 SOUTHERN
TRAILS PUBLISHING |
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SOUTHERN
TRAILS PUBLISHING |
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ISBN: 0-9620286-4-9
LOC: 2001012345
LIMITED EDITION
High Quality Hardcover 6x9
226 pages
$24.95 Retail price
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SOUTHERN TRAILS PUBLISHING
2025 Clement Street #1
San Francisco, CA 94121
.
John Muir
called the Hetch Hetchy
Valley the "Tuolumne Yosemite," and
described it as a "a grand landscape
garden, one of nature's rarest and
most precious mountain temples."
Untold generations of Sierra Miwoks and their predecessors enjoyed this magical valley in its pristine state. But after the great California Gold Rush, only a relative handful of hardy explorers and hikers enjoyed its natural wonders. Then, in the early 1900's, though the Hetch Hetchy was an integral part of the Yosemite National Park and supposedly protected, the City and County of San Francisco lobbied to gain control of this valley and the rights to Tuolumne River water for its burgeoning population. Despite protracted and determined resistance to this attack on the integrity of the "peoples park" by John Muir and the Sierra Club, San Francisco won out and the magnificent valley was dammed. Buried under an artificial lake, its spectacular groves of trees, meadows, and rock formations obliterated, its teaming wildlife scattered to the winds, the Hetch Hetchy Valley was lost to millions of hikers and campers and the world lost a natural treasure.
"The Curse of Chief Tenaya" resurrects the Hetch Hetchy Valley in its natural state - to give the reader an image of what was lost, and to plant the seed of what may be once more if the dam were ever removed and the great valley restored.
"The Curse of Chief Tenaya" is Craig Carrozzi’s fifth full-length book. "Wedding of the Waters," 1988, "The Road to El Dorado," 1997, and "Festival of Conception," 2000, are a trilogy of South American adventure travel works. Written with wit and perception, mainly concerning Colombia and Brazil, these works are prized by adventure travel aficionados, former Peace Corps Volunteers, and university and public libraries.
"City ‘Scapes," first published in 1991 as "City ‘Scapes and Giants’ Capers," and reprinted in 1999, is a nostalgic look at a young boy’s first experience at a major league baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds in 1961. This work was highly praised by Bob Stevens, a Hall of Fame baseball writer, Art Rosenbaum, a longtime writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Chris Berman of ESPN.
As a teenager, Craig worked summers at Camp Mather, a resort for employees of the City of San Francisco located in the Sierra only nine miles from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. That is where his interest in the lost valley and "The Curse of Chief Tenaya" began.
Craig J. Carrozzi
In memory of the lost Hetch Hetchy Valley. . . . May it soon rise from its watery grave.
"What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. Teach your children what we have taught our children: That the earth is their mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
--------Chief Seattle, Squamish Tribe, 1854
The fog rolled through the Golden Gate and billowed across the dark waters of the bay. Tendrils of mist eased into coves and inlets, embraced hills and tall city buildings and, impelled by a brisk offshore breeze, worked its way into the Oakland Estuary and swept onto the streets of the waterfront.
Jeremiah Ignatius McElroy felt the first cold draft against his back and shivered as though someone had poured ice water down his collar. It had been an unseasonably warm spring day, the temperatures climbing into the mid-80s, and a pleasant early evening, but this blast of damp cold air had lowered the thermometer a good thirty degrees. Now as clammy mist swirled around him and brought the deep bellow of foghorns from out in the bay, Jeremiah cursed himself for not bringing a coat. He was lightly clad in a buckskin jacket, denim jeans, and boots, hatless, but with his favorite buck knife strapped to his belt in its Indian bead scabbard.
Jeremiah flapped his arms and quickened his step to get the blood flowing. His spare frame, lean and tough as beef jerky, offered him little natural insulation from sudden cold. His graying black hair, thin and receding in the front, long and curly in the back, with thick sideburns merging into a scruffy beard, was now damp and matted to his skin. Jeremiah knew this dank weather was just the thing to bring on a crippling attack of rheumatism. He flapped his arms harder and moved at a semi-jog.
Jeremiah turned the corner and bright light, loud music, and jeering laughter greeted him from across the street in front of the Last Chance Saloon. Two young hoodlums in tight suits and derby hats were lounging on the porch, hand-rolled cigarettes dangling from their lips, their eyes glittering from too much cheap booze, pointing toward Jeremiah as though he were a circus animal. Jeremiah was going to ignore them and walk on past until the larger of the two, who Jeremiah figured was sizing him up as a possible roll, called out, "Hey, Billy, look at that old buzzard flappin’ his arms like he wants to git off the ground. Now ain't that a sight."
"Yeah, he’s a sight all right," said Billy. "Get a look at them clothes."
The other one laughed and said, "Hey, old man, where’d you git those clothes?
A museum?" "Naw, Rube, he didn’t git those clothes from no museum. Why, I think he must be one of them cowboys from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show."
Jeremiah clenched his fists and tightened his lips. His ears and neck were burning. He felt the old familiar rush of adrenaline, the dryness in his throat, the coppery taste on his tongue, and the tingling of his scalp. He stopped in front of a chandler’s shop and turned to face the men, his hazel eyes narrowed, his right hand slipping into the inside pocket of his jacket.
"Is that the story, old man?" continued Rube. "Or are you Buffalo Bill himself?"
Jeremiah stepped out from the shadow of the shop and into the street to a pool of light cast by the bar. Then in a soft voice, his eyes glued to the men, he said, "No, boys, you got that wrong. I was around before anyone ever heard of Bill Cody. And I’ll probably still be here when you cheap tinhorns get what’s comin’ to you. Now git. You boys are botherin’ me."
"Well, listen to the old fool," said Rube, grabbing one of the porch support beams and lurching a step forward. "I guess you . . ."
A lightning movement and a flash of metal ended in a solid thud. A whittling knife, still vibrating, was impaled in the post about an inch above Rube’s hand. Rube froze, his face pale and his eyes wide.
Jeremiah pulled his buck knife and held it so that the light glinted off its polished surface. The two men stared at it. Jeremiah twirled the carved ivory handle and then held it loosely in his hand.
"Now, boys, in case I still need to tell you . . . you need to be careful who you trifle with . . ."
"Hell, mister, we were just havin’ a little fun. There’s no need to . . ."
"I’m not through talking, boy."
Billy dropped his eyes.
"Now, as I was saying, I might look a little long in the tooth, but that don’t mean this old boy still don’t have fangs. I mean, I’ve thrown this here buck knife through both man and beast and, well, for a minute there you had me thinking of doing something like that to you boys. Shoot, it’s not right to disrespect your elders. But then, thinking about it, a more righteous punishment for two young dumb boys like yourselves would be to, well . . . I’m highly tempted to just cut off your peckers so you don’t breed anymore jackasses like yourselves. . . . You catch my drift?"
Billy and Rube looked at each other for a moment.
"Adios, boys. And I mean now."
The two hoods turned and slunk into the depths of the saloon.
Jeremiah, chuckling, went to retrieve his knife. He felt great now. All thoughts of the cold had disappeared. Sure, maybe he wasn’t what he had been, but he could still intimidate a couple of fresh young bucks who thought he was an easy touch. Jeremiah put a little extra swagger in his walk as he continued up the street another block and turned into the St. Louis House.
Jeremiah pushed through the swinging doors and was engulfed in smoke, noise, and the resinous odor of the sawdust scattered across the plank floor. The large barroom was filled with an assortment of longshoremen, wharf rats, oyster pirates, and a handful of professional ladies who doubled as barmaids. The walls at the back of the room were adorned with paintings of pioneers heading west interspersed with the heads of a big horn sheep, a buffalo, a grizzly, and a mountain lion. The front of the room, on the side of the long bar, was decorated with a stuffed shark head, a swordfish, a narwhal, and various harpoons, nets, and other fishing paraphernalia. A gas-lit chandelier hung from the rafters and booths occupied the sides of the room along with stairwells leading to the second floor.
For a moment, Jeremiah considered squeezing in along the packed bar, but then he spotted an open table next to the potbelly stove in the back and he opted for that. He had no sooner sat down, fired up his pipe, and begun to feel a warm glow on his back from the stove, when Jennie McDermott came up to him. She was balancing a tray loaded with schooners of steam beer in her right hand and had a wicked grin on her lips and a mischievous look in her eyes.
"Well, well, if it isn’t ol’ Jeremiah McElroy himself. Warming his creaky bones by that stove like an old cat."
Jeremiah looked up and smiled at the buxom, good-natured woman. He and Jennie were old friends. When he talked to her, Jeremiah slipped comfortably into the Irish brogue of his youth.
"Well now, girl, I’ll have you speak to me with a wee bit more respect. I just had a little run-in with some young lads who confused old with seasoned."
"Did you now? And what was the result?"
"It wasn’t to their credit. And I’ll have you know, lass, on a good night I can still give you the shagging of your life."
Jennie laughed, slopping some of the foam off the top of the beers, and replied, "And would this be a good night for you, laddie?"
"Surely you mean, would this be a good night for you, girl?"
"Ah, but you’re a conceited one Jeremiah Ignatius Mc-Elroy. But it’s good to see a man of your advanced years with so much wit and vinegar."
"Thank you, daughter. And as for lying by the stove on a night such as this, I have to agree with my old friend Sam Clemens when he said, ‘The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.’"
"Surely. But we’re in Oakland. Are you unable to tell the difference now?"
"It’s of little difference, lass."
"Of little difference, is it? Then it’s certain you need a whisky to clear the fog out of your brain, then."
"I can’t dispute that."
"Whisky with a beer chaser, Mac?"
"No. Just the whisky for now. The good stuff from Danny Boy’s private reserve."
"It’s coming up."
While Jennie went to fetch his drink, Jeremiah went to the complimentary buffet table and filled a large plate with slabs of roast turkey, Spanish olives, sourdough bread, oysters, which he squirted with red pepper sauce, and cheese. Then he found a current edition of William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner, dated Sunday, May 10, 1891, and opened it to the "Prattle" column by Ambrose Bierce. Bierce was Jeremiah’s favorite columnist. They had served together in the Army of the Cumberland during the Civil War and, perhaps in part because of this shared fraternity, Jeremiah had a keen appreciation for the vitriolic wit and biting satire of "Bitter Bierce’s" columns and stories.
Jeremiah sipped his whisky, forked down his food, and savored Bierce’s skewering of President Benjamin Harrison who was touring California.
Jeremiah read:
"Respect! Respect the good. Respect the wise. Respect the dead. Let the president look to it that he belongs to one of these classes. His going about the country in gorgeous state and barbaric splendor as the guest of a thieving corporation, but at our expense, whining and dining and swining, unsouling himself of clotted nonsense in pickled platitudes calculated for the meridian of Coon Hollow, Indiana, but ingeniously adapted to each water tank on the line of his absurd progress does not prove it, and the presumption of his good office is against him . . ."
Jeremiah laughed, took another sip of whisky, and reflected for a moment. President Harrison had also served as an officer in the Army of the Cumberland during the Civil War. Even then he had a reputation among the troops as a shameless self-promoter with a bloated ego. Harrison had been far more popular with politicians and newspapermen than with the ordinary enlisted men. Jeremiah had disliked him in those days; Bierce had loathed him. Jeremiah slurped down a couple of oysters and took up the paper again.
". . . Can you not see, poor misguided fellow citizens, how you permit your political taskmasters to forge leg chains of your follies and load you down with them! Will nothing teach you that all this fuss-and-feathers, all this ceremony, all this official gorgeousness and brass-banding, this ‘manifestation of a proper respect for the nation’s head’, this monkey business, has no decent place in American life and American politics? Will no experience open your stupid eyes to the fact that these shows are but absurd imitations of royalty to hold you silly, while you are plundered by the managers of the performance—that while you toss your greasy caps in the air and sustain them by the ascending current of your senseless hurrahs, the programmers are going through your blessed pockets and exploiting your holy dollars? No; you feel secure: ‘Power is of the people,’ and you can effect a change of robbers every four years. Inestimable privilege—to pull off the glutted leach and attach the lean one! And you cannot even choose among the lean leaches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap."
Jeremiah took another slug of whisky and chuckled, thinking, ‘ol Ambrose is in rare form here. Then he continued:
". . . Men who believed before that Mr. Harrison was a small-minded vulgarian, imperfectly honest, imperfectly intelligent, profoundly selfish, and conspicuously ill-bred, the willing servitor of robber corporations and political adventurers, believe so still . . ."
"Mr. McElroy! May I have a word with you, sir?" interrupted a deep melodious voice.
Happy Trails
What happens when you set a novel in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Valley?
- Sam Whiting
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Southern Trails Publishing is an expansive name for a corner of Craig Carrozzi's bedroom overlooking Clement Street. Carrozzi has self- published five books. His most recent is "The Curse of Chief Tenaya," a novel that subtly furthers his belief that the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Valley should be un-dammed.
When did you first see Hetch Hetchy?
Back in the '70s my brother was a baker at Camp Mather, 9 miles from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir. I went there hiking with my brother. He'd go, "once upon a time there was no dam here and this was almost as beautiful as Yosemite."
Who was Chief Tenaya?
He was the last chief of the Indians in Yosemite Valley. When they were driven out by the Mariposa Battalion in 1851, he put a curse on them. A lot of workers up there say parts of the valley are really weird and seem to be haunted.
How did you hear about him?
At Camp Mather they had an old cowboy who used to tell ghost stories.
How does Hetch Hetchy fit in?
The book is set in 1891. At that point Yosemite was already overrun with tourists. The Hetch Hetchy Valley was still relatively untouched, so I have this guy hunting Grizzly bear in the Hetch Hetchy.
When did it come out?
It was published in 2004, but I kept it out of the book trade. I cut a deal with the concessions in Yosemite. They agreed to test market it.
How did you promote it?
Last year I did 60 events. I went all through the Gold Country. I went to Yosemite, six times.
How many have you sold?
About 800. I printed 1,100. Even Louis L'Amour-type readers like this book.
How does activism fit in?
I work along with Restore Hetch Hetchy. I'll go to their events and read and whenever I do an event I'll pass out literature. I don't pressure anybody.
Why should Hetch Hetchy be restored?
It's in a national park. The city just has the water rights. Realistically, the feds could step in at any point and say, "Hey, guys, we're not going to give you this sweetheart deal anymore. We'd rather have this be a park."
You don't want San Francisco to have that sweetheart deal?
They could expand the Calaveras reservoir, one that's a lot closer to here. They could expand it to where they have as much water capacity as the Hetch Hetchy.
Wouldn't that ruin the pristine quality of the drinking water?
We're still going to use Tuolumne River water. You're just storing it in a different place.
How many generations do you go back in San Francisco?
Three. My parents went to Balboa High School. I went to Sacred Heart.
Could this happen in your lifetime?
I wouldn't count on it. If they were serious, it could be done in 10 years.
What would it take?
They'd have to get scared about the dam collapsing or something like that.
How would they restore it?
You could just punch a hole in the bottom and let the water drain out like a bathtub. You could leave the dam there and still restore the valley.
How does Southern Trails Publishing operate?
First of all you have to sit down and think of something to write about. Then you write the book. Everything else is farmed out.
Do you consider yourself a professional?
Whether I'll ever make money as a writer, I don't know. But that's what I want to do. Since I'm about to turn 50, I think I'll keep that up.
San Francisco Chronicle Interview
