September 29, 1999

A festival of friends and neighbors

The Pacific Coast Fog Fest has settled in at age 14, become an institution and a tradition to look forward to and enjoy. Last weekend was one of the best, if not the best of the lot. Saturday morning was foggy, cool and comfortable. Some folks left their headlights on, with predictable results. 4-H kids marched in the parade with a strange-looking creature that turned out to be some kind of goat ordinarily raised for meat, I'm told. Robinson Crusoe was an expert on that subject.

I rode with the Pacifica Democrats group, celebrating the political club's 50th year, followed by the Jefferson High Marching Band. Somewhere in the parade was at least a majority of our City Council. Mayor Hinton, his broadbrimmed hat prominent on his head, predictably rode a fire engine. Barbara Carr was in costume. Council member Maxine Gonsalves donned a helmet and rode behind my "cousin" George Gonsalves on a motorcycle. George and I may actually be cousins. After all we both have Portuguese ancestors. Somewhere in the dim past our genes undoubtedly crossed paths. I didn't see Jim Vreeland or Pete DeJarnatt, but odds are they were also somewhere on Palmetto.

Sunday may have been the brightest, sunniest and warmest September day in the past 14 years.

What I enjoyed the most, as I walked back and forth Saturday and Sunday, was meeting old friends. So many Pacificans are involved as volunteers it's impossible to name them all or even remember them all. Hard working Shirlee Gibbs in her green jacket, May Gee, Steve and Colleen Wright, Joanne Wynne, Jim Gilchrist and Vic Vickers at the Lions steak sandwich booth, Pat Paik, Courtney Conlan with a quick greeting from across the crowd, Kiwanians Dodie Payne and Maxine Gonsalves selling Ben and Jerry's, each added to the ambience.

I put in my shift at the Rotary wine booth along with other local Rotarians. John Maguire, Stew Cross, Patricia Mason-Cook, Jack Billmire, and Dave Koblitz were a small fraction of those who poured the Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, White Zinfandel, and Cook's Champagne. Steve Marsland put in his own unique sales spin as he poured. The special year 2000 flutes sold out early, and by early afternoon Sunday all the commemorative glasses were in very short supply.

The Historical Society display, put together again this year by my wife Lydia for the 14th time, featured a strong display honoring Henry Doelger's Fairmont, that planned community where every yard has a palm tree and a patch of lawn, and every family pays its dues to the Fairmont Subdivisions Homeowners Association. What few may realize is how important to the Fairmont way of life was the input of the Pacifica Planning Commission. When someone was told that Henry Harrison McCloskey built our landmark castle, there was a quick rebuttal from a visitor. H.H. may have paid the bills and hired the architect, but Matthias Anderson, it was pointed out, actually did a lot of the work. Matt's store remains today as a monument to a family which has been involved with the Coastside far longer and more deeply than the lawyer for the Ocean Shore Railroad, Mr. McCloskey.