Lawrence Mace In Search of Whole Rainbows, Unpublished Manuscript, 1994, 1952, 1949, 1948, 1942
Chapter Twenty-nine: The Manchester
"November 1952 . . .
" . . .
"Clyde [Adams] had a small Triumph motorcycle stored at home in Oakland. He lent it to me for transportation while I was on leave. Riding it was great fun. I headed east to my early childhood home town of Modesto to spend an evening talking with my father, then rode three hundred miles south to Santa Monica and Muscle Beach. I felt exciting anticipation riding the last few miles into Santa Monica. It felt much more like home than Oakland.
"My friend Deforest Most, who directed Muscle Beach for the City of Santa Monica, greeted me as if I had not been away two years: "Hi Larry. Glad you're back." Moe and I continued our close friendship where we had left it. He was surprised to hear there was so much acrobatic activity in Hawaii. There would be much interchange between the two places during the next twenty years. Many of my friends from Honolulu came to visit Santa Monica, and many from Muscle Beach made trips to Waikiki.
"I met a new long time friend, Stan Turner, my first day back at Muscle Beach. Stan, The Hand Stand Man, weighed one-hundred-twenty pounds and could do a hand stand anywhere, any time. We spent long days doing hand balancing together. We were both in top shape, learning tricks together I have never been able to do again with any other partner.
"Our most impressive accomplishment was a cannonball to a high hand-to-hand. Stan stood in front of me facing away. I grasped his hands from behind. Stan then jumped upward and outward away from me, as I pushed upward to give him height above the ground. Near the top of his jump, he brought his knees up to his chest into a tight cannonball tuck. He rolled forward, diving downward toward the ground, then swung from my arms backward in his tight tuck between my legs. I then swung him strongly forward again through my legs and upward. At the proper instant, he came out of his tuck position in front of me to shoot upward above my head to a high hand stand. Our movements became so beautifully coordinated that I did not bend my arms at all as I swung him upward to the high hand-to-hand position. Never again have I seen the move done by anyone as well as we did it together.
"I stayed with Stan during my leave, at his small apartment at Crystal Beach, one half mile south of Santa Monica. Stan loved motorcycles and kept his classic, Vincent Black Shadow in his front room. It was beautiful. He said the engine was "temperamental," and I never saw him ride it. He seemed content merely to look at it. I chained my friend Clyde's little Triumph outside on Stan's porch at night.
"Thirty days passed pleasantly with one day melting into the next. Moe, Stan, and I balanced together every day, perfecting trio tricks. Muscle Beach was laid back as always. I slid easily into the relaxed beach atmosphere. . . .
"I explored Santa Monica on the Triumph. It was a friendly, medium-sized, middle-class place. One day I rode into the mountains north of the city. I parked for a long time, sitting on the motorcycle, looking out over the sweep of the Santa Monica Bay. The day was cool and clear, I could see the hills of Palos Verdes twenty miles south with the outline of Catalina Island visible off the coast. Santa Monica and West Los Angeles sprawled directly below. It was a rare moment. I decided, 'This will be home for me after the Navy.'
"Babe Westerlund had come to live near Muscle Beach with his wife Lucille. He was a fifty-five-year-old acrobat who had worked in professional show business all his life, in excellent physical shape for his age. He did impressive routines on the horizontal bar and some hand balancing every day with Stan and I. Recently, he had disbanded his trio balancing act, The Nonchalants, and talked much about it. It had been a a top act for many years on the night club circuit throughout the US.
"Babe and Lucille began to learn juggling together. They practiced hours every day, developing a juggling act they planned to 'take on the road' after they perfected it. They had met each other late in life. Now each was the center of the world for the other. Stan and I became their friends.
" . . .
"Christmas came. I stayed with Stan on liberty, riding the little Triumph motorcycle from Long Beach north to Muscle Beach. George Ball's Tropic Village, Gathering Place For Artists, Muscians, And Romantically Inclined People was located at Crystal Beach, one block from Stan's apartment. I spent Christmas eve there drinking beer and dancing.
"Earlier that day I had done hand balancing at Muscle Beach with a fellow my age who showed promise as an acrobat. I saw him early in the evening at the Tropic Village. What a surprise! He was dancing with another man. I had not suspected he was homosexual. The two kissed passionately, mouth to mouth. It was one of the shocks of my young life! I had never before seen men do that.
"An attractive woman was sitting alone at one of the tables. She looked toward me as if she wanted to dance. I approached and started a bantering conversation. She responded encouragingly. Suddenly, in the midst of my banter, she glanced behind me to one side. A look of alarm crossed her face. I turned to see what could be causing her to react in that manner. The last thing I remember that Christmas Eve was the sight of a woman with a beer bottle in her hand, raised above her head.
" . . . The Tropic Village, on Christmas Eve, had been a fierce, violent lesson in bohemian romance. I decided to avoid gay bars in the future.
" . . .
"During my two months in California on leave, and then my first month aboard the Manchester, I usually spent Saturday evenings, when I could, dancing to the Spade Cooley Band at the Santa Monica Ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier. The fun culminated finally at midnight on New Year's Eve. Stan and I, with a third acrobatic friend, did a standing three-high column in the middle of the crowded dance floor. We held our three-high during the end of 1952, into the beginning of 1953. What fun! That was the last time I would ever dance to Spade Cooley, "The King of Western Swing." Soon, he murdered his wife and died of cancer in prison. The Santa Monica Ballroom burned down and was never rebuilt.
" . . ."