Raymond Davis and his brother Otis were part of our "inner"circle. All the neighborhood kids hung out at their house because of the SilverTone television.

Their mom seemed to take it all in stride even though she was very strict with us all. I noticed that during the summer months Mrs. Davis would make us all go home in the late afternoon, She'd load up her kids in the old pick up truck and head toward Avalon. My curiosity finally took control and I asked Raymond what was the deal with the afternoon trips to town. Beach Combing was his reply. He explained that his mom and his brother and two sisters spent their afternoon on the public beach looking for items lost or left behind by the tourist.

The beach usually got pretty deserted in late afternoon. All the tourist went back to their hotel rooms and got ready for the island night life. There was about two hours of day light left for us to checkout the "Bounty" of lost and left behind items. The "Finders, Keeper" rule was the accepted order of the day. We'd hit the beach like a swarm of Locust.

Mrs. Davis carried a couple of big bags and everything we found went in the bags. One exception to the "Keeper " rule was wallets. We never looked inside of them. We simply turned them into a collection box for lost wallets. We would find about everything you could imagine but mostly it would shoes, towels and jewelry. I never quite learned what Mrs. Davis did with all the stuff. I just liked to treasure hunt.

Ever so often We'd all load up into the old truck and Mrs Davis would take us to the island dump. Thats land fill to you younger folks. Oh what a place!

The dump was kind of a history lesson of sorts. It was about four years after a world war and the dump reflected the changes that were taking place. People had made do with what ever they had before the war started. The war effort had really shut down the flow of consumer goods. That was no longer the case and the old stuff was being tossed out in favor of new more modern items. Everything from radio's to old dishes and cooking pots. The amount of items turning up from the small island population was enormous. I can only imagine what it was like in high population area like Los Angeles.

I loved old radios. They had always fascinated me. The very notion that someone miles away could be heard just as if they were in the room with you amazed me. I talked Raymond's mom into hauling several radios back to Pebbly Beach. Our front porch became my radio room.

People that were born after the mid nineteen fifties never experienced radio during its "Golden Age". Before arriving in California I'd never saw a television set but radio had been part of my life since "Way Back". Programs like Amos and Andy, The Lone Ranger and Lord only knows how many others had been staples in rural Alabama.  Everyone would gather around the radio and sit quietly as each listened to the invisible radio people that came into their living rooms. It was better than television I believe, because in your mind you created the images and interacted without the pictures that television furnished. A few of the old radio shows made it into television but most died in the flicker of the picture tube. The pictures that they had created in the listeners minds couldn't be reproduce in front of the television cameras.

Another throw away after the war was old books and magazines. I guess that after enduring the war years no one needed reminders of how it had been. I'm was an avid reader and still am. I would bring home stacks of Life, Look, Colliers and Saturday Evening Post. My mom really was confronted with mixed emotions. She encouraged me to read but I sure made her front porch look like the town dump.

The old radios had one lasting affect on me. I became interested in short wave radio. Most of the old radios could receive short wave transmissions. Hearing people on the other side of the world really turned a kids head around. That interest lead me to become a ham radio operator. I've been licensed for fifty six years. I was for awhile the youngest fully licensed ham in the entire nation. My call letters are K8AXS. One of my proudest moments was when my father followed in my steps and became a ham. His call letters were K8LIF. Something about that similar interest was the cement of a bond that I can't really put to words. It was a good thing and a lasting thing. God bless you Bert. I sure miss you "Old Man".

And then there was the like new Maytag gasoline powered washing machine I salvaged. Bet you never heard of one much less saw one. It was Al Hanson's fault. Al had told me several times about the fabled "Gas Maytag".  I guess fate decided to intrude and grant Al the chance to own such a prized engineering marvel. I found it at the dump and once I realized what it was I got Mrs. Davis to haul it home for me. I set it so Al would be sure to see it when he got home. It had the affect I figured it would. He was a like kid with a new toy. He got it running and would have had Norma doing the wash in it but she declined the offer. I guess what they say is true. One mans junk is indeed another mans treasure.