Meet “Cowboy” Bill Claudino, former Montara resident…

cowboybill.jpg (Photo: This is Bill Claudino…when he was a cowboy…He’s a former county cop and now a top notch Calaveras County supervisor).

Bill’s family goes all the way back to the early Coastside; one of his maternal relatives was crowned Chamarita Queen in Half Moon Bay (the famous annual Portuguese festival) and he joked that his family “partied through Prohibiton”–

From Bill, a really good view of old San Gregorio: sg.jpg

Also a farming shot: farming.jpg

Bill highly recommends Michael Koepf’s book about the fisherman at Princeton: “The Fisherman’s Son”

“There’s fictitious names use in the book,” Bill told me, “but as you soon as you read who’s saying what you know exactly who it is.” Bill knows because he grew up on the Coastside and he knows all the local fishermen very well.