The First Date

When Paul and I were teenagers and had known each other for a short time we had some of the same friends. I had another boy that I liked a lot that year. Paul had his eye on a certain girl for some time, but she may have moved that year and wasn't in the picture any more. We were both interested in the other sex. He may have had his eye on me, but he had his eye on others too.

Paul was going to the beach in Coronado, to a bonfire, with a large group of his friends. This may have been a Church group. He decided to ask me to go with him to this gathering. I knew some of the others in the group and was comfortable in this setting for a first date. I'm sure there must have been food and much fellowship and singing. But the main thing I remember is that we went grunion running.

Grunion are little silvery fish that come up on the beach at specific times during the year to lay their eggs. It is at night by the light of the moon. To catch them you need something to put them in and your bare hands. Anyone over a certain age needs a fishing license to do this. Paul was a surf fisherman and had his license. I never had the need for a license, but I must have been young enough to catch the grunion without a license. Hopefully I was legal. It was not something I would have thought about.

Several of my friends, along with Paul and me, had a great time catching a lot of these slippery little fish by hand that evening. What a fun memory. Afterwards we went to Linda and Judy's house where their mother fried up a batch of grunion for us to enjoy. There was enough of the uncooked fish left over for us to take home for our families. Anyway I took some home.

I doubt my sisters appreciated the fish I took home though. I came from a family that would just as likely as not pull a prank on a sibling. When I got home I woke my sisters up with the fish. It sounds dumb now, but it didn't at the time. I'm sure that Donna and Betty were glad that that was the only time I so nicely shared such cute little fishies with them.

This really was the only time I ever went grunion running. Paul spent much of his younger years surf fishing on the beach in Coronado. We didn't become a couple until some number of months later. We still had eyes for others for a while. I can't recall the month of the first date, but I bet Paul has it written in his journal. It was the fall of 1953 that we became serious about each other. After that there were many hours spent on the beach while Paul was fishing.

Here is a link to Laura's blog post that she wrote three years ago that goes good with this: Swimming and loving in Coronado.