‘Water People’ Plan Fitting Memorial for Ex-Lifeguard

A group of surfers and former lifeguards will hold a memorial service Friday at Main Beach for one of their own: former Laguna Beach lifeguard Charles L. Plummer, who died early Saturday.

About 50 friends and family members are expected to honor Plummer--”Charlie” to his friends--who was this city’s lifeguard captain from 1944 to 1948. Plummer died at South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach after suffering a stroke. He was 70.

The ceremony will begin at lifeguard headquarters at the north end of Main Beach at 9 a.m. and will proceed as Plummer’s friends and former co-workers paddle their surfboards out to sea. Daughter Carla Plummer, 41, said the service is exactly what her father would have wanted.

“I know he would love it. He was a very independent spirit, a very interesting man,” said Plummer, a former Laguna Beach resident who now lives in Atlanta. “He loved the ocean. . . . He taught my brother and me to swim when we were 1 and 2 years old. We were body surfing by the time we were 4 and 5.”

Plummer, an eighth-generation Californian, was born Nov. 12, 1926, in Newport Beach. He grew up in Laguna Beach and lived there off and on throughout his life. He was living in Dana Point at the time of his death.

A road and construction surveyor by trade, Plummer spent much of his time diving, surfing and sailing. In the 1940s, when surfboards were longer than they are today, he made many friends among the “longboarders” and former lifeguards who will be at his memorial service.

The event is being modeled after similar ceremonies held previously off the coast of Laguna Beach and Dana Point for other deceased members of the group.

“They all have a common bond, and that’s the ocean. They’re all water people,” said Dana Point resident Clarke Cooper, 67, who met Plummer in 1942. “The longboards they were surfing all those years just created a common bond that’s never been broken.”