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"Bertha, get me 1-Y-3, and howahya today?"
Neither Lydia Comerford Fahey, the Gust family nor the Rockaway Café were
listed in the phone books for this area from 1933 through 1936. Mrs. Fahey
was a long time, prominent and relatively well-off citizen. Charles Gust,
Nick's father, owned the Rockaway Café, later to be called Nick's. Few had
phones, least of all on the rural Coastside those depression days. Not
every businessman thought he could afford or needed a phone. Some relied on
nearby pay phones.
Most phones in those years would probably have been listed. Those evil
disrupters of supper time, telemarketers, hadn't been invented yet. There
was no (WATS) wide area telephone service. Long distance was expensive,
long distance calls either a rare treat or bad news. Though the telephone
had been invented more than a half century previous, most families did
without. In 1933 the highest phone number listed for what is now Pacifica
was 23. And several numbers between 1 and 23 went unused. Phones distant
from Salada Beach, for example those in Pedro Valley, Vallemar and Rockaway
Beach, started with either a 1-Y or an 11-Y. William Knight in Vallemar,
for example, was 1-Y-3. Phone No. 20 in 1933 served the needs not only of
Matt and Bertha Anderson but The Salada Grocery (we think of it as
Anderson's Store) and the local Pac Tel business office. Street addresses
were considered unnecessary. Pedro Valley, Vallemar, Rockaway Beach, or
Salada Beach (or by 1936, Sharp Park) was sufficient detail. In 1936 the
Skull Kracker, a popular bar, was listed at Paloma and Ocean Blvd. but few
listings were that precise.
To reach Harry Danmann at Danmann's Cliff House on Pedro Point, Bailey's
Garage in Rockaway, or Jack Mori at Moris Point, all Pac Tel agents, you
called long distance, presumably even from nearby locations.
By 1936 there were about 30 phones between Mussel Rock and Devil's Slide.
I assume some were party lines, multiple families or businesses sharing the
same line. In Sonoma County in those days, one line served my grandfather's
ranch on Limerick Lane near Healdsburg and all the other ranchers on the
lane as well. Some broadcast radio stations have a smaller audience.
Telephones are an addiction. The more phones there are the more people you
can call, and the more people you can call, the more calls you want to
make.
By 1937 the area that became Pacifica had started using four digit
numbers and dial phones. The Rockaway Café was finally listed, but
Anderson's store no longer was. Seven digit phone numbers were still a
dream.
Coastsiders in the thirties were few, hardworking and used to hardship.
Travel was difficult. So was earning an income. As usual among resourceful
people, even the isolation sometimes benefited pragmatic locals. When
wooden cases of Canadian booze floated ashore on remote Coastside beaches
during prohibition, they were welcomed and helped on their way to thirsty
San Francisco. The smugglers paid a toll, of course. Some of the high grade
booze was enjoyed right here; a kind of finder's fee. There were times
during the thirties when Laguna Salada flooded. It might close the
primitive road between Salada Beach and Rockaway Beach completely.
By the late forties, tract home buyers began replacing farmers. Mostly
former San Franciscans, they demanded better telephone service, better
roads and other urban conveniences, but that's a story for another day.
Columnist Paul Azevedo has been involved with newspapers long enough to have burn scars from hot lead. Linotypes fascinated him, but
he prefers modern phone systems, Macintosh computers, e mail Paul@thereactor.net and other 21st Century conveniences. Telemarketers?
No problem! He just keeps asking irrelevant questions until they finally hang up on him, bored to death.
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