brothers and I moved to Corona del Mar for the summer.

It was 1967 and love and commerce were in the air. We listened to the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and the Doors’ “Light My Fire” a hundred times and watched as Fashion Island was being built.

So much had happened since I’d graduated from high school the year before. America’s presence in Vietnam was growing by the day. “The Dick Van Dyke Show” had just aired its final episode. The Supreme Court ruled the Miranda warning was the law of the land.

Those weren’t the only things that happened back in June 1966. The House of Representatives unanimously approved the Freedom of Information Act, Stokely Carmichael first invoked “black power” in a speech and the American Football and the National Football leagues announced they were merging. Closer to home, UC Irvine held its first Commencement with 14 students.

But this was ’67, and I was living the dream at the beach. Some of my SC friends wanted to become architects, doctors, lawyers or real estate developers. A few others dreamed of becoming pilots or sailing around the world. As near as I can tell, most of their dreams came true.

Not surprisingly, a few didn’t live long enough to see theirs materialize. One tragically crashed and died after falling asleep at the wheel. Another was stabbed to death on fraternity row.

Many have since passed away due to medical complications. Every time I hear that another old friend has died, I wonder why I am still here and he or she is not?

When I think about that summer in CdM, I remember surfing nearly every day, working as a grocery store box boy in Eastbluff, and thinking I am one lucky guy. I didn’t know it then, but nearly everything I did that fateful summer prepared me for living at the beach the rest of my life.

Life certainly was a lot simpler half a century ago. A typical Eichler home where I grew up (in Palo Alto) most likely sold for $30,000 back then, compared to the more than $2 million some fetch today.

Gas cost approximately 30 cents a gallon 50 years ago. During the summer of 2012, it was nearing $5 a gallon at some local stations.

When my kids ask me for $20 now, I sometimes hesitate. I realize that’s not much by today’s standards, but it was a lot when I was young.

How so? When I sold shoes as a high school student, I got paid $6 for an eight-hour shift.

Several of my college friends never left the beach. They either inherited their parents’ home, or bought it from them, and then raised their children in the same neighborhood they grew up in during the 1950s and ’60s.

For them, the question, “Can you take the surf and sand out of the boy or girl?” was moot. As it turns out, it was for me as well.

People say the beach and surrounding communities don’t look the way they did back in 1967. That’s OK by me. Fashion Island, Linda Isle and I don’t look the same either. I guess you could say we all have grown up together.

DENNY FREIDENRICH lives in Laguna Beach.