I Meet “Farmer John”

FJohnsDalias.JPG (Farmer John’s Dahlias)

Today I was down at the wonderful wholesale flower place on Hwy 1–the one with yards and yards of orchids and indoor and outdoor plants and flowers and, oh gosh, everything that’s green and pink and red and yellow and multi-colored and I better stop because I’ll want to buy everything and then so will you…

I walked outside into the parking lot, loaded down with my flowerful treasures, when I saw these luscious, blood-red, deep deep red, Dahlias. Full and fluffy and well-fed flowers that were so dressed up they looked like they were going out dancing…They were waiting patiently in the back of an open van.

Several buckets were filled with these long-legged, freshly cut lusty red Dahlias–and I sighed, biting my lip, wishing I could go back inside and buy a bunch…They’d look so good in my house…

Instead I met the man who belonged with the gorgeous Dahlias, or vice versa… I was with a friend who told me, “That’s Farmer John. He’s political, he’s well known around town.”

I remembered Farmer John’s political signs on Hwy 92…I was thinking, “What did he run for?” Then I said it out loud.

“I’m on the City Council,” he told me gravely.

I noticed he was wearing overalls, a farmer, the real thing.

He asked my name. I told him and there was a glint of recognition in his eyes.

“The artist,” he said.

Wow, I thought—now I’m an “artist”–that’s a step up from carrying the moniker “local historian” for so many years.

Back to the Dahlias.

“I just picked them,” Farmer John said, explaining that he delivered flowers to the nursery every week.

The subject then turned from flowers to Half Moon Bay and Farmer John said, “All the travel writers are coming here now. Half Moon Bay’s the ‘in’ place.”

He also told me that he gives “around the bonfire talks” to corporate groups, stories of his adventures in San Gregorio & Pescadero–and other historical stuff that’s been passed down to him over the past 60 years, sometimes with a little hyperbole thrown in.

Farmer John’s blooms can be admired and bought at Half Moon Bay’s Farmer’s Market–

FarmerJohn.JPG(Farmer John)

Two Degrees Of Separation

Did you ever wonder if the silhouettes that advertised IPODS on Bay Area billboards were real people–and if they were real, who are they?

I can now reveal that the silhouettes ARE real people.

Recently I had lunch with friends whose beautiful young daughter, Christiana, told me that her friend from New York, Martin, is one of the silhouettes. (See Martin below).

martin ipod.jpg

Christiana told me that Martin is a model, an outstanding dresser with extraordinary looks who was “discovered” walking down the street in New York City–and signed up for Apple’s IPOD advertising campaign.

So, what does that make me? Two degrees of separation from Martin?

When Rumrummers Ruled (Part I)

princetonpier.jpg (Photo: The pier at Princeton-by-the-Sea)

When the San Mateo County Coastside was identified as a major depot of smuggled Canadian whiskey during Prohibition., pioneer liquor buccaneers Paul Rubio Pane and Thomas Murphy called themselves exporters—but they were hardened professional bootleggers who needed the cooperation of locals to unload hundreds of cases of illegal booze on isolated Half Moon Bay and Pescadero beaches.

Destined for thirsty customers in San Francisco, the whiskey earned Pane, Murphy and their rum-running masters huge profits.

By 1924 Paul Pane and Thomas Murphy had been using South Coast farmer J.F. Steele’s Ano Nuevo seaside ranch as their home base for more than a year. They often ate breakfast at Steele’s place south of the Pigeon Point lighthouse and might have passed as locals. But they took their orders from the notorious Joe Parente. Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Parente was the king of all the Pacific Coast rumrunners.

After convincing Steele to collaborate with them, Pane and Murphy established a routine. Electricity had not yet reached the Pescadero on the South Coast—and in the evening the road was eerily dark.

Pane and Murphy supervised the nighttime loading of 100 proof-plus Canadian Club whiskey onto trucks—liquor delivered secretly to a secluded beach cove by two small skiffs.

The operation went smoothly until the spring of 1924. As 240 cases of illicit whiskey were being loaded onto trucks, Paul Pane’s sixth sense alerted him to trouble—and trouble usually meant the police. He even felt suspicious of his partner Thomas Murphy, the co-owner of the Prince Albert, a vessel registered in British Colombia.

As usual the Prince Albert’s final port of call was Ensenada, Mexico. Unless witnesses to a crime, the Coast Guard did not board vessels headed for ports outside of the United States. Packed with a full load of whiskey, the Prince Albert sailed south from Vancouver along the Pacific Coast, carefully observing the 3-mile limit near Steele’s Ano Nuevo ranch.

From his position on the beach, Paul Pane, using his secret code-book, signaled the Prince Albert with a flashlight, advising the vessel that it was all clear. A high-powered motorboat rendezvoused with the Prince Albert, taking on board the cases of liquor. From the motorboat, the cargo was transferred again to small skiffs that sailed through the surf and onto the cliff-lined beach. With the loud pounding of waves drowning out conversation, Pane stowed his flashlight, automatically slipping the secret code-book into his coat pocket.

—To be continued–

John Patroni Was Princeton’s “Padrone” During Prohibition Part II

In an earlier post I wrote about Mario Vellutini who worked for John Patroni, also known as “Big Daddy”. Patroni owned the aptly named Patroni House, a prohibition roadhouse that once stood where the Half Moon Bay Brewery is located today in Princeton. Not only was the Patroni House centrally located– but Mr. Patroni was a key figure, as in “the man”.

Patroni also took pride in the food he served and cleverly outwitted the competition.

“When the Prohibition agents headed for Patroni’s,” Mario Vellutini told me, “somebody called from Redwood City to warn him.” (Redwood City was and is the county government seat.)

Thus John Patroni avoided the stinging penalty of too many raids. A raid could also mean that a roadhouse– or “resort” owner like Patroni had failed to honor the custom of the time by making certain the appropriate officials got their regular “salary”.

“Patroni gave big meals at low prices,” Vellutini divulged, “and if people stayed for the weekend he gave them discounts.” Mario recalled seeing 500 people in Princeton at one times–a tremendous crowd. Those were the days when folks traveled to the Coastside to dine on the delicious local mussels.

Louis Miguel–whose father built the beautiful Palace Miramar Hotel, now gone–once told me his family’s restaurant “served mussels 12 months a year. There was no such thing as poison mussels like there is today.”

Until it was time to serve them, the shellfish were kept fresh in the ocean, held in sacks, tied with rope. Miguel said his family “never got the mussels until low tide. People nowadays get mussels up high where they get a lot of sun and moon and that’s what poisons them. But in those days we served them all year ’round and nobody got sick.”

The Patroni House building was owned by John Patroni but it was located on real estate belonging to Coastside landowner Henry Cowell. Cowell, recalled Mario Vellutini, kept raising Patroni’s rent, ultimately igniting a feud.

The “padrone” hit upon a plan to outwit Cowell and avoid the steep overhead by buying the adjacent property. One night, under cover of darkness, Patroni moved his entire building over to the the newly purchased land. Outraged, Cowell retaliated by building his own restaurant next door to Patroni’s.

But, chuckled Vellutini, “While people lined up to eat mussels at the Patroni House, nobody went to Cowell’s new place.”

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Note: Mario gave me this photo. it’s of the beach between Miramar & El Granada and shows some men on motorbikes. mario.jpg

Fragment Of An Afternoon (in El Granada in 1975)

David S. from Pescadero arrived at my house in an old, slow blue-gray car.

He has a redwood slab he wants to sell; it would make a great kitchen counter top, he tells me.

My husband John isn’t home so David says he’ll go down the street to see his friend who lives in the pink house on the corner.

I tell David that when John comes home I’ll send him down there.

Soon afterwards John comes home and together we walk to the pink house. David comes down the stairs and shows us the redwood slab. It’s beautiful.

David says he needs money—he’s moving from Pescadero to Colorado—more trees than in Pescadero, he tells us.

We give him $5—but he wants $20 for the slab– which is really a good price—David says if John were working for him, he’d sell it for $15. He needs $20.

David’s wearing “his old lady’sâ€? pants because he says his own clothes are dirty and he’s late for dinner at the Carter sister’s home in Half Moon Bay….

We take the slab…we tell David we know someone who will pay $20….