HE’S MY NEW LOVE by JACKIE WARD AND THE HONDELLS. Story by Niles Reddick

Paradise Cove, Malibu, 2016

We drove down the hill along a narrow road by the gated million-dollar trailer park at Malibu’s Paradise Cove and breathed in one of the most beautiful scenes with the sea splashing against rocks below a cliff with small shrubs, cacti, and wildflowers. Neither of us had been here in over fifty years, and we were fortunate to make it to 2016 and have a fiftieth celebration. So many of our friends had divorced or slipped away early from disease, heart attacks, or strokes.

We had a seafood lunch, grilled salmon and shrimp, at the beach café, watched and listened to the waves crash near those sprawled on beach towels and in chairs to get sun, and we marveled at the rocks washed over millions of times to get their color and finish.

After lunch, we gathered our folding chairs, towels, umbrella, and carried our sandals, digging our toes in beach sand, where The Beach Boys were known for Surfin’ Safari and Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon starred in Beach Blanket Bingo. That’s the first time I’d heard He’s My New Love by Jackie Ward and The Hondells (lip-synched for the movie by Linda Evans who was in The Big Valley and Dynasty), and even though we’d lasted for over fifty years now, our old love still felt like new love.

I had been an extra in a few films including Beach Banket Bingo in 1965 and hadn’t been back to Paradise Cove since we’d been in Northern California our whole time together and rarely came back to Los Angeles since my parents had passed. I remember reading later that parts of The Rockford Files and The Mod Squad had been filmed here, too.

We cautiously climbed over rocks that jutted out and then curved back, creating a private barrier between us and the cove’s sun bathers.  We noted the mud slide signs, but we didn’t think conditions were likely and stretched in our chairs under the umbrella. After watching waves crash onto the rocks, we heard the rushing, thundering mud slide: rocks, bushes, mud all rushing over the cliff.

We couldn’t scramble quick enough and found we were covered in mud. I heard someone yell over the waves crashing to call 9-1-1, and several beach goers came to help and scooped mud. If there was a positive, it was that the umbrella had collapsed on our faces, and our airways were not clogged with mud, but I heard someone shout my husband wasn’t breathing. I reached my hand toward his limp hand in the mud and touched it. “Come on,” I whispered. “We still have some time. Our love can’t be over yet.”

One woman in a bikini came over, pushed both hands on his chest, pinched his nose, and breathed in and out for him. Within a couple of minutes, he coughed and vomited a bit into the mud. When emergency personnel arrived, they loaded us both onto stretchers, told us we would be okay, and carried us to the nearest hospital.

I later learned most of the mud and debris had gathered a few feet from us, covering rocks. We had experienced incredible beauty and disaster almost simultaneously. It also occurred to me that the beaches and coves were here when I was young and would be here long after we left, long after everyone in Malibu was gone. Nature always outlasts humanity. It was one constant that we knew. We were just appreciative for a little more time.

Stereo Story#713