lostnewspaper

HOW TO LOSE A NEWSPAPER

It pains to write this, but the coronavirus probably will be an extinction level event for most print newspapers. This is not a shocking new development; the Nieman Journalism Lab started the death watch even before the National Emergency was declared. Go back to the 2008-2009 recession and find pundits were warning that print was unlikely to survive another economic downturn – newspapers were like a flotilla of Titanics all drifting towards the iceberg zones. And so here we are today; sans charitable bailouts from billionaires or megacorps, lots of ships are soon to sink together into the cold sea.

This is not the place to go into all the reasons why this is happening, but some are well hashed over: Printing presses can keep rolling only so long without advertisers to pay for the paper and ink. Too many newspapers were being run by the MBA-types who saw journalism as little different from selling soup – if the demand slacks off, keep the profits high via cutbacks. Many were even taken over by hedge funds and investors who saw them only as cash cows to be milked dry; a must-read is a 2018 article, “This Is How a Newspaper Dies” (the term “harvesting market position” will definitely be on the quiz).

The deeper problem for newspapers is that nobody’s reading them. U.S. circulation is the lowest it’s ever been since they began keeping records in 1940. Why is that? It’s not like we’ve become a sub-literate society; Americans are typically spending over six hours a day online and not all of it is looking at cat videos (I hope). And particularly now in the spring of 2020 we’re news-junkies, with 89% of U.S. adults following the latest about coronavirus closely – only not via newspapers. We’ve given up on newspapers, but as I’ve said for over 25 years: Readers did not give up on newspapers until newspapers abandoned their readers.

pdmay22The change is apparent simply in the paper’s heft; today’s offerings are scrawny things compared to what we used to read not all that long ago. To the right are the Press Democrat front pages from May 22, 1970 and 2020, both days being a Friday. The text content of the modern edition would have filled less than one-quarter of the earlier page (modern size not to scale – both were the same height). There’s now just not much there there. And keep in mind this is not to pick on the PD; you would see the same devolution in any mid-size U.S. daily.

It may seem surprising but once upon a time newspapers were a primary source of entertainment. Sure, some people cared most about box scores or what stores had on sale, but every edition was packed with lots of other items to amuse, astonish or inform. What’s changed today is summed up in that keyword, lots – if there was nothing to interest you on the current page, turn to the next one, or read the page after that. Today there is no “page after that” because most papers have become little more than broadsheets, and the stuff filling the pages is too often wire service synopsis. In that 1970 edition, Every. Single. News. Page. had one or more local items.

Newspapers also engaged readers with stories that carried on for more than a week. Some of my favorites are BONFIRE OF THE HOODOOS about a political stunt that got out of hand, MR. CONTEST EDITOR IS DISAPPOINTED IN YOU about a subscription drive that drove the town nuts, and THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HOBOES, where the PD’s 19 year-old cub reporter wrote a memorable series on what it was like living as a tramp.

The main element missing isn’t QUANTITY of news, but the QUALITY. Whenever I search old newspapers for particular items about local history I also read (or skim) the rest of those editions as well and I do it for pleasure – a well-written story is always a joy, no matter where you find it.

Papers from the 1950s-1960s are particularly fun because that was the Golden Age of columnists. The San Francisco Chronicle had Stanton Delaplane and Herb Caen; the Argus-Courier offered “peopleologist” Bill Soberanes and Ed Mannion; the Press Democrat served up Gaye LeBaron and Bony Saludes. Those newspapers would do themselves a favor by reprinting selections from those columns. Here’s my personal favorite Gaye LeBaron item:

A small girl-child (eyes at desk-edge level) came into the Children’s Library yesterday and asked librarian Venus Gordon for “The Cat in the Hat, please.”

Receiving her copy she went to a small table, made her self comfortable in one of the short chairs, opened the book and smiled disarmingly up into Mrs. Gordon’s eyes.

“You know, of course,” she said, “I can’t read.” (Aug. 26, 1960)

bronsonBy reading the entire paper I also stumble across treasures. While researching the 1969 earthquake I found people were saddened because it struck just as a TV show called, “Then Came Bronson” was about to air. A guy later told LeBaron that some group should contact NBC for film of that episode and have a showing at a local theater to raise money for charity. (You can watch that episode, “A Famine Where Abundance Lies” online, but I sure don’t recommend it.)

It turned out the attraction was that the series was created by Denne Petitclerc, who started as a PD staff sports writer in 1950 and became one of the finest crime reporters and feature writers found anywhere – there’s no question in my mind he would have been awarded a Pulitzer if he hadn’t “gone Hollywood.”

Denne Bart Petitclerc wrote for the Press Democrat until 1956 when he left for the Miami Herald, and while here won several journalism awards. As a public speaker he was also in demand and seems to have been an overall popular fellow around Santa Rosa. No wonder that locals wanted to see the show he had developed.

Copyright restrictions block me from providing more than a sample of his works, but all can be read via Newspapers.Com, which is available on computers at the Sonoma County Library. There are dozens more Petitclerc articles like these.

The brown-haired man with the pleasant ruddy face wanders into a grocery store looking for all the world like a painter.

He smiles at the man behind the counter, selects a few items from the shelves, carefully including a box of pablum, “for my baby,” he explains.

He crumples a shopping list in his hand and puts it into the pocket of his paint – smeared overalls. “I guess I haven’t forgotten anything,” he says. “My wife gets plenty sore if I do.”

He chats casually with the grocer while the items are checked, telling, perhaps, of a little piece of property he’d like to buy up by the doctor’s place. “You know the spot.”

Then he calmly explains that he’s new to the community, doing painting for the doctor, “nice fella, Doc.”

He sure is, the grocer agrees, as he is handed a check signed by the doctor. “My pay,” smiles the man. “it sure don’t go far now days. No, sir.”

He endorses it, picks up the change, and the groceries, and walks out, leaving the grocer behind thinking, “there’s a nice young fella.”

And with a bad check.

That is the method of operation of 39-year-old Walter DeMeter, California’s most wanted criminal, who has passed more than $50,000 in forged checks in the state since 1947. And DeMeter may be in Sonoma County today… (Feb. 8, 1954)

 

They’ll talk about Big Jim Antone and the fight he had with the octopus for a long time.

Big Jim is a bulldozer operator in Santa Rosa for Tom McLain, and a lot of man at 265 pounds.

And his boss, Mr. McLain tells about the way he can stretch a chain around a truck-motor and lift it right off the frame, lifting with his two big arms.

So, Big Jim went abalone fishing yesterday morning at Fort Ross, and got out into the water just after daybreak. It was raining, and the sea was heavy, but that didn’t distrub Jim, who was raised at Jenner-by-the-Sea, and who’s as fine an abalone fisherman as there is anywhere.

He went out along the rocks until the water splashed above his chest – he says that the abalone are bigger out there – and was prying around with his hand for the rough shells attached to the rock.

Then suddenly something that felt like a muscled piece of wire wrapped around his left arm. He pulled back. Another tentacle attached itself to his body. And another. And another.

“I never saw so many arms,” he said later.

The tentacles were as thick as a main’s forearm, and held fast to his body by milky-white suction cups.

Big Jim found it was useless to try to tear them from his arms. There was only one thing to do… (April 6, 1954)

[He pulled the 40 lb. octopus from the rocks and walked to shore with it still wrapped around his body.]

 

Grady Hayes sat in the darkness in the back of the patrol car and talked in a high-pitched voice and winced when the car hit a bump because of the steel handcuffs that locked his two big arms behind his back.

“I could have chopped you down, easy,” he said, “but I didn’t have no intention of hurtin’ anybody.”

He had, a half hour before, been captured at the Jack Willen ranch, Hot Springs Rd., and now we were driving down the twisting ridge-line towards Highway 101, six miles away. Looking out through the windshield you could see the lights of Geyserville flickering in the distance in the darkness. Hayes was talking to Deputy Cole.

“I was in the brush last night when you came up to that culvert and shouted,” he said thickly, hardly audible, “and you was about four feet away.”

He was wearing a pink wool shirt and grey slacks that were dusty and ripped from the brush, and he had on a tan felt hat that looked as dapper as the day he left San Francisco and came to the remote cabin in the hills 15 miles west of Cloverdale and shot and wounded his estranged wife and two children… (June 2, 1955)

 

When sheriff’s deputies Fred Muenster and Joe Sweeney dragged the shivering, sad-eyed boy ashore at Bodega Bay last week, he looked for all the world a picture of youthful innocence, lost and confused.

Indeed he did. He said he was lost and hungry end had taken a skiff to a moored boat in the harbor and only taken “a little food” to sustain his life. Yes, indeed he had.

A boy to be pitied and helped. After all, weren’t we all lost boys once? Sure we were.

Out of their own pockets, the officers fed him. Nice boy. They brought him back to the County jail at Santa Rosa, and he warmed himself in an office. He had an uncle in Annapolis. He could go there. He was wandering from Tracy to see his uncle. He was only 18.

Poor chap. “You know,” he said, “my name is pronounced differently in England. Have you ever had anything to do with royalty? I’m it.” He confided with a bearing of dignity. “I’ve got a big inheritance in England. Someday, when I get a stake, I’m going there and claim it.”

Well, he, heh, boys, you know boys with imagination? Sure you do.

“Ever been arrested before?” he was asked.

“Oh, no, sir, never in my whole life. Honestly never…” (Oct. 20, 1955)

[The kid was burglarizing summer homes near Guerneville.]

Another serious author who worked at the Press Democrat 1949-1952 was Frank Herbert, who went on to write the DUNE sci-fi novels. He was a staff writer and photographer, so much of what he turned out was mundane (“Eagles Honor Mrs. Lingron, Mother of 8 Sons, Daughters”) but they sometimes gave him a featured column – complete with portrait! – which could be less predictable.

His strangest contribution to the PD was probably the column titled, “To One Part Verne, Add Galley of Zomb, Drop in Heathcliffe and expect Occidental,” again here excerpted for copyright:

It was a green morning and I woke up to find that my bed had three sides instead of two. The third side was a surrealist extension into the fourth dimension and the minute I stepped onto the floor over that ‘side I knew it would be one of “those” days.

In the first place, my wife found a note in the bottom of the kitchen garbage can which read:

“I can’t live without you.”

It was signed, “Verne.”

We don’t know any Verne. We puzzled over the darned thing for a while and finally decided it was a scrap from a short story one of us had written and thrown away, (with good reason.)…

[They decide to drive to Occidental before dinner.]

…At the west end of Coleman Valley the road began to climb in a series of steeply pitched switchbacks. Up, up, up, it climbed, into the mist. At the top there was wind-whipped fog, a low moaning of wind through brown grass and ghost figures of sheep only dimly seen at the limit of visibility. It looked like a cheap illustration for an Emile Bronte novel. We expected Kathy to come striding over the next rise, shrilling “Heathcliffe! Heathcliffe!”

Thus far, you will note, that since taking that inscrutable turn we had seen no human beings…

…Around us, weird rock shapes rose from the sere grass. The fog-rimmed scene became more and more Brontes-like. We expected to see a “thing” gibbering at us at any moment. And then the road started down. More switchbacks, the fog thinning. Another farmyard, dilapidated buildings and no people. (The last outpost.)

And at the bottom there was sunshine. We gloried in it. There was a car approaching us. We laughed. A human being must be driving it, we said. The car drew closer, slowed; we passed. The driver looked at us. His eyes were red-rimmed, hair straggled down over his forehead, there was a scar along his left cheek. He sped away behind us.

“In heaven’s name, who was that?” my wife asked.

“Heathcliffe,” I said. We drove back to the world of the living . . . and dinner. (Aug. 26, 1950)

In a Sept. 29, 1950 column on L. Ron Hubbard’s book Dianetics (which Herbert thought should be required reading) he compared it to medieval jousting: “…we are still bogged down in the fifth or sixth century A. D. Meanwhile the mind in its perception of its environment plods gaily on, lance in hand, armor buckled, helmet on, visor down. We are the only creatures in the universe with helmets containing visors with built-in mirrors. Pull down the visor and Zoot! You are staring yourself in the eyes.” No, I don’t know what it means, either.

He may have gotten away with some of these things because he wrote a series on nuclear war which the PD sold separately as a popular pamphlet, “Survival and the Atom,” which the paper promised had “all of the facts ‘Mr. Average Civilian’ needs to know to survive in an atomic attack.”

After Herbert left Santa Rosa he later wrote “The Santaroga Barrier,” a novel which takes place in a small California town where residents “appear maddeningly self-satisfied with their quaint, local lifestyle” – although the town as described was actually Ukiah, where he had profiled the newly-opened Masonite plant. (It’s really a terrible book; don’t let your curiosity get the better of you.)

Herbert was never as good a writer as Petitclerc, and it’s doubtful few flipped through the paper looking for what Frank Herbert had to say. But you didn’t open the Press Democrat in the morning just in hopes of reading Petitclerc’s gems; the paper always entertained readers with well-written news stories by its stable of staff writers.

Want to know what’s missing from most papers today? It’s the staff; newsrooms are like the sad last day of the going-out-of-business sale, where only a skeleton crew is sticking around to sell the display cases and that neon “open” sign in the window. According to Pew, newsroom staffing has fallen by half since 2008. That’s why all too often your local newspaper feels like it was produced by office workers filling in a template. Here’s a rewrite of local press releases or what was on the police scanner. Here are enough summaries of national/world news to fill section one. A column by a retired sports writer. Two (three?) big color photos for the front page. Support Local Journalism.

Forget missing out on having a stellar talent such as the likes of Petitclerc; today there’s no reporter here who could match Bony Saludes’ coverage of the 1961 murder spree by a 33 year-old “self-styled hypnotist,” and who along with Dick Torkelson, kept us titillated about the sinful ruttings of Lou Gottlieb and the Morning Star Ranch.

Pete Golis is still on hand as a columnist emeritus, but he was a young go-getter on the Healdsburg beat when he told us in 1966 about three members of a family claiming they had a close encounter with a spaceship. (Too bad Frank Herbert still wasn’t around.) Otto Becker of Alexander Valley said his son and daughter-in-law also saw the 6-story tall “saucer-like” ship which had red and yellow rays pouring off the edges of the saucer “like water.” It made a rhythmic “sput… sput… sput” noise, he said, so he thought at first it might be the old pump on the property. “I’m 73 years old and I’ve seen fireballs back east, but this had motors…it was controlled by some kind of human beings.” Golis told the story as matter-of-fact as if it concerned a herd of stray cows – and you can bet it was the topic everyone talked about later that day around the water cooler.

All that is what we’re set to lose (or in many cases, have already lost). It’s not the physical bundle of newsprint that will be missed; it’s that it represented the best work of a team of crack professionals to create and organize the story of our common selves. Snapping off the rubber band and opening the paper was always the first best part of your morning, even more so because you could always rely on it being there again tomorrow.

Read More

ed1958

ED MANNION HAS SOMETHING TO TELL YOU

It seems everyone who knew Ed Mannion has a story about him – which is perfectly fine, as he had lots of stories of his own to tell. About a century’s worth, in fact.

Until he died in 1991, Mannion was Petaluma’s unofficial historian and best known for his weekly “Rear-View Mirror” column in the Argus-Courier, although it ran less than four years and didn’t even appear all weeks. He filed his last column the day President Kennedy was killed; why he stopped wasn’t explained.

But Ed Mannion left behind more of a footprint than just “Mirror” (as he called it). He was writing about local history years before the column and years after; he assembled an enormous collection of rare documents and photographs which became the foundation of the library’s Petaluma History Room. And if Ed the Historian isn’t enough to impress, take note he was also a key participant in the uphill fight against PG&E’s scheme to build a nuclear reactor at Bodega Head.

In the golden age of newspapering in the 1950s and 60s, his was likely a household name all over Sonoma county. In the golden age of the Internet today, his name is unknown. Google currently returns a measly 300-odd hits on him – mostly credits given in books for use of photos now in the library collection. Ed’s own voice is nowhere to be found online without access to a paid newspaper archive service (note: available on Sonoma county library computers). I never met Ed, sorry to say; even more, I regret never reading any of his stuff before this summer. To me, his name was just a nod in one of those footnotes.

What follows isn’t a biography of Ed or a critical review of his legacy – it’s  just an appreciation and an introduction for 21st century readers. I’m only covering “Mirror” up through the end of 1961, which was the halfway point of its run. There is plenty left over for another article or three, including the story of how Ed and his co-conspirators were dumpster-diving (literally!) to rescue original historic photos which were then deemed worthless.

So for just a moment, pretend it’s 1954 and you’ve just strolled in to “Nick’s Chat & Chew” for lunch (the building’s even still there, at 600 Petaluma Blvd S.) and at the end of the counter is this funny-looking goofball telling stories. He’s snaggletoothed, his hair appears to have a mind of its own and his oversized black-rim glasses look like a failed effort to pull off a Clark Kent impersonation. But everybody around him is laughing – so let’s eavesdrop for a bit.

Gag photo of the Argus-Courier back room staff shooting craps in 1955, with Ed Mannion drinking from a bottle. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Library

 

 

“Yoiks! Another Columnist Enters the Ring” read the headline introducing Ed Mannion to Argus-Courier subscribers on Saturday, Feb. 6, 1954.

“News pickings sometimes tend to be a little slim for the week’s caboose edition, and the city editor has declared it Amateur Day instead of wasting good boiler plate. Or maybe, because I’m a linotype operation, he figures on saving copy paper by having this composed at the machine.”

Ed was indeed a linotype operator for the paper and would remain so for another thirty years, as well as a proud member of the Typographical Union. For those unfamiliar, these were the machines used to setup “hot lead” type via use of a bizarre keyboard. Anyone who was around such a shop (as I was as a child) will tell you the linotype operators were usually some of the most well-informed and erudite people you would ever meet – after all, they had to carefully read every line of the newspaper every day.

The Argus-Courier was a perfect home for Ed; it was a lively small town paper with a stable of must-read columnists including Lura Frati, Bob Wells and Bill Soberanes. By contrast, the Press Democrat at the time was a slog to get through, with pretensions that it was a major metropolitan daily and crammed to the margins with indifferent wire service items (least compelling headline ever: “Senate Debates Wool Bill”).

That incarnation of Ed’s column only lasted for a few issues but he remained familiar to readers through guest columns and mentions by the other writers. One story concerned the birthday of a friend who was an avid fisherman. Ed gave him a large rock with a note attached: “It is plain to see that you have been using the wrong fishing technique.” Also included was a clip from an 1879 paper, where it was reported that steelhead were so plentiful in Petaluma Creek that people were catching them by dropping rocks in the water.

Ed also contributed feature stories on the last ferry between Oakland and San Francisco (service resumed only after the 1989 quake) and the last ferry between San Rafael and Richmond. At home he had a small handpress he used to print up Christmas cards and the like, so for the final trip from San Rafael he handed out cards to fellow passengers: “This is to certify that the bearer is a member of the Anti-Bridge and Prevention of Cruelty fo Ferry Boats Society.” On the back was a vow “…to continue the fight against progress wherever it rears its ugly head.”

His fondness for gags like the rock and the cards (and a few more described below) can make it hard to take him seriously as a historian. Or was he just a “history buff”/collector? Did he want to educate readers by explaining how the pieces of history’s puzzle came together to form a picture – or was he just a guy who liked telling some really good stories?

Mannion called himself “a tramp printer who likes to read old newspapers,” which earns him my respect, revealing he tapped primary sources for information rather than repeating hand-me-down stories. He wrote so much there are probably mistakes which I don’t know enough to spot, but so far I’ve only found one glaring error – and to his credit, he found it himself some years later and corrected it.

It’s true he rarely tried to synthesize what he knew in the way “big H” historians do, but there’s not much room for that sort of thing in newspaper columns of only 600-1,200 words. His only real shot at long-form writing came with the historical portion of the 1955 centennial edition of Argus-Courier, which was edited and mostly written by him and his wife, Chris.

That section of the A-C is over 75 pages long (ignoring the full page ads) and is quite a remarkable work. Ed makes it clear at the beginning that they wanted to make something of interest to the casual reader but also good enough for serious historical research. “The fact remains that the usual way for newspapers to put out an anniversary issue is to use what passes for historical material as window dressing while the main emphasis is on jazzy promotion.” Amen to that, and let’s hope the Press Democrat resists the temptation to turn its sesquicentennial edition over to the Chamber of Commerce and Tourist Bureau.

In short, the August 17, 1955 edition of the Argus-Courier is permanently bookmarked in my browser; I’m certain I’ll keep returning to it as long as I’m writing about local history, as it covers the entire southern portion of Sonoma county. But Ed was still Ed, and there’s a bit of good natured humor in his intro to the section, which is framed as a “letter to mom.” They didn’t have room for everything, he explained, but they always tried to get area names right – even Valley Vista grammar school, which he thought “sounds like a title coined by a housing tract sub-divider’s wife who writes poetry.” Putting it all together was rugged, he wrote, but “I’ll come right out with the puppy-dog hope that a couple of readers will write in to say they liked our efforts.”

Enough credit cannot be given to Chris Mannion for her involvement with that task as well Ed’s other history projects. Besides having six pre-teen children (eventually, seven), she was sometimes his library researcher, cataloger of his archives and bric-a-brac, phone secretary and often accompanied him on interviews (while Ed was starstruck meeting Ida Lupino, she was somewhat less speechless in chatting up husband Howard Duff, showing off pictures of their kids). She was a part-time photographer for the paper and had a side business selling its photo reprints. In 1960 it was her, not Ed, who led the fight to save downtown Hill Plaza Park from being bulldozed for parking spaces. She died in 1971 at age 47.

After the paper’s centennial came Petaluma’s civic 100th birthday in 1958, and that was absolutely the best year for Ed Mannion’s adventures, which were tied in with E Clampus Vitus and fellow buff of history, Ed Fratini. This other Ed was the grounded yin to Mannion’s wilder yang. While Ed F. was diplomatically inviting San Francisco’s mayor to attend the Petaluma festivities, Ed M. was advertising in a San Francisco newspaper for a live, fighting grizzly bear.

Ed Mannion in costume at a celebration during the late 1970s. The woman with her face turned away is his daughter, Mary. Photo: Sonoma County Library

 

 

“Grizzly Bear wanted for bull and bear fight Main Street Petaluma, reply to the judge. McNeil Drive, Petaluma”, read the ad in a San Francisco paper a month before Petaluma centennial celebration in April, 1958.

“The judge” was Ed Mannion’s costumed Clamper persona; members of “The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus” dress up to celebrate historic events. They also mount commemorative plaques and drink. They drink a lot.

As mentioned earlier, 1958 was also the 99th birthday for the Washoe House and the Clampers mounted a plaque at the famous roadhouse. That night they were up to their usual hijinks, including trying to push an old fire engine into the lobby of the Hotel Petaluma (it got wedged in the doorway and remained there for days). The events ended with a group dinner at the hotel – “a whole chicken for each man, and served on pitchforks,” as was promised.

Ed Mannion vowed to recreate an arena fight between a bull and grizzly bear that actually happened in 1861 at Haystack Landing. According to the Argus, the bear tried to escape and charged the ladies’ section of the bleachers. (“Ah, the good, pure days of yore,” Ed commented in a later “Mirror” column.)

The wire services picked up a photo of Ed wearing a sandwich sign promoting the “Bull and Bear Fight” on the back (the front showed a chicken pecking at a dancing Clamper) and interests were aroused. It made the front page of the paper in Virginia City and was widely blurbed in Bay Area papers. An incensed  animal lover from Redwood City threatened to organize a statewide boycott of Petaluma. Ed finally wrote a disclaimer revealing it would really be just a couple of guys in costumes – but it’s not clear if the Clamper from Rough and Ready knew it would be a mock battle when he promised his pet badger, Solomon, would take on the winner.

Thus with costumes custom-made for the occasion, Smokey the Bear fought Ferdinand the Bull at Walnut Park in front of an appreciative crowd. In the third round the bull charged and the costume’s head fell off, after which the bear was declared the winner on account of decapitation.

The year 1958 was also when the Petaluma Fire Department sold its old ambulance. The two Eds came up with the $100 (or so) to buy it, with the view that a 1935 antique would be a “fine thing for parades and so on.” Its first outing was to a Clamper dinner at Beale Air Force Base near Marysville, where they arrived with wailing siren and flashing lights. Enroute they were pulled over only once, which is somewhat surprising because they were dressed in their pioneer getups and a cop doesn’t see an ambulance driven by ersatz 49ers every day.

Afterwards, one of the Clampers asked them for a lift into Marysville. Ed and Ed obliged, but when they arrived their passenger refused to leave unless they carried him into his favorite tavern on a stretcher.

“This was done,” wrote Bob Wells, “and it developed that the rider had many friends in the bar. All these had to be formally introduced.”

Finally on their way back to Petaluma through Napa county, the headlights  began to fail. Mannion discovered he could jiggle wires under the dashboard to temporarily get them to flicker back on, but when they flickered off again he had a flashlight at the ready to shine through the windshield and keep Fratini from running them into a ditch.

And so we come to the debut of Rear-View Mirror on March 12, 1960.

While Ed Mannion could write in a concise news style as the subject demanded, most of his offerings are a happy and entertaining tour of whatever had his attention at the moment. Some columns read like a modern blog, as Ed digs through his cluttered desk in the den at their home at 1 Keller street, crowded with the seven kids, two cats and a dog named Scooter.

Reading “Mirror” is like touring Burbank’s garden – there’s lots to see and absorb. With hopes that Gentle Reader is not too weary of reading about all things Ed, here’s a bouquet of items from the first two years that are little-known (at least, to me) and quite interesting:

 

*
During the Civil War, Schluckebier’s store listed prices in both Union and Confederate money
*
A letter about Petaluma schools in the 1870s recalled Professor Crowell’s tenure ended when he was gassed out by a prankster putting red pepper on a hot stove. Another teacher was attacked with a heavy inkwell (“thrown at his head by a degenerate son of an honorable townsman”) and still another was stabbed in the arm. The school on the corner of Fifth and D was the only place where “white and colored pupils were received and treated as equals.” [A history of the Petaluma schools found in the centennial edition of the A-C states it was originally all African-American and integrated later in the decade]
*
Ed complained often Vallejo’s Old Adobe was never a fort or ever called Casa Grande – until he discovered a man named Bliss bought the place in 1859 and indeed renamed it “Casa Grande.” Oooops!
*
“Petaluma looks toward the future, not to the past, and forthwith carted off a great deal of valuable local memorabilia to the city dumps,” Ed griped about the Chamber of Commerce. Several times he complained the city itself had carted away a 5-foot bronze statue of a nude Greek goddess which once was perched atop the fountain at the corner of Washington and Main
*
Petaluma made Santa Rosa furious by setting steamboat schedules so “up-country” travelers had to stay overnight at a local hotel
*
Someone gave Ed the last surviving copies of very short-lived newspaper called “The Weekly Amateur,” put out by Petaluma youths around 1887. While it mostly reflected their interests in baseball, doings of the volunteer fire department and entertainment, there was also this vignette: “Some Petaluma youths do not seem to appreciate our gas lamps by the way they are perforating them with sling shot missiles. Any way, what a great satisfaction it is to a boy to see a light of glass crackle to pieces by his proud marksmanship. If the proprietor or cop gives chase, he is all the more delighted”
*
Petaluma inventor Jacob Price Jr. might have been considered the Edison of farm equipment c. 1860-1880, designing steam tractors, seed sowing machines and the famous “Petaluma Press,” which could bale 3,600 pounds of hay an hour
*
His mention of Luther Burbank brought a response from Edgar Waite, the reporter whose controversial interview in 1926 revealed that the much-respected Burbank considered himself an “infidel” and that Christianity had “garbled” Jesus’s teachings. An uproar followed, but it’s never been clear if this caused him stress that led to his heart attack a couple of months later, followed by his death at 77 years. Waite – who personally knew Burbank from his time as a Press Democrat reporter – wrote to Mannion, “I went up to see my friend again, and to make sure that he felt no regrets. He didn’t. On the contrary, he expressed himself as happy that his views had been spread on the record, and bemoaned only the mountain of correspondence that had descended upon him”

 

 

Chris and Ed Mannion, undated photo. Courtesy Petaluma Museum

 

 

May 13, 1961 Argus-Courier caption “…Ed’s arm is around Ida Lupino. He says he’ll never wash it again. She suggested both face the camera but he replied, “I’m looking in the right direction!” Photo: Sonoma County Library

Read More