Love Painting
(painting by Michael Bowen, courtesy R.W. Bruch)
Michael Bowen says, “the love panting was painted in 1967 and has been continuously used all over the world since then. there were originally two. one on canvas that I have and one on paper which is in a Euro museum. The 2 originals are about 6 ft tall in oil. The paintings were made a week before I did the human be in of 1967 in golden gate park.”
Peter Kyne: Coastside Author (3)
[Note: I remember meeting Gretchen Drew, a friend of Peter Kyne long ago. Ms. Drew lived in San Francisco, in the Embarcadero, and had some of Kyne’s personal [childhood] papers. I made a Xerox copy of a couple of items….one of them was an algebra lesson showing his perfect penmanship. She also gave me a photo of Peter Kyne which I donated to the historical files of the San Mateo County History Museum.]
The 1897 economic depression called the “Cleveland Panic” was making life difficult for everyone, including the Coastside Kyne family.
“My father,” wrote Peter Kyne, “had owed a bill for a year, and my poor wages wre being applied to its reduction.” The Kynes needed a miracle to get them out of hard times.
At that moment– the soon-to-be-famous oilman from Southern California, the future president of the Pan-American Petroleum Corp– Ed Doheny, drifted into the Half Moon Bay general store where Peter worked. Remember, Ed’s fame and fortune was all in his future so when Doheny met Peter, he was down on his luck.
[In later years when both men were household names, Peter Kyne attached great significance to the crossing of their paths.]
Doheny was drilling for oil on a ranch near Half Moon Bay. Doheny “boarded his crew,” Kyne wrote, “and bought his dry groceries from my employer on credit. The well was a duster, and 10 minutes after I was ordered to kill his credit, he drove into town in his old battered buckboard with a broken leaf in the right side spring, so that when Mr. Doheny got into the vehicle it sagged so low one expected him to be dumped out into the dusty road. A wearing old mare pulled this contraption. When he entered the store and told me he wanted a 50-pound bag of flour I had to tell him his credit had run out and I’d have to have cash for the flour.”
Ed Doheny was embarrassed to be turned down by this young boy but he said nothing and, according to Peter, “he loaded all his gear on Ed Frey’s two big freight wagons and pulled out for parts unknown. The jingle bells on the hames of Ed’s leaders was his requiem and my employer did not sue him and attach the rig.”
…to be continued…
Summer Camping in El Granada
Beautiful Coastside Day…
Hale Powell…former Coastsider
Hale Powell lived and worked on the Coastside as an electrician and carpenter in the 1970s. At that time there wasn’t a lot of fresh construction going on–the Coastal Act, which would freeze all building near our part of the Pacific Ocean, was just around the corner.
Probably as a by-product of the free-spirited, artistic 1960s, it came as no surprise that many of the carpenters on the Coastside were young and artistic–and had attended some college. Today it’s hard to find young Coastsiders working with their hands, working wood, creating sculptures, furniture, custom-built houses–but then, in the 1970s, many of the young Coastsiders, most of them “newcomers,” were doing just that.
Hale Powell belonged to that club of young folks. Today he lives back East, is married and a father. HPEnergy, his consulting business, focusses on developing sources of “green energy.”
Hale can be reached at [email protected].
(Photo: L-R, Hale, Shoshana and daughter Channah. The Powell stands on the beautiful “North Bridge” in Concord, Mass., site of the first battle of the American Revolution.)
Dee Harley: Coastside Farmeress of the Year
(Photo: From where I was sitting at Pasta Moon–my view of the photograph of Dee Harley, “Farmer of the Year.” In the photo Dee is surrounded by her goats.) We were having lunch at Pasta Moon in town when I looked up to see this great photo above my head. I had to know who it was. The waitress was excited to tell me this was the famous Pescaderan, Dee Harley, and she had just been awarded the title, “Farmer of the Year.” It’s a woman farmer,” she gushed, punctuated with a generous smile.
“Dee Harley raises goats…and she makes delicious cheese,” the waitress explained.
Many of the walls at Pasta Moon are covered with photographs of Coastside farmers, mostly good looking, strong men. The Farmer of the Year celebration was held at the restaurant. The photographs are all very well done and I only wonder who the terrific photographer was. Pasta Moon, please tell us!
Waves
The El Granada “Walk”
Meet Miss Lial…
(photo: courtesy Jerry Koontz)
Miss Lial was very old when I met her years ago. She lived in a very old house that hadn’t been painted for a long time on Highway 1 near Miramar. The worn-out house was hidden by thick manicured hedges and trees. The only light that could seep through the hedges was in one place only, and it was an opening in the greenery formed by Miss Lial’s shape. At her advanced age, she walked with a stoop and the artful “door” in the otherwise thick hedge fit her perfectly.
Miss Lial had lived on the Coastside for decades. Her father was called “Hightop,” because he drove a surrey with fringe on top to worship at the Catholic Church on Sundays, and when he crossed the concrete bridge in Half Moon Bay and lit up a cigar the fringe inevitably struck the sign that said “Half Moon Bay.”