Celebrating a Century on the Water

The history of the ZLAC Rowing Club reads like a female version of the Hardy Boys novels or of an Andy Hardy film (there’s something unquestionably hardy about the all-American spirit), a tale in which right-minded youngsters have good, clean adventures in the course of maturing into civic-minded adults.

At a fashion luncheon given Monday in the ballroom of the U.S. Grant Hotel for more than 400 guests, the ZLAC club celebrated its centennial by honoring venerable supporters of San Diego rowing and three members who have gone on to the Olympics. Quite like the centennial of the San Diego Woman’s Club earlier this year, the event provided a living link to a city that, in the short course of a century, has changed from a lively but intimate seaport town of fewer than 20,000 souls to the sixth-biggest city of the United States.

It is unlikely that either this phenomenal growth or the endurance of the ZLAC club was expected by the four teen-age founders whose first initials compose the acronym. Zulette Lamb and a trio of sisters--Lena, Agnes and Caroline Polhamus--were simply girls who liked to row, and in 1892, San Diego Bay (whose uses and contours have changed considerably in 100 years) was their oyster. The legacy includes the San Diego Crew Classic, founded in 1973. The 19th edition of this internationally known rowing event will be held on Mission Bay this weekend.

In recognition of these contributions, the San Diego City Council designated April 5-12 “Rowing Week in San Diego.” Deputy Mayor Ron Roberts, who presented the proclamation, acknowledged that until recently he had believed ZLAC “to be the name of an Aztec god.” “I feel somewhat better informed today,” he assured the audience of members, spouses and longtime sponsors.

On Aug. 3, 1895, the club launched its first barge, commissioned for the then princely sum of $1,000. Until that time, the crew of four had scoured the bay in a delivery boat borrowed from a butcher who serviced visiting ships. The purchase of the barge required the expansion of the club to eight rowers, and the legal organization of ZLAC as a California corporation.

At the luncheon, event chair Saren Spicer--a ZLAC member who also holds a varsity letter in crew from Princeton--asked the audience, “Who ever would have thought that these eight ladies in a boat would row so far?” (Anyone interested in the club, or simply in a fascinating picture of everyday life in San Diego at the turn of the century, might wish to read the just-published “A History of the ZLAC Rowing Club, 1892-1992,” available from ZLAC.)

The luncheon featured chicken, which probably maintained the traditions of the club, as well as chocolate mousse, which might well be regarded as a departure from the pie-and-ice cream forms of older days. The fashion show certainly would have been shocking to ZLAC founders, whose modest uniforms--black sateen skirts, blouses and berets, all banded in gold--were modeled by club members. Black and gold remain the ZLAC colors.

Special honorees, introduced by club President Jill Conrad, were Joe Jessop Sr., the oldest living staff commodore of the San Diego Yacht Club and a co-founder of the Crew Classic; Patty Stose Wyatt, also a Crew Classic co-founder; Del Beekley, who introduced collegiate rowing at San Diego State University and coached the crew for 34 years, and Kearney Johnson, an 81-year-old world-class rower whose most recent win was in a 1990 regatta.

ZLAC members honored for participation in Olympic rowing events were Kelly Rickon Mitchell, a silver medalist in 1984; Lynn Silliman Macaulay, a 1976 bronze medalist, and Cathy Thaxton Tippett, the only American woman to qualify to participate in the Olympics on four separate occasions, from 1976 through 1988. (The United States withdrew from the 1980 Games in Moscow.)

Spicer’s event committee included Mary Steffgen, Gini Stedman, Helen Wallace, Linda Dieckmann, Sally Lyons, Joann White, Adele Sullivan, Annette Frank, Barbara Brauer, Dorothy Rock, Deborah Goddard and Annalee Hargreaves-Tanzi.

Had Somerset Maugham, Joseph Conrad and Herman Wouk--the authors, respectively, of “Rain,” “Typhoon” and “The Caine Mutiny”--ever collaborated to script the action for a seaborne benefit, they might have designed last Thursday’s “SOS” patrons’ party aboard the Golden Swan.

The meaning of “SOS” can extend beyond the Morse code distress signal to such alternative interpretations as “Save Our Ship,” “Seasick Old Sailors” and “Sociable Order of Shipmates.”

Any of the latter terms would have applied equally well to the 100 or so souls who booked dinner passage on the luxury motor launch to provide underwriting for the upcoming “Taste of the Nation.” This event will be given April 8 at the San Diego Convention Center by the “Share Our Strength” coalition, a national organization of chefs and restaurants working to fight hunger.

Some 60 local restaurants will serve a broad menu of appetizers, entrees and beverages from 5:30 to 9 p.m., and entertainment will include jazz, mariachi and country-Western bands and folklorico dancers. Of the proceeds, 80% will be distributed locally to the St. Vincent de Paul Village, Love’s Gift and the San Diego Hunger Coalition; the remainder will be given to international relief and development agencies. Tickets to “Taste of the Nation” are $35 each. For further information, call 233-8797.

The putative high-seas frolic aboard the Golden Swan (stormy weather forced the boat to remain moored to the dock at the Sheraton Harbor Island Hotel) contributed about $20,000 of the $125,000 that “Taste of the Nation” organizers hope to raise.

Sheraton executive chef Bob Brody, for five years the San Diego “SOS” chairman, enlisted the aid of fellow top cuisiniers Scott Meskan, Derek Ridgeway and Neil Stuart to produce the complicated menu of artichoke and corn tamales, braised veal shanks and colorful dessert palettes.

“There’s an affinity between people who have an ability to eat and those who don’t, between those of us who put food on the table and those who have none to serve,” said Brody. “That’s why we formed ‘SOS.’ It’s not political, it’s only about feeding people. That’s what is important to us--this is just people in the restaurant community doing what we do best.”

As guests arrived, the wind blew gently but the rain pounded down and the pungent swells rolling in from Point Loma caused the Golden Swan to make the oyster and clam hors d’oeuvres in guests’ stomachs seem more lively than usual.

“My middle name is either ‘Stormy’ or ‘Rainy Day,’ ” said Dixie Unruh, who, with her husband, Kenneth, unofficially chaired the dinner. As the former president of the Old Globe Theatre and current chairwoman of the Chancellor’s Associates at UC San Diego, Dixie Unruh has had considerable experience overseeing benefits visited by Castor and Pollux, most notably at her “Kaleidoscope” Jewel Ball in 1983, the first ever to be nearly rained out. Thursday’s minor gale had the effect of concentrating the guests in the two main salons (no point venturing on the exposed decks), which made for a cozy affair.

Guests included Foodmaker Chairman and honorary “Taste” chair Jack Goodall and his wife, Mary; Annette and Dick Ford; Linda and Jake Jacobs; Suzanne Moore; Jeanne Jones and Don Breitenberg; Suzanne and Todd Figi; Rosemary and Eliot Pierce; Audrey Geisel; Dolly and Jim Poet; Martha and George Gafford; Marilynn and Roger Boesky; Bernadette Tarantino, and Martha and John Culbertson.