A Cypress Tree Once Thrived On Hwy 92 & Main Street
Old Friendly Friends
Photo: Artist Mark “Billy” Peterson and ceramist Randall Reid
What Was It Like At Grace Ball Secretarial School In San Francisco?
My friend Lynn Kalajian McCloskey tells us:
Photo: Lynn Kalajian McCloskey
Do you remember I went to secretarial school in San Francisco- Grace Ball.?…
…Grace Ball (GB) was located at Powell and Sutter above the Owl Drugstore, which had a lunch counter and the best hamburgers.
Grace was a very old woman with extremely bad breath, and when she’d talk to you, she’d pin you up against a wall and her face was about two inches from yours. She
was decrepit.
Her sidekick, Ruth something, was a “little” younger and the drill sergeant type. There were about 100 girls in the school. My class was the rebellious one. We would meet each morning in the shower room and plot our strategy for the day. Nothing really bad ever happened, just prankster type stuff.
Our typing teacher was a small, thin woman – you think nice? Guess again. She was nasty mean and used to walk around with her pointer lightly smacking hands if they were idle. Soone day we took her smacking pointer and threw it in the garbage. She didn’t
know what to do, and we told her the custodians must have accidentally
thrown it away. That’s just one example. Most of the other teachers were
pretty nice.
Grace Ball was a secretarial school but we also took accounting classes.
I hated it there–so did everybody else. I only liked going to GB because I met some great people. Most everyone boarded there, but there were a few of us who lived in the City or on the Peninsula. We disliked it– but had fun flaunting the rules. We were
devilish.
You probably wonder why were we there.. we were biding our time waiting for something better to come along….
House In The Country
Half Moon Bay
Blue Pot In An El Granada Garden
Signs Of A Different Kind On This Old Moss Beach Store
Can you see the reflection of the old Moss Beach schoolhouse in the windows? There’s an ad for “California Seeds”, Bass-Hueter paint, mixed and ready for use, and on sale at “here”–and two other signs, both of which say: “For Sale Below Cost”.
Photo: Is this the same building?
The Moss Beach Grammar School–the reflection seen in the windows of the building above.
Sort Of Old Political Signs Posted On A HMB Barn
1918 HMB Election: John Pitcher Was A Shoo-In, Conclusion
(Photo: Judge John Pitcher and his Half Moon Bay office. In the left corner (accidentally cropped out by me), it reads: “Where The Speed Cop Takes You”).
It didn’t hurt Judge John Pitcher’s image that he also held an excellent record for keeping crime out of Half Moon Bay.
When he ran for re-election in 1914, Judge Pitcher said:
“…Right here in Half Moon Bay, there is no need for law. Why our jail just fell into rust, it did. I’ve been Justice of the Peace for 35 years and never arrested more than a hobo or a speeder. I remember one man that went to state prison from here and that’s about it.”
Now came election Tuesday in 1918–and many said Pitcher’s opponent E.E. “Red” Kerrick should have listened to his friends’ advice and not challenged the old jurist–for John Pitcher easily trounced his young rival.
Pitcher continued his ironclad rule as Justice of the Peace for yet another four years. And when election time rolled around in 1922, “Old Man Pitcher”, now 94, announced again.
But time had finally run out for the old warrior and he was defeated by C.W. Borden. Once out of office, Pitcher lost some of his spark for life. He fell ill and died in 1924. All the business and schools in Half Moon Bay closed their doors in honor of Judge John Pitcher. They all knew there would never be another man like him.