July 14

If you want to find a small city with wonderful boutiques, restaurants, and shops, try Danville, CA. This is a modern look, but quaint… and very quick access to I-680. But definitely a different landscape than when Eugene O’Neill bought 153 acres of land on the west end of the town in late-1936. He wanted solitude, after living in the cosmopolitan chaos of the East Coast. He put his study on the second floor of Tao (the name he gave the home), at one end of the house, to be as far away from everyone as possible. His wife had her own bedroom. O’Neill would stay locked in his room for days as he worked, only receiving food from the chef and maids as needed. His wife (his third), Carlotta Monterey, kept the house running, with the help of staff. By 1944, O’Neill’s Parkinson disease had spread badly enough that he could no longer write. They packed up their bags and moved to Boston, where he died in 1953. O’Neill never wrote another play once he left Tao. But four Pulitzer Prizes and one Nobel Prize has cemented him in the annals of American literature for all-time. A barn on the property has been converted into a small theater. Each September the NPS allows a small troupe to perform one of O’Neill’s plays, for three weeks. Ranger Geraldine led six of us on a tour of the house, starting at the foyer, and ending in the kitchen. Some of the material in the home is original to O’Neill, such as his bed which Katherine Hepburn had to step in and help retrieve from a furniture company.. His desk is also original Two items which are not original are masks hung in the entrance foyer. Photographs of the room from around 1940 were used by the NPS to find duplicates since O’Neill’s art works were not available. The two pieces we saw looked almost identical to those in the photos. But they were crafted by Andy Warhol. Go figure. Turns out when Warhol’s estate was being sold, the NPS learned about these two masks and won the bidding. There are no other connections between O’Neill and Warhol, and as Geraldine said, we would not be finding any Campbell Soup cans in the home today.

Rosie the Riveter is a unique park. About five buildings can be toured, such as the VC (which was part of the large Ford Motor plant that had to be retooled to make jeeps) and a Child Development Center. But about five other buildings can only be viewed from the outside, like the old Kaiser hospital. The story of Rosie is not only about women joining the workforce in industries which had been only for men, like riveting, welding, and machining, but the town of Richmond which grew ten-fold in a year to support the massive ship building operations at the Kaiser Shipyards. Housing was needed, as well as medical facilities, schools for kids, grocery stores, and the like. Fire Station #67 is still used today by Richmond. The Ford plant can be viewed on the inside, but only because it now houses tens upon tens of small businesses. Just walk inside and look around. Across the water from the plant is the S.S. Red Oak Victory ship, the last of 747 ships which the Kaisar Shipyards sent to sea during the war. Without all those ships, the war would not have been won as quickly as it was. The ship can be toured on Sundays. In the opposite direction from the VC stands a metal sculpture, the official “memorial” for the park. The artist shows the start of a hull, stack, and stern in her work. The sculpture stands in the middle of where Kaisar Shipyard #2 used to be. Today it is surrounded by new apartments and condos.

In the past, on various days, the NPS invited original Rosies to come and speak to visitors. I met one in 2016. I have a feeling there are not too many women left to tell the stories. There are not too many veterans left to tell their stories either. We are losing members of the Greatest Generation at an increasing pace. We can never repay the debt our country owes to those men and women who sacrificed to preserve democracy across many nations. If you know a veteran or Rosie, stop by and chat with them and thank them for their service. A good bet is they would love to talk about their service.

Thirty minutes down the road from Rosie is John Muir NHS. This is the ranch where Muir and his family lived while he worked at preserving the grandeur of our country’s outdoors. He also found time to tend to the ranch, raising myriad crops and fruits. Many of the fruit trees, like peach and quince, are still actively supplying produce today. When a certain fruit is ready for picking, visitors can lend a hand and take home the fruits of their labor… ha, ha. A ranger told me peaches might be ready in a couple of weeks. The house in which the Muir family lived is on a hill, which overlooked the ranch. A ladder in the attic goes up into a “lookout” room, allowing even further viewing across the land. A bell is in the tower, and would be rung to tell workers it was time for lunch or to quit for the day. The proceeds from the ranch allowed Muir to do extensive traveling. He visited Alaska often, and went up and down the western states, promoting the idea of saving lands. He had the ear of President Roosevelt, persuading Teddy to proclaim various monuments. Though today’s Yosemite park was eventually protected, Muir was not able to stop a dam from being built in the Hech Hechy valley, near Yosemite Valley. He and others said Hech Hechy was even more beautiful than Yosemite. A photograph in the house is of Hech Hechy before the dam was built. It looks like Muir might have been right. But future generations will never know. Muir is known as the Father of the National Parks. He is buried about one mile south of the house

On a side note, I met Brenden on the shuttle to O’Neill’s home this morning (you can only get onto the property and into the home via a NPS tour). This afternoon I saw him and his wife at John Muir’s home (they had not gone to Rosie). And tomorrow we will all be at the annual Port Chicago National Memorial ceremony (please note that if you want to attend this annual event, you need to contact the NPS in late-June to get a reservation). Great to see a familiar face when going from park to park, even if it is in the same day.