spread in 1952. The ocean faces the town on three sides, and still is the main source of entertainment for the residents. I learned to walk alongside learning to swim with a baby’s instinctive dogpaddling skill, and my mother would frequently take us to the beach to play and to explore the cathedral-like caves nearby. We would go cliff diving and snorkeling regularly, and every day was a magical adventure of one kind or another.
My mother, when she was young, would climb up Mount Soledad, which has a lovely cross at the peak, and pick wildflowers. During the summers, however, I was on my own, as my mom struggled to support three children by herself, working retail and later as a dental assistant. It was a small town, and people knew each other’s business and conditions, and were generous to us. A friend lent us a car, others gave us their hand-me-downs, as well as other acts of kindness. In particular, I remember a lifeguard, Dick Soper, who was something of a father figure to me in those early years. He would pitch in and buy me some lunch sometimes, as he knew I didn’t always have money.
My biological father, who I was named after, had left when I was young, and Dick stepped into the role, teaching me about the beauty of the ocean but also the adventures that could be had at the cove beach. I would go snorkeling in the gorgeous reefs and swim through the eel grass that grew there.
My biological father had little in common with his own father, Harrison Howard Cassell, who died before I was born. Harrison put himself through law school and became the district attorney of Los Angeles, leading relief efforts in the wake of an earthquake in Mexico, and even running for the Senate. After his divorce from my paternal grandmother, who I only ever knew as Nana, he became an alcoholic and died poor in a boarding house. My nana was a Christian Scientist. Christian Science doesn’t believe in doctors, and she died when I was three years old. My father, Jim Cassell, did not reach the career heights my grandfather did, but both constantly battled alcoholism throughout their lives. He didn’t have the initiative to make anything of himself because he knew he was to inherit upon the death of his mother. Before or during World War II, my biological father became an alcoholic like his father before him; unfortunately, that’s all I really know of him, except that he was sixty-one years old when he passed away.
I had two siblings then: Mike, who was six years my senior, and Vicky, who was two years my senior. Mike and I were not terribly close; he was a distant sort of presence in my childhood, having been sent to military school when I was young. He also spent more time with our alcoholic and abusive father than either Vicky or I did, which separated us from him early on. Vicky was my protector, beating up the kids who bullied me, though she did sometimes beat me up herself as well. My mom didn’t want Vicky to fight other boys, so she would let us fight out our issues. I remember the first time I was able to beat my sister was when I was 12, and after that, the fights tapered off.
La Jolla was a small town when my grandparents settled, consisting mostly of ranches, farms, and regular folk. It attracted artsy people, dreamers, and those who just wanted to get away from the cold, and thus it quickly grew, having a population of almost 10,000 by the time we moved away. I loved the horses and the hayrides, and had a fondness for “cowboy music” as I knew it. If asked, I would have said that Frankie Lane was my favorite singer, as he sang all the famous Western titles such as “High Noon” and “3:10 to Yuma.” I dreamed of having such a ranch once I was grown, a dream no doubt heavily influenced by the movie Westerns I loved. I quickly changed my mind, however, when I learned that scorpions and rattlesnakes were native to Tucson, Arizona, which was the premier place to have a ranch in my young mind. Overall, I was a positive child, with childhood dreams. The first ten years of my life passed in idyllic happiness, and if my mother hadn’t remarried, I likely would have grown up to be a lifeguard or a surfer. Growing up in La Jolla was all about having friends and support for me and my mom, helping us get along—it was an embodiment of the saying “it takes a village to raise a child.”
Jim’s Mom. (1929)
Jim with his Mom – La Jolla. (1946).
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