It was 1973, when I first moved to California. I was 27, single and totally blown away by the robust, diverse, quirky, amazingly alive San Francisco Bay Area. A few years ago, I moved away to buy a business in another state, stayed away several years and then returned to California. I was 64, still single and glad to be back, but it seemed to me that the quirkiness had morphed into an odd, mildly tortured caricature of 1972 California. The easy, comfortable California brand of diversity from my young years seemed to have an edge to it, and the unconquerably robust feeling had been replaced by news stories wondering if California is technically bankrupt and in need of a federal bailout. California seems to be aging, to me. Maybe it’s me, that’s aging – maybe I’m just looking at the same place through older eyes, but I don’t think so. The playground of my youth is looking a little tattered and frayed around the edges. People used to talk about the cost of living, the crime rate, the traffic and congestion, the state budget deficits and laugh it off, as they headed to the bar for another drink. It was an on-going party; a moveable feast. Now, when they talk about those things, you can see the worry and uncertainty in their eyes and hear a hesitation in their voices. It’s a little sad.
I miss the place I fell in love with, as a young man. I originally arrived as official second driver, with a friend who was moving to San Francisco. I was supposed to stay for the week-end and then return back home, but during that week-end, someone said, “Why don’t you just stay over Monday and see if you can get a job?” That sounded logical as all hell, so I did. I interviewed with an agency Monday morning, got an offer as an auditor in a shipping company, that afternoon and started working the next morning. It took three months for me to get home to pick up my stuff. I was hooked the first time I stood at the edge of the bay on a late afternoon and watched the fog boil through the Golden Gate and snake across the bay, toward the hills of Oakland and Berkeley.
I miss the Oakland A’s. Yeah, they are still there, but the guys I used to watch aren’t. If you were lucky enough to get an afternoon off, you could take BART right to the stadium and sit in the cheap seats with the diamond in front of you and the east bay hills in the background, over the rear wall and feel the sun on your neck, while you watched a game. Tickets were cheap and so were the hotdogs and I watched players like Vida Blue and Reggie Jackson. Jackson eventually opened an auto dealership and I went in there one day. His sister approached me and told me all about her brother, as she showed me a Toyota Corolla. I bought the car. What could I do? It was Reggie Jackson’s sister. I used to go to the field just to watch Jose Canseco hit a home run. Who says Cuba never produced anything wothwhile? He seldom disappointed me. I remember seeing Mark McGuire play for the first time and many times after that. He was fun to watch, even before steroids. I always thought it was worth a ticket, just to see how fast Ricky Henderson could run. He never looked that big to me, but there weren’t many guys who could get a ball to a base faster than his legs could get him there.
I miss Herb Caen’s daily columns in the San Francisco Chronicle. He understood “The City” (no self-respecting local would ever call it anything else) better than anyone and proved it every day for decades. I’m pretty sure he invented the phrase “three dot journalism”. I kept one of my favorite pieces of his, which he reprinted many times in response to readers who missed it and heard about it at parties, or readers who just wanted to see it again. It was Caen’s choice as the perfect toast:
“Here’s to the roses and lilies in bloom,
You in my arms and I in your room,
A door that is locked, a key that is lost,
A bird and a bottle and a bed badly tossed,
And a night that is fifty years long. Cheers!”
I miss seeing news stories about Sally Stanford. She was a rich, elderly lady by the time I arrived, and the city loved her. In her younger days, she was undoubtedly the most successful Madam in San Francisco, entertaining many notables such as Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn. She was arrested many times, but never successfully and used dozens of names; finally settling on Stanford (I think she liked the alliteration, as well as the association to the established, local banking family). She married seven times, but never to a Stanford. In her later years, she ran Valhalla, in Sausalito, where Hollywood elites liked to hang out and she ran several times, unsuccessfully for city council, before finally being elected. After her first defeat, she was asked if she would run again, and she said, “Sinners never give up.” She finally ran for mayor of Sausalito on the promise that she would get rid of parking meters. She won and they disappeared, shortly after. What a gal. The city doesn’t have any Sally Stanfords, anymore.
I no longer hear Emperor Norton stories, either. Emperor Norton was a street person with flair. Norton simply declared himself Emperor of San Francisco, one day and everyone sort of accepted it. He wore a top hat and held court daily on Market Street, usually around Montgomery. He made local newspapers regularly and everyone knew who he was. Many stopped to chat as they passed and many more offered obeisance to His Highness. Local establishments used to accept the currency that he personally printed. He was there for a long time way before my time and now he’s gone.
I found out that a California beach is a great place to get in touch with yourself. I used to drive to some beach, usually between Half Moon Bay and Monterey and just start to walk. The sound of the waves hypnotizes you after awhile, and you stop thinking and start feeling. It’s the best. I remember one of those walks on a hot August afternoon. I was wearing shorts and flip-flops and I was alone on the beach. I looked past the surf and saw a baby seal bobbing in the water, watching me. He just sat there and I got the idea that I could wade into the water to get a little closer. I did and he didn’t move. So I kept wading and I finally ended up chest high in water only a few feet from him. And then he did the most incredible thing. He swam closer to me. He was looking me in the eye and I was looking him in the eye and we were three feet from each other. We just stayed there, staring at each other and finally he swam away. That was it. He was gone and I was wet. I’ll never forget that strange, little encounter.
If you seriously love to eat great food, you really need to dash off a quick “good-by” e-mail to your friends, pack up your stuff and move to California, ASAP. World-class food is everywhere, including the homes of your friends. The cultural diversity of the area means you can sample foods from everywhere, by just meeting someone new and getting an invitation to dinner. An entry of mine in an old journal, dated 11-29-85, reads:
“Thanksgiving dinner this year was spent with Csaba and Edith,
Two students raised in Hungary, Nat, a minister of Religious Science,
Jamal, a ‘street level pharmaceutical entrepreneur’, and Micah, a not-very-smart
Jock. In short, I shared dinner with a priest, two communists, a drug
dealer and a fool. The food came from all over the world. Stimulating evening.”
The Mom-and-Pop Thai restaurants that you find tucked here and there are wonderful. Of course, if you really want great Thai food, you should try to show up at my friend, Jongwit’s house at dinner time. The spices will leave third degree burns but your taste buds will thank you. The Thai culture definitely understands food. There is a place in the Mission district that makes the best tamales known to mankind and it is a proven fact that I can only survive for a limited time before going to Great China, in Berkeley, for a serving of Double Skins (better than it sounds, trust me). I used to love the beef sandwiches on crusty sourdough, at Sam’s on Market Street, but it’s just a memory, now. If you have an afternoon to kill and you want to build some very durable memories, head for Bodega Bay and treat yourself to a couple dozen oysters on the half shell, in the sunshine at a picnic table by the ocean-side stand belonging to the guy that just pulled them out of the water. You will never forget it. Or you can always don some loud walking shorts, so you blend in with the tourists and enjoy a crab cocktail or shrimp cocktail at Fishermen’s Wharf, and when the sun starts to get low over the Golden Gate Bridge, you really should go to the Spinnaker Inn, in Sausalito for your drink of choice. Linger over it because they have a glass wall, right on the water that frames The City and you can watch the water grow dark, as the city lights up – a perfect way to end the day.
There is a large, colorful Gay community in San Francisco and there was a time when they actually were. Gay, that is. Not so much, now it seems. Before 1980, you could see a couple of guys or a couple of gals holding hands, as they walked down the street, laughing and acting as though they didn’t have a care in the world. The first time I saw two guys holding hands, I found it to be shocking. The second time, I realized that nobody around them cared and that was kind of cool. San Francisco and California accepted everyone and that was part of the appeal. Anyone could come to California and they would have a place to “be”. In the Eighties, the Gay community got hit big-time with AIDS and friends and loved ones died. After that, they found politics and learned how to fight for rights and things changed for them. Maybe things changed for all of us. The world isn’t as friendly and accepting as it used to be. There is more potential danger and it is making us edgy and a little closed off. It shows in my adopted state and I find it disheartening. But I accept it, because I find that I am doing the same thing for the same reasons. There is a part of me that wishes we could get back to those days, but I don’t clearly see the way. On the other hand, I’ll always have memories of great roast beef sandwiches, interesting people and places and curious baby seals.
Yeah, 1973 California was a great place to be young. Maybe I am just looking at it through cynical, old eyes, these days. I wonder if it can still be robust, diverse, quirky and amazingly alive to a young man just arriving, from his home town. I hope so.
So, here’s the deal, kid. When you get off the plane, get settled in and give me a call. I’ll treat you to a baseball game and show you the best places to eat. Or if that doesn’t work for you, try this. Put $20 in your pocket, jump on BART, get off at Powell Street and just start walking. If you’re young and open to new experiences, you’ll have a blast. If you have as much fun as I think you will, I may have a suggestion for you. Why don’t you stay over until Monday and see if you can find a job…..