When we moved to Pebbly Beach our next door neighbors on the east side of the house was a family named Hanson. The west side neighbors was Tony and Merle Sajoskus. Tony was a bus driver for the city of Avalon. Merle was a waitress at one of the clubs in town. They had no children. They had a pretty "stormy" marriage judging from the loud fights they had on a regular basis. It was one of those situations where you didn't dare take sides because if you did the both of them closed ranks and were mad at you. 

Tony was a big guy. When he got mad he'd yell and get all red in the face complete with bulging veins in his neck and saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth. Merle on the other hand was a small woman and could out cuss any sailor I ever knew. She'd flip ol Tony the "bone" and make some very direct remarks about his mama and the litter she had when Tony was born. Real life Ralph and Alice counterparts of the Jackie Gleason "Honey Mooner" characters. My dad would just shake his head and say "let em fight" last one standing wins. To their credit I don't believe that Tony or Merle ever actually laid a hand on the other. It was just one of lifes little side shows. I did learn how to give someone the "finger" plus some really choice cuss words thanks to Merle. She was from Detroit. I figured it must be a "Bad Ass" place if all the girls was as tuff as Merle. 

The house on the east side was the home of some people that we'd not met. These folks had been gone all summer. A fellow that lived in Avalon would drive out once a week to check the place over and work in the flower beds. The house had a small back yard that he cut with an old "push" type lawn mower. He was a friendly talkative guy. Told me that the residents of this house were doing some work on the mainland. Probably be gone till Christmas or new years. 

True to what the man told me, our absent neighbors were absent no more. They arrived home new years day 1949. The Hanson family enter our lifes.

Al, Norma, their daughter Jeanie and one noisy old Ford pick-up. I didn't realize at the time what a mark these folks would leave on my entire family. An honest to goodness real life adventure was just beginning.

The Hanson's owned and operated a "Deep Sea" salvage business as well as an Abolone processing facility and last but not least contracted to an island company as part of the "Glass Bottom Boat" tourist attraction.

The salvage business pretty much is self expanatory. Al was a "Hard Hat" deep sea diver. If you sank it, Al could recover it. The reason the family had been away from the island all summer was due to salvage work.
They had been recovering items off the coast of Washington state.

The Abolone is a large shell fish found only off the coast of California and to a lesser degree the coast of Japan. Something to do with water temperature in those two area's that appeals to the Abolone I'm told. The Hanson's had a license to harvest and process the Abolone. The meat is considered a delicacy. It sold for $1.25 per pound at that time.(1948-1949)There was never enough to satisfy the demand.

The glass bottom boat attraction was a seasonal job that the Hanson's did if there wasn't a more pressing salvage job to be done.

The boats actually had sections of their bottoms replaced by heavy glass panels. The panels were set in "Wells" about the size of a small pool table. There were  padded waist high guard rails around each well. Passengers would gather around these "Wells" and be able to get an underwater look at the ocean floor. They were neat old boats. They were propelled by paddle wheels on each side just like the old "Side Wheelers" of the past. They just "Chugged" along in no particular hurry.

The Hanson's would anchor their smallest salvage barge, "The Davy Jones" in a small cove between Avalon and Pebbly Beach. The barge was fifty feet long with a beam of twenty feet. It was set up strictly as a diver"Tender" which meant it was a diving platform only with no other real salvage function. There was a deck house for changing and storage of gear. There was no means of propulsion. But for this job it wouldn't need to move anyway. The water was thirty five feet deep at the point of anchorage. The sea bottom sloped gently down and deeper as it ran out into the harbor.

The glass bottom boats would come into the cove and cut back their power until they just idled in place. Al or Norma would be suited up and already submerged. they would then venture directly under the boat until they were in full view to the tourist peering down through the glass wells in the bottom of the boats. At this point the diver would point out different interesting items on the ocean floor. A one way intercom system let the diver add dialog to the show. Not a lot by todays standards but impressive as all get out back then! So, here was the next stage of things to learn about. Not everyday kid things for sure. The Hanson's would be good a willing teachers and as I said earlier my mind was like a sponge.