Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Santa Cruz Noir--blogging the book. Day 18, "Crab Dinners" by Lou Mathews

(To learn more about my "blogging the book" challenge to myself, go HERE.)

Lou Mathew's story of a detective hired to find out what happened to a daughter's father mentions many aspects of Santa Cruz County that residents, past or present may be familiar with. There's Chef Wong, a fictionalized version of the first chef to bring Szechuan style cooking to the Santa Cruz area. And Manuel's, the beloved Mexican restaurant in Aptos. The university gets a glance. Cockfighting in South County, which was news to me. And then there's the cement ship...



The SS Palo Alto was one of two cement ships built in 1919 at the US Navy shipyards in Oakland. The war ended before the ship went into service, so they mothballed her for a decade until the Seacliff Amusement Corporation bought her and towed her to Seacliff Beach, where they tethered her to a pier, built a dance hall, a swimming pool, and a cafe on board--and sank her. Probably a great entertainment idea, but not in 1929. They closed in '31, stripped her, and left her as  a fishing pier, the focal point of the new state park. 

I spent a lot of time there fishing and watching the bay. The boat had split apart in '58 and become a paradise for fishermen, an ideal reef, full of fish, mussels, crabs, and the birds that fed on them.  

(Note to potential tourists. The cement ship was real, but did not survive the massive waves of 2017.)

Audible sample of Lou Mathews' "Crab Dinners" HERE. Performed by Susie Bright.


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