Imagine growing up in Newport Beach near the Upper Newport Bay in the 1940s before any major development.
“It was a Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer sort of life as a little kid – we had caves and gullies and ponds and trees and fields to play in. It was really a terrific way to grow up,” said Peyton Reed, whose family for many years lived in Newport Heights next to a gully that led to the Back Bay.
Reed, whose family also lived on Lido Isle, spent most of his youth exploring the Back Bay. Rarely did they go to the ocean. But Reed became an expert swimmer and served 12 years as a Newport Beach lifeguard, often stationed at 17th Street. Many of his college buddies thought he was “nuts” for working as a lifeguard, including full-time from 1965 to 1969, after graduating from USC.
At age 85, Reed is one of the oldest living Newport Beach lifeguards, and these days serves on the board of directors for the Newport Beach Historical Society, which opened its new location this year at the Balboa Fun Zone.
Reed built a successful marketing company after his lifeguarding career and traveled to Europe three times.
Prior to lifeguarding, Reed was a champion swimmer at Newport Harbor High (Class of ’57), competing in the freestyle, butterfly and breast strokes under legendary former coach Al Irwin, who was the swim coach for only a few years. Irwin, one of Newport Beach’s early lifeguards, was known more as a football coach at Newport Harbor. Irwin also coached aquatics at Orange Coast College and UC Irvine, where a student center building is named after him.
Reed also competed at Newport Harbor under noted coaches Bill Jewell and Ted Newland, who became a highly decorated UCI men’s water polo coach, finishing a 39-year career at Irvine as the first in NCAA history to reach 700 wins. Newland led the Anteaters to three national championships.
Reed, who became a lifeguard in 1957, has come full circle since his youth, when he attended Newport Grammar School, Corona del Mar School and Ensign Junior High, before Newport Harbor High. Most of his early memories involve investigating the Back Bay, at the time a dumping ground for broken pieces of dock, lumber and scraps.
“There was nothing going on up there in the Back Bay in those days, other than a salt mine way up on the other end,” Reed said. “We used to explore the Back Bay as kids and several times we were chased by tramps. I think they thought it was funny, but it scared us of course. One time, right beyond what is now the boat launch at the Newport Dunes, there was a hill, and at one time that hill was an island, and my friend and I would go down there. One afternoon we found a piece of a dock and pulled our way over to that island and climbed up to the top, where there was a little shack. We heard someone come home, you might say, and we were scared out of our wits, so we scrambled down the side of the hill, got on the dock and got out of there. That was scary.”
Some of Reed’s favorite times came when his father, Robert, who owned an ice company, would put the kids on his back and swim across the channel to a sandy area, which is now the Newport Dunes. During low tide, the water was only about 20 feet from each end, unlike high tide when it extended to about 55 feet. “To me, that was the ultimate adventure,” Reed said.
Reed’s parents were original members at the Balboa Bay Club.
“In 1947, there was nothing there, just a big sand lot between Bayshores and where the Sea Base is,” Reed said. “There was nothing there at all. What I remember in that first spring or summer is a tetherball poll. I don’t think anyone plays tetherball anymore. There was a hot dog and hamburger stand and (the Bay Club) developed quickly.”
Reed never had kids of his own, but he and his wife of 28 years, Linda, enjoy two grand children from Reed’s stepson, Glenn.
Richard Dunn, a longtime sportswriter, writes the Dunn Deal column regularly for The Orange County Register’s weekly, The Coastal Current North.
