Postcard of Avalon Bay, Santa Catalina Island, 1910. Larger.
Named for Saint Catherine of Alexandria, romantic Santa Catalina Island has attracted tourists for decades. But not everyone thinks it's worth the trip.
New York writer Mina Deane Halsey liked Catalina just fine. But, as she tells her correspondent Bill, it was getting there she didn't care for.
Catalina Island ought to be called the "Island of Beautiful Dreams." "Catalina" dont do it justice. But I bet a cookie whoever named it took their first trip over to the island on a rough day, and didnt feel very flowery.
Catalina is an island out at sea--way out--and between it and the mainland, there are more kinds of tides and currents and swells, than from here to Europe.
It only takes two hours to make you feel that life aint so much after all, and you'd just as soon quit now as any old time.
Some fellar told me not to miss the trip, so I took it, and I didnt miss anything but home and mother all the way over and back.
Oh, my! Oh, my! Bill, you've seen how a cork on the end of a fishline bobs around when a big wave strikes it, aint you? Well, that tug-boat I went over in, had a cork beaten to death.
It acted more like a bucking bronco than anything I've seen before or since. It bucked sideways, and humped up in the middle, and kicked from all four corners at the same time.
I dont remember much about the beautiful view, and I havn't much to write about the "Grand old ocean" but I can truthfully say I parted with everything I had eaten in the last three years. I laid down and threw up, and I stood up and threw down, until the elastic in my suspenders refused to work any longer, and I crawled under a settee and hoped some one would take pity on me, and knock me in the head.
There are times in a man's life when he has had enough, and had it rubbed in, too. I got mine on that galloping tug-boat, and I'll bet there are some of those passengers I went over with, who are over there yet, afraid to try it again. They'd rather buy a lot and build, than to come back home.
A Chariot Race during the Tournament of Roses, photographer unknown, 1908. Larger.
The Tournament of Roses was launched in 1890 to show the world the charms of Pasadena. As successful as the pageantry has been, however, not every visitor to the "Crown of the Valley" succumbs to its magic.
New York writer Mina Deane Halsey favored Los Angeles over Pasadena, but she nevertheless admired the stubborn hometown bias of Pasadena boosters.
New Years day I went over to Pasadena to the Tournament of Roses. This is a "doings" held in the Crown City every year, and the natives and tourists for miles around come to admire the show. . . .
The floats were all right, and some pretty girls, a few, were mixed in among the flowers, but Los Angeles flowers and Los Angeles girls knock 'em all to holler. . . .
In some few ways Pasadena is ahead of Los Angeles. It's the only spot in the country whose citizens, as a whole, think there is no place like it. A while back they had a revival meeting in town. There was a good sized attendance and after they had all got pretty well worked up, the preacher shouted, "Now all you folks that want to go to Heaven, stand up." All jumped to their feet, except one little fellar, who stuck his hands in his pockets, and kept his seat. The preacher looked at him mighty hard and called out, "Do you mean to tell me you don't want to go to Heaven?"
"Nope," he answered, "Pasadena is good enough for me."
Whether we're headed back home or venturing to places entirely unknown, traveling demands flexibility and a sense of humor, because, as everyone knows, best-laid plans often go awry.
In a 1909 spoof of California travel writing, Mina Deane Halsey recounts the travel adventures of a naive "tenderfoot" who maintains an exaggerated sense of humor despite an unexpected snowstorm in Los Angeles.
I wore a summer suit and a straw hat out on the train, to keep cool, and was snow bound on the way to Los Angeles, and frost bitten, by gum, after I got here. It sure was a cold night when we pulled in, and as the train was four or five hours late, I footed it up town, to a hotel.
I didnt put up at Mr. Alexandria's or the Van Noose, as I heard on the train they charged you extra to blow your nose, if you stopped there. So I found a room on Main Street (which is nothing to be proud of) and the landlady hollered after me, as I went up the stairs, not to blow out the gas.
I didnt.
By gum, I was so stiff with the cold, I kept it burning all night to melt the icicles I knew must be hanging to the end of my nose. There was only one measley pair of summer blankets on that bed, and the pillows were so small, I came blamed near losing 'em in my ear before morning.
Chapter heading illustration for A Tenderfoot in Southern California, 1908. Larger.
Travelers to California often arrive here with remarkable notions about life in the Golden State. When they do, it's hard to resist having a bit of fun with these gullible tenderfoots.
New York writer Mina Deane Halsey satirized the naïve California tourist in her 1909 spoof of California travel writing, A Tenderfoot in Southern California, which includes this tale of a mean-spirited practical joke.
Speaking of fleas, you know, . . . there are some people in this world who are so blamed mean, a flea wouldn't bite 'em.
I met the meanest man in California the other day, and if I ever set eyes on him again, I'll bust him up in business, buying arnica and court plaster.
That man told me the very first chance I got, to pick a ripe olive and eat it.
I did.
All I've got to say is, if ever I lay my hands on that critter, it will take him longer to close his face than it did me, after I ate one of 'em.
Mina Deane Halsey's A Tenderfoot in Southern California includes humorous travel stories set in Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Catalina Island.
below to hear radio segment.
