The Christian Church of Rockaway Beach

Talking to Mikie Sue on the tele tonight, she wanted me to remember for the blog the Christian Church of Rockaway Beach, Pacifica.

I am not really sure when we started going, We were going when I was a seventh and eigth grader. I was baptized in the water while we were going there. I remember going there with my blazer that had a patch on the front pocket of the Seattle World Fair of 1962. It was the 21st century exhibition. Prominent on the patch was the Seattle space needle. I was very proud of this patch.

This was an ideal church during this era. The minister was a volunteer from the ranks of the Presido. We had an intergenerational experience. Many of the local were very old but showed up faithfully to the this American Legion Hall out of the way up the canyon from Rockaway Beach.

Every Sunday everyone in the congregation hopped to and rolled out the portable organ and set up the chairs. We had communion every Sunday and we always sang the old favorite songs from the hymnal. There came with so much regularity that I new them by heart. This totally amazed the bishop who came to see what was going on with the church.

It was a small enough gathering that we all had to take an active role in the nativity. I played my trumpet in church and answered the call one Sunday. I was baptized in San Francisco a couple of weeks later at a Christian Church on Laguna Street.

We as a family were friends with another young family that went there. They were the Rosses. The father was in education design and after taking his family to live in chowchilla, he got a job in the education department of the state. I thought their daughter, Donna was pretty nice. They invited us over for dinner and likewise we invited them to our house as well. They lived in a subdivision in Montara, another small town that combined to make up the city of Pacifica.

We had a youth group and met at an older lady's home up the canyon with lots of window s facing the street with plants in them. She took us all to the seminary in San Francisco to listen to an addict talk about the evils of heroin. Dad hooked me up to donate some time with a cabinet maker who was also part of the congregation. He had made some pews out of Japanese mahogany for a church in San Mateo. I help sand some of the router burn and helped carry in the finished pieces for installation.

One Saturday when it was very cold and windy, Dad and Wade Hendricks and myself went up to the top of the hill and measured a piece of property for the church. Using surveying equipment, we triangulated with Mount Diablo across the Bay. It was pretty interesting work, and might have been fun if it were not for the cold weather and the thistles that were on the property. It was near the San Francisco jail. Mikie said that while we were doing this, the women of the family were leafleting the neighborhoods to let them know of the new church that was being planned and to get them interested in becoming members.

I think the real estate did not go through and the church was never built.

The early 60's were in interesting time.

: ) Pat