A San Francisco Recollection

Over the years from time to time, I've remarked to my husband about how long it's been since we've spent any length of time in San Francisco. It's been almost 30 years since we lived there. Our visits over the past years have been limited to streamlining through the city en route to the airport and in more recent years, several visits to the zoo with my daughter's family.

Because the dictates of health insurance can be crazy at times, inconvenient and sometimes absurd we were directed to a hospital and surgeon in San Francisco to fix our son's woes. The first trek into the city was back on June 26th for a consultation with the surgeon who ultimately performed his operation in July. The appointment was 10:30 AM so we were at the tail end of the morning commute into the city and things were in full swing by the time we rolled into San Francisco around 9:15 AM. Cars, taxis, busses and pedestrians were out in full force. There were so many of them and they were all over the place. I had forgotten what driving in the city was like. Your eyes really have to be everywhere at once. I found it hard to believe that I used to drive around in this city. True, it took me a long time to gain enough confidence to even attempt it at first but I soon got in the groove.

My daughter is my San Francisco child and my son is local home grown from where we currently reside. Throughout his life, he's heard stories and reminiscent tales about our several years living in one of the most beautiful, interesting cities in the world. It really is! Since we were already in San Francisco, my husband got a bee in his bonnet to check out the old neighborhood and show our son the flat where we lived and how everything looked in general these days. This is exactly what we did once our appointment was over.

For those of you who know and read me, you know where and what type of neighborhood this was. For those who don't, check out this link:  http://journals.aol.com/springsnymph/AnotherCountryHeardFrom/entries/257 wherein I regale my public with some interesting facets of my life.

Up and over Divisidero we drove and down the hill to cross Market Street onto Castro. The Castro. A neighborhood unto itself! There was the glorious, regal Castro Theater in all its glory. It looked the same and one glance at the marquee assured me it was still showing those wonderful older films from yesteryear when movies were....well, better! But that's just this woman's opinion. The sidewalks were full of life and seemed more congested than I remembered. It was difficult to recall that for almost four years, my husband and I were among that throng. It was even harder to believe that I walked around this neighborhood pregnant and later, pushed a baby in a stroller or (more often than not) hauled her around in a Gerry Carrier frame on my back. But I did these things and they seemed to be part of another lifetime. This baby is now 28 and has her own little girl of six so indeed it was another lifetime.

There were a lot of changes. There seemed to be more stores and everything seemed to be shoved together more tightly than I remembered. We turned a corner onto 18th Street and headed for Diamond. Sweet Diamond Street. A quick left turn and several hundred yards later, there was the building housing four flats looking very much the same as when we moved. The little spindly trees in front had grown quite a bit, the color of the building was different but it looked the same. The Catholic Church was still next door and the school and large playground (where The Sisters of Divine Indulgence used to cheer on softball games between San Francisco's finest and the Gay Pride Union) were still across the street. When we moved in the late summer/ early fall of 1980 we were paying $350 a month rent for a San Francisco flat. This gave us three huge rooms, a long hallway (along which cloth diapers were hung to dry on a clothesline strung from one end to the other during the wet, cold months), one small room (the nursery, of course), one bathroom, a very small kitchen and back stairs leading down to a funky garage with parking privileges for one vehicle per flat.   A clothesline was strung out from the side of the porch to the corner of the garage, the kind on a circular loop where one hangs the laundry from one spot and feeds the line out. I wondered what the current renter is forking out now each month.  $1,500? $2,000?

We didn't stop, we didn't spend any more time than driving by slowly and saying, "there it is" but for me, this little side trip spoke volumes. I had many a happy time in this place but I was very happy to drive away and head for the Golden Gate Bridge in a northerly direction to my own little house in my own little town. The sheer force of traffic and humanity was overwhelming. I was very young when I lived in the city and it was my first and last experience in a large city. What a lucky woman I am. One city to have lived in thus far in my life of almost 53 years and that city was San Francisco. Sweet! It was so good to return home and I've had quite enough of the big city for some time to come. At heart I am the epitome of the country mouse and that's perfectly fine with me.