Catalina Summer

Benny and Virginia Lefebvre had an idea to get their boys off the streets of Los Angeles. Their answer was to start The Catalina Baseball Camp in Catalina’s remote west end isthmus. It became so popular in the fifties and sixties that thousands of boys from all walks of life spent some of the best summers of their life there. From its alumni came prominent athletes, business and movie personalities. This is the true story of the last summer of the Lefebvre’s youngest son who, along with his best friends Tuck, Ross and a caste of local legends, in a wondrous, exotic, historic setting, became their own huckleberrys They were imaginative, mischievous, roaring fun rascals and by some accounts irreverent, which blended well in that extravagant setting. Enjoy the loves, fears, trials, and above all the hilarious tenor in which they carried off their adventures. Catalina Summer is truly one of the most remarkable oral histories ever written about the Island’s late 50’s life style. If you’ve been to Catalina and found it enchanting, you too will want to go back with Gil and once again come under its spell. Lefebvre’s novel pivots around the Catalina Baseball Camp but it’s not limited to ballgames or campfires. It’s about a time we’ve all passed through. Some with ease, some dramatically complicated, but in the end, a time that had a profound impact on the rest of our lives. While teaching at Los Angeles’s intercity Belmont High School, and surviving another extraordinary event, Gil turned his thoughts towards how he got there in the first place. This led him on a journey with his trusting computer, wondering back some fifty years to his days at his family’s Catalina Baseball Camp. Hoping to find some clarity in a time when dreams, hopes and futures were so big. What he found there revealed a montage of stories and sketches of the past. Where images were real and weaved the standards we would live by.

Benny and Virginia Lefebvre had an idea to get their boys off the streets of Los Angeles. Their answer was to start The Catalina Baseball Camp in Catalina's remote west end isthmus. It became so popular in the fifties and sixties that thousands of boys from all walks of life spent some of the best summers of their life there. From its alumni came prominent athletes, business and movie personalities. This is the true story of the last summer of the Lefebvre's youngest son who, along with his best friends Tuck, Ross and a caste of local legends, in a wondrous, exotic, historic setting, became their own huckleberrys They were imaginative, mischievous, roaring fun rascals and by some accounts irreverent, which blended well in that extravagant setting. Enjoy the loves, fears, trials, and above all the hilarious tenor in which they carried off their adventures. Catalina Summer is truly one of the most remarkable oral histories ever written about the Island's late 50's life style. If you've been to Catalina and found it enchanting, you too will want to go back with Gil and once again come under its spell. Lefebvre's novel pivots around the Catalina Baseball Camp but it's not limited to ballgames or campfires. It's about a time we've all passed through. Some with ease, some dramatically complicated, but in the end, a time that had a profound impact on the rest of our lives. While teaching at Los Angeles's intercity Belmont High School, and surviving another extraordinary event, Gil turned his thoughts towards how he got there in the first place. This led him on a journey with his trusting computer, wondering back some fifty years to his days at his family's Catalina Baseball Camp. Hoping to find some clarity in a time when dreams, hopes and futures were so big. What he found there revealed a montage of stories and sketches of the past. Where images were real and weaved the standards we would live by.