Each morning, if he can, Baurmann heads down to the small beach within a quarter-mile from his home. Directly beneath the Half Moon Bay Golf Links and the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, it’s not a tourist destination.
He carries with him a plastic bag to fill with the odds, ends and trash left behind by beach-goers of all ages.
 Greg Baurmann proudly displays his whimsical collection of children'€™s beach toys which he has picked up on his morning walks. |
It’s the things children leave behind that launched the hobby Baurmann himself calls whimsical. Lined up in an orderly row in his carport is an eye-catching row of toys — mostly tiny plastic shovels — left behind by young sandcastle builders.
Baurmann shows a sample of his gleanings: cigarette butts, beer cans, some rope, a plastic cup, some sand-crusted sandals. Once, he found a waterlogged, man’s size-13, athletic shoe.
Most of his gleanings go into his recycle bins or trash can. But now and then, he finds a treasure: one more little shovel or truck. The toys add a personality — a little playful, a little plaintive, certainly whimsical — to his home.
Though Baurmann himself has no children or grandchildren, his friends and housekeeper do, and these children regularly play with the shovels and toys. Even his neighbors in the seniors-only mobile home park, he said, “get a kick out of them.” He says he’s thought of donating the collection to Toys for Tots — except that the organization wants new toys — or perhaps to local schools.
But while the hobby may appeal to the children who play with the shovels or the child within the seniors who smile at them, they represent a very adult concern: caring for the environment.
“The things that children leave behind — I have a soft spot for them,” Baurmann admitted. “But it’s bad enough that any kind of plastic is left behind. Any plastic debris!”
The South San Francisco native didn’t plan to become a beach savior nor toy-collector. But one day, when he lived near the Cliff House in San Francisco, he was strolling along the beach and spotted a plastic bag, some discarded cans and bottles.
“So I picked up the bag and started,” he says, finishing his sentence with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “That got the routine going.”
Three years ago, he came across a toy shovel. “Then came another. And another.”
The first shovels went onto the windowsill. When those grew to five or six, they decorated his house plants. “It’s like any other treasure hunt,” he said, eyes sparkling. “There’s not a lot of value, but it’s like bird-watching — there’s a little thrill when it happens.”
The hobby came with him when he came to the Coastside in 2003 to care for his ailing father in Cañada Cove. When his father passed away in 2004, Baurmann stayed there.
He worked as a clerk for the La Honda Post Office for 22 years. Now retired, he works a couple of days a week as a guard at the Ocean Colony entryway.
He enjoys music, calling himself a hobbyist singer/songwriter, and regularly visits local open mikes to share his songs. Accompanying himself on guitar or ukulele, he sings about how long love can take to grow, or about the reminders of long-ago loves one might find in flower petals carried in the wind.
And he tends his collection. Now it numbers about 22 little shovels, a few inches to roughly 14 inches tall. They come in many colors — red, green, white, pink, yellow — with differently shaped handles. Along with them are little plastic trucks, a little football, a little plastic plane, some dog toys.
“They’re the reward,” he said. “The fringe benefit of taking trash off the beach.”
He says the irony of using a plastic bag to clean the beach is not lost on him. But neither is the bigger picture.
“The California Coastal Commission has a beach cleanup day each September,” he said. “While this is great, the bottom line is, it is not enough!”
He encourages friends to follow his lead and clean up beaches too. And besides making the beach pristine again, he says he knows he’s saving some lives.
“It’s my beach, my backyard,” he said softly. And, he says, that yard is often filled with seals or sea birds. “Maybe I’m saving someone from a bad lunch.”
w