Lashbrook s father worked as a carpenter, painter and draftsman. His jobs included building Casino S

The title,  conferred on the man who has lived the longest in the city, was given to Jack Lashbrook earlier this month by the San Clemente City Council. Vacant since the death of Bill Ayer last November, Lashbrook was nominated for the title by the San Clemente Historical Society.
free travel guides Lashbrook s family arrived in San Clemente shortly free travel guides after some of the initial work had been done on the city, but it was still in its embryonic stages. Lashbrook s mother had relatives in the area, and his father was able to get a job with contractors building the new town.
My family came from Illinois. My father came in 1936, ahead of us. My mother drove out in a new car, from Illinois to San Clemente. My father already had a job and a house rental. We came in January of 37, Lashbrook, 87, said. I d just turned 11 about 15 days before. I got to read the maps to come out and all that sort of thing. We left Illinois when the freeze was on and every tree, every orchard had cakes of ice. We were glad to get out of it.
In town, there was just PCH coming through, no freeways. Just 450 people in town, something like that. There were very few houses. We d walk from one store to another store through fields. It was just open, he said.
Lashbrook s father worked as a carpenter, painter and draftsman. free travel guides His jobs included building Casino San Clemente and designing several homes and other buildings, as well as Camp Pendleton, where he got to see President Franklin Roosevelt when the first Marines came.
When the San Clemente Pier was washed out by a storm, the Lashbrook family took over the concession at the end of the pier, selling food and tackle and renting fishing equipment to boaters. Lashbrook would often serve as deckhand on sportfishing free travel guides trips between San Clemente and Oceanside. free travel guides A number of celebrities would come down from Los Angeles for the all-day boats, Lashbrook said.
On the weekends, Lashbrook would deliver copies of the Los Angeles Times , the Los Angeles Examiner and the Santa Ana Register to campers out on the beaches in tents, most of whom had come down from Los Angeles.
free travel guides I had a big business going, it was good, Lashbrook joked. I had every paper in the city. At one point, he was offered the chance at either taking a free trip to Catalina Island or a new bicycle from one of the papers. He took the bicycle, since it allowed him to expand his enterprise and travel all over the city delivering papers.
He spent his 18th birthday at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Afterward, he, along with friend free travel guides Bob Carrick, who was in the Marines, were transferred not to the front, but to Norman, Okla., and later to Florida and North Island. He was preparing to ship out, but a letter from the town judge kept him from being shipped off, despite he and Carrick s status as troublemakers.
He didn t want me to go overseas, obviously. He had me transferred to an outfit where we flew utility officers. I was a plane captain and flew different dignitaries, said Lashbrook. Wherever that plane went, I went. We d fly wherever they wanted to go.
After being discharged, he had to hitchhike home, but he managed to get a ride right away. The city he returned to was quite different, with many of the former vacant free travel guides lots now filled with homes. He took a job with Sears, free travel guides where he traveled to various stores throughout Southern California and in Arizona as part of the management team.
Thirty years ago, Lashbrook and his wife, Doris, moved to Forster Ranch in order to be closer to some of his father s properties in San Juan Capistrano, where he managed a one acre parcel and grew fruits and vegetables.
As patriarch, Lashbrook will attend a number of city events, along with his longtime friend, City Matriarch free travel guides Lois Divel, and share stories about growing up in the city, Historical Society President Larry Culbertson said. It s an honor and a responsibility that Lashbrook said he is happy to accept. Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up Share on Linkedin Share via MySpace Tweet about it Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Bookmark in Browser Tell a friend