My old friend Al Larson had two high school jobs while growing up in Long Beach in the 1940s. In the morning, he’d ride his bicycle and deliver the Independent Press-Telegram, the paper he’d later become a staff writer for from 1944 to 1986. He spent his school days at Wilson High, and then after the final bell he’d ascend Signal Hill with a radio signal to keep an eye out over the Pacific Ocean. His job was to radio in if he saw Japanese bombers approaching the Long Beach shoreline.

“They really stressed that it was important I not fall asleep,” he told me one morning over breakfast a few years ago at his house in the El Dorado Park Estates.

Al’s story, like any others you hear from World War II, makes me happy that I’m living in these unprecedented times, and not those unprecedented times.

My kids and I love going up on top of Signal Hill with significantly lower stakes, taking in the view and seeing how miniature the world looks in every direction. That perspective is why the Tongva tribe used it as a site for signal fires and now, after so many changes in the world around and on top of the hill, it’s why I enjoy walking the trails and taking in the sights there.

While Al (thankfully) never spotted any bombers, there have been innumerable fascinating sights from atop the hill. If you flipped a time machine dial and went back, you could on any given day have seen the development of a city from ranchos to a bustling mini-metropolis. You could have seen the Navy pull up and plant its roots in the Long Beach harbor and subsequently watched the beautiful surf-friendly shore turn into calm waters with the construction of the breakwater. In 1911 you could have seen the arrival of the first transcontinental flight, as Calbraith Perry Rodgers picked our shores for a landing strip because of the long, straight sandy beach.

You could have seen the port go from a sketchy wharf district into one of the economic powers of the West, and today you can still see a near-constant stream of titanic ships pulling in and out of the harbor, bringing goods to the port to be freighted all over the country. Once upon a time, you could have seen the arrival of the Queen Mary, and the cannons of water shot by Coast Guard and fire patrol vessels to welcome it.

You could catch the occasional excitement of animals inside the breakwater or up into the bay that don’t belong there — sharks, dolphins, even the very rare whale sighting. Looking the other direction, north off the hill, you could have seen the development of the entire Southern California metropolis. On a clear day you can still see Downtown Los Angeles and all the way to the mountains.

On top of the hill itself, oil derricks sprung up as black gold was discovered underneath the rocky surface. Looking north, you also would have seen the early days of Long Beach’s airport, then only known as Daughtery Field. In the 1910s and 1920s, some of the earliest air shows and pioneering pilots came in and out of Daugherty Field. At one of those shows, in 1920, a young Amelia Earhart watched the stunts and decided she wanted to be a pilot.

Alright, let’s hop out of the time machine and back into the present, where one of the most startling sights in the history of that hill appeared on Friday. A three-story tall statue of the rapper Kid Cudi went floating by on a barge, anchoring off the Belmont Pier for a while before cruising back and forth across the harbor.

The visit from the statue was in part to promote an appearance by Kid Cudi the rapper, who did a signing at Fingerprints Friday night in conjunction with the release of his new album, “INSANO.”

As of Saturday, Kid Cudi (the statue) was off for northern waters, as the barge carrying it headed to Redondo Beach and parts unknown. I am a fan of Kid Cudi (the rapper) and of harmless, interesting occurrences, especially when they’re viewable from Signal Hill. As to the artistic merit of the giant statue? As Long Beach Post commenter Manorin Manny Sieng wrote on Facebook last night: “I thought the breakwater was supposed to protect us from these things.”

Long Beach Bites

St. Anthony High is hosting a day-long basketball event being put on by Jordan High on Monday, and the inaugural J-Town Martin Luther King Jr. Showcase will feature several local teams. Millikan faces Garfield at noon, followed by Westchester vs West at 1:30 p.m., Cabrillo vs. Cantwell at 3 p.m., and a Long Beach battle between St. Anthony and Jordan at 4:30 p.m. It’ll be a fun day of celebration and hoops Downtown at Errion Gymnasium.

My brother got a new job recently while my mom was in town from out of state, and the three of us went to 555 East for a holiday celebration dinner. There’s a lot of great new dining options in the city but sometimes you just need a fancy, expensive old-fashioned classic — the “triple nickel” has remained a favorite for both my brother and me.

My daughter is obsessed with animals so we took her to the Aquarium of the Pacific for her birthday a little while ago. She was so excited to get to catch up with the penguins and sea otters. She’s 8 now, and I spent this year’s trip a little teary-eyed, watching her excitement but also thinking about how I used to take her there every week when she was a baby. She doesn’t remember that, of course, but it feels like it was maybe six months ago to me. As I know my childhood feels like it was just yesterday to my mom, who took my brother and me to the Aquarium when it opened in 1998, when I was a teenager and he was 9.