ROBERT GARDNER -- The Verdict

Johnny Gillis was the ultimate waterman. This I learned when we were

Newport Beach lifeguards. There were only three regular guards in those

days: Al Irwin or one of the Johnson boys at Newport; Marco Anich at

Balboa; and “Tarzan” Smith, who lived in a cave off of Big Corona beach.

The rest of us clustered around the Balboa Fire Station, waiting for

Frank Crocker, the fire chief, to check out the surf and the crowds.

And so it was that one Sunday Crocker came back from his examination

of the surf and crowd and announced, “Gillis, you and Gardner pick up a

dory at the Pavilion and go down to the Point and pick tourists off the

rocks.”

Up until that time, I thought I knew how to row a boat.

Gillis whisked us there in about a tenth of the time it would have

taken me.

When we got to the Point, now known as the Wedge, the surf was up and

waves were shooting across a low spot in the jetty and into the bay. No

one was silly enough to go out on the jetty, so we had no tourists to

pick off. That didn’t slow Gillis. “Let’s have some fun,” he said. He

rowed around the jetty, waited for the right wave, then he actually

surfed that dory from the ocean over that low spot and into the bay,

scaring me half to death in the process.

From that moment, I stood in awe of Gillis’ ability to handle a dory.

Of course, as the son of a fisherman, he had been handling dories since

he was a child.

When I got to know him, I found out that he had fished for halibut in

Alaska, dragging in huge fish all day long. Then he worked the mouth of

the Columbia River and earned a Columbia River Mate’s license, no small

achievement.

When World War II came along, he went into the Navy and was

immediately put on a UDT (Underwater Demolition Team), the most dangerous

job there was. His team did the Mediterranean landing in France.

After the war, we renewed our friendship and began to go to the same

parties. Gillis was immensely powerful, and for some reason, he always

wanted to be sure that I met everyone at a party. So he would sort of

tuck me under his arm and drag me around. As the night wore on, he would

forget that I was tucked under his arm, and I would spend the rest of the

evening buried in his arm pit.

We went skin diving together, fished together, played together, and I

considered him one of my closest friends. Gillis, superlative waterman,

died much too soon. He is survived by his wife, Jackie Gillis, a

prominent Costa Mesa Realtor.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.