June 2, 1999

Green Pea Pirates, local and fun

Books by Peter B. Kyne were a pleasure of my childhood and teenage years, and of my father's before me. Kyne wrote 80 to 100 years ago, which means some of his stuff was pretty sticky, as in mawkish, sickeningly sweet, treacly.

Even so I loved most of what Kyne wrote. There was enough adventure and humor to make up for the molasses. His California was already in the past tense when I read him 55 and more years ago. His "Valley of the Giants" was a fictionalized story of the beginnings of Eureka. There was a whole series about Cappy Ricks ( a San Francisco leader of the shipping industry), and his employee Matt Peasley. Kyne specialized in California of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He wrote of Redwood trees and lumberjacks, tough-as-nails sailors with hearts of gold, and little ships putting into dogholes up and down the coast. He wrote about dogbarking navigators, so-called because they knew where they were by the distinctive bark of particular dogs at lonely ranches along the coastline. His heroes wrecked their ships in pea soup fogs and fought the Humboldt bar. They put into Albion and Timber Cove, Bodega and Fort Bragg and Noyo Harbor, Pescadero and Half Moon Bay. It was a more primitive time. The roads were slow and muddy. Little ships were the least inefficient transportation along our rugged coast.

Not long ago another Kyne admirer, Russ Conroy, told me the author had written "Captain Scraggs or the Green Pea Pirates" while holed up at Danmann's Hayloft on Pedro Point. The book is copyrighted 1911 through 1919. It must have been written while the Ocean Shore RR was chugging its way up and down the coast. Danmann's was owned by E.H. "Harry" Danmann, whose 98 years of life included over 75 years on Pedro Point. He opened the hotel/bar in 1908. He died in 1954. I watched the old Hayloft, a treasure of Coastside memories, burn about 1970.

The "hero" of Green Pea Pirates, Captain Phineas Scraggs, is not a role model for anyone you'd care to know. He's conniving, sneaky, downright obnoxious and not overly smart. He makes his living hauling peas and artichokes on his ship The Maggie from Half Moon Bay past Point San Pedro to the produce markets of San Francisco.

As one of his crew pointed out (Captain Scraggs) "been disappointed in his ambitions. On top of that, the Ocean Shore Railroad is buildin' down the coast and as soon as the roadbed is completed over the San Pedro Mountains them farmers'll haul their produce to the railhead in motor trucks - and there won't be no more business for the Maggie."

Even underhanded, sneaky skinflints have to make a living, and hauling vegetables then and now is not the way to make a fortune. His engineer and first mate are fired often and quit just as often, but they all need each other, and so they stay together through thick and (mostly) thin.

I recommend you read Kyne, who lived much of his life in Montara, but read him with the understanding he makes the American Independent Party seem downright liberal. Compared to him today's most intransigent right wing Republican southern bigot seems as politically correct as any Berkeley coffee shop habitue'. And skip over the syrupy romance. There's still lots to enjoy.

Paul Azevedo, The Reactor, has been sharing his opinions with fellow Pacificans since 1975.