The team at the
Anderson Valley Advertiser
dug up this little excerpt from
Kenneth Rexroth’s
An Autobiographical Novel
and reprinted it in last week’s issue.
This would have taken place sometime in the 1920s.
At last we came to the California border and the first day into the state we took a detour away from the coast onto the highway. We got a ride from a traveling salesman and stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant above a river mouth, possibly the Klamath. We weren’t hungry so we each had a piece of apple pie and a cup of coffee. The salesman wanted to treat us but I insisted on paying for it. When I went up to the case register the proprietor said, “Three dollars.” I thought he was kidding. “Thirty cents?” I said. “You mean sixty cents, don’t you? We had two pieces of pie and two cups of coffee.” “No,” he said. “I don’t mean thirty cents. I mean three dollars. A dollar apiece for the pie and fifty cents for the coffee.” “Go on,” I said, “stop kidding. How much is it?” I stood there with my wallet in my hand, putting on my heavy pack and slightly off balance. “Listen, you son of a bitch,” he said. “We don’t want bastards like you in this country.” He came around the counter and hit me full in the mouth and knocked me down. As I went down I kicked him in the nuts and as he fell backwards Andree hit him over the head with a bottle of ketchup. The salesman grabbed us, threw us into the car, and tore off down the road. At the first gas station we asked where we could find a sheriff. “Down the road half a mile, the first house on the left.” He was sitting on the porch, muddy logger’s boots up on the railing, reading a newspaper and spitting tobacco, a star pinned to his greasy vest. We went up and made a complaint. He didn’t even take down his feet, but drew a pistol and said to the salesman, “Get off down the highway and get those sons of bitches out of the country or I’ll lock you all up.” We had arrived in California.
Episodes like this were the common thing in the northern three counties of California in those days, and now anybody conspicuously foreign finds it almost impossible to get service or accomodations. No colored person of any race is served at all. No Negro, Chinese, Japanese or Filipino is allowed to settle in the country. I don’t know what happens to them nowadays if they try. Thirty years ago they never tried, or if they did they simply vanished. In Crescent City and Eureka we met the same kind of hostility, although not so extreme. However we found it almost impossible to camp out. We would stop on the beach with no habitation in sight, build a fire, and in a few minutes up would come somebody on a horse and drive us off with a gun. For the next couple of days we lived largely on cold food out of grocery stores. I have been all over the Southern mountains, northern Maine, and French Canada, regions where outlanders are traditionally not welcome, but I have never met anyone like the malignant native sons of far northern California.
This article appears in Send Out The Clowns.
And we had it damn good too, until all the stinkin’ hippies arrived spreading all of their peace and love and dope around. Then everything just plain went to Hell.
I sure do miss kickin’ out-of-towners asses.
Those were the good old days.
Interesting, though, how the Ausländer Raus! mentality has since spread throughout all walks of Humboldt County life.
Much of the post-hippie generation is just as insular and nasty as the people Rexroth met here. Instead of delivering an honest ass-whooping, they troll blogs.
Is that progress? I ask you.
You know, when an ass-whoopin takes place, I want to know who’s dishing out the punishment. Then afterwards we can belly up to the bar and lick our wounds together.
But, this virtual ass-whoopin’…Wha????
Oooh, I know…maybe the Ferndale-Fortuna annual Milk Can trophy football game can be played out on the blogs. Since that seems to be the order of the day.
Hmm, sometimes I miss the good ole days but sometimes I’m just glad they’re gone.
The good old days either never existed or never left. Nowadays, you either don’t want Mexicans, City slickers, Trustafarians or blue -collar goons coming here, depending on your persuasion.
And what’s wrong with a little xenophobia anyway? That’s how cohesive cultures are built-for good or ill. After all, to be “Us,” you need “Them.”
Awesome writeup, thanks for sharing Hank!
-JMan
[…] reading the North Coast Journal Blogthing, I came across a horrifying but not unfamiliar reference to the experiences of people of color in […]
I have encountered remnants of this culture in modern-day Humboldt County. Every year during hunting season, you find blokes like this trying to hunt in areas that have signs that say, “No hunting.”
I had someone stop at the bottom of my driveway and harass me for putting a John Kerry bumper sticker on my car. I had a hunter tell Greg and I that it was people like us that cause the decline of timber and that we should move back to Eureka. We had a Eureka attorney ask us in a Fortuna coffee shop, “What are you liberals doing in Fortuna?”
There is a marked bully mentality with some of the old-timers – one has to learn to stand taller and bigger and hold one’s head up high. And don’t take any guff.
Carol,
I have heard people rail against the oldtimers for almost thirty years.
(Oh, and I voted for John Kerry, too)
Don’t worry, the oldtimers are dying off.
“Generational Natives”, as Ernie Branscomb calls us, are very far and few between.
Just ask around. Ask someone when they arrived in Humboldt County? Most answers are relatively recent.
I believe the disgruntled aire from the oldtimers is due to the tribal shift of residents to the North Coast.
The great influx of timberworkers here, especially in the fifties and sixties, brought with them their ideals and culture.
Everyone pretty much thought, acted and were politically alike.
About 1970, a new era began arriving in Humboldt and Mendocino counties. Also bringing with them their ideals and culture. Why wouldn’t a clash exist? Think Bob Ornelas and Lou Blaser running for Arcata City Council during the early 1990’s. Or Redwood Summer.
Here is a good read depicting those times:
http://www.ese.upenn.edu/~hunt/ArcataNews1.html
In the 1970’s does anyone remember the bumper stickers reading “Don’t Californicate Oregon”? Same sort of deal.
But, don’t worry, A Humboldt utopia where everyone thinks, acts and is politically alike is waiting just around the corner.
Carol,
If you used words like “blokes” toward them, they were probably not very nice. I bet they know what “pretentious” is, though.
For some reason, the link didn’t work, Ekovox.
I should add, that I have met some really wonderful people since I moved here in 1982 and some of them are old-timers.
Carol, as you know, my family has been in Humboldt a 100 years but I would call people trying to hunt in areas with NO HUNTING signs something way worse than blokes and so would most people around here!
My family is and have been hunters here since nearly the beginning and real locals know better than to hunt on land they don’t have permission to access. Real Locals (the kind I’m proud to belong to not the blokes you ran into) understand private ownership sometimes to a fault.
I have to agree with Ekovox though, It will be a sad day when the old timers with their Crusty old ways day die off!
Oh, I don’t want to see the old-timers die-off. We can learn from them. And they can learn from us, too.
Carol, we can teach you how to skin a buck and you can teach us how to make a decent chai latte.
I guess, but I don’t know how to make a chai latte.
I have already help skin a buck, rabbits, and wild boar. But I don’t want to do it any more.
My Mom taught me that the most important words a hunter’s lady has are “You killed it., You clean it.”
I think I will just stick to killing and cleaning carrots and lettuce. I don’t even want to fish anymore.
How to make a Chai Latte.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1 large strip of orange peel
3 whole cloves
1 (3 inch) cinnamon stick
3 whole black peppercorns
1 pinch ground nutmeg
4 teaspoons white sugar
2 teaspoons black tea leaves
Combine the milk and water in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Once this mixture has warmed, place the orange peel, cloves, cinnamon stick, peppercorns, nutmeg, sugar and tea leaves into the pan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until the color deepens to your liking. Strain out spices, and pour into cups.
This mocha-swilling turtle IS a Humboldt native. So there, I guess. Enjoy!
Thanks Humboldt Turtle. I guess it’s only fair to include the steps to skinning a buck.
The tools of the deer-care trade: a couple of skinning knives, a sharpening steel and a handsaw.
Hang a field-dressed buck in a cool (40 – 50 degrees) place as soon as possible.
Cut up and through the hide on the inside of the hind legs.
Make a circular cut around the joint of each leg.
With the sharp point and blade of a knife, skin out the hindquarters.
Saw off the hind legs below the joints.
For easy skinning, hang a buck from a gambrel.
To open the rear of a deer for cooling and skinning, saw a little ways into the pelvis.
Skin down toward a deer’s neck. Grab the hide and pull-much of it will peel right off.
In spots where the hide sticks, skin with your knife.
Cut off the tail. Don’t let the long hair get on the meat.
Keep pulling and skinning the hide over the ribs and down to the shoulders.
Keep pulling and skinning the hide over the ribs and down to the shoulders.
Assuming you ARE NOT going to cape a buck for mounting, cut down into the brisket as far as possible. Saw off the front legs at the joints.
Cut along the insides of the front legs and skin them out. Pull and skin the hide down over a buck’s head.
Saw off a buck’s head with long cape intact.
Check for any dirt or hair and if you find any remove at once.
Cut away any blood-shot meat around the bullet holes.
You see, we can coexist. By being able to understand each other’s cultures and by living through tolerance, we can help steer Humboldt County into the future. And I’m dead serious about that.
While Carol and I may poke fun at each other, I think we have come to an understanding. And coexist is correct. Something that didn’t happen in the beginning of Humboldt’s history.
Carol and I may or may not like each other’s political ideals, but if an event were serious enough to affect the entire community, we would stand shoulder to shoulder to work together.
I think we agree more than we disagree, Ekovox. I would like you and Kym to know that I do not consider either of you to behave like some of the “blokes” or if you prefer, “bullies” that I have encountered in my tenure in Humboldt County which is now approaching 26 years, more than 1/2 of my life. Many of my dearest friends are some of the old-timers. They know who they are and know how much they mean to me, and I know how much I mean to them. And yes, I can imagine that we would all pull together during any serious event.
Please realize that I am in the middle of reading the Ray Raphael and Freeman House book, Two People, One Place, and this county was founded on land speculation and resources extraction.
Please realize that I am in the middle of reading the Ray Raphael and Freeman House book, Two People, One Place, and this county was founded on land speculation and resources extraction.
Yes, yes it was. As was Chatham. I’m sure all of our hometowns have skeletons we wish to not speak of.
The Pilgrims sailed across the Atlantic to escape religious persecution. For 50 years they lived in relative peace with the natives until the King Philips War. Then there was great bloodshed between both the settlers and the natives. My own ancestors, Jacob and Susanna Mitchell, after bringing their children to the safety of the garrison, were slain during the battle of Dartmouth in 1675. Their 3 children later married 3 Kingman children on the same day and lived in Bridgewater.
French explorer Samuel de Champlain first arrives in Chatham in October 1606. There was a skirmish with the natives where both the French and the Natives were killed. Later in 1620 the pilgrims did sail by Chatham, but because of the dangerous shoals, they headed north to the area of where modern day Provincetown is located. They went ashore and stole the Indians stash of corn. That spot is called Corn Hill. The natives passed the news of the theft, so that all the tribes knew about it resulting in a later kidnapping of one of the Pilgrim’s youths. The boy was later returned unharmed.
When the Pilgrims settled in a harbor now called Plymouth, the local natives already been decimated by disease brought by previous explorers.
Not until 1656 did an Englishman named William Nickerson followed an Indian trail to the area now called Chatham. “Englishman William Nickerson struck a deal for four square miles of land with the Monomoyick sachem, Mattaquason. For this he paid a shallop, ten coats, six kettles, twelve axes, twelve hoes, twelve knives, forty shillings in wampum, a hat and twelve shillings in coins. This transaction took place, however, without the approval of authorities in the Plymouth Colony, and so, for sixteen years his purchase would be disputed until he settled with the courts by paying a fine of 90 pounds and obtaining written deeds from Mattaquason and his son John.”
Chatham was a farming town when it was incorporated in 1712. Eventually, fishing was added to the mix. Nathaniel Philbrick’s history, Mayflower, describes the Cape Cod natives of converting to Christianity and living in relative peace with the settlers. Indeed, there were interracial marriages as well.
Here is a link for more of a detailed history of Chatham:
http://www.mychatham.com/chathamhistory.html
And here is yet another rendition of the Chatham areas’ first European contact. I guess it’s all on how it is worded. And the same can be said for Humboldt history.
“The French explorer Samuel de Champlain guided his vessel past Harding’s Beach and into Stage Harbor in October of 1606. The Native Americans here, who had been here for at least 10,000 years, paddled out in their canoes and greeted Champlain hospitably. Nevertheless, two weeks of increasingly uneasy contact erupted into a fatal skirmish under circumstances that are still unclear. Three of the Frenchmen were killed and one fatally wounded. Many more Monomoyick were killed by French musket shot. After a retaliation that included an unsuccessful attempt to capture slaves, Champlain weighed anchor, giving up any ideas of making Chatham a French foundation of state, and leaving the way clear for the English.
1606 or 1850, not much had changed.
I heard on KMUD today where the Lakota nation is attempting to secede from the United States of America.
Ah, yes. But that was the French.
Yes, that account is correct, Ekovox and Turtle. That is the story we were told when we went on school field trips to Stage Harbor to look at a hole in a rock that was an old mooring of Champlain’s.
I have some interesting news that I will post on our blog about “skeletons in the closet”