Ward Craven starred in "Skipper" the TV show on NBC in the early 1960s. “I will trade you beads and blankets. My people will pay you well.”   Before Janet caught up with me at the festival, I saw Ward Craven, the old TV star, standing at a booth, signing autographs and taking pictures with fans.   Ward, now in his early seventies, was the star of “Skipper” the 1960s TV series about the Nineteenth Century Yankee whaling captain who adventured up and down the California coast looking for all one hundred and twenty six remaining gray whales. Although the show lasted only a short period, its nostalgia value had increased just after the Reagan administration and was now in its third set of re-runs, on its way, they say, to becoming quite a hit.   Craven and his wife Ksen, a Fornay, met in Episode 24 when the “Skipper” takes a Fornay wife (named Juana Maria in the show), played by Ksen, a role she was cast for in the short time she pursued an acting career. It was that episode, “The Skipper’s Come to Get You,” that they have famously re-enacted at dozens of annual fundraisers throughout the years. Since the reemergence of Ward and Ksen, the El Fornio High School Moor marching band taught every incoming class of student musicians the series theme because of the Cravens’ annual commitment to the school’s homecoming.   In retirement, Ward, living with the Fess Parkers and Vera Ruba Ralstons of the world, had begun to really think of himself as the Skipper, buttoned up in his P-coat, ivory pipe, arm around Ksen and given to the annoying habit of calling her his “little squaw.” Ward had even taken up the art of scrimshawing anything he could get his hands on—fence posts, soap bars, dark chocolate—while Ksen, playing the real pants in the family to match her husband’s growing senility act, practiced an elaborate form of West Coast basket-making, acquiring quite a reputation in the process. Her reproductions of Fornay, Miwok, and Chumash water-carrying vessels—including the asphaltum-covered insides—had become all the rage over the last twenty years amongst the Hollywood set. Indeed, the Skipper, at the height of some of his more elaborate dementia, would horde the baskets and other material items Ksen had made in her garden workshop, retooled in the style of a wooden sailing vessel, saying to her, “I will trade you beads and blankets. My people will pay you well.”   I would later find that Ward played the fading TV actor role to the hilt. It was his contribution to the tribe and a sacrifice he made for the love of his wife. Some afternoons, in the ninety degree heat, bolted into his coat, cap and persona, Craven sat looking at the children and parents peering into the event tent to see who he was supposed to be, this star that they might know, that their parents remembered, given enough jog to the memory. At the festival that day, Ksen was sitting next to him, holding his hand, keeping an eye on her mad sailor man who was tasting the salt of—who knew?—his last spray in the public eye . . . Just have to see how those re-runs went. Read More About Janet READ IT

READ OTHER WORK by JOHN GRAHAM

---

Copyright © 2010, The El Fornio Historical Society
or
                Contact John Graham at john@elfornio.com