I grew up in a 1950s ranch house cradled among the pine trees towering over Coldwater Canyon in Beverly Hills. We were only thirty minutes from the ocean, yet to my recollection my mother took me to the beach only twice. One time we built lopsided sand castles on the public beach just north of the Santa Monica Pier and the other we were guests of family friends at the Surf and Sand Beach Club. From both occasions I remember little except the checkerboard of light glittering across the waves. The mental snapshot is so iconic I suspect it’s been influenced by TV and picture postcards, or perhaps falsely generated altogether.
