Poems by Frank Harrison Gassaway, frontispiece, 1920. Larger.
California's natural beauty has tempted even the most confirmed urban rat to try a stint of outdoor living. Exactly the kind of thing that must be stopped.
Humorist Derrick Dodd, psuedonym of travel writer Frank Harrison Gassaway, thought he had just the solution to the camping out craze, campers' quarentine.
It is all very well to say that when an adult person in sound mental condition deliberately becomes a camper-out from choice, that he has forfeited all claim to the recognition and sympathy of his fellow men. . . . Heaven knows, we are no idle alarmist, but the camping-out epidemic has been gaining headway with frightful rapidity of late, and there is no knowing when whole communities will become infected by the dread contagion. Congress ought to exert itself, and State Legislatures everywhere enact prohibitory and restrictive laws without delay. What we suggest is the immediate establishment of a sort of Campers' Quarantine ground near every large city, in which the projectors of such expeditions can be confined until their fatal delusion is dissipated. What prominent citizen will be the first to call a mass meeting to organize this great and beneficient movement? Who will take the lead in this noble effort to help and redeem those infatuated and pitiable people, the campers-out of the period?
Meanwhile, subscriptions, to be devoted indirectly to this magnificent scheme, can be sent to this office, carefully sealed from observation, marked "private," and directed to Derrick Dodd. They will be carefully invested where they will do the most good.
Derrick Dodd's humorous letters about California living appeared originally in the San Francisco Evening Post and eventually were collected in 1882's Summer Saunterings.
The exclusive grandeur of California resorts has ever evoked the purplest of prose from not-quite-truthful travel writers. All the better, then, to find at least one dependable scribe among the lotus eaters.
Writing under the pseudonym "Derrick Dodd," Frank Harrison Gassaway did his best to resist hyperbole in dispatches for the San Francisco Evening Post, especially when it came to describing the cuisine served at the Napa Soda Springs Resort.
To describe at length the endless resources of the cuisine (French for grub), would exhaust the vocabulary of a Hugo, and even give a first-class California-street auctioneer the lock-jaw. Suffice it to say that the frequenters of two-bit restaurants generally die of the liver complaint about three days after arriving. By way of discouraging the use of gin, a handsome chromo will be given to every one ordering a bottle of six-dollar champagne. The hair in the butter will be tastefully crimped, and the hash served in patent gum capsules, so as to leave no unpleasant taste in the mouth. In order to inculcate a patriotic love for the American dried-apple pie, every tenth one will contain an order for a Steinway piano or a reversible ulster. The dishes will all be of solid gold, and slung at the guest by superbly-dressed waiters, who will be compelled to wear red ties in order to distinguish them from the boarders. They will also be mounted on silver-plated bicycles to insure speed. A celebrated magician has been engaged as hat-taker, and will produce a rabbit and a hoop-skirt from each hat as the guest passes out.
Frank Harrison Gassaway's letters were collected as Summer Saunterings in 1882
Sunday, that holy time reserved for chuch-going and rest, should be observed by all creatures of the land and sea—well, at least according to some.
Writing under the pseudonymn Derrick Dodd, travel writer Frank Harrison Gassoway describes a priest getting attacked by a impious animal on the holiest day of the week.
There is just one word in the entire dictionary that can be relied upon to excite the resident Santa Cruzian like a red flag waved at a bull. This word is simply "shark!" Last Summer a worthy old priest was alleged to have been attacked and bitten by a shark. The accident occurring on a Friday, it was thought that the briny monster had perpetrated a little joke, by turning the tables on the chief enemy of his species. The cold fact was that the good man had gotten into the same hole with a stranded sea-fox, while wading around, and received several cuts from the tail of that large but harmless animal in its frightened efforts to escape. Unfortunately, some farseeing speculator started the shark story, and offered
Alopias vulpinus, "Sea-fox," better known as the thresher shark. Larger.
A HUNDRED DOLLARS
Reward for the sacriligious [sic] monster, dead or alive.
Gassoway continues to tell of the elaborate hoax find the supposed shark. His humorous letters about California were compiled in 1882's Summer Saunterings.
The popular "wild west" conception of pioneer California is based on recklessness, lawlessness, and a whole slew of other -lessnesses. But a visit to the city of San Jose in the 1800s would add to that list the unusual attribute of uninhibited public amorousness.
On a carriage ride down San Jose's Alameda, an unsuspecting stockbroker from New York is shocked to witness the widespread public displays of affection that the drivers on the road display without an ounce of modesty or restraint.
The cold fact is, that hugging has long been a recognized San Jose industry, but still the effect produced upon a harmless and unsophisticated stranger by these Greco-Roman WRESTLING MATCHES ON WHEELS is very peculiar indeed. We remember a young and innocent stockbroker friend from New York, who essayed a drive on the Alameda for the first time about a month ago. The first one or two moving tableaux of the kind referred to that he encountered he simply stared and ejaculated, "Great Scott!!" But as mile after mile the amatory procession kept up the exhibition, he became nervous and excited. . . . When finally he passed a buckboard wagon, the driver of which was holding the reins in his teeth and hugging a girl on either side of him, while a third sat in his lap, our friend broke down completely and insisted on embracing the hack-driver all the way back to the hotel.
Summer Saunterings contains travel letters published in the San Francisco Evening Post by Frank Harrison Gassaway, writing under the pseudonym of Derrick Dodd.
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