OCEANSIDE, Calif. — As firefighters battled the Oceanside Pier fire Thursday afternoon, one man said he hopes the fire didn't destroy a piece of the pier that meant a lot to his family.
"My grandfather, he used to take me out with his friend to go fishing on the pier," Doug Nakama said."Even if he didn't catch any fish, he was just out there throwing the line in the water," he said. The pier meant so much to his grandfather that Nakama's mother had his name—Shigeo —engraved on a plank at the end of the pier.Nakama said when he saw where the fire was on the pier, he immediately thought about the engraving."You hope that it was salvaged, but it was probably the lowest priority for the fire department. They have a very dangerous job to do," Nakama said.Nakama recalls his grandfather teaching him how to cast a fishing rod.
"I remember doing something really stupid, and I'll just cast over my head, and my grandfather got panicky watching me doing this because you can easily hook someone by doing that, so he corrected me immediately," Nakama said.He said if the plank is destroyed, he would like to engrave his grandfather's name on another plank on the pier.