Friday, February 10, 1939
After the fourth delightful night spent in the soft feather bed at Harry’s house, Harry rushes me to the boatyard at seven on Friday morning. Gosh, it’s Friday already and I’ve spent three idyllic days working on wooden boats at Nunes Boatyard. The time has flown by as it seems I’ve been in a working maritime museum and have lost all track of my era of plastic boats, synthetic sails and aluminum masts...and aluminum beer cans!
“Anne Cuffe’s coming, this morning,” Harry announces on the ride along that part of Bridgeway that runs by the edge of the bay. “You’ll be helping her with the masts and rigging of her boat, Zanadu, as she has named it.”
“Ah yes, the goddess who sails. Helping her? She’s the owner and she works on her own boat?”
“Yup, that’s Ann. She’s a good rigger, too, so get ready to be challenged by a smart and beautiful lady who’s not afraid to get dirty. Not many like her around. Wish I wasn’t otherwise occupied, these days.”
I am not yet over my shock at seeing the old San Francisco Yacht Club where the Trident and Ondine’s should be. Then there’s the row of old houses extending into Whaler’s Cove with that wharf and boardwalk that aren’t there any more in 1987. Finally, that big wooden barn of Nunes, as out of place in my era’s gentrified Sausalito as an outhouse might on the moon. This has got to be the grand-daddy of all my cinema-scape dreams…and the longest continuing one too!
***
Nearly completed, the sixty foot Cuffe yawl is just inside the huge doors of the barn on a cradle attached to the railed launch way. A workman is putting the finishing touches to the gold-gilt name on the pretty little heart-shaped transom: “Zanadu”. That moniker I have an affinity for…looks like someone else possesses the soul of my old Zanadu-By-The- Sea. Not as famous to my generation as the Nunes built Zaca of Erroll Flynn, Zanadu is to have a short life. She will be lost with all hands in a gale off Point Conception sometime in 1941, just before the war. Luckily Ann will not be onboard or I would have never known my Carol.
“Your job, this morning is to work with Miss Cuffe to check and prep the standing rigging and the masts for stepping onto Zanadu after she is launched.” Harry instructs.
Zanadu, being a yawl, has two masts and the wire rope standing rigging, assorted turnbuckles, eyes, tangs, etc. must be carefully fitted. Of course, the main and mizzen masts and their accompanying booms are wood, the finest, straightest grained spruce I have ever seen. Not saying much, as I am from the era of aluminum spars.
Galvanized steel rope rigging, bronze turnbuckles and wooden spreaders make up this expensive yacht’s sail plan…the best that money can buy in 1939. If only I could tell them and show them what stainless steel and aluminum marvels of modern marine equipment lay in the future. Steady on, Trav, remember the rules of time hitchers: Do not go out of your way to suggest, make or change events, Travis Blake aka Jim Travers. This includes kibitzing that can elicit a reaction in another that might cause him or her to change course. Even your mere presence may be enough to cause damage to the time continuum and alter the future thereby disabling (Threatening) your return to your future place in it, I lecture myself.
Like the single spark from a fire, the time hitcher, as I dub myself, cannot but help to be noticed, but must die inconsequentially, forgotten as instantly as its glow is extinguished and it becomes mere ash. This time stuff is tricky business. I better watch myself as time’s interloper or I’m liable to gum up the works
The masts are lying on saw horses beside Zanadu and I am inspecting the chain plates and mast tangs when a voice says, “Hey fella, you’re a new one for Nunes.”
“Name’s Jim,” I say turning toward the new voice and seeing a familiarly beautiful female face. “Oh Carol, how great you look.”
“Who the heck is Carol? I’m Ann Cuffe and this is my boat your playing with, here.”
“So you’re Miss Cuffe.”
“Well, I ain’t Rose of the Rio Grande!”
“Sorry, but you look like a girl I know.”
“How original! Don’t tell me a good looking fella like you has to resort to such a tired old line.”
“It was an accident, I told you,” I respond, somewhat annoyed and not caring at this moment if Ann Cuffe is the owner of the bloody boatyard. Yet, standing before me is a tall, lanky beautiful blond dressed in high cuffed blue jeans and a white turtle neck sweater and displaying an angelic face that could be Carol Whitley’s twin.
“Just ruffing your fur a bit, Jim,” Miss Cuffe says.
“Yeah, Jim. Can’t ya take a little chiding? That’s just Ann’s style.” Says Harry, leaping off Zanadu and landing on the shop floor beside me.
“Yeah, guy, that’s me, ol’ chain jerking Ann. Harry tells me you’re a bit of a sailor, yourself, Jim, and you know this bay pretty well too.”
“I spent most of my life sailing San Francisco Bay.”
“Yeah? How come we never met before, Jim?”
“I don’t run in the mirror varnished sailing crowd, I guess.”
“A work boat sailor in the tradition of Jack London, himself?”
“You could say that, Miss Cuffe.”
“Well, if you climb down off your class conscious steed, Jack, I mean Jim, you can call me Ann. Anyone who gets his boat run down by the Lurline and survives is someone I’d like to know better.”
It’s so easy to see where Carol developed her wit. Ann is as sharp as a tack and knock-down gorgeous like her daughter to be…maybe even a tad handsomer.
“Jim is an expert rigger and we’re glad to have him at Nunes.” Harry says. “By the way, Ann, we got a newly launched Bear Boat to trial. She’s tied up out on the pier, right now. After our work on Zanadu, today, how about the three of us taking that little Bear out on the bay, tomorrow? You up for a rag beating, Ann?”
“Does a Bear…oh, you know! Can I stay at your digs, tonight Harry? New bridges or not, it’s a long way back to my house in Berkeley just to back track here again, tomorrow morning.”
“Getting a bit crowded at the old Harry Brink manor inn, these days, but sure, Ann. You’ll have to bunk with Jim, here.”
“What’s that you say?” say Ann and I and almost simultaneously.
“Just ruffing your fur, Ann. There’s plenty of room for us all at my house without the need to sacrifice anyone’s reputation. How about I get my girl friend, Linda, and the four of us do dinner, tonight? That is, if you don’t mind having Jim, here, as your date.”
“How do you feel about that, Jim? Want a date with an idle daughter of the rich?” Ann challenges me.
“No problem, Ann, if you don’t mind keeping company with an idle son of the poor.”
“How does the Alta Mira Hotel above downtown Sausalito sound to you folks for dinner?”
“Delightful, Harry. I love their terrace with that wonderful view of the bay,” Ann enthuses.
The Alta Mira! Ann always used to take Carol and me there since we were children….a tradition. Even my father, Travis Senior, would join us, on occasion. I never knew its significance in Ann’s young life till this very moment.
“Now that that’s settled, I’d like to work with you on rigging Zanadu, Jim.” Ann says.
“She means it too, pal. Ann’s a real pro when it comes to setting up and tuning a rig. You’ll see!” Harry proclaims.
***
Ann and I spend the rest of the workday rolling out and sorting through the standing rigging cables, attaching tangs and pad eyes to the immaculately fresh wooden masts; all in preparation for their future places as the fixtures upon which the sails will be set on the sleek Zanadu.
“Hey, Jim, you’re pretty good at this rigging work. You’re a natural, as a matter of fact,” Ann says with enthusiasm. “And where’d ya pick up that stuff on mast rake relationship between main and mizzen you been telling me about?”
“I read a book once.”
“Yeah, right. Like they got books on the subject.”
“As a matter of fact they do, Ann. L. Francis Herreshoff, the Marblehead, Massachusetts yacht designer has written some good stuff about setting up two masted sailboats.” I say, thanking my stars that I have always had an interest in all of yacht design history going back to William Fife and Colin Archer.
Useless stuff but fun, I thought at the time, never dreaming in my era of fiberglass hulls and stainless steel wire rope that I’d actually get to use such vintage information in the flesh, rigging wooden masts and bronze fittings to brand new wooden boats.
“You’re an unusual guy, Jim Travers. I’ve never enjoyed a day of rigging more.” Ann says at the end of the Nunes work day.
“I never had a more knowledgeable and comely rigging partner.” I say elatedly, thinking all the while about Carol Whitley and how much she was Ann’s daughter in all respects.
Working with Ann has allowed me a delightful memory of Carol and I working on and sailing our boats together since we were kids growing up on the Sausalito waterfront. I had no idea that all the while during our mutual nautical upbringing, Ann was the guiding light while never once revealing or bragging about her own youthful accomplishments. And during all those years I had never known Ann to go sailing. At some point she gave it all up. Instead, she was satisfied to revel in Carol and me growing up together on the water and falling in love with our bay and each other. Why? I ask myself now.
***
Friday evening, February 10, 1939
At Harry’s house after completing the most pleasant work day of my life, Harry says, “You gotta dress up a bit for the Alta Mira Hotel, a tad high-brow, but great atmosphere and what a view of the Bay.”
Harry holds out a coat, shirt and tie, “Okay with this get up, pal?”
“Fine, Harry, thanks. Again, it’s fortunate for me that you and I are about the same size.”
“Depends on the point of view. Just kiddin, Jim. Hurry up, the girls are waiting at Linda’s place on Caledonia Street. If it was just us two, I’d walk to the Alta Mira, it’s only a few minutes up the hill, but we can’t ask the girls to do that or Harry and Jim will be dining alone on chop suey at Smitty’s, tonight. I hope the darned hotel won’t charge me an arm and a leg to park my car.”
The Alta Mira Hotel hovers on the hill directly above downtown Sausalito and just off a winding and narrow little trail called Bulkley Avenue. Its Mediterranean style edifice, built in 1927, is complete with terra cotta roofline and a fabulous dining terrace with a scrumptious view of the Central Bay every bit as scrumptious as the food. The four of us are piled into Harry’s Ford roadster as he wheels onto and up the Alta Mira’s steeply inclined driveway.
“Be careful with it son, it was Henry Ford’s before he sold it to me,” Harry says to the hotel’s young parking attendant.
“I’ll treat it as Henry would a Chrysler. Just kidding, sir,” the parking attendant says in retort.
“Everybody’s a comedian, right Harry,” Linda quips.
Harry has Linda on his arm and I have gorgeous Ann on mine as we step onto the hotel’s spacious terrace. It’s a warm and clear evening and so the terrace is our natural choice. The view is, indeed, a delightful asset of the Alta Mira as what appears as the entirety of San Francisco Bay is laid out before us…a banquet table for the eyes.
“Been a while since I’ve dined here,” Say Linda, an attractive woman in her late twenties with bobbed brunette hair and a nice figure, if slightly over-fed.
“The view is fabulous, this evening, isn’t it Jim, darling?” Ann coos holding tightly to my left arm.
Ann is nothing less than stunning in a rather blasé evening dress she borrowed from Linda. But I think Ann would knock out a gang of beauty contest judges wearing a potato sack. Seeing that the two of us are fast falling into that ether of affection known as obsession, Harry gives me a wink.
Seated comfortably at a table with an umbrella next to the be-flowered terrace wall, we order before dinner drinks.
“Well, gang, it’s nights like this in little old Sausalito that the rest of the world should learn nothing about.” Harry says.
“Why’s that, Harry?” Linda asks looking perplexed.
“Because, my dearest Linda, if our secret garden be known, we would loose our little bit of paradise to the greedy want-to-be’s and we of small income would be forced to move to Milpitas.”
“Where’s Milpitas, for corn sakes?” Queries Linda rather annoyed.
“A dumpy East Bay hole in the wall with one gas station, a Catholic church and a run down motor court.”
“Ah, come on, Harry, Sausalito will always be a quaint little village,” Ann pipes in.
“Not much longer with that darned new bridge and a war bearing down on us. We bay water folks are on the threshold of a brave new world, kiddies.”
“War? Certainly not for our country!” Linda says incredulously.
“For all countries across the face of this tired old planet, Linda.”
“I think you’re right, Harry,” I say, already knowing the answer as if I had peeked at the cheat sheet of a final exam on Bay Area history, let alone future world events.
“We’re neutral, Harry. Let those clowns in Europe and Asia fight like the Cats of Kilcanny. We will always keep our world at arms length from that lunacy and especially so our water world of San Francisco Bay, our own Shangri-La,” Ann responds strongly, yet with delicacy and sweetness so as not to taint our evening’s enjoyment. I am nothing short of taken by Ann’s every gentle way and expression.
“There is a new world mentality emerging and, at long last, one that is suited to our age of machines. There has to be and no stopping it. We face new challenges that can only be answered by folks who are strong of will and determined to lead the great unwashed to new glory.” Harry says with more zeal than I’ve heard before from this rather free and easy character I am growing quite fond of.
“Well, I don’t know about you, Harry, but I bathe every day,” Ann quips in high style.
“Oh, I’m not talking about any of us, Ann, least of all you! You are the strong willed woman of tomorrow, ready to meet the demands of this new world. I refer to the millions who need guidance and leadership….the mindless masses that have no will, reasoning power or grand imagination for what the world can be. They must be shown the way. Besides, too much freedom for the masses can only bring chaos.”
“Me, I’ll take what comes,” I say casually, as if I know what is coming and I do. “Just give me my share of wind and water.”
“Here, here, darling Jim. Well said and my politics exactly,” Ann says excitedly, giving me a peck on the cheek while Harry gives me another wink.
The warm night air, the cocktails and a light but satisfying dinner has the four of us feeling like we could take on the evil doers of the world on two oceans at once…which, of course, we colonists are about to do and with phenomenal success. The echoes in my head of our very future are starting to aggravate me a little too much. Part of paying the piper of time hitchers, I guess. But remember: Neither a kibitzer nor an interloper be, I say softly to myself.
“What, darling?” Ann asks, picking up on my mumbling.
“Neither a kibitzer nor an interloper be,” I say, seeing no immediate harm in repeating my secretive statement out loud.
“Wise words for us all in these times, pal,” Harry responds.
After better than three hours, our little fanny fatigued party at the Alta Mira is starting to show signs of breaking up.
“Well, a wet little Bear awaits us on the dock at Nunes, tomorrow morning. I’ll drop you two off at my house and then I’ve got to take Linda back to hers, so I’ll see you later, alligator.” Harry says with another wink in my direction.
“Let’s take a stroll around downtown, Jim” Ann says. “I love Sausalito in the evening.”
“Okay by me,” Harry nods. “You know the key to the house is on top of the entry light, Jim.”
Harry navigates the little roadster down the steep driveway of the Alta Mira after retrieving it from the hands of the hotel valet and reluctantly relinquishing tip money. Down we go to Bridgeway via the roller coaster-like incline of San Carlos Avenue.
“Okay if I put you out here at Caledonia and San Carlos, love birds? Bridgeway is only 50 feet away and I need to turn left onto Caledonia and then on to Linda’s apartment.”
“Thank you, Harry dear. And thanks too, for a delightful party at the Alta Mira. See you on the boat in the morning, if not later at the house. You are gracious to let me spend the night,” Ann sings in her perfectly sweet way.
Bridgeway is mildly busy but not too noisy and Ann and I decide to walk south along the side of the street by the yacht harbor.
“You don’t mind me taking your hand in mine, do you, Ann?”
“If you hadn’t taken it I would’ve taken yours. Say, Harry seems pretty hard-over about this new era stuff. I like the way you kept things on an even keel, Jim; you seem to want the same things of life I do. In case you don’t yet realize it, you’re doing alright with me,” Ann says, rustling her soft flowing blond hair against my face. “It’s almost like we’ve known each other for many years.”
I can’t begin to tell you, Ann, how true a statement that is. “Oh, Harry’s a good egg. Probably just the high priced booze at the Alta Mira that got to him. He’s too used to the rot gut they serve at Smitty’s.”
“Tell me all about yourself, Jim darling. I want to know everything about you.”
No, Ann, I can’t do that. And even if I could and did, you would immediately make a dash for the Sausalito Ferry Terminal and be off for your East Bay home before I could catch my breath. No, Ann, I’ll tell you something, only part of which is true and paralleling my story to Harry that first night.
“I’m from Oakland originally. My father used to work for a little machine shop near the Estuary, there.”
“Oh, then you should meet the Blakes; you’d like Travis. His shop, Bay City, is building all the deck gear for my boat. I’ll introduce you to him. You two would hit it off.”
Bringing up ‘The Blakes’, Ann is on the same tack as Harry was. I hope I haven’t put my foot in my mouth mentioning machine shops in Oakland. Good God, my very own father, Travis senior! My Dad and I haven’t ‘hit it off’ since I started talking.
“What else, Jim. Tell me more.”
“Well, I got into bay sailing very young after my family moved to Sausalito.”
“I wonder how come we never met before. I’ve been sailing the bay since I was five. My father has always hated my love of sailing and especially yacht racing. He says it’s not what girls should do. He’s right in one respect, I have acquired a reputation from beating the boys at their own game. That has put me up for the dreaded Tom Boy award and a good deal of isolation from many of the guys who sail.”
“I sailed with the low brow, small boat crowd, Ann,” I say trying to somehow rationalize our never meeting.
“Oh come on Jim. I thought we got past that class warfare stuff. So we never met on the bay or anywhere else. We’re together now.”
“And I’m so glad, Ann. I’m becoming very fond of you…it’s strange, but I felt that way from the first moment we met, this morning, at the boatyard.” Oh blazes, Carol, Ann…how could I be in love with you both.
Ann and I have wandered all the way to Vina Del Mar Park in the very center of downtown Sausalito. We can now see the bay glistening beside the ferry terminal and the lights of San Francisco suggesting a dreamscape devoid of time and having no consequence of reality. The electricity of obsession is welling up inside me.
“Oh Jim, I’ve got this bug too. We can’t do anything but just let it happen, now. Isn’t it glorious? We are so fortunate our souls found one another and it’s a perfect night to be beside our perfect water world.”
Someone on a boat in the harbor has a radio on and Eddy Duchin is playing Cole Porter.
Listen, Jim, it’s that wonderful song It’s De-lovely from the show Red, Hot and Blue with Ethel Merman and Bob Hope. I saw it on Broadway three years ago when Dad and I were in New York. I adore this song,” Ann enthuses while softly whispering the lyrics in my ear:
The night is young, the skies are clear
And if you want to go walkin', dear
It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely
I understand the reason why
You're sentimental, 'cause so am I
It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely
You can tell at a glance what a swell night this is for romance
You can hear, dear Mother Nature murmuring low 'Let yourself go'
Oh Ann, you are the most delightful thing that has ever happened to me. I am violating the rules of time hitching and I know it will lead to tragedy, but I won’t and can’t do anything to stop this thing now.
“Lets walk back to Harry’s place and settle in for the night. I’ll fix us cocktails and we can cuddle up in Harry’s two big easy chairs in front of that gorgeous view,” I say.
“You know you are fast becoming my one true love, Jim, but I won’t sleep with you, tonight.”