Hi June,
You are cordially invited to our Grand Opening on May 30, 2-5 p.m. (or any time, actually). Attached is the invite that we are sending out; Spring Mountain is also celebrating 30 years of business. We’re not sure what attendance will be like, but figured that it is one way of letting folks know that we are here. We’re trying to keep the fare simple – like us – nuts, chips & salsa, cheese, wine, Martinelli’s, nothing fancy. In other words, within our budget! Everyone also gets a free postcard. Now don’t you know that will draw the crowds! :))
[Image: Vasquez and Miramontes can tell you of the struggles of the fathers with the Indians and the last days of Dolores, under the Spanish rule, for they were a part of the generation that passed from the mission then and of the generation that lies dead and unknown to us now. Would that you might have heard the e of the Pablo Vasquez as he told the story in the little hotel in Half Moon Bay while the other, the Don Pablo Vasquez, son of Jose Tiburcio Vasquez, was majordomo of the mission, is 20 years younger.
This is the excerpt from the Jan. 2nd 1910 issue
of the “San Francisco Call,” that refers to Pomponio.
It is in a lengthy article about the two survivors who
had trod the ground of the Mission Dolores, before
it was secularized in 1843 . The two survivors, Mira-
montes and Vasquez, have a lot of interesting
things to relate, though some of their memories
seem to differ from historical accounts. There are a
few other references to the HMB area I’ll dig out and
send soon. Enjoy. John
One name remains to us in history to
tell of an instance when the fathers
made the mistake of capturing a savage
who was in years beyond the age for
peaceful subjection. Then Pablo Vas –
quez shook his head when he mentioned
the great Pomponio, and indicating
with his thumb the location of a valley
in the hills back of Half Moon, he re –
marked in his gentle English.
“Pomponio, my father knew him;
they say he killed many and there is a
canyon yonder that bears his name.”
Pomponio was the cause of many wild
nights in the settlement, for every so
often, he broke from the watchful fath –
ers and returned to his
comrades, mustering them into maraud –
ing bands that would swoop down in
the dark upon the cluster of adobes that
sought shelter in the shadow of Do –
lores, where, amid havoc and massacre,
they would ransack the dwellings and
flee to the safety of their lairs in the
hills. More often they would creep
stealthily into the settlement in the
early hours of the morning, and make
away with the corraled horses while
the padres slept. This practice became
so prevalent that the wily fathers con –
ceived the idea of tying a bell to the
neck of the mare in each corral that
they might be alarmed when the thiev –
ery was in progress. This custom was
generally adopted in later years and
even today the: Spaniards of the penin –
sula refer to the “bell mare.”
Even after this precaution, the padres were
frequently crestfallen, to awaken, and
discover, their corrals empty. The In-
dians, quick to adapt themselves to
new conditions, employed every caution
in approaching the inclosures. One of
their number would quietly capture the
“bell mare,” deftly remove the bell and
tinkle it occasionally to reassure the
padres, while the remainder of the
party filed out of the rear of the corral
with the horses.
Auntie Edith kept this “sexy” photo in her wallet and when we went to lunch she’d pull it out and show it to me…..again and again….I never tired to looking at it. She always wanted to be a dancer, she told me when she was 91. Ever the fairy princess, that’s me, I thought well, start now at age 91. Bad advice.
Update: I received many emails about my dear Aunt Edith’s pretty legs! If only she had lived long enough to read them herself.
(Image: When Edith was growing up, she lived in this pretty apartment house on Milastrasse, now a landmark because it was originally built by a well known beer mfg. She lived on the top floor in a room called “the Winter Garden.”
Her photo, of course, was small in size. I made the larger version on the Canon printer I smashed to bits after my partner’s death. Some people do that. They break everything; it just releases a lot of pain. So I don’t have a photo printer at the moment. But I do have Auntie Edith’s photo, which is better anyway.
She, like me, could have been living in Berlin, her native home, until war moved her to exotic places she had surely never even dreamed of. Her husband, whom I never met, died a terrible death and she remained a lifelong widow and great mom and grandmom and even a great-grandmom. I always felt a closeness to Edith, and I will miss her..
She passed away in her late 90s recently, but I was so involved with Burt”a final weeks, that I couldn’t do anything else. No multi-tasking for me. I was focussed on Burt, and that was it.
To Aunt Edith and her family: I am so sorry. Aunt Edith was born in 1910, so you can imagine what her eyes saw. She, like my mom and dad, felt held back by their accents that they just couldn’t get rid of, and, just like today, limited her possibilities. But, with me, she felt so fear, and spoke in English to me, which surprised her daughter who always spoke German to her, believing she understood that language the best.
The shot of Aunt Edith was taken at Ocean Beach, I’d say in the early 1950s. For many years she and her mom (my Oma on my dad’s side) lived in the Richmond District near Golden Gate Park. I love visiting them because Oma and Edith would gently rub my arms until I fell asleep. I did the same with Burt, and he, just like me, loved being touched in that way.
(Image is of me with John O’Toole. I remember feeling relieved that he asked me. At the time it was important to have a date and I didn’t often have dates. Lucked out for the Junior Prom at Lincoln High. These days the the juniors go stag—now, that sounds much better!)
That’s us, John and June. We weren’t girlfriend and boyfriend but he was a very nice guy. I wish I could remember more about where we went to dinner–maybe Alfreds, that was a popular prom venue then.
I can hardly believe it! I was usually the ONLY person out there around 1972 – 1977, climbing over the rocks at low tide, watching the sun come up over the shining waters, and I would go help Bob with whatever I could many a time since he was the ONLY person hired by Parks & Rec to work the entire stretch of the coastline. I always wished I could have had a job like he did; even all these years past I have remembered the wonderful times I spent at the marine reserve.
On those days that others would show up saying “there’s nothing out here, what are people talking about?” I would show them how to find life under the sea and most importantly, to return the rocks to their original position so the life growing underneath them would not die. I am so sad to find out that this has not been the case, with so many incredible numbers climbing over the area. My, how times must have changed! I specialized in studying the nudibranchs of the coastside, which are exotic and beautiful beyond belief. No one would ever guess these small animals could have developed and exist hidden in the rocks, yet so close in the sea.
I will have to write to Bob and send him my photos and drawings, since I did them when he was there (or perhaps pass them on the the Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve; how wonderful that this group has been started). Who would have guessed that he would still be there, all these years later? What a treasure that Bob was to the tidepools and to me. He was always so nice and such a well-educated gentleman. There weren’t too many of them back in those days. He treated me so well, and showed me that kindness, conservation and respect for all life forms really did matter.
The Occidental Hotel started out to be 3 stories tall, then two stories tall, then gone….The stage driven by Half Moon Bay local Buckskin Bill Rawls stopped here daily on its way to Pescadero.
I had some friends visit yesterday. Really nice folks, doers, the kind I admire. They have not live here as long as I have but I was amused by one comment:
“We hope to move to Pescadero.”
Currently, they live in another beautiful part of the more developed Coastside.
What amused me?
How many of you, who have lived here as long as I, and there are lots of you out there, said the exact same thing 30–40 years ago?
Longtime neighbor Connie Phipps once angry over the new signal light at Coronado & Highway 1 (has anyone ever looked at Coronado? The actual street? The sign for it is HUGE; you’d expect to find a freeway, when, in reality, Coronado is a tiny street, maybe 3 houses on a mini-block.
Does the County have plans in the works? A parallel road to Hwy 1? What could it be? Or was the man who made sign drunk?
So Connie said to me sotto voce: “We should have moved to Pescadero years ago.”
That has always been the dream: Pescadero…..La Honda…and for us recluses even farther south and into the secret deep canyons.
Things never change. Or, rather, the thoughts don’t change—-but Pescadero and La Honda and venues farther south are nothing like what they were 30-40 years ago. A realtor married to a lady involved in saving animals, says 20 years and Pescadero will be the new suburb.
Pescadero was once a dream for me and La Honda heaven for Ken Kesey. Now, there is no there now, thank you . To me at this moment, that’s what the writer Gertrude Stein once said famously.
In an earlier post I wrote that I had not heard from the grievance counselor at Mission Hospice. I was wrong. She (Cindy) had called and left a message on my life-partner’s phone. . I rarely, if ever, check for my messages there. Most people call on my personal line.
I apologize for the error but still wish Cindy had made another attempt.
(On some things I’m “old school,” and if I don’t hear back I look for other ways to reach people. This was important enough to check up on and I am not hard to find.)
