Hi Petra. I spent many a summer on the beaches near Monterey Bay waiting for the Grunion to come in. Monterey Bay was about as far north as to where you would find them. We didn’t have a Grunion run every year, but often enough that we would always look forward to it.

The name “Grunion run” came from the way people caught them. We had to catch them at night so we had to use a light of some kind. Some people would use flashlights while yet others use road flares. Anyway we would see them flashing in the lights along the beach and everyone running up and down the beach trying to catch them. Looking back on that we must have looked pretty silly to those who didn’t know what we were doing. I must admit there were times I wasn’t sure that we really knew what we were doing.

Grunion have adapted to tidal cycles in a precise manner. Along the Pacific coast of North America the two daily high tides vary in height, and the higher of the two occurs at night during spring and summer months. Grunion spawn only on these higher tides, and after the tide has started to recede. I learned that from Roy Johnson who was a linotype operator at the local newspaper office. Come to think of it he was the only linotype operator there. I guess he was just about the smartest man I ever knew. He knew everything about everything. He was using solar heating before anyone even knew what solar heating was all about.

From the front his house looked like a two story house, but when you went around to the back you could see that it was only a one-story house. A rock wall formed the bottom part of the house, which was actually the basement. This was the part you saw from the front. There was no rock wall at the back. It was about 15 feet high. It had to be pretty solid as the 1989 Loma Prieta quake never brought it down. The house was less then seven miles from the epicenter of the quake. His garage was made out of beer bottles set in cement. It never came down either. The quake however did shut the spring down for about 6 months. They had to get water from the neighbors well, which by the way it wasn’t fit to drink the first couple of weeks after the quake. It had a lot of asbestos in it. When the spring started flowing again it had lost its sweet taste. My aunt lives on the other side of the valley. The house spring went from 8 gallons a minute to about 14 gallons a minute. That is a lot of water for a spring in that area. It returned to normal about a month later. The other two springs didn’t show much affect one way or the other.

The old house survived everything nature threw at it. However it couldn’t survive progress, expansionism and the wrecking ball. Like so many other things in my past it has disappeared. What replaced it doesn’t impress me.

When they built the housing tract on the Dalberg ranch the cave that had lava flowing out of it at onetime was destroyed. Someone didn’t want their kids playing in them. The only thing us kids ever had to worry about when we went there was that the bears didn’t eat us. That was the story our mothers told us to try and discourage us from going up there. Of course we never told them about the mountain kitties we would see from time to time because we knew that if they knew we saw mountain kitties they wouldn’t let us go. Period.

Us kids would find $10.00 and $20.00 cold pieces in Llagas Creek after the rains would let up in the spring. Never found the source. Believe when I say we looked. There wasn’t a place we didn’t look. When they built the dam the search for the gold coins ended, as we never found any more after that. The mercury in the water is so high that the fish are safe to eat only in small qualities. We think the coins are a part of the gold the Mexican bandit Vasquez stole. He also stole cattle and horses. They hung him in the oak tree at the 21-Mile House south of Morgan Hill. It use to be a stage stop. His great, great, great granddaughter is married to my cousin Mark. His great, great, great grandson is a police office. Maybe it’s great, great granddaughter and grandson. Not really sure. Anyway they are related. How’s that for a role change?

Sorry Canie. Didn’t mean to post a small book, but sometimes I feel like sharing a part of my past (the good parts that is) with others. Anyway it’s Petra’s fault. If she hadn’t said anything about Grunion’s I would never gotten started.

They say there is a saying that if you don’t remember the past you are condemned to repeat it. How I wish that were true. Take Care…Don the ancient one