‘When we went to Tian An Men Square, it was calm and quiet. Then . . . we heard there were thousands of students demonstrating.’

Frank Lilley watched Oceanside grow from a cozy beachfront town to a bustling city during his record, 18-year stint as city manager there. Now, at 70-something, Lilley has recently married. He and his bride took a honeymoon to China, arriving just as the student protests were beginning. Lilley was interviewed at his Oceanside home by Times staff writer Leslie Wolf and photographed by Don Bartletti.

I came to Oceanside in 1952 when the population was about 14,000, and now it’s around 114,000. In the beginning, it was a small town, and it seemed like everyone knew everyone else. But it started to grow while I worked there, and it has constantly grown ever since. So it’s a big city now instead of a sleepy little town. It was inevitable.

The Marine Corps was always out there, and at one time the city encouraged the Marines to come into town. The economy depended on it. Down around Hill Street, there were many, many businesses that catered to the Marines, and they were really welcome. Then, as the town grew, they were not so pleased with having all the visitors, especially on weekends. But this city has always considered Camp Pendleton an asset, and there was always an ongoing program of keeping relations with them as good as we could.

I retired from the Oceanside city manager’s job in 1970. I had been there 18 years, which was probably one year too long, because the last year was kind of hectic.

Even though I was retired, I continued to work for the next 10 years, and I got a little bit of a reputation as an interim city manager. After I left Oceanside, I immediately went to work for San Marcos as city manager for a couple of years, then to Imperial Beach, Carlsbad and Vista. I also worked for both SDG&E; and La Costa as a government consultant.

I’d been living alone for the past six or seven years, and about three months ago I got married. Last month, my wife and I took a belated honeymoon in China. We were there when all of the student protests were going on. When we went to Tian An Men Square, it was calm and quiet. Then the next day we heard there were thousands of students demonstrating in the square.

Our tour guide in China was a graduate student. He wants to come to the U. S. to get an advanced degree. But his father is a general in the Chinese army, and they won’t let him out of China to come over here. He was very sympathetic with the protesters, but of course his father wasn’t. They live in the same house, and that caused problems. We don’t know if he’s dead or alive now.

Seeing all this was quite an experience. It wasn’t a fun thing, but it was educational. When you’re there, you can’t help but feel favorably toward the students. All they want is a better life, and they’re deserving of it. There’s an awful lot of poverty there and not much opportunity.

There are some tremendous new hotels over there that are just beautiful, very luxurious. Then you step out the door and see this incredible poverty in the streets. It made us feel very bad. Instead of automobiles over there, there are thousands of bicycles. We saw people working in the rice paddies along with the water buffaloes, and we saw women hauling carts like horses.

We also stayed in Hong Kong a couple of days. It’s a huge city. Here in San Diego we have a few skyscrapers, but there are just hundreds of skyscrapers there. There was quite a bit of talk there about China taking back Hong Kong in the 1990s. Quite a few people now are moving out because the future is very unsure.