In looking back over the years, Hermosa Beach has always been an ideal locale to celebrate the Fourth of July. With the sun, water and eclectic setting, it’s no wonder residents and visitors alike choose to spend the national holiday in town.

According to some longtime residents who spent their childhood living in the northern segment of The Strand, Hermosa Beach’s long stretch of concrete always seemed to be the spot where local families would congregate for America’s Independence Day.

Their memories of annual traditions date back to the 1960s when the city was still a lazy, seaside, low-density community and everyone knew everyone else.

For lifetime resident Kevin Dunne, who now lives in a house his grandparents built in the 1930s, he recalled when families would reserve a spot on the beach to shoot off fireworks in the evening.

The morning of the Fourth of July, the neighborhood kids in the area would participate in a local parade along The Strand where children would decorate their bikes with streamers.

As a kid, Dunne also remembers riding his bike down to the local market with his friends to buy fireworks with money collected from empty bottles and cans.

“It seemed like everything was allowed back then,” said Dunne. “It’s seemed more local, with more families.”

Christy Rios (formerly MacFaden), who also grew up on The Strand, remembered the excitement surrounding the day.

“The holiday started out with a bang, literally, with the firing of an illegal cannon,” she said. “We’d shoot the cannon off every hour on the hour from 8 in the morning to 8 at night. When you turned 12, you got to be the kid who packed it.”

Rios remembers her parents and others standing on The Strand drinking cocktails and talking to the police who would walk by on their beat. Some kids would have to distract officers so that Rios’ father could light the cannon.

“I remember when the police officers would walk back toward our house and ask who lit up the firework or the M80,” she said. “I remember my dad telling him that no one did and I thought to myself, ‘My dad just lied.’ I said, ‘Dad, you lied,’ and he said, ‘No, I didn’t. It wasn’t a firecracker or an M80, it was a cannon.'”

Both Dunne and Rios remember every resident in the neighborhood would have people over for a party on that day. Everyone knew each other, and kids would run in and out of houses all day long while adults would visit with each other on their outside patios.

In the early 1960s, Rios and another resident Bill Hopkins founded the annual neighborhood parade that would run for about eight blocks down The Strand from 27th to 35th streets. Kids from all over town would arrive to participate and some members of the Mira Costa High School band would also join the festivities.

“Marshall McComb, who was a Supreme Court judge, would preside over the event,” said Rios. “I don’t feel it’s as local these days. These new houses on The Strand take up the entire lots with barely any room for outside patios, so it seems no one living there gets to know their neighbors. Now you walk down The Strand and you don’t even know who’s home. People don’t seem to enjoy their neighbor’s company at the end of the day since they’re too busy running around and forget there’s a sunset to watch.”

Dunne, one of the founders of the Hermosa Beach version of the annual Ironman Contest, remembered when the event used to take place on Ardmore Avenue. A group of seven or eight local men established the competition where participants paddle their longboards in the ocean for a mile and then run on the sand for a mile. The contestants end the race by eventually chugging a six-pack of beer. Entrants who are able to hold down the alcohol for at least 20 minutes emerge as victors of the competition. Dunne and his cohorts founded the outlandish tradition in about 1979. The tradition still continues to this day.

“Manhattan Beach had its own at Fourth Street and for a time we had a rivalry, but eventually we brought it together in the early to mid-80s,” remembered Dunne. “With the era of Burgie (Robert Benz, former City Councilman who now hosts the event), things got a lot bigger. Now there are so many people coming from all over the place to participate you don’t even know who’s in it.”

Dunne also reminisced about a tradition still intact that has been around for the past 10 years. In the middle of the night, just days before the holiday, a group of men known as the First Street crew secretly paint the First Street lifeguard tower.

“These are a few guys who should remain anonymous,” said Dunne. “One year, the year Bob’s Big Boy restaurant closed down in Hermosa Beach, the guys placed the statue on the roof of the tower and painted him.

“The year when lifeguards were having problems with salary negotiations, the guys built a superhero — I think it was Superman — and put it on the tower and wrote, ‘Support your local super hero.’ One year it was the “Austin Powers” theme and another year the guys painted it in Lakers colors. But eventually someone paints the tower again back to light blue.”