The New Old Pastime Cafe

There was a cafe in Petersburg, Alaska for decades called the Pastime Cafe. It is remembered fondly by folk who waited out snow storms and fishing closures and pouring rain in there drinking coffee with the 'coffee crowd,' as the waitresses dubbed them. The coffee crowd changed over the years as new-comers tried to horn in and old-timers pretended to ignore them.

I was in Petersburg a few weeks ago to attend my father's memorial services and was told a story of one such new-comer's experience with the 'coffee crowd.' As he told it, he showed up in Petersburg with long hair and proceeded to attend the early morning 'mug up' at the coffee shop to try to get to know the locals. It was two months before someone finally gave him the heads up that the 'coffee crowd' probably wouldn't talk to him unless he cut his hair. This he promptly did and the next day when he graced those hallowed stools he recieved a hearty "Hi, K....."

There was decorum, there was education, there was sustenance, there was camaraderie, there was encouragement, there was intelligence gathering for business purposes, there were business meetings, there was politicing, there were romantic rendezvous, and the list goes on.

The original Pastime Cafe in Petersburg moved locations on main street, and later it's name changed to the Homestead Cafe. But there was always a state of mind of the Pastime Cafe. A place of getting your bearings for a new adventure, of fitting into society, and sharing griefs and joys. Petersburg's Pastime Cafe was on a roll all through the years when the town chalked up it's impressive percapita income statistics: second highest income per capita in the U.S. in the 1960 census, and the second highest number of millionaires per capita in the 1970 census.

There is no cafe in Petersburg now that carries the torch. The building that housed the last 'Pastime Cafe' was sold to a fish processing company who turned it into a mess hall for it's workers. I think that was particularly disappointing for my dad who used to be one of the 'regulars.' He was a fish processing plant superintendent and lived near enough the water that he could hear the fishing boats come by headed for town.

The skippers would steam in the 'Narrows' and past his house and he could tell the boats apart by the sound of their engines. The skippers would come in early in the morning a lot of the time to line up to unload. But the first order of business was to head up to the Pastime to brag about the trip, relate any comedic occasions, or commiserate over any unfortunate events during the voyage. My father would know he needed to be there if he wanted to bid on a load of halibut, especially if a highliner has just steamed by at 7 am.

I think maybe some newer folk to town thought his appearance whenever a boat with a load came back was somehow prescient, from comments my dad made. He was one to let a mystery ride, whether it was made up or had a simple explanation. Like the time he told us kids that a cannery worker that was working to push gondolas of canned salmon into the retorts went missing one day. We were told they found nothing but his watch after opening up the retort after cooking a load. He never did retract that story. That's the kind of thing that made the Pastime Cafe so full of life and energy for the rigors of life in Alaska.

That zest for living was common and was probably born of a need to stay sane on long voyages that the ancestors of the town's Norwegian founders fine tuned. Like sailing over to Iceland, or Greenland, or Newfoundland and not knowing if you'd make it back. Now, that right there is Pastime talk. Some people fall into that mode of josh and jive and like the water and never come out. It makes it interesting, but at least folks don't fall into debilitating depression. It's OK.

So, there is no physical location of the Pastime Cafe as I knew it anymore. Maybe in some town in Alaska, or even near where I live in Central Point, Oregon. Starbucks just doesn't fill the bill. The closest I've seen recently is the 'Linnwood' in Seldovia, Alaska. Now there is a thriving 'Pastime Cafe.' It's a bar and grill, heavy on the bar part. But much is done to conduct city business from the comfort of bar stools and a hot cup of coffee. We would stage our forays into town for supplies and showers there this winter. Everybody met there. There were even town potlucks there. When the cafe on mainstreet Petersburg closed, my father took to visiting the coffee pot at the Harbor Master's shack and listening to the harbor chatter there. A poor substitute.

I don't intend to start something with this blog, just to have a fun forum in the vein of the Pastime Cafe as I knew it. (I think I even remember my older cousin Bobbie waitressing at the old Pastime Cafe location across from the Mitkof Hotel one Saturday morning before light. I was going deer hunting with my dad in the fall, and we deemed the day daunting enough to warrant a good breakfast and coffee at the Pastime.)

Now that age is showing my vulnerabilities more, I'll have to stick to herbal teas such as South American yerba mate, with a sprinkle of stevia powder. I found out recently I'm allergic to wheat and caffeine. Another reason to focus on a virtual Pastime Cafe. I think Facebook is a better 'virtual gathering place,' but I can elaborate more on a blog. And I started blogging to set down a record, to tell the story. And definitely a place to stay away from politics and keep it light.

My Great grandfather, Rasmus, who was the patriarch of the first white family to settle in Petersburg, built a cafe in the bottom floor of the Enge Building to help preserve the town. The Moose Club cafe had just burned down and he figured the town needed a cafe if it was to survive. With the moving of the big grocery store and the Post Office out of downtown, and the closing of the last cafe on main street, I wonder about the new model's ability to serve the social needs of a community. These kinds of things are what I think about and may talk about here. Besides rowing, hunting, fishing, ice skating on the beaver ponds, climbing Petersburg Mtn and Horn Cliffs, etc.