Once upon a time, in high school days, I washed dishes in the white and gray-blue restaurant over the water in the forefront of this photo, the restaurant then the Glad Hand and now Scoma’s.
I lived with my mother and two brothers in an apartment in one of two rundown gingerbread Victorians almost directly across Bridgeway.
Thank you Al Engel and Bob Hanlon for employing me at the then red-painted Glad Hand and Wiley Bowens and Bobby Thompson for being my friends and helping me along.
Glad to say that I walked and rode my bike over that bridge and sailed under it in a couple of boats. My previous home had been at the end of Tano Road outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, but this wasn’t a bad place to land in the midst of family upheaval.
Sausalito was a little more Bohemian in the early 1960s but my heroes then were Jack London and the older guys in short-sleeve shirts who magically parked cars on the wooden pier at the Kingston Trio-owned Trident, next door to the Glad Hand along with Ondine.
I also kept a sea bag packed in case some large sailing vessel came by, needing crew for a voyage across the Pacific. The Viveca, for one, was moored for a while off Ondine. Sterling Hayden’s Wanderer was down at the yacht harbor. Pursuit and Bolero and Baruna were sometimes there, too. Fortunately, Bob Hardin took me out on the bay and let me do occasional chores on his 40-foot schooner, Adventurous.
I used to feel sorry for myself washing dishes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and seeing the world go by on Bridgeway. Now I feel lucky to have been there.
dream ranch 