Expand<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThis book is inspired by real events, but it is not a retelling of them,\u201d Black writes in the preface to his book, \u201cThe American Gondolier.\u201d \u201cSome of what you\u2019ll read happened. Some of it didn\u2019t. Most of it sits somewhere in between.\u201d<\/p>\n
The story, Black said, comes from years spent on the water in Long Beach, \u201cwhere two friends built a gondola business from the ground up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid and Mike had been friends since their junior high days,\u201d Black writes in the book, \u201cwhen summers were spent on the peninsula, a narrow stretch of sand where the Pacific Ocean met Alamitos Bay in Long Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
When they were of college age, they made trips in a sailboat between Long Beach and Catalina Island.<\/p>\n
On one of those trips, according to the book, O\u2019Toole told Black that he (O\u2019Toole) had a great idea: to start a company with gondolas cruising along the canals of Naples.<\/p>\n
\u201cVenetian-style gondolas, right here,\u201d he writes. \u201cEveryone will probably think we\u2019re crazy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the canals are perfect,\u201d he adds, \u201cwith calm water, beautiful homes and bridges that look like they\u2019re straight out of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Black agreed with the idea, he said, O\u2019Toole told him he would take him to the first boat in their fleet.<\/p>\n
They went to a yard on the Rivo Alto Canal, where there was an old Pakistani fishing boat half-buried in the dirt and turned into a makeshift rose garden.<\/p>\n
This boat and a lifeguard dory were repurposed and became the first two boats to take people around the canals until real gondolas were built at Hill Marine in Seal Beach, Black says in the book.<\/p>\n
But the road to expanding the business had a few bumps along the way.<\/p>\n
The book refers to issues that had to be overcome with the city of Long Beach before the company could get approval to operate the gondolas. In an interview with me, Black said there were problems with some people at City Hall. But, he said, there were other people there who were a great help to the gondola company.<\/p>\n
From its early start, Gondola Getaway continued to grow and eventually became a Long Beach institution \u2014 with thousands of customers and supporters.<\/p>\n
John Morris, co-owner and manager of the Boathouse on the Bay restaurant, is quoted in the book as being one of those longtime supporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey (Black and O\u2019Toole) belong here,\u201d Morris is quoted as saying during a meeting with city officials. \u201cThey have already put in their work and shown their commitment. \u2026 They have gondola cruises on the water at this moment, and people love what they have created.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morris noted that when he operated Legends Restaurant & Sports Bar, he hired Black, who was 19 at the time.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Grunion Gazette columnist Jo Murray celebrating the company\u2019s 40th anniversary in 2022, O\u2019Toole said 40 years \u201crepresented about 400,000 rides, 2 million passengers, 1,000 gondoliers, more than 5,000 marriage proposals and 400 weddings.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the company is still going strong.<\/p>\n
The last part of Black\u2019s book is fictional, dealing with possible business expansion in the British Virgin Islands and other cities in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the foundations of Mike and David\u2019s journey in the first book were deeply inspired by my own real life years building a gondola business on the canals,\u201d Black writes in a note to readers on his website, \u201ctheir spirits and ambitious ultimately grew bigger than reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe American Gondolier Trilogy,\u201d he writes, \u201cexpands into a thrilling new fictional landscape across its final two books. In Book 2, \u201cProtected,\u201d Black\u2019s past collides with a decades-old family secret. The story ultimately reaches its explosive finale in Book 3, \u201cLegacy.\u201d Book 2 is almost ready to be published, Black said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the most extraordinary things to do in Long Beach is to glide along the canals of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[23,131,133,132,741],"class_list":["post-428128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-rich-archbold-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/LPT-L-ARCHBOLD-COL-0809-01_30dcbb.jpg?w=419\")
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