First tree was truly a bargain

Robert Gardner

* EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily Pilot has agreed to republish The Verdict,

the ever popular column written for many years by retired Corona del

Mar jurist and historian Robert Gardner, in exchange for donations to

the Surfrider Foundation. This particular column was originally

published Jan. 2, 1993.

The official program of the recent Christmas Boat Parade carried a

story to the effect that the first lighted Christmas tree was towed

around the harbor in 1946 by some city employees. Not so. The Newport

Harbor Junior Chamber of Com- merce floated the first Christ- mas

tree in 1940.

The pre-World War II Junior Chamber of Commerce had a short life.

Organized in 1939 -- Bob Allen was its first president, I its second

and Cuba Morris its third -- its career came to a screeching halt

shortly after Dec. 7, 1941, when most of its members went into

military service. However, during its short life, it floated the

city’s first lighted Christmas tree.

Someone in the Junior Chamber came up with the idea. But first we

had to get a tree. We checked with the State Forestry people and were

advised that they did indeed have a tree which had to be removed to

widen a road. And so it was that a group of us drove to the San

Bernardino mountains and there a Forest Ranger pointed out our tree.

Gulp! We hadn’t envisioned anything quite like this. The tree was

huge! It was a monster! It would have felt right at home among the

giant redwoods of Sequoia National Park. It was really a little more

than we had bargained for. We were thinking about something about

twice the size of a normal Christmas tree. This tree obviously

presented some problems.

Cutting it down wasn’t too difficult, but getting it on our truck

took some doing. Fortunately, police officer Cuba Morris and

commercial fishing boat operator Darryl King were along. Those two

were the type of men who can do things with their hands. Somehow, by

using ropes and pulleys (while the rest of us looked on helplessly),

they got the heavy end of the tree on our truck. The top of the tree

rested on a dolly a vast distance beyond the truck.

We still had a minor problem. The tree was so big that its

branches fanned out far enough to cover a modern freeway. And we had

to negotiate over narrow, winding two-lane roads.

We solved this problem by the rest of the party getting into a car

and preceding the truck, waving our arms like crazy and warning of a

wide load following us. Some more spirited souls added, “Run for the

hills!” and “The Red Coats are coming!”

One guy just kept yelling, “Repent, Repent.” I think he had been

drinking.

Somehow, we got down from the mountain without pushing any cars

over cliffs, and our first real problem occurred in San Bernardino,

where the truck had to make a right-hand turn on the corner where the

Harris Department Store was located. Because of its length, the tree

almost wiped out the perfume section of the store.

Getting through Santa Ana Canyon, with its narrow two-lane road

bordering the river, was dicey. However, we only pushed a couple of

cars into the river, and since it wasn’t deep no one was hurt.

Annoyed, maybe, but not hurt.

Arriving home, another problem presented itself. The tree was so

big we couldn’t find a barge large enough to accommodate it.

Darryl finally found a huge barge left over from the 1935-36

dredging of the bay and somehow he and Cuba managed to erect the

tree, again by the ingenious use of lines, cables and pulleys. Darryl

towed the tree around the bay for the Christmas season. We had

lights, but no sound. The repent guy volunteered to go along and

shout “Repent, Repent” at the people on the shore, but we didn’t

think that was quite appropriate.

After World War II, a new group rejuvenated the Junior Chamber of

Commerce -- Dean Bradfold, Moose Lagerlof, Ralph Hoyle, Bob Holden

and Ted Thomas come to mind -- and the first thing they did was carry

on the tradition by towing a lighted Christmas tree around the bay.

Strangely enough, I went along with the new breed when they cut down

their first tree, and they encountered much the same type of problem

we originals had encountered. However, they didn’t have the “Repent,

Repent” guy along. I wish I could remember his name, but normal

research sources don’t carry that kind of information.

* ROBERT GARDNER, a Corona del Mar resident, is a retired judge

and a longtime observer of life in Newport Beach.