Bucket list
if you happen to be in the mood for betting.
The trail passes by one of the biggest dog parks in the region at Point Isabel, where I stopped to watch hounds chasing each other in circles, then traverses a marshy area with boardwalks where herons stand like feathered totems in the reeds. The Bay wind will fight you — it's like being buffeted with flying pillows, but just focus on how your calves will look if you do this a few times.
Rosie the Riveter was one person, or many
The iconic poster of a bandanaclad woman flexing her muscles while hollering “We Can Do It!” was likely based on a photograph of a real person, Naomi Parker Fraley, who worked near here at the old Naval Air Station in Alameda. During WWII, Rosie was a general term — used in popular songs and images like Norman Rockwell's 1943 Saturday Evening Post cover — to describe women who helped build ships, aircraft, munitions, rifle parts and more.
A film playing in the museum claims the women were often better at these jobs than men, who tended to try to get things done quickly. You could tell the difference between welds made by men and women, for instance — female welding was “like creating an embroidery in metal.”
Richmond was not ready for population growth
Richmond became a hotbed of defense manufacturing due to its shipyards, factories and deep-water harbor perfect for launching vessels. Once a semirural region with cows tied up in people's yards, the city experienced explosive growth and surged from 23,000 residents to roughly 130,000 in just two years.
People lived in trucks and boats and slept in all-night cinemas or “hot beds” that rented out for eight hours at a time. Some workers just swapped the same bed — when one went to work the other would claim the mattress, then switch for the next shift. If that sounds uncomfortable, there were also folks quartered in huts adjacent to a dump, a tidal swamp and a “particularly odorous hog farm.”
35 mph was `Victory Speed'
A museum exhibit of ration stamps shows the extreme curtailing of products prioritized for the war. Coffee and sugar were limited to one cup a week per household. Rum and whiskey were rationed, because distillers had switched to making industrial alcohol. Gasoline was also precious, with officials asking people to carpool and keep autos below 35 mph, a crawl that became known as “Victory Speed.”
To help pad their larders, Americans were encouraged to grow their own produce in “Victory Gardens.” Some 20 million popped up across the nation during the war — there was even a big one in Golden Gate Park.
Your health insurance might have originated here
Defense manufacturing was rough on the body. Richmond's workforce suffered fractures, hernias and constant vomiting from breathing metal fumes. There was also something called welder's flashes, according to a former worker quoted in an exhibit: “If you happen to stare at the arc as it takes place, it will blister your eyeballs. I'll never forget the first time I got a welder's flash. I woke up in the night and my eyes were just killing me.”
Physician Sidney Garfield and Henry J. Kaiser, the industrialist who ran the wartime shipyards in Richmond, actually instituted an affordable health insurance plan for the workers. Look in your wallet for your insurance card, if you have one — the program eventually grew into what's now Kaiser Permanente.
Shipbuilding
The four Kaiser shipyards in Richmond excelled at the fast manufacture of humongous machines. They pumped out almost 750 vessels during the war, including Victory and Liberty ships. At peak performance, more than one new ship left Richmond every day. The record for building a ship went to the SS Robert E. Peary, which took four days, 15 hours and 29 minutes to assemble.
The shipyards were shut down after the war and eventually became the Port of Richmond and the Marina Bay neighborhood. Remaining ships were sold off or mothballed in places like Suisun Bay, once home to a sprawling “ghost fleet” of inactive vessels. A survivor, though — the SS Red Oak Victory — is still right here in Richmond. It's now a floating museum you can tour for $10-$20, depending on how far into its metal guts you want to explore.
Good food just steps away
Outside the museum is Assemble Marketplace in an airy space filled with old machinery. “The Ford Assembly Plant was built for producing the Model T in the '30s and then converted to a tankproduction factory during World War II,” says Michael Petrilli, one of the folks behind the venture. “It was renovated by the owners in the early 2000s. Assemble Marketplace is situated in what was the boiler room, and the Craneway (Pavilion) was the craneway.”
Inside Assemble, you'll find a cocktail bar, a Texas barbecue joint and a sandwich-and-salad place with fish tacos. We grab a Tom Collins festooned with mint and a sour-guava ale from Oakland United Beerworks. Then, being a stone's throw from the water, we head to Rocky Island Oyster Co.
The restaurant specializes in oysters plucked from frigid New England waters and served raw over ice, plus local Point Reyes bivalves grilled and slathered in herb and miso butter.
Plates of fat grilled shrimp, clam chowder and smoky trout dip stream from the kitchen to picnic tables outside. And for folks who want to celebrate like it's the end of the war, there are succulent lobster rolls and a caviar service.