As You Were Archive

On Guard

The images of South Bay lifeguards on duty are as prolific in the minds of generations of beachgoers as are the grains of sand on the shore. In many ways, those images—whether it’s the runner on the water’s edge, the statuesque onlooker atop a tower’s ramp or the swimming rescuer on the crest of a wave—have had a lasting impact on the way locals appreciate the surf. While red-suited workers take their place on the sand this season, veteran lifeguards prove that an endless summer can be found in their collective memories.

Written by Kelly Dawson

Pomp and Circumstance

Longtime Manhattan Beach resident and 2012 MB Centennial Parade chair Jan Dennis reflects on 100 years of bands, batons and balloons by the beach.

Life After the Titanic

On the 100th anniversary of the historic disaster, a local writer recalls the first time she met a survivor of that tragic event, one who lived out her days here in Hermosa Beach.

Written by Jay Berman

Bruce’s Beach

Years after an unsettling period in Manhattan Beach history, an unassuming park overlooking the ocean becomes a place of respite, reflection and forgiveness.

Written by Kelly Dawson

Jazz Beacon

For six decades, Hermosa Beach’s historical Lighthouse brings the genre’s best acts to the South Bay.

Written by Kirk Silsbee

Full Circle

A longtime Manhattan Beach resident knows Metlox not only as a “center” but also as the name behind one of the South Bay’s earliest exports: ceramics.

Written by Jan Dennis

Let There Be Light

Soon celebrating 60 years in the South Bay, Wayfarers Chapel is more than a monument, it’s a local treasure.

By Darren Elms

To Decorate A Tree

Growing up in a small New England town during the Depression, a little girl stood in the town square, gazing at her town’s majestic Christmas tree, a yuletide tradition.

By Jan Dennis

The Pursuit of Excellence

In 1935, Margaret Lee Chadwick founded an open-air school in her San Pedro home with only four students, two of them her own children. Through the generous donations of land and buildings from local families, the Palos Verdes campus of Chadwick Seaside School opened a few years later with 75 day and boarding students.

By Darren Elms

On Guard

Those who knew Dwight Crum in the final years of his life remember him in much the same way as those who knew him as a rookie LA County lifeguard.

By Jacqueline Renfrow