Newport Beach was one of the earliest beach communities along
the central coast of Orange County. In the early 20th century,
there were no freeways to move the traffic; there were ranches,
small farms and open fields instead of solid housing and commerce
connecting the coast to Los Angeles. And there was the sea
and the sand, and excellent fishing.
The
small town of Newport Beach that grew along the coast had
a real sense of identity that it retained for decades and
is still evident today. This was the Newport Beach that Gus
Wurdinger called home, the place he came to in 1911 at age
27 to "work" the boardwalk. He became friends with
those already there, including Hugh McMillan, Rube Shafer
and Joe Schnitker. Gus recalled that these Newport Beach originals
"made up a sort of non-exclusive club," with membership
based on zany but well-intentioned jokes and humorous antics.
Probably
every early resident of Newport Beach had an interesting story
of how they came to be there, but it's doubtful that many
could match the stories of Gus Wurdinger. In his early years,
Gus was a wanderer. He stowed away on a ship to Honolulu when
he was 14; he rode the rails in the western states; he worked
as a bartender in the boom town mining camp of Rhyolite, Nevada;
he rode the flumes in the lumber camps near Yosemite; and
later he owned and operated the Dutch Gus Cafe in Ashland,
Oregon. But it was Newport Beach he called home, where he
eventually became known as "Gus the Gardener." Newport
Beach was his home base until 1966, a place he stayed as long
as his health allowed. As he remembered when he left for good,
at age 82, "Newport seems to have changed as much as
I have, with both of us getting older."
In
addition to experiencing life to the fullest, Gus did something
few other wanderers did: he wrote stories about his experiences.
Now, in a new 178-page book, his fascinating life is open
to the reader. |
