John Morris holding court at his Friday luncheon at the Boathouse as seated next to him listening to his pearls of wisdom are Bad Stu Ledsam (left) and Big Ben Goldberg

He is 73 now, and you'd think this fellow who has had such a dramatic impact on the culture of Long Beach would be set for a leisurely retirement of golfing and traveling and napping and staying detached from the turbulence of the constant schmoozing and the constant issues that are such an inherent part of his business.

He is 73 now, and you'd think this gentleman who once had well-chronicled public disputes with such Long Beach City Managers as Jim Hankla, Henry Taboada and Jerry Miller and various other civic leaders would have faded into the oblivion of old age and the silence of expediency that goes with it.

He is 73 now, and the shock of hair long has been gray and he seems more nostalgically reflective than in the past when he seldom mentioned his first 15 years of life when he resided in Widnes, England where he labored in the summer for a pittance in the potato fields and where he expected his future would be working in the local ICI Chemical Plant that produced plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, and specialty chemicals.

``Never figured I'd make it past the ICI Chemical Plant,'' he would say to me in an interview after his noon confab had broken up. ``That was my future, a bleak future for sure. But it's all I knew. But then my life changed overnight when my grandmother, Annie Morris, brought me over to live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1963. Oh, did it change!''

Suddenly, he is smiling, and his eyes are glowing brightly, and he reverts to his hustling, marketing mode which have been his hallowed trademarks across the decades, along with his creative ventures that have left a wide imprint on the Long Beach scene.

``Hey, be sure to mention the `Big Bang on the Bay' will be back on July 3rd,'' he implores. ``We just got the OK from City Hall the other day. We started it in 2011 as a 10-year remembrance to honor those who perished in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C. and in Pennsylvania.

John Morris points to where the fireworks barge will be on Alamitos Bay for the July 3 Big Bang On the Bay show which he created

``The first one we had we closed off the parking lot in front of the Boathouse, and 3,000 motorcyclists rode down on PCH from Cook's Corner in Orange County with American flags flying from their cycles. What a spectacle that was, and a huge success.''

The Big Bang on the Bay became a wildly popular event -- it raised more than $1 million for Children Today and other charities -- for nine straight years before it was canceled in 2020 because of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

``I think we're going to have a fireworks show this July 3rd to beat all fireworks shows,'' says Morris, ever the promoter.

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And, oh, has John Morris been a stellar promoter going back to when he and his then business partner, Los Angeles Rams offensive guard Dennis Harrah, opened a sports tavern called Legends on Dec. 8, 1979. Less than a month later on January 6, 1980, the entire Ram team flooded into his new place at around 2 a.m. after flying back from Tampa where they had won the NFC title and earned a Super Bowl spot against the Pittsburgh Steelers earlier in the day with a 9-0 win against the Buccaneers.

``The entire Ram team---including its owner Georgia Rosenbloom---she hadn't married Dominic Frontiere yet---came down from LAX in buses and cars and partied at our place until 6 a.m.,'' says Morris. ``Of course, I had to check with the Long Beach vice before to find out if it would be OK. The two vice guys in charge, Dave Duran and Rich Rose, said it would be OK, but told me to leave the back door open so they would be able to come in and enjoy the festivities. That night turned out to be a big boon to Legends when the word got out that all the Rams had been there.''

John Morris was responsible for Legends becoming the first sports bar in America to extensively use satellite dishes---eight were on its roof---and customers were astonished that they were able to watch so many different sporting events from around the country, a quite novel concept in those days.

Mr. Morris later would play a vital role in putting together what long has been a most cherished annual Belmont Shore tradition---its Christmas Parade--and then a few years later decided, against the advice of so many skeptics, to open a restaurant in 1988 on Pine Ave called Mum's.

``There were no other restaurants on Pine Avenue at the time and people thought that I was nuts to go there,'' he says.

Within a few years, there were other top-flight dining spots---L'Opera, The Madison, King's Fish House, George's, etc.--- lining both sides of the street and Morris naturally came up with an outdoors party plan he would call New Year's on Pine. It became a well-attended annual happening that turned downtown Long Beach for one celebratory night into a mini Times Square.

Eventually, the Pioneer of Pine Ave., as Mr. Morris' sobriquet became, decided to depart the area, sold his restaurant, and got involved with what was then known as McKenna's on the Bay, which later would be renamed Boathouse on the Bay.

John Morris calmly listening to Big Ben Goldberg’s latest political rant

With his son Bryan now serving as general manager of the Boathouse, John Morris actually is able to take some time off during the week, and recently has been going each Sunday to Palm Springs where he plays golf a few days at the nearby La Quinta Country Club---he's a member of the Virginia Country Club---before returning to his Lakewood mansion on Wednesday.

Not bad for a guy who had no idea what his destiny would be when he arrived in this country 58 years ago, who graduated with modest grades from J.P McCaskey High in Lancaster, Pa., in 1966, who drove for UPS before enlisting in 1967 in the U.S. Air Force where he would become a jet engineer working on C-141s until 1971, who would come out to Long Beach a couple of years later with a pal with $300 in his wallet, who attended for a short time Long Beach City College and worked at the Harris Fence Company and delivered newspapers for the Press-Telegram, who got into the apparel business via a gentleman named Dennis McConkey and actually wound up peddling women dresses, who met by chance Dennis Harrah at the Jolly Roger, who later would become such a close pal of Harrah that they bought a home together at 6919 Seaside Walk on the Peninsula, who would open with Harrah what was at the time the most high-tech, innovative -- Legends also had a digital ticker streaming scores around the establishment -- sports bar in America, who would become a high-profile trailblazer on the Long Beach restaurant scene.

As with anyone who has taken on the political establishment and who has taken on so many financial risks, he has had his ups and his downs and also has had his critics.

``I've made my share of enemies, I'm sure, but I also made a lot of friends,'' he says. ``Sometimes I shake my head in amazement at my life. I mean, I was destined to work in a chemical plant near Liverpool in England. I thought, and, instead, I wind up having a life filled with so many fabulous memories and meeting so many fabulous people and having such a fabulous family with five children and a great wife of 37 years in Judy. I couldn't have asked for more in my life. . .''

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