The A Cappella Handyman: With screaming seagulls overhead

The first time I came to or through Benicia was in 1946 across the train bridge from Martinez, I was three years old. My Mom and I were enroute to Brigham City, Utah to see my Dad who was in a VA hospital for reconstructive surgery for his wounds acquired in World War II Germany. There was a Gene Autry movie we saw and the theme song was “Don’t Fence Me In.” In subsequent train rides, Mom taught me how to sing all the words. Dad recovered and we bought a small, post-war home in San Leandro. The family grew, adding two younger brothers, Jim and Tom and a family dog, Duffy and we moved to sunny Walnut Creek in 1953. Brother Michael (Magoo) would arrive a few years later.

The Benicia ferry circa 1950. (Photo courtesy of Peter Bray)

My next time in Benicia was all through the 1950s when my Dad would drive the family Buick(s) to Martinez and we would take the car ferry to Benicia, landing at the East 5th Street dock. (It’s still there, looking pretty much as it did then). My grandparents had bought a small 35-acre dairy farm in Orland, California, 3 hours to the north and taking the car ferry to Benicia to get to Highway 99 and the farm on weekends was pretty exciting stuff. On the lower deck, we’d look into the bowels of the engine room and see the enormous engine, see the ferry workers with their black sea caps, and then go up to the upper deck and throw bread to the screaming seagulls overhead. Fun stuff!

A train on the Union Pacific Railroad Benicia-Martinez drawbridge. (Photo courtesy of Peter Bray)

In 1982 I arrived again in Benicia to attend an Open House Party at Janice Jaffe’s tri-level townhouse up on T Street, just across from Robert Semple School. Wow! She was an artist and soon we started dating. By 1983, we were renting a home with a view on Sandy Way and in 1984, we traded our view of the Straits for a mortgage on Warwick Drive. We’ve been here ever since. Our 34th anniversary is this April. Ain’t gonna leave, not EVER.

Peter Bray lives, works, and writes in Benicia
and has written this column since 2008.