The Polliwogs: Before the Polliwog Park dedication, there was another Polliwog Park. After the dedication, it became “The Swamp”

by Steve Fulton

We walk with my mom to the Manhattan Heights Library.
But we don’t stop there. 
We cross Manhattan Beach Boulevard at Peck Avenue, and walk down towards Polliwog Pond.
“They are dedicating a new park today” my mom tells us.

Polliwog Pond is becoming Polliwog Park.
This is confusing to us because for my entire life I have known the swamp that lies between The Manhattan Beach Community Church and the Mira Costa Football field as “polliwog park.”
It sits  next to Pacific Shores Continuation School.

Both are bodies of swampy runoff water populated by frogs and frog babies known to us as “polliwogs.”

Kids in our neighborhood go to the small one.
They capture polliwogs in glass jars.

They try to keep them as pets.

Polliwogs make terrible pets.

It looks like the dedicated Polliwog Park will be the official “Polliwog Park” now.
Our “Polliwog Park” will now be known as “the swamp.”

Crammed between a church and a school, that sometimes collects runoff water.

Where kids from the neighborhood play in the muc.
And kids from Pacific Shores smoke dope.

This new large “park”  was once a swampy mess too.
No one knew what to do with it.

Reeds and wildflowers grew around puddles of watery runoff.

The smell was awful.

 

 

But it was a large, wild place to play.
For decades it was used as an open space.
Kids of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s played here without compromise.

Workmen have tamed-it with Portland Cement.
They created winding paths made of concrete.
They dug-out a kidney-shaped bowl for the swamp.

And they have planted tons of trees.

They plan to create a playground, gazebo, bathrooms, and an amphitheater. 

But for now it’s paths and trees and a pond.

As my mom, brother and I stand and watch the dedication ceremony.

I feel the wind in my hair.

Gently  pushing me backwards toward the busy street.

I wonder. 

What is wind actually?

Why does it blow?

My 6 year old brain thinks: “What if the wind is actually ghosts?”

Like the ones that haunt our house? The naive thoughts of a little boy?

I think now that maybe it was not so unrealistic to believe the wind was made of ghosts.

Ghost of a wild land now tamed.
Ghosts of the native people who lived near.
Ghosts of wildflowers, squirrels, gophers.   

Ghosts of dandelions, reeds and fennel and tall grass.

Ghost of kids who once played here without fences or walls or concrete.
Ghosts set-free, or pushed out.
Is there a difference?

They died so this place could live.
So it could become an official park for the city of MB.

 

 

We walk down to the pond.
It smells just like the  “Swamp” (Polliwog Pond) near our house, but it’s enormous.

Supposedly they stocked the pond with fish, but I can’t see any.

The pond is too murky.
At the edges I see little black, wiggly “fish” through the polliwogs.

One day, a few of these, the ones not eaten by birds or ducks.

Or the actual fish will become frogs.
Not all of them can be frogs.

There would be far too many.

It’s weird to think that most of them will die so a few can live.

We walk back up the hill towards the busy street.
I gaze around at the small trees they have planted in the park.
Dozens of trees.
All about 5 or 6 feet tall.
Each supported by a long, wooden stick, buried partially in the ground, standing upright, tied to the trunk.

“To help it grow straight?” I think.
It feels weird that a living tree uses a dead tree so it can flourish.

Something  dies so another can live.

“When the trees and shrubs planted in phase 1 grow to maturity along the winding foot paths…the wilderness effect will help park goers forget they are in a city. ”

–Redondo Reflex, Feb. 18, 1976

We walk up to the cross the street again, and head towards the library.

Then turn towards home.

I look back at the trees.
“Some day, long from now” I think.
“Those little trees will grow into an enormous forest” 

 

 

A couple years later my mom drives us to Kentucky Fried Chicken on Sepulveda.

She, my brother and I each order our own meal.
I get two pieces of extra crispy with mashed potatoes, gravy, and dinner roll.

She let’s us pick out a soda, too.
They have Cactus Cooler, so I select that instantly.

Nothing is better than a Cactus cooler.

She then drives the Datsun 710 over near Polliwog and parks on a side street.

We hike a few blocks to Polliwog Park.

There are tons of people sitting in the grassy amphitheater.

“Concerts in the park is today,” my mom says out loud but to no one in particular.

We find a space on grass high on the hill near the Gazebo.

My mom lays down a big beach towel she had in the back of the Datsun.

We devour our Kentucky Fried Chicken.

It’s my favorite, aside from McDonald’s.

After we eat, my brother and I run down to play near the pond.

My mom stays in our spot on the towel.

A band comes out to play.

They say their name is something like  “The Hyperion Outfall Serenaders” or “The Sticky Fingers Bluegrass Band.”

I will never not think those are weird names.

We throw a few rocks into the pond and watch the ducks

Then we go back and sit with my mom.

She has her eyes closed.

She hums softly as the music plays.

She was once  a singer on the stage.

The only place I’ve heard her sing though, is in church at American Martyrs.

Not in the choir, just from our pew.

She sings “Joy To The World” the loudest and most confidently of all the songs.

 

 

“Rock Bands To Entertain
Manhattan Beach Recreation Department’s Free concerts In The Park  continues July 22 with a ‘Rock and Roll” show featuring three southland rock groups.  The concert begins at 5:00 with Chakra, followed at 6:00 PM with Black Flag, and concluding at 7 with Eddie And The Subtitles.”
   -Redondo Reflex, Wed. July 18, 1979

A year later my sisters are excited about Concerts In The Park.

Their friend’s band will play today.

They are the opening band for another friend’s band named Black Flag.

I’ve heard all of these names, and I’ve met most of these people.
I’ve been to concerts in the park before.

But  my sisters won’t let us go.

They say it will be too “punk rock” and we are too young.

But Nine years old doesn’t feel “too young.”
Instead, my brother and I play a game of garage baseball outside on the driveway.

Then we watch Wide World Of Sports with my dad.

My sisters come home a few hours later filled with excited and angry voices.

“There was a riot!” one sister said

“Everyone starting throwing their food at the band,” the other sister added. 

A riot?
All I can think about are the tadpoles.
And the ducks.
And the tiny trees held up with other trees.

I hope they are all still okay.

 

 

My brother and I play two seasons of baseball at Premiere Little League, located on the north side of Polliwog Park.

After the games we haunt the snack bar, and walk around the pond, looking for the crawdads that seem to haunt he storm drains that fill the pond during winter when El Nino comes or an atmospheric river.

The water-level gets so high that Premiere field, the dugouts, and the entire neighborhood to the north are flooded in two feet of water.
People need boats to get to their houses.

—

For our 5th grade graduation we walk to Aviation High.

We swim in the pool.

Then we walk to Polliwog Park.
We have orange drink from a giant McDonald’s orange drink dispenser.
A few of kids decide to wade into the pond

Which supposedly is off limits.

They race across but don’t realize how deep it becomes.

Up to their heads, they have to swim.

Putting their faces into the mucky runoff from the sewers of East Manhattan Beach.
They make it to the other side

But I’m not sure they will ever be the same.

Mrs. Nash looks the other way I think.
It’s the last day.
Those kids are not her problem any more.

 

 

The Begg Junior High 2-mile run starts at the volleyball courts behind the metal posts, at the end of Peck Avenue, and continues completely around the outside of Polliwog Park.
On the last leg we turn inward from Manhattan Beach Boulevard.
Run past the gazebo towards the amphitheater, and then up a concrete path back to where we started.

The swamp smell wafts into our nostrils as we struggle to finish. 

—

Our “polliwog” park, the small one is now just “the swamp.”
The Cross Country team lead by Mr.  Holland and Mr. Fredericks in the ‘80s, uses it as part of Mira Costa’s official cross-country track. 
The dirt hill, up from the swamp floor  to the hole in the fence that leads to the Mira Costa track.

It is the final indignity of one of hardest Cross Country tracks in all of the Bay League.

Michael Scott Moore immortalizes our 1980s  “swamp” in his 2003 novel “Too Much Of Nothing.” 
In the book, Moore reimagines the South Bay as a place named “Calaveras.” 

He identifies the “swamp” as a place where kids hang out, away from the watchful eyes of adults. 

“One Saturday we hung around the so-called Swamp, which was a patch of eucalyptus trees and mud just downhill from the school. The swamp lay hidden from the street behind the campus of a remedial school named Pacific Shores. (The kids who misbehaved or failed at Calaveras High moved, literally, down to Swamp-level where they finished their high school careers in long puce-paints bungalows.) We went back to the Swamp and flipped through Playboy while my blood ran cold from the nicotine. The bitter poisonous taste of tobacco made my head spin; the glossy pictures aroused me. I almost passed out.” 

   -Too Much Of Nothing,” by Moore, Michael Scott 2003

 

 

Later in the ‘80s, after my brother and I get jumped by Nazi skinheads while walking home from Mira Costa on Peck Avenue, we still take the swamp route.
Even with the prospect of stoners and molesters, the wild space feels more protected than the open streets of East Manhattan Beach. 

—

My future wife and I have our first “date” at Polliwog park.
The official one.

The park, not the date.
The date is unofficial.
We are supposed to be reading Bible verses.
But as we sit on the grass hill I’m instead intoxicated by her soft skin, deep-red hair, pale blue-eyes.
I retain nothing except thoughts of her.

—

One day in the ‘90s, Pacific Shores closes.
The swamp becomes a parking lot for the MBUSD district offices.
Few will remember it was once there.

Except for us.
But “Polliwog Park,” the big one on Manhattan Beach Boulevard lives on, and proudly keeps its name.
Our little park died so it could live?

 

 

And what of all those tiny trees?

The ones supported by other trees?

Planted in 1976.
The ones that survived floods, and punk rock riots?
One day they all grow-up.

30 years on.

I’m a grown man by then, too.
My kids and my wife go to the park.
We walk through the botanical garden.
Then down the grass hill.
The kids play on the wooden ship.
My wife and I sit on a bench and watch them.
For a second I look over towards the winding pathways.

To the trees that were once held-up by other trees.
Trees that died so they could live.
The trees need no help to stand on their own.

I gaze at them, and I think, yes, I was right.
“They do, indeed, now look like a forest.” ER