Minnow: Tales of the Lighthouse

By: Fred Sammis

Narrated by: Bruce Kramer

It was a hot, still Thursday afternoon in 1949 soon after I arrived in California to begin my undergraduate studies at Stanford. Thursday was ice-cream day at the Monterey Home for the Elderly and Indigent in Salinas. As I opened the door, I saw a group of residents encircling a small, wiry man standing on a chair with a hand resting on my Uncle Dans shoulder for support. He held their attention as he animatedly and with a twinkling eye, related a tale which had then all engrossed. Having spotted my uncle Dan in the group, I sidled up to him so I too could hear the story.

Ever since the days of the gold rush, the following story has been passed from generation to generation in Monterey County.

In the early1850 every able-bodied man had left town to seek his fortune in the goldfields. Among them was the bell-ringer at the Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo. The presiding priest searched high and low for someone to replace him but to no avail.

Finally a man who appeared down on his luck applied for the position, but the priest had his doubts about him. Especially because - the man had no hands. “How can you possibly ring the bell?” the priest asked. The man smiled. I'll show you, he said and slammed his forehead against the bell. It rang out loud and clear. The man’s head was bruised but he told the priest, “It will heal and with time will callus over.

The priest, though doubtful, hired the man on the spot, who proved to be as good as his word. He rang the bell faithfully each day, and within a week or so his battered head had healed and callused over.

You know how foggy it gets in Monterey? So bad that you cant see your hand - if you have one - in front of your face? On just such a day the handless bell ringer made his way up to the bell tower. As the fog swirled about him, he lunged head first for the bell, missed it entirely, and plunged headlong to the plaza below. When the police arrive on the scene, they asked the priest if he could identify the victim. The priest shook his head. I'm sorry, he said, but that face doesn't ring a bell with me; and that's how I met Minnow, the storyteller.

The story of Monterey Peninsulas only lighthouse and the people who served there through the eyes of a diminutive California who knew them all. A humorous look at some of California's early history through the eyes of a man who was there.

©2020 Fred Sammis (P)2022 Pacific Grove Books - Patricia Hamilton