Itâs Sunday, I woke up and had an epiphany: I canât get used to the idea that a new and improved Devilâs Slide has opened. The reality hasnât hit me yet.
Iâve barely recovered from Devilâs Slide being closed. My doctor says I have a severe case of âDevilâs Slide-itisâ?.
The sky is too blue, thereâs a delightful breeze and the weather reporter said, âItâs going to be a warm day and everybodyâs heading for the Coastside.â?
âOh no No NO NO NOâ¦please donât come; please donât head for the Coastside.â?
In my head there were visions of cars on Hwy 92, endless lines of cars, cars that were standing still and I was sitting in the midst of itâ¦â¦â¦then my car overheatedâ¦then there was an accidentâ¦.and the CHP was directing emergency vehiclesâ¦..
I woke up in a cold sweatâit was only a nightmare.
Maybe we need a halfway house for recovering Devilâs Slide victims.
My doctor advises that the only cure for âDevilâs Slide-itisâ? is to gradually decompress somewhereâ¦maybe a 35-minute wait on the Bay Bridge would do itâor, better yet an hour in the dark, moldy Caldicott Tunnel (wherever that is).
Maybe Iâll recover by the year 2011 when the Devilâs Slide-Oliver Mayer Tunnel (shudder) nears completion.
Says Don Carder, New Chamber of Commerce President; Action On Freeways Is Urged
“1971 will be a good year for Half Moon Bay and the coastside,” said Don Carder, newly-elected president of the Half Moon Bay Chamber of Commerce as he took over the gavel at a Thursday noon luncheon.
“The emphasis should be for quality development and I believe that there will be growth. Controlled growth is better than having no planning to preseve some of the open space.”
–People Will Come–
“There are some who want no more people to come here, but the people will continue to come. I feel that not all the beach frontage should be taken by the county or the state.
“We should try to build better local sewer treatment plants so that we won’t have something like the Kaiser plan. The recreation aspect will be important in our future growth,” Carder added.
Carder was introduced by Ben LaMar, the outgoing president of the chamber, who urged continuation of the efforts to obtain construction of the Rt. 92 freeway from San Mateo and the Devil’s Slide bypass….”
(This 1971 article from the “Half Moon Bay Review” was sent to me by a reader.)
“I’ve been trying to dredge up the name of a filmaker in your neighborhood who I took classes from in the early 1970’s. As I write this his name finally came to me. Larry Booth. Do you know of him–is he still around? His wife was Sheila I think and she did sound/sound effects for film.”
Anyone know?
I remember the Film School and how I wanted to take one of the classes but never did.
And Sunset Magazine sent a photographer to shoot the canopy we stood under (while receiving the vows)– I think this was the photographer’s photo that appeared in the magazine, or one like it–I’m still looking for the magazine photo.
Mario Vellutini in the front yard of his El Granada home.
I used to watch Mario Vellutini bending over in the fields bordering Highway 1 in El Granada. That’s where wild daisies the color of butter grew in abundance, waist-high.
Wearing baggy gray trousers and a worn hat, the thin, pale old man searched for clumps of wild mushrooms where the ground was rich. For dinner he cooked them with chicken, country Italian style.
One day while Mario was gathering mushrooms I went to talk to him. I hoped he would tell me secrets about Prohibition, when the Coastside was home to shadowy figures, rumrunners and bootleggers– and a madam or two who called the shots.
He didn’t disappoint.
(A little history about Mario: He was 17 when he left his home in Italy in 1913 for Half Moon Bay–where he got to know every Coastside field, working on ranches from Pescadero to Montara.)
He delighted me when he talked about his close relationship with John Patroni, a powerful man during Prohibition. Patroni owned the popular Princeton restaurant called the Patroni House–the old roadhouse was torn down in the 1950s and today the Half Moon Bay Brewing Co. stands near the site.
Some people called the husky Patroni “the padrone” for he was the boss of Princeton-by-the-Sea in the 1920s and 1930s when the sale, possession, and drinking of any kind of alcohol/liquor/whiskey was illegal.
(Can you imagine enforcing this one?)
John Patroni was the Coastside padrone but Mario Vellutini, who, when he was in his early 20s lived at the Patroni House, called the padrone, “Big Daddy.” John Patroni was the kingpin and a wealthy rumrunner, Mario Vellutini, who lived at the Patroni House, told me.
A narrow thoroughfare separated Patroni’s lively roadhouse from what is known today as Pillar Point Harbor but in the 1920s the high seas weren’t interrupted by a breakwater system. During Prohibition rumrunners used the pier across the way to unload whiskey at night.
Mario worked for Big Daddy, and rumor has it that Vellutini watched out for the best interests of his boss, making certain that nobody was cheating him.
Those were heady times for the Coastside, famous up until then for the endless fields of artichokes. But the artichokes took a back seat to Half Moon Bay which became better known as one of the biggest supplier of illegal booze on the West Coast.
When the Prohibition agents headed for Patroni, the 81-year-old Vellutini said, somebody called from Redwood City to warn him.
Thus John Patroni avoided the stinging penalty of too many raids. A raid could also mean that a roadhouse or a owner like Patroni had failed to honor the custom of the time by making sure the appropriate officials got their regular “salary.”
