Riptides

31Oct07

My favorite Bay Area event is San Francisco’s Annual Big Book Sale. It’s held each year at Fort Mason. Like many such book sales this soiree benefits a public library. Comparing this to other regional book sales, however, is like calling a linen closet Oracle Arena. Queuing up hours in advance together with the ever-swelling mob of salivating bibliophiles, each anticipating the mad rummage through the airplane hanger-size building—is akin to an army of four year olds staging a do-or-die assault on Ghiradelli’s Chocolate factory.

Once the mob pours in the savvy print hound makes for the shopping carts. Securing your own cart is like brandishing a bank safe on wheels. And, it saves you a trip to the chiropractor.

I’ve snagged many of my all-time favorite books at this sale—like an 11 volume set of novels and stories of Brett Harte, published in 1903, and a set of classic works by authors ranging from Dickens to Dostoevsky. The range of subjects and titles is always overwhelming. I always buy too many, and regret I hadn’t grabbed more. It’s like a Roman orgy for book fiends, only instead of grapes, wine and roast squab you’re eyes eagerly consume titles and your lungs breathe deeply of musty archival dust.
Of my many precious Big Book Sale finds, one stands uniquely apart. I hadn’t much thought of it like this before but it’s likely what first planted the seed which eventually sprouted up as this weekly column. That which I squirreled away from massive piles of print on that Big Book Sale isn’t actually a book, nor is it some fancy schmancy history society periodical. Nosirree, this thing is a big ol’ honkin’ rusty three ring binder. I paid five bucks for it, and still have the sticker to prove it. Inside the binder ninety-seven newspaper columns from the 1940’s lay preserved in plastic sheaths. The author is Robert O’Brien, a fellow who did his Irish heritage proud providing weekly tales of fantastic people, places and early Bay Area happenings.

Robert O’Brien wrote a column called “Riptides.” Some of you old timers may recall it. Riptides was published from 1939 until 1952 in the San Francisco Chronicle. O’Brien wove magical yarns of the Lost Pegleg Mine, the Camels of California, of Pop Demerest—the Hermit of Russian Hill and of legendary plays on Mt. Tam and the origins of The Big Game.

O’Brien’s style was personal, engaging and near poetic. Though yellow with age his pieces read like they were writ today. Sure, they deal with history, but O’Brien transformed mere fact into fiction-like melodies.
O’Brien graduated from Yale, then began his career at small town papers in Virginia and North Carolina. He arrived in San Francisco in 1939.

Accounts tell of how The City’s beauty and freedom charmed and thrilled him. O’Brien family legend holds that he landed his Riptides column, promoted as the “blend of California’s brilliant past and present” after he’d penned a short ditty about a moth’s lone ferry ride across The Bay. An editor happened to read it and put him to work.

For the next thirteen years this near-forgotten columnist regaled his readership with Tong Wars, Lightning Trains and the Telescopic Eye, with adventures traveling around early California, visiting haunted houses and jaunts through, around and over Butchertown, Irish Hill and Mt. Olympus. O’Brien wrote about Ishi, the last of the Yahi Indians, and chronicled snow falling in San Francisco. He waxed fondly on “odd characters” ranging from the inimitable Emperor Norton to that famed promoter of sobriety and benefactor of those with a thirst for water, Dr. Henry Daniel Cogswell.

One of the pleasures in reading Riptides is realizing that much of O’Brien’s subject matter were still living memories for his many readers. What seems like ancient history today—the Great Earthquake, Woodwards Garden and Sutro’s Cliff House were, some sixty or seventy years ago, still wistfully recalled by a great many in his audience. Ironically, these columns remain crisp and oddly contemporary.
Riptide columns were compiled into two books, both out of print, but still available if you’re willing to dig for them. Look for “California Called Them” and “This is San Francisco.”

Robert O’Brien left the Bay Area for the East Coast in 1952. He spent the remainder of his career writing for Reader’s Digest, Collier’s magazine and Time-Life Books. Upon retiring he took up glider planing. O’Brien lived to age 93. He died in Hawaii on August 15, 2004.

Back on December 19, 1952 O’Brien signed off his final Riptide with “It is strange that after having said so much in all that time, there is so little to say now. Good-byes are always that way.”

Filed under: Robert O'Brien, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area History, journalists, newspapers, writers   |  Leave a Comment