Baseball struck a deep intrastate family rivalry

My Aunt Helen was a pip!

I adored her but she often irritated me. She could be a bit, well, cheeky. She possessed observable San Francisco “airs.” A significant portion of my family has long resided in the Bay Area.

For much of my of youth I allowed our northern cousins to cause me to feel “second class.” We “Southies” couldn’t measure up to their level of sophistication.

My dad was born in San Francisco, but Grandpa — who was actually from Arkansas — got him out of town and down to Southern California before Dad could be irreversibly tainted.

Helen and her five brothers and one sister were born in San Francisco and raised north of the Golden Gate in Marin County. They hiked trails flanking Mount Tamalpais, dug for clams on Stinson Beach and ogled magnificent redwoods at Muir Woods. They spent summers camping along the Russian River.

Helen personified to me the cultured wing of our family (is that Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, “Pastoral,” playing softly in the background?).

The wing I belonged to physically occupied Orange and San Diego counties. We were Visigoths. Our family members in the North always let us know we were from a loutish stock, and a land of deserts (physical and intellectual). Helen disdainfully called us “Southern Cal.”

She and her ilk resided across the Golden Gate from San Francisco (“Frisco” became our lame epithet). For nearly 50 years, Aunt Helen lived in lovely Mill Valley — surrounded by fir trees — and drove daily across the bridge to work downtown.

She was pure class.

Aunt Helen once took a boat from San Francisco to visit my uncles in San Diego. She flew on airplanes. She traveled to Europe. Because my dad was her favorite nephew, she frequently came to Orange County to stay with us. We drove north once a year to visit Marin County, Aunt Helen and the relatives.

Helen was my great-aunt. The youngest of her siblings, she was considered the “Golden Child” of the clan at the turn of the century (early 1900s). Everybody paid her homage until her death in 2000 at the age of 95.

She exhibited a lifelong attitude, and had a twinkle in her eye that said, “I’m rather special, don’t you think?”

My grandmother on my mother’s side of the family, and a contemporary of Helen’s, could barely abide her attitude. In fact, Grandma didn’t always hold her tongue in her presence. She considered Helen to be “insufferable.”

Many things divided Effie and Helen, most especially their names. Helen: daughter of Zeus; Effie: garrulous. Effie hailed from rural Kansas; Helen from the bejeweled City by the Bay.

Helen never married, but she was still dating into her 90s. She was a petite fashion plate.

She barely abided “Southern Cal” sunshine because it blistered her delicate Scottish complexion. She preferred fog banks, drizzle and the fens to sun-drenched stretches of beach. She loved exploring the haunts of Guerneville and performances by the San Francisco Opera. She was also gaga for the hated San Francisco Giants.

It was August of 1958. I was 13 and my brother, Bill, 11. Bill and I were mad for “Dodger Blue.” Helen loved the orange and black.

Once again my family drove north from Costa Mesa on the 99 to spend time at Helen’s.

Bill and I proudly wore our new Dodger baseball caps, with the block L.A. on the front. We wanted to demonstrate to our Bay Area relatives that we were proud Dodger fans. Aunt Helen made fun of our caps and teased us unmercifully.

“Oh boys, I just love your La La hats,” she said.

The Giants finished third (out of eight) in the National League that year. The Dodgers were seventh. We had no riposte for auntie’s jabs.

Then came our redemption: 1959!

The Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox and won the World Series, and that muzzled Aunt Helen, for a time, anyway.

Were she still with us, however, she’d be crowing about the results of the past decade.

My Grandma had it right. Insufferable!

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.