Author: June Morrall

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Remembering Bill

For years I’ve been carrying around a letter, still in its original envelope, stamped 1962. It’s a letter from a 16-year-old who thought he liked me a lot and wanted me to know that. Bill actually sent the letter via the post office–we lived about 20 blocks apart. What a romantic. I was barely 14 and flattered at the attention, I’m sure.

Bill Wheatley didn’t live to see the world I’m seeing now. And when you get to be my age you really know you really feel how young 15-16 is.

A couple of posts ago I talked about the barts and gangs, one of them called the Athenians, the guys who wore the purple jackets and spent a lot of time on their greasy hair.

Bill Wheatley was an Athenian. I didn’t know him or his friends that long. They were all very nice guys, actually. Not tough at all, like you were supposed to think they were. I saw him save a puppy’s life once.

But Bill did scare my parents. He was very tall and wore that purple jacket and came to my house. My parents wouldn’t let him in.

I can’t recall the details–but here’s the letter from Bill, a teenager who thinks he’s maybe in love. He was a kid.


(reminder: click any of the photos to enlarge) My maiden name was Martin.

Sweet.

Maybe I knew him for six months, I don’t know. I never saw him again. But then several years later I heard bad news. He was 18,still very much a kid, when he joined the Marines and shipped out to Vietnam. He was shot to death soon after he got to the province of Quang Nam; he died on Wednesday, October 13, 1965.
All that his known about Bill’s death is that he died as a result of small arms fire.

I found William George Wheatley’s name on “The Wall”, Panel 02E, Row 122.

I’m glad I saved Bill’s letter all these years. It reminds me that life is fragile and war is vicious.

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Now Andrew is Moving

Andrew with Stella

Everywhere I look these days someone is moving somewhere else.

Now I just learned that Andrew, his wife, Jan, and dog Stella, have purchased a bar/restaurant in Fall River Mills. He said it’s a tiny town of 600 near the double volcano Mt. Shasta. They’re going to call the bar the Mayfly.

On my walks I frequently run into Andrew and Stella–they are both so friendly and Andrew’s a character, originally from New Jersey, I believe.

They are looking for someone to help them move.

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Back…Back….Back In Time….

In the early 1960s in San Francisco when I was in junior high school, today called “middle school” some of the more adventurous boys got together and formed “gangs”. In the Sunset District it was pretty harmless stuff. By that I mean, all they did was give themselves a scary name and buy the same jackets.

Names I recall were the orange-jacketed “Street Saints”, the “Intrepids” (not sure about that one but it sounds good), the “Courts” from the Mission, and the purple-jacketed “Athenians”. The Street Saint boys were from the east side of the Sunset and the Athenians from the west, much closer to the beach.

Basically the Street Saints went to Hoover Junior High where I went. The Athenians went to Giannini and they looked tougher but they really weren’t at all.

I knew them both. The Athenians hung out at Playland By The Beach, and for awhile I liked to take the streetcar down there with a girlfriend and walk around.

At the time some girls and boys were called “barts”. Being a bart, like it’s opposite, going “league” (ivy league) was a fashion statement having to do with the color black, and wearing these boot like black shoes and make-up, lots of make-up. I really wanted to wear those boots but my mom wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t wear the make-up because I didn’t how to put it on.

Going bart or league was kind of like being a Rolling Stones or Beatles fan. The barts thought they were on the outside, rogues, wild westers, while the people who wore the ivy league clothing walked down the halls of school singing “I’m In With The In Crowd”.

Portrait of (Skip) an “Athenian” wearing the gang’s purple jacket. Photo surely taken in a booth at Playland.

I am bringing this up because in my next post I want to talk about what happened to Bill Wheatley, a former Athenian who went to Vietnam.

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Doug St Denis’s House Is For Sale

Hey–don’t get the idea that I am a realtor.
Nope, I’m not.

But I can’t help but observe that lots of folks are putting their homes up for sale. All of a sudden. And some of them know it’s kind of late in the game; others believe they can still nab the big price tickets.

Yesterday at the El Granada Post Office–a great place to run into Coastsiders you haven’t seen for years–I met up with Doug, an old friend. He told me ,somewhat solemnly, that he had put his El Granada home up for sale–but he wasn’t going the traditonal route with a local realtor, he was partly doing it himself, using HelpUSell.

I wondered what Doug selling his home for. I remembered when he built it (he’s a contractor) some years ago.

Doug built his house some years ago:

$900,000, he said he wanted.

Aren’t the prices shocking? Apparently they’ve been dropping in the past few weeks–but a local realtor assured me, “It’ll come back.” Heard that one before? Then he added, “It’s a buyer’s market now and I’m glad”.

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Dear El Granada

Dear El Granada,

I live in El Granada on a block that is almost like an island–an island because I don’t feel any connection to any of the other blocks to the east, to the north or even to the south. To the big wide open west I see the pulsing Pacific. Sometimes the sea ripples, sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes I see brave kyakers battling the northern winds and occasionally a black blot or a herd of black blots, and they are not blots but wetsuit wearing surfers a little further south than usual.

I’m serious. This block is an island. It’s a world of its own with very few houses, and although it’s not a very social block we all know what’s going on from one end to other other.

Kit, across the street owns, I believe, an incredible rock encrusted sculptural slice of Devil’s Slide, not for sale, of course, it’s one of the Coastside’s natural wonders.

Hardly anyone has moved away from this block in the 30 plus years I’ve been here. I think that’s truly amazing given the American’s innate addiction to moving about.

But we have the first signs of movers now. Across the street, a three bedroom house, 1.2 million. The owners built it as their “dream house” but they are now moving to Hawaii. The house just was listed and I saw car after car of realtors come to take a peek this morning. Very scary when a house goes for sale–I mean the one across the street from mine–I hope whoever buys it is quiet and plans to stay awhile.

House for sale ($1.2 mill) near my house:

Then not far from this house another neighbor is selling a lot he bought. It’s been on the market for awhile and he’s asking $500,000. Of course if someone could build a house tall enough there would be plenty of sunsets to enjoy and a view all the way down the coast which is pretty marvelous–but it’s also on the main drag.

Lot for sale near my house ($550,000):

This morning I took a glorious walk through El Granada, through the avenues lined with old eucalyptus trees and in the fall the weather is so beautiful here. Blue-blue, not too hot, maybe a little caress of a breeze–I can’t think of any place I’d rather be–

Today I took a walk
I just love the way the famous historic landscaper D.H. Burnham designed the streets of El Granada.

Love Always, June

P.S. Please don’t change your name to “La Granada”– I like you flawed (like me)

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What Happened to Vallejo Beach?

When I was interviewing former Half Moon Bay residents Mary and Fred Vallejo years ago–both very historically involved in the community–I was stunned to learn from Fred that he had owned a few lots along the ocean at Miramar Beach–he owned enough lots for the locals to rename the beach “Vallejo Beach”. What stunned me was that he added unhappily that the building lots no longer existed because Vallejo Beach wasn’t there anymore–it had eroded away. I think Fred said he lost the land in the 1940s.

Where’s their beach? Fred and Mary Vallejo at their Half Moon Bay home in the 1970s. (photo by me. dumb, wasn’t it, to take the shot with all that light in the background. interesting, though)

Somewhere along here along the Miramar Beach coastline, were the lots that once belonged to Fred and Mary Vallejo, beach lots that were carved out and swept to sea.

I once met a United States Geological Survey expert, whose bailwick was the Coastside. He explained that the soil along the coastline in Miramar and El Granada was ultra soft and subject to constant erosion. Wave action causes it to fall apart. There’s nothing hard holding it together.

A more recent view, oh maybe 30 years old, of the same place but this shot was taken from the north looking south. The damage is very visible.

When I first came to the Coastside I saw the remains of a highway along the cliffs–big broken, cracked slabs of concrete–and from season to season I watched it vanish. Witnessing this erosion firsthand made me wonder not only what the waves can do but what the effect of manmade stress could do to these soft cliffs.

And here are the remains of the highway I saw, now gone

Today nobody knows there was a place called Vallejo Beach–

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Bummer

Burt and I were watching “The Godfather”, Part I, on Bravo but we had to flip the channel because they were showing the fractured version–you know inappropriagte commercial breaks. Fans that we are, we had seen “The Godfather” hundreds of times, but never, never the film all chopped up, and then submitting us to a meaningless series of fast paced too-cheery ads.

So we agreed that the Mafia should officially decree, unless authorize by them that “The Goldfather” must be shown without breaks. This would be a good way to show them some respect.

Burt and me, sad that we couldn’t watch “The Godfather”, (Part I) w/o commerical breaks. We’re going to lobby the Mafia about this!

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On Flagpoles: The Bach’s Pete Douglas Tells Me What’s Waving Over the Jazz House

More than 20 years ago I sought out the very opinionated Pete Douglas, the man behind the world class jazz house Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society in Miramar. The BD&DS overlooks the Pacific Ocean and it’s a wonderful place to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Pete, I said, tell me about flagpoles. He had one in front of the BD&DS; he liked to display the flag that most represented the musical artist he was showcasing at the jazz house on Sunday afternoons.

Classic Pete Douglas, in attire and pose, his usual laid-back self, talking to me about flags (and in an upcoming post, about wrinkles on women).

June: What do you think about flagpoles?

Pete: I think peopole should really get into flagpoles. Mine is a simple, common flagpole but I intend to buy one with cross bows so I can fly one flag up and two flags across.

June: When do you raise the flag? Is there a ritual involved?

Pete: No ritual. But sometime before a Sunday afternoon jazza concert or a Friday evening classical concert, I raise the appropriate flag. For instance, when the Woody Shaw Quintet played, the Kenya flag waved in the breeze and when the Israel Piano trio appeared, the musicians were happy to see the Israeli flag.

Once, he told me, when he was feuding with a lady friend, he raised the Uganda flag, although he claims he didn’t do so “consciouslyâ€?.

The history of the BD&DS flagpiole goes back to 1962. Douglas was sitting in front of his place in Miramar Beach when he saw ‘Bob the Woodcutter’ drive by with a long eucalyptus tree trunk in his pick-up truck. There were lots of aptly named characters living on the Coastside then. Pete saw the tree and in his mind he saw the perfect flagpole.

Pete called to Bob. Pointing at the ecucalyptus, he said, “What are doing with that?â€? Before Bob could answer, Pete said, â€? I’ll buy it.â€?

Douglas was so anxious to put something on the flagpole thaqt he raised a red curtain. For a moment he had forgotten that he’d been a “curiosityâ€? in Half Moon Bay since arriving in the late 1950’s, as that man with a reputation for being “a liberal beatnikâ€?.

When certain neighbors saw the red curtain hanging on the new flagpole Pete said, “I was reported to the American Legion for suspicion of flying a Communist flag,â€?

The red curtain was the beginning of the Douglas Flag Collection which grew to include flags from 32 countries as well as the Revolutionary flag and some state flags.

Pete: My flag collection stems from my attitude of a cooperative world and mutual respect for each other’s culture. Politics and national attitudes asisde I pick a flag on the basis of interest and beauty.

June: What’s your favorite flag?

Pete: Arizona. It’s one of the most symbolic looking flags. Sandy yellow with a sunburst–and Indian sunburst design. Another favorite is the Turkish flag. It’s solid red with a half moon and a star, and the Kenya flag, a shield with spears.

June: Are you going to get more flags?

Pete: I can’t wait to get more flags. I want to get thaat pole so I can fly three plags. Then we really can get things going.

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The Transcriber: John & Yoko, the Last Interview


The Transcriber, Linda Goetz in 1981. Photo by Maria Demarest

In 1981 Linda Goetz, a friend and the owner of Coastside Secretarial, had completed an exciting project: transcribing the tapes of an August 1980 interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It was to be the last interview with the superstar couple. (Lennon was murdered in December 1980).

David Sheff, a free lance writer then living in the Coastside’s artist community of Montara, was a mutual acquaintance of both Linda and me. It was David who had interviewed John and Yoko for a 1980 Playboy magazine article and a book, “Last Interview: John Lennon and Yoko Onoâ€?.

At the time of this interview, Linda’s office was located in the historic R. Guy Smith Building, Highway 1 in Moss Beach. She now works out of a cute office at the southern end of Main Street in Half Moon Bay.

June: Tell me, what was it like listening to the tapes?

Linda: When you do these tapes, you get the real feeling that the printed word cannot convey. With the John Lennon tapes, we paused to get every ‘ooh and ahh’ and any nuance going on in the background.

June: How did David Sheff get the interview?

Linda: Before the interview was granted to David, Yoko had to meet him, do his astrology chart and see if it was right.

June: I guess his planets were in alignment! How many tapes were there?

Linda: 20. It took me two weeks to transcribe, having people work around the clock. Each tape took about five hours to transcribe.

June: How much time did David Sheff spend with John and Yoko?

Linda: About three weeks of intenesely being with the Lennons at the studio–but mostly at their New York City apartment.

June: The tapes present a very personal glimpse of the Lennons at home.

Linda: There’s a time in the apartment when John goes over to the refrigeraqtor and he’s looking for somethhing to drink while Yoko’s on the couch. He pulls open the refrigerator and says, ‘Oh, this is what’s been smelling! This cat food–how long has this been in here?’ And you just get this womanly aspect of Yoko when she says, ‘That’s all right. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.’

June: How did their voices sound?:

Linda: John was very aware of being taped and he had a beautiful voice, crisp, clear and melodic. Yoko mumbled. John would turn the tape recorder around when she talked and said, ‘Here, she mumbles a lot’.

June: You worked on these tapes after Lennon had been tragically shot. How did that make you feel?

Linda: Everything he said, I was thinking of in relationship to, well, now he’s dead. At one point Lennon commentedthat he was only 43-years-old, and he said, ‘I’ve got a good 20 more years to go, God willing.’ He was making plans to write children’s books, to get back into his music and go on tour again.

June: Any other insights?

Linda: I get the feeling that anything Yoko has to say in the next couple of years will be whatever John Lennon would have said to the public. They were so close to each other.

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Rules of the Waves, 1981

In 1981 I interviewed Michael McCreary, owner of Miramar Surfboards, then the only surf shop in Half Moon Bay. Miramar Surfboards was located along Highway 1.

At the time Michael had surfed for 17 of his 33 years.

June: What is it about surfing that gets people hooked?

McCreary: People enjoy surfing because it’s a natural sport. There’s no engine,no sail, no ski-lift. Just you and the surfboard. Another thing that attracts people to surfing is that surfing conditions arealways changing.There are so many variables. It’s always different.

June: When can you catch the best waves around Half Moon Bay?

McCreary: Half Moon Bay is really good between September and March. The reason waves are good in the fall is because we get off-shore winds from the east. East winds made ideal surfing conditions.

Not Mike McCreary (but I sure would like a pix of him) but Jim Rafferty, a former Woodside resident, who spent a lot of him time on the Coastside surfing at El Granada Beach, seen here. Twenty, thirty years ago hardly anybody came out to El Granada to surf. You could even cross Highway 1 on foot without running to avoid being crushed by a car because hardly anybody knew of the place called El Granada.

June: Tell me where I can surf around here.

McCreary:There are several spots at Half Moon Bay for both beginning and advanced surfers. Surfer’s Beach, south of the Pillar Point Breakwater, is considered ideal for beginning and intermediate surfers. It’s a small spot sheltered fromthe ocean. The swell wraps around Pillar Point, and loses some of its strength breakingup on the reef off Half Moon Bay. There’s not too many dangerous currents. You can surfall year ’round at Surfer’s Beach because prevailing winds come from the northwest.

June: Where else?

McCreary: More advanced surfers prefer Venice Street, Kelly Street and Dunes Beach between Kelly and Venice. Ideal waves reach six to eight feet in the more advanced surfing spots.

June: And the biggest waves you remember?

McCreary: Last winter–the biggest swells since 1969. I’d say the swell got up to 20-25 feet. Nobody goesout when the waves get that big, though. You have to drive to Santa Cruz or Monterey if you want to surf.

June: Is there a surfing code?

McCreary: There aren’t any written regulations but there is a kind of peer pressure. You go out and do whatever everyone else is doing. But one cardinal rule is that the first person who gets a waves has the right-of-way. You wouldn’t want to take off in front of him. That would be rude.

June: Any more advice?

McCreary: When you fall off a surfboard the best thing to remember is not to try to get the surfboard between you and the wave because once the wave hits the surfboard,it hits you. Always try to duck under the wave or the board.

Lots of wave sitters out there today: Lots of anxious wave sitters out there today: