Column: Pastor Robert B. Gronlund delivered impressive oratory at Newport Harbor Lutheran

Joining Mickey Mantle and Vin Scully, he was the third person of my boyhood trinity of heroes.

Robert B. Gronlund was the pastor of Newport Harbor Lutheran Church.

My family moved from Balboa Island to Costa Mesa in 1953 when I was 8. Upon recommendation of neighbors, we began attending Newport Harbor Lutheran on Cliff Drive overlooking Newport Bay. The distinctive green structure featured a tower with a lighted cross that could be seen from miles at sea.

I painted a picture of the church and won a red ribbon in the 1955 Boys’ Club of the Harbor Area art contest. It was my first — and last – winning watercolor.

The church owned a rickety bus that clattered through Costa Mesa’s pot-holed neighborhoods on Sunday mornings picking up children. We lived four miles from church, and my brother and I rode 20 miles each Sunday. Soon, my parents were attending and we became an active church family.

The church had a new pastor -– Gronlund — who stirred something in my un-churched family. Mom became church secretary and, later, Sunday school director. Dad served on the church council.

Gronlund baptized my brother, sister and I.

A native of Duluth, Minn., he was a decorated World War II veteran. He was fresh out of seminary, and I was drawn to his charismatic demeanor. He was a powerful orator.

A graduate of Wartburg Seminary, Gronlund came to Newport Harbor in ’53. He served three years, then took a fellowship in Los Angeles. He was assistant to the president of California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks from 1959-62.

Much later he became an art collector and fundraising consultant. He died in 2007 at the age of 81.

Gronlund recruited me to be an acolyte (altar boy) when I was 10. I was moved by the solemnity of my duties. The following year I enrolled in his confirmation class.

He and his wife, Dottie, and two children (they ultimately had four) lived in the church parsonage on Laurie Lane, a quiet Eastside Costa Mesa cul-de-sac.

My parents, brother, sister and I were invited to the Gronlunds for dinner. My parents reciprocated. Gronlund was always dropping by our house to leave materials for my church-secretary mom.

When he’d arrive, we kids were usually playing basketball on the driveway or baseball in the street. I strove to impress.

He tarried one day to watch a half-inning of our baseball game.

“Why are you all batting lefty?” he inquired.

“’Cause, we want to be switch-hitters like Mantle,” I responded.

Gronlund nodded.

“Do you realize that you’re batting cross-handed? A good fastball will snap your wrist.”

Hmm. Good point.

As an acolyte, it was my responsibility to light altar candles before the first hymn; assist the pastor with communion; and extinguish candles after the final hymn. I wore a floor length black cassock with a white robe over the top.

I relished the 10 minutes of chat with Gronlund before each service in the anteroom next to the altar.

I enjoyed his sermons and took copious notes. I turned in weekly summaries with my catechism class homework.

After services, I’d step into the elevated pulpit — ostensibly to clean up — and would glance out over the nave. I sensed Pastor Gronlund’s burden of responsibility. I’d look at his sermon notes sitting on the lectern. He painstakingly wrote them out longhand using a fountain pen.

When I visited my mom in the church office I often saw him writing at his desk, flanked by stacks of books.

When I was 12, Gronlund left Newport Beach, and I was inconsolable. A 12-year-old doesn’t easily relinquish a hero.

In May 1965, I was a 20-year-old Army corporal home on leave before shipping overseas. I attended church — in uniform — with my proud parents.

Who else was in attendance that morning? Gronlund. He was then vice president of development for a Midwestern university.

After the service, I made my way to him. He slapped me on the back.

“You look great in uniform, Jimmy,” he said.

I felt 10-feet tall.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.