The damn Chicago Cubs. Everybody called them the "Damn Cubs". Mr Wrigley owned chewing gum, Catalina and the Cubs baseball team. When the other teams went south to Florida the Cubs came west to Catalina.

I don't know what it was about the Cubs but no one on the island really seemed to take them serious. They would arrive From Chicago looking like a bunch of gangsters in their top coats and tailored suites. The police chief used to joke about how the team looked like a bunch of "Torpedoes" that worked for Al Capone instead of pro-ball players. Baseball was not a "Hot" item on the west coast at that time in history.

Charlie Grimm was the team manager. He made every effort to involve the community in the teams activities. The practices were always open to the public. The team publicity people were always busy making pictures and handing out team memento's. Where else but California could you have National league ball team to "Fool" with if you didn't have something else better to do. What a life!! Oh and by the way, the Cubs always furnished lunch on Wednesday. 

Remember earlier when I told about the Wrigley mansion and the one old lady that was a full time resident there? As time passed us kids had reason to spend time up there on the hills overlooking the Avalon side of the island. The old lady was always there on her balcony, waving and smiling.

Toy airplanes swept the island pretty much the same way the plastic water guns had. The little airplane like the  "Water Pistol" was a totally new design that came to be at the end of the war.

The little airplane was the "Brain Child" of a man named Jim Walker. It was a glider constructed of Balsa wood, it really flew and it cost just one thin dime. Walker became a millionaire in the early nineteen fifties, mostly as the result of this little toss and chase toy airplane.

The cost of these balsa wood gliders made it possible to learn a lot about aerodynamics without going broke. Jim Walker had built a lot to learn in his little "Jewell". Like most everything in life, competition could determine the fate of these toy airplanes.  It didn't hurt the sell of the glider either. The need to see who's "Ten Cent" glider could stay up the longest would carry us back to the ridge and the Wrigley mansion many times. 

Otis Davis had read about a place called Torey Pines. It was a spot out on the mainland coast highway that model plane builders and full size glider builders used to test and fly their creations. The lay of the land was such that the breeze coming in off the ocean was "funneled" onto the face of the ocean side hills. this type of wind deflection combined with the natural heating of the ground caused the formation of thermals. A thermal is a rising mass/column of air caused mostly by the heat of the earth. A thermal by itself can create a column of air reaching up several hundred feet. Mix in a breeze that doesn't cool the air and the column can reach up several thousand feet. We had a "Torey Pines" right here on Catalina. Of course we were in the land of "Perfect" so what else would you expect?

It didn't take us long to discover that Jim Walkers "Dime" glider could "Hitch" a ride on a thermal and stay up many minutes before the thermal "Spit" the little plane out. We seldom were able to retrieve the little gliders. Most of the time we lost sight of them all together. I had one well used little airplane that had survived four flights. A record of sorts in our crowd. Most of the time the little gliders were swept out toward the bay and into the sea. 

The Jim Walker toy glider was as I mentioned a good teaching tool. It embodied several aerodynamic principles in order for it to fly so well. The balsa wing had a true "Air foil" built into it. The wing could move fore and aft allowing for changes in the center of gravity. The tail surfaces could be adjusted slightly. The toy was strong in spite of the light weight balsa used to build it. The only down side to this love of the little toy airplane was the number of people that it attracted to either play or just watch. Our neighbor in the Wrigley home didn't like so much going on around her estate. I couldn't blame her for feeling that way. All the attention just kinda took the fun out of the whole idea. We backed off after a while so as not to invade on the privacy of the old lady in the hill top mansion.  The influence of the little ten cent glider would play a part in my life in later years. Although I didn't know at that time I was "Hooked" on aircraft and flying. Thank you Jim Walker!! 

The island was the home of many different types of plants and flowers. The most plentiful flower was the yellow and red Nasturtium. A beautiful plant that grew wild on all the hills and valleys. Wildlife was plentiful with wild goats seeming to the most numerous of all the wild critters.

Calling the goats wild is kind of an over statement. They had lived around people so long that they were more like domestic farm animals. They just wandered around and stayed in trouble doing their mischief and "Free Ranging". Sometimes they got into trouble such as roaming around on the golf course and making parts of it impossible to use or they would decide to come to town and hang out around the paying customers. Every kid on the island had a pet goat or so it seemed. Lowell and me had one goat each. Mine was called Cisco and we called little brothers goat Pancho. Our old dog was totally unimpressed and had little to do with them. I asked Mr. White why there was so many goats. He winked at my dad and said the goats helped keep the elephants away. I countered by telling Mr. White that there wasn't any elephants on the island. He laughed and said the absence of elephants proved that the goats were doing a damn good job.