You mean that's not my uncle?

Every once in a while, I find a copy of Pay Dirt! San Francisco: The Romance of a Great City for sale on line. Most of the sellers don't bother to include a picture of the cover. Too bad. Once you see this prospector's face drawn by Vaughn Vance, you won't forget it.

I don't remember when I first saw a copy of this book. Probably when I was in grade school. My parents referred to it as Uncle Maury's book. My family lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for years before I was born, so as a child, it was only natural that my uncle would edit a book about the city he loved and put his own picture on the cover.

Used to seeing my father's photograph in print as an author and journalism educator, believing that Maury B. Campbell of Los Gatos had put his own picture on his book was easy for me to do. For years, I thought my uncle was a wild man with a hankering for gold. In fact, I thought his hankering went to the point of lunacy because, frankly, this prospector looks a few nuggets shy of normal.

Years later, when I realized the cover art was an illustration by Chicago artist Vaughn Bass--who tended to do Elvgren-style pin ups, I was disappointed, relieved and delightfully scandalized.

Oh no, you mean that's not my uncle? How cool to have an uncle out of the wild west.Thank goodness my real uncle isn't as scary as this guy. I used to turn the cover of the book toward the wall because the eyes glowed in the dark. The cover, actually, turned into a thing.Does Maury know Vaughn well enough to get copies of his girls? I'd have to hide them from Dad.Here's a blurb for the book from Antiquarian Booksellers who have a copy for sale:

San Francisco, Vigilante Publications, 1949, first edition, spiral-bound wrappers. Softcover. Front cover illustration by Vaughn Bass, this big, sprawling book promotes San Francisco in many ways, includes contributes by Kathleen Norris, Herb Caen, Oscar Lewis, and others, includes both color and b&w illustrations and photos of The City, rear covers with photos of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roosevelt, and others along with their blurbs about San Francisco, with a flier about the book and its availability at Paul Elder's Books laid in loosely. Very good.

It really is a marvelous book for San Francisco aficionados. But that cover! It still brings back a deja vu of chaotic memories. Maybe, in some ways, it was my uncle. He was a bit of an old fashioned journalist who liked a stiff drink after leaving the city room. I saw him when I was 24 years old and in California for a tour of duty in the Navy. I got a laugh out of him when I ordered a bowl of Jim Beam in a restaurant.

But darned if I didn't forget to ask him about that Pay Dirt! cover or whether he had any extra pin ups for my ship.