The ties that bind

My boyfriend’s name is Bruce Springsteen, and I saw him last Thursday for the first time in eight years.

Our relationship has lasted for nearly half a century. It was 1978 when I first laid eyes on the man in my hometown of San Jose, California.

But it was his voice that had drawn me in three years earlier, the voice that had made me lose my head. I was driving around town in the late summer of 1975 when the first, raging wall-of-sound chords of “Born to Run” erupted through my radio. My speakers rattled, I was rattled, my adrenaline blew through the roof, and I had to pull over just to catch my breath. Then I heard the voice – that growl, that howl, reaching down into something bottomless, wanting something so desperately.

My parents, of course, never understood the attraction. I wouldn’t say that he was a “bad boy” – he never used drugs, never landed in jail. But he wore a leather jacket and played guitar in a rock and roll band. He had a contentious relationship with his father. He was a troubled student. He hung out on the streets at night.

A bit of an outsider, he was.

And oh, so handsome.

Bruce is six years older than me, but the age difference doesn’t matter. We’re of the same generation. We’ve both grown up, gotten married, had careers, found a home and a sense of place, and settled in.

I know he has his flaws. But in relationships that go on this long, we can easily overlook the smudges.

I’ll admit that we almost broke up when he temporarily lost his mind and jettisoned the E Street Band back in 1989. But I stuck with him, reluctantly, and when he put the band back together 10 years later, I found solid ground again.

Now here we are, almost 50 years later, and I still get to moon over him, as if we were kids again. One last time, baby, one last time.

***

I was in college when I began incessantly playing the Born to Run album. In those days I was sometimes hanging out at the beach, although I didn’t live near the shore, as Bruce did. The ocean was 40 miles away, and on warm nights my friend Ted and I would drive “over the hill” on Highway 17 to the magical mystical Santa Cruz boardwalk. Highway 17 was steep and treacherous, and I remember driving past the roadside corpses of overheated station wagons. Ted and I drank beer and walked barefoot along the dark beach, skirting the tide, with the moon overhead and the future just as brightly distant.

Born to Run was an epic, almost operatic story, part rock and part poetry, about what it was like to be young in the seventies. The band was full and resonant, with a lyrical, echoing sax that always sounded like the mysteries of a city at midnight. Populated with characters right off of the shore, the songs were about nights on the beach, wheels on the highway, the rush of neon, an occasional stolen kiss, and the languorous days of summer, with “barefoot girls sittin’ on the hood of a Dodge, drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain.” Bruce was the poet Everyman for teenagers like me.

God, I loved him.

***

When I first saw Bruce in person, at the San Jose Civic Auditorium in June of 1978, he was even more dreamy than I had expected. His show was about three hours long, and even in front of a fairly small audience, that man and his band spent every last ounce of their energy onstage. The songs themselves were epics; the youthful Bruce leaped onto his amps, onto the piano, and into the crowd; and we were all held fast by what Springsteen calls “the power, the magic, the mystery, and the ministry of rock and roll.” After the last of the drenching encores, I knew that I had just witnessed the greatest live American rock and roll band in history.

(By the way, I recently wrote to Brucebase, the definitive Springsteen stat site, to add to its incomplete setlist of that show because I just realized that my 1978 diary included song references from the night. The site manager corrected the record and asked if I would be comfortable sending him my scanned diary pages [see above]. I agreed reluctantly, embarrassed by my adolescent “review.”)

I’ve now seen 20 Springsteen shows: five in San Jose, eight in Oakland, two in Mountain View, three in San Francisco, one in Berkeley, and one in Cincinnati. All were good, some were excellent, and a few were transcendent.

Springsteen always has said that he loathes the recording process; it’s the live performances that fuel him. And they fuel the audience, too. Every E Street Band show is fervent and rousing – a barn burner that ignites a fever and grabs at your insides. Those surges of adrenaline, everyone roaring in unison . . . how often, during a normal day, are we privileged to feel that?

As fans, we’ve also been privileged to immerse ourselves in the beautiful balance of the E Street Band – not just your typical five-piece rock and roll band, but the jazz part, the R&B part, the notes that build so richly from the piano, the horn section, and that sexy, sumptuous sax.

Bruce is a superb storyteller, too, and in his younger days he’d often introduce his songs with personal anecdotes that were at times generously honest and at other times, perhaps, crafted partially from folklore. In any event, through these legendary tales over the years we’ve been submerged deeply into his American narrative – the wide-reaching novel of his life, beginning with his difficult blue-collar roots in a fading New Jersey steel town; his raw, often troubled relationship with his father; his spiritual dreams and disappointments; and his mythical first meeting with his big sax-man, Clarence Clemons, who in 1971 blew through the door of a club along the Jersey Shore, tearing it off its hinges on a rainy, windy night.

***

Along the way he also made me laugh. At that summer 1978 show he told us that “San Jose is just a mean town, you know?” [lots of laughter] “I remember I was down here about 8 years ago and I pulled into this gas station and they said, ‘WHATDYA WANT?’ And I had to say ‘Gas!!’ ”

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In Oakland in 1984, Bruce offered us his cute version of love’s inevitable transience. “When you first meet somebody, everything they do is perfect. You tell ’em how beautiful they look every night and that everything they say is so brilliant. I remember I’d meet a new girl and before I’d go over I’d stand in front of the mirror, fix my hair so it looked just right, and I’d always be worried that my nose was too big. But she’d say, ‘Oh, Sweetie, it’s perfect just the way it is.’ But about six months later, I’d ask, ‘Can I get a goodnight kiss?’ and now she’s saying, ‘I would, if I could get around that thing on the front of your face.’ ”

***

Thirty years after my first Springsteen concert, I saw Bruce again for the 16^th time. It was April 5, 2008, and he was back in San Jose. We were older then, and life was not as carefree. That very morning, my friend Holly had died of cancer. For much of the day I’d debated whether I should even attend the show, but I finally decided that Holly absolutely wouldn’t have wanted me to stay home. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for revelry, though, and I had a heavy heart as I stood in line waiting to get in. For some reason I’d chosen to get floor tickets for that show, which is definitely not my style; I’m a wimp and would much rather have an assigned seat. But being on the floor gave me a chance, for the first time, to participate in the day-of-concert lottery that would get me into “the pit” – the coveted area right up against the stage. I remember that I actually cast up a silent prayer, telling Holly that I figured she was still hanging around this mortal coil for a bit and could she please intervene and make my wristband number come up. Sure enough my number was chosen, and I got to stand in the front row. An absolute dream come true. Towards the end of his set Bruce sang a quartet of songs about transformation, journeys, death, and immortality, so I felt strongly – like probably many others in the audience – that the whole night was actually directed at me.

My most recent Springsteen show was last Thursday night in San Francisco. Bruce told a story about visiting George Theiss, a guitarist friend from his first band the Castiles, on one of George’s last days before succumbing to lung cancer. Bruce is now the only person from that band still living, so he then performed “Last Man Standing” (with a tear in his eye). At the end of the night, after the band had left the stage for good, Springsteen came out alone onstage with an acoustic guitar for one final song, “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” He was probably thinking about his mother, Adele, who died just two months ago. His face showed it.

***

Bruce and I have grown up together. We don’t care as much about cars and boardwalks and freedom any more; we care about love, community, memory, loyalty, the people we miss. We’ve gone from trying to escape to trying to hold things close. That’s what he seems to write about most these days. His most recent album was a love letter to his family and to his band.

Springsteen’s career has included 21 studio albums, 7 live albums, 17 compilations, more than 100 archival releases, scores of bootlegs, and countless songs still left in the can, unreleased, many of them excellent. No one has ever been as prolific.

Will this tour be his last? I don’t know. Will it be mine? Quite possibly. Who knows what the next few years will bring to an aging performer and his aging band, as well as to aging fans like me.

If I could go back in time to that 1978 show, I would. My first time with Bruce was by far the best. I was so close to him, could hear every word, could feel the fire.

When you’re sitting in a huge stadium, as I was on Thursday, so much is lost in the muddy din. The intimate connection just isn’t there. But the show was still three hours long, without a break. And it was still driven with high-octane energy, no different from every single show he’s ever done – from his time in Jersey bars more than 50 years ago to half-empty auditoriums in San Jose to sold-out arenas. He’s always given it everything he’s got.

Love you always, Bruce. There ain’t nobody, nowhere, nohow, who could ever understand me the way you did.

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Bruce Springsteen and “Miami Steve” Van Zandt, March 2024

***

COMMENTERS, PLEASE NOTE: WordPress is no longer supporting my particular page type and doesn’t seem to be asking commenters for their names, so everyone is identified as “Anonymous.” If you’re commenting (which I love!), please leave your name if you’d like me to know who you are!

***

Due to popular demand, I am including, at the end of each blog post, the latest random diary entries that I’ve been posting on Facebook for “Throwback Thursday.” These are all taken absolutely verbatim from the lengthy diaries I kept between 1970 and 1987.

July 25, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’m just so excited about going out of state on my East Coast trip in just a few days. The Rexall gang [where I had just quit working] gave me a soft pink luggage bag thing as a going-away gift, which is great because I hadn’t even thought of luggage! I bought a motorized splicer for my new Super 8 camera because I can’t afford a projector. I also did last-minute things like seeing Egghead [my allergist Dr. Egbert] for a shot, buying Travelers Checks, getting my hair rolled, reading some travel books, and buying some new clothes (I saved $60!). I had dinner tonight with [my friends] Robin and Guy, and it gave me feelings about early last summer when I’d always be running off to San Francisco, to City Lights bookstore and the Wharf, thinking of [my friend] Ted and listening to [Bob Dylan’s] ‘Girl From the North Country.’ It was a beautiful summer. I remember that I lay out on my balcony drinking beer, knowing I was going to leave school for a year and see the country like Kerouac, and the beer would dribble across my thoughts like the frothy fingers left behind by spent and sleepy ocean tides.”

July 30, 1975 [age 19] (staying in Virginia with my friend Jeanne’s family):

“Jeanne and I went to Washington, D.C. today. It’s a beautiful place with lots of trees and monuments. My favorite spot was the Air and Space Museum, where I actually saw the moon rock. I’d expected it to glow or at least look soft or something, but it was merely an ordinary rock.”

July 31, 1975 [age 19] (staying in Virginia with my friend Jeanne’s family):

“I did another ridiculous and stupid thing today. I took a shower and let the curtain hang OUTSIDE the tub rather than inside, and the floor was in inch-deep water when I stepped out. I had to sop it up with towels and wring out the rug on the porch. Jeanne’s mom didn’t look too pleased.”

August 8, 1975 [age 19] (staying in New Jersey with my friend Jeanne’s father):

“Jeanne and I headed out to New York today, bought a bunch of tickets for upcoming plays, walked around the Village, and decided to hit the bars. At the first one, the bartender showed me about putting coffee beans in Sambuca, a new drink I discovered that tastes like licorice. He said that with the three beans it’s called ‘Sambuca Romana con Mosca.’ There we met a girl who told us how to circumvent the cover charge at discos. She said you just say you’re meeting somebody – ‘Sam Bernstein,’ she said – and the person never comes and they feel sorry for you and let you stay in for free. Then we saw ‘Chicago’ with Liza Minelli standing in for the main actress Gwen Vernon [sic], who unfortunately had inhaled some confetti. Liza was good and Chita Rivera was in it also. We waited for Liza for 45 minutes after the show but she never came out. We went to two more bars afterwards and then we crawled onto the PATH [the train back to New Jersey], and we were laughing so hard, and talking and talking so much, that when the PATH reached its destination in Hoboken we never noticed and were oblivious that it was the last stop, so the train started going backwards and we had to go all the way back into New York and then do it all over again!”

August 10, 1975 [age 19] (staying in New Jersey with my friend Jeanne’s father):

“We saw ‘Godspell’ in New York today – it was so happy and joyous that I came out whistling ‘Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord.’ Then we went to the Village to eat supper at Hunan restaurant and Jeanne ordered Tanqueray. I thought maybe that was an exotic Asian drink so I said, ‘Give me the same,’ and it was just gin and tonic, which I totally hate. DUMB!”

August 12, 1975 [age 19] (leaving New Jersey and heading to Maine to join Jeanne’s husband Steve):

“Today was nuts. We were going to go to Woodstock, but then we got a flat tire in the middle of the New York State Thruway! A Thruway man came by, luckily, and he had to call another truck because none of us had the right size lug wrench [Jeanne had a Chevy El Camino]. We had to wait all that time with all these huge trucks whizzing by, and then it started to rain, which I couldn’t believe because there was no warning and it’s August! Also, my lunch had been so big – a HUGE eggplant parmigiana sandwich – that I began busting out of my blouse and had to change it right on the freeway!”

Turning a page

Last week I bid farewell to 33 of my books, and the trauma lingers.

Here’s the scenario.

I own 848 books. (I just counted them.) I have a living room bookcase for fiction and poetry; shelves in our guest room for books about sports, travel, and San Francisco; and, lining a wall in the study, built-in bookshelves that hold the rest of my nonfiction collection.

Against another wall in the study is a freestanding bookcase that holds the 109 books I haven’t yet read.

Except for those unopened few, I’ve read every book on my shelves. Cover to cover. Even the Bible, including “the begats.” I don’t believe in displaying books that I haven’t read because in my opinion that would be dishonest showboating.

But let me also come clean about something.

Ever since I moved into my own San Francisco apartment 45 years ago, I’ve meticulously set out on display every one of my books because, in my imagination, all of my visitors – friends, colleagues, prospective love interests – would come through my door and gaze in wonder at the hundreds of books in my library. These visitors would then check out all the titles, appraise my varied interests, come to a deep understanding of who I am as a person, and marvel at what a well-rounded intellectual I am.

There are, however, two problems with this:

I’m not an intellectual.
No one, in 45 years, has ever done this. No one at all has shown one iota of interest in what books I’ve read. Not in my Inner Sunset studio, not in my Lower Pacific Heights flat, not in my Richmond District apartment, not in my Sunset District rental house, and not in my current home. Not once.

(By the way, as proof that I’m not an intellectual, the next book on my reading list is Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards.)

***

My parents taught me to read when I was three years old. (Although that’s commonplace now, it was virtually unheard of when I was a child, back in the Pleistocene Epoch.) My kindergarten teacher would often plop me in a big chair à la Edith Ann and ask me to read to the class if she needed to leave the room. In those days, children learned to read at school in the first grade, so my initial few weeks as a first-grader were extremely taxing for me. I’d come home crying because I was given assignments like coloring a piece of paper that had only a big “B” on it. Yeeks, I was bored out of my skull. So everyone decided that I’d skip ahead and immediately slide right into second grade. I had a few problems at first, especially because as a November baby I was already young to begin with. During my first few days as a newcomer in that class I earned my first “F” from our very mean, Germanic, old, big-boned, buxom despot of a teacher, Mrs. Haller. She scrawled on my paper that I “didn’t know how to follow directions.” Well, for cryin’ out loud, I was only five!

But I ended up okay. I was more immature and naïve than my classmates throughout my school years, but I fell in with the right crowd and held my own, for the most part.

Meanwhile, my love for reading never waned – through the Golden Books period, the Scholastic Book Club era, the Junior Classics epoch, and on into adulthood.

***

A few years ago, as my collection was growing and I began to insist on strewing more bookcases around the house, Julie suggested that she move her desk out of our study and hire someone to line that wall with bookshelves. Although she never said it, I think she was panicking that we have very little room in our small house, that my bookcases would take over and create a very unpleasing aesthetic, and that this was an emergency situation. So, in a desperate move, she gave up her half of the study. I now have beautiful mahogany floor-to-ceiling bookshelves complete with lights.

*Note my prized photo of me with John Densmore (drummer for The Doors)*

(These are not, by the way, staged books stacked alongside vintage vases and bronze lamps – a trend called “bookshelf wealth,” according to a recent New York Times article. I’m looking at the shelves now and all I can see are books, an old radio, a jar of coins, a broken Thunderbird model, and my grandfather’s 8mm movie cameras.)

Julie, meanwhile, now does all of her computer work while slouched on our living room sofa. She still believes that she got the better end of the deal and that it was all worth it.

***

Although I am really, truly, desperately trying to stop acquiring so many new books, I recently started to panic when I realized that my “unread” shelves were packed in so tightly that soon there would be no room to handle any new additions. So I boxed up the 33 unread books that I deemed expendable and drove to Potrero Hill last week to donate them to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. I chose volumes that I’ve carried with me from place to place throughout my life even though I’ve always known full well I would never read them. They included torn, ancient works about Victorian manners and a huge collection of mediocre Reader’s Digest poetry.

Nevertheless, I had a sense of unease about it, hoping I’d have no regrets. After all, those books will have left me behind silently, without ever uttering a word.

***

I still can’t part with any of the books I’ve already finished. It may be silly, but I feel that they are pieces of me. They’re the chapters of my life: 1930s children’s books handed down by my father; cheap, well-worn volumes I carried home like treasures from used bookstores near college; Beat Generation literature I gobbled up in City Lights bookstore, just before I decided to move to San Francisco; works that moved me to visit places I’d never been, try food I’d never tried, listen to music I’d never heard; and books I’ve read on beaches or on trains, or while drinking coffee and eating sunflower seeds on foggy Sunday mornings.

I’ve kept a list since 1973 of every book I’ve read. Flipping through those lists re-creates, for me, the stages of my life, the changes, the evolution.

(Or devolution, as the case may be. As I mentioned, my next book will be Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards.)

Why else am I reluctant to get rid of books? I guess I’m loath to toss out the work of artists who labored over their writing. It’s agony, sometimes, to write. How could I so cavalierly disrespect an author?

Or maybe it’s something entirely different. Maybe I’m thinking about “someday.”

Someday I’ll be bedridden with a terrible disease and will have nothing to do but read my unopened 109 books. So obviously I must keep them! Of course, in my diseased and weakened state, there’s no way I’ll be able to lift my multiple 4-pound (I weighed them) Autobiography of Mark Twain volumes, or even balance them on my withered chest. But keep them I will, because what if I have a sudden hankering to pore over one of Twain’s letters?

Then, when I’ve run though all those unread volumes but am still confined to bed, I may want to re-read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. You never know.

***

So what happens next? Even now that I’ve relinquished my 33 volumes, I don’t have enough space on my shelves because I continue to discover – and then buy – new books. It’s an addiction I can’t quit!

People also will continue to gift me books, which I welcome because I love surprises – especially ones that contradict my innate tendency to make immediate, unreasonable judgments. My friend Julie R. gave me The Warmth of Other Suns a few years ago, and I was dismayed. I dreaded having to read it. I didn’t know what it was about, but I did know that it was a 640-page nonfiction work penned by an academic. GROAN! I threw a massive internal fit. Well, it turns out that the book follows three families during the Great Migration of black Americans out of the South during the last century. It’s beautiful, riveting, nerve-racking, powerful, emotional, and all-around intoxicating. I mean, an absolute page-turner! One of my all-time favorite books, despite my lunatic misgivings.

I will say that I’m starting to download books occasionally on my Kindle now, even though for years I swore I’d never commit such blasphemy. I limit those purchases to works that I think wouldn’t impress my nonexistent imaginary visitor who has absolutely no interest in my bookshelves.

I suppose I could also just go to the library and check out books. I do, after all, have a library card. We have a small branch library just 6 lovely, walkable blocks away, and I’ve been in there only once or twice. A travesty. Okay, a visit to that place is now on my nonexistent list of New Year’s resolutions.

***

May 13, 1975 [age 19]:

“I can’t breathe. It has gone from cold, rainy days to sweltering hot 90-degree weather in a couple of days and I simply can’t breathe. My nose is totally plugged from hay fever. I’m sore from head to toe from softball yesterday. I’m a physical wreck, as usual. It isn’t even the things I was born with that are bothering me today, like my long nose and fat legs. No, it’s the fact that I don’t really know enough to wear makeup or cut my hair or wear feminine clothes. I took one good look at myself in the mirror this evening and could’ve killed myself right there on the spot.”

May 15, 1975 [age 19]:

“Yesterday our country bombed three Cambodian boats in retaliation for their seizure of our merchant marine vessel – it was the right move to make after all but it scared the living daylights out of me. Just the day before, [my friend] Joe got official notice from the army that his classification had been changed from a ‘holding’ status to 1-A and that he should go down to fill out papers or something. And when I thought of the possibilities of more war, and the fact that Joe could go, all young and innocent and in love with the Moody Blues and sportscars, and be shot up by some man he never even met – I could never shoot Joe! But then at night we rescued our Americans and the Cambodian army gave up and we’re out of danger. I never want to go through another war – never see [my friends] Ted or Joe or Morris or [my brother] Marc die for nothing.”

May 19, 1975 [age 19]:

“Today is my half-birthday. I never really believed that I’d live this long. But I’ve got so very much living to do – ‘all that hitchhikin’, all that railroadin’, all that comin’ back to America’ (Kerouac). I should also think about falling in love, too, but I’ve been busy.”

May 23, 1975 [age 19]:

“When [at work] we were told that due to cutbacks we might not all be hired again next year, I tore my hair and decided to really have a good time at the Chicago/Beach Boys [‘Day on the Green’] concert tomorrow. We’re going to go in Frank’s van. So all afternoon and night I whizzed around, paid my fees at State, got my [allergy] shot, ate my free coupon’s worth of Bumbleberry Pie in Eastridge, and bought a boda bag and a bottle of wine and a small bottle of Tequila Sunrise. Then Ted and Joe and I drove to Togo’s to buy sandwiches, planning to go miniature golfing afterwards. After we’d waited in line they ran out of bread, so we cursed and walked to a corner store which by luck made sandwiches. We made the poor guy make 16 sandwiches.”

May 24, 1975 [age 19]:

“Day on the Green: Chicago/Beach Boys/Bob Seger/Commander Cody/New Riders of the Purple Sage. It was SCORCHING – everyone was out in their bathing suits or bare chests and even in my traditional jeans and t-shirt I got sunburned. Joe and Ted and Frank and I were always clapping and moving and standing up. Of course, we’d been taking glubs out of our boda bags and we love music anyway and the Beach Boys were so astoundingly good in person that they stole the show. [Name omitted] gave Joe and me about 9 joints. One of them was supposed to be Acapulco Gold, the good stuff, but it must not have been from Acapulco because after smoking two I was still waiting for whatever it is that’s supposed to happen. I wanted to be down on the lawn instead of in the stands. Where we were sitting, there weren’t very many enthusiasts, except for a small group of teenyboppers. At one point Bruce even fell asleep with his head bent forward! That was incomprehensible to me! By the way, I’m writing this on Sunday, and I was paranoid all morning that I’d smell like pot at Church.”

June 14, 1975 [age 19]:

“This summer I’m going to spend revamping my entire body.”

June 19, 1975 [age 19]:

“I spent hours getting my [very long] hair cut off yesterday. I really like it short because one, it’s a change, and two, it’s easy to wash, and three, it’s a big heavy load off my head, and four, if I go to the beach now I won’t have to worry about how to wear it in the water. My major worry is my inability when it comes to rolling it up. I hate it when I allow my petty apprehensions to control myself so much. But I got an awful lot of compliments today and it made me happy. It’s like a weight has been lifted off of me. I ran downstairs and told Mom and Dad, ‘You know, my introversion and everything, now I think it was all because of my HAIR! Something oppressive’s been removed. I’m ecstatic!’ Well, the exaggeration is apparent, but it’s partly true and I feel free now. This morning I bounced into [my allergist’s] office carefree as blazes. It was gray and cloudy, windy and drizzly, but my spirits soared (and I bought a new pen!).”

June 23, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’m so excited! I called [my East Coast friend] Jeanne today and we made plans for me to go visit her in July for about a month! I will fly into Washington rather than South Carolina; doing that, we could travel wildly up the coast towards Maine, where we’ll meet [her husband] Steve and then buzz back down to S.C. to folic at the beach. Before then, I have a list of frantic preparations to do, including working on my car and learning how to wash clothes, roll my hair, and dance.”

July 18, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’ve bought a movie camera! I really need to document my trip to the East Coast this summer, when I’m sure I’ll be sitting in a bar in New York drinking tequila. I decided on the Bolex 350, which I bought at San Jose Camera. You can even take indoor pictures without movie lights! It was a very big decision, made with trembling hand and voice.”

Man, why don’t you sing?

In the late 1800s in West Virginia, a railroad worker named John Henry, built like Hercules, entered into a hammering competition with a newly invented steam-powered drilling machine.

John Henry won.

The effort, though, killed him, and he died at the scene in his wife’s arms.

The story turned into a song. More than 200 versions of it exist.

It could be merely folklore, this tale. But it turns out to be, most likely, quite real.

John Henry, who died with a hammer in his hand, was a 5-foot 1-inch Black man, on loan from the Virginia state penitentiary.

***

As I’ve mentioned before, as a very young child I listened incessantly to an album called America on the Move, which featured folk songs about trains and railroads. I was particularly obsessed with a tune called “John Henry”:

When John Henry was a little baby
Sittin’ on his daddy’s knee
He said, “The Big Bend Tunnel on the C&O Road
And the hammer’s gonna be the death of me, Lord,
The hammer’s gonna be the death of me.”

Now the captain said to John Henry,“
Gonna bring me a steam drill ’round.
Gonna take that steam drill out on the job.
Gonna whop that steel on down, Lord.
Whop that steel on down.”

Well, John Henry said to his shaker,
“Man, why don’t you sing?
I’m throwin’ 12 pounds from my hip on down.
Just listen to that cold steel ring, Lord.
Listen to that cold steel ring.”

Well, John Henry swung the hammer over his head.
He brought the hammer down to the ground.
A man in Chattanooga 200 miles away
Said, “Listen to that rumblin’ sound, Lord.
Listen to that rumblin’ sound.”

Now, the man who invented the steam drill
Thought he was mighty fine.
Well, John Henry drove about 15 feet
And the steam drill only made 9, Lord,
The steam drill only made 9.

John Henry said to his shaker,
“Man, why don’t you pray,
’Cause if I miss with this 9-pound hammer
Why, tomorrow be my buryin’ day, Lord.
Tomorrow be my buryin’ day.”

Oh, they took John Henry to the graveyard
And they buried him in the hot sand.
And every locomotive come rollin’ by
Says, “There lies a steel-drivin’ man, Lord.
There lies a steel-drivin’ man.”

Just about every singer who represents American culture has covered this song – folkies, rockers, and troubadours from Pete Seeger to Harry Belafonte to Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen.

The most rollicking version is Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions cut. Check it out here and get ready to rollick:

***

The endless permutations of “John Henry” lyrics reflect the multiple theories about the man himself. His story may be 100 percent fact or 100 percent folk tale. But I believe it’s a little bit of both. I think it emerged from truth and picked up scraps of mythology as it rolled down the track.

Historian and professor Scott Reynolds Nelson of the University of Georgia may have uncovered much of the real story. In his 2006 book Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend, he documents the existence of a 19-year-old Black man named John William Henry imprisoned at Richmond’s Virginia Penitentiary in 1866 – one year after the end of the Civil War. That prisoner had been arrested for shoplifting but convicted of burglary and sentenced to 10 years after an unjust trial. Now, I’m a very strict law-and-order gal, but a decade in prison for shoplifting seems like a wildly disproportionate punishment.

Then, partway into his sentence, John Henry was assigned to private contractors to do railroad work.

During Reconstruction after the Civil War, constructing a mammoth railroad system seemed like a perfect way to reunite a fractured country. The C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) Railway was being built from Richmond, Virginia over the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River in the new state of West Virginia – a critical first link in a dream of connecting the south to the north. (It would eventually reach all the way to Chicago.) Collis P. Huntington, one of the Big Four railroad magnates, was called in to lead the effort. And he needed labor – lots of it.

Freed former slaves began signing on in droves to work for the railroads, even though they labored in a lonely, cramped, dangerous, and nearly inhospitable environment. It was, I suppose, at least a notch above slavery. But the companies needed even more workers, so they commonly turned to convict leasing. They “rented” prisoners at an extremely low price but had no incentive to treat these new “employees” well. More than 200 prisoners were leased from the VA State Penitentiary in the late 1860s.

John Henry’s 10-year prison sentence – beyond being an unusually harsh punishment at the time – was in actuality a death sentence, according to Nelson, because very few men survived 10 years at the Virgina Penitentiary under its filthy conditions. So it may have seemed like good fortune to Mr. Henry, initially, that he was sent out to work on the C&O railroad under his convict labor lease deal.

And the good fortune to the railroad? A prisoner’s lease cost only 25 cents a day.

***

John Henry was assigned to a team that worked on drilling tunnels through miles of hard granite. Even though he seems to stand 7 feet tall in the public’s imagination, amazingly his prison records list him as 5 feet 1 inch, which, if true, actually would have suited him for tunnel work.

According to the song, John Henry was a steel driver – a laborer who repeatedly hammered hefty spikes into rocks. A steel driver would work alongside a “shaker” who held the spikes in place and rotated them after each blow. Once the hole was sufficiently large, it would be filled with explosives by a “blaster” and more of the tunnel would be blown away. Initially, before the use of nitroglycerin, the holes were fist-sized and filled with gunpowder.

The men worked 12 hours at a stretch, but the mountains were hard shale, and the work produced only a few inches of tunnel each day. Imagine how dispiriting that must have been.

(By the way, the shaker’s side-to-side movement of the drill bit between hammer blows was called “rocking”; twisting the bit was called “rolling.” So “rock and roll,” according to Nelson, was originally an old mining term before it evolved into a euphemism for sex and then the name for simple chords and a driving beat.)

***

One of the most harrowing tasks for the C&O steel drivers was blasting a tunnel through Big Bend Mountain west of Talcott in West Virginia. The mountain was more than a mile thick, and it took 1,000 men three years to finish it in 1873. During that time, falling rock killed many a man and many a mule.

Then along came the invention of a new steam-powered drill. Huntington needed to get the tunnels blasted more quickly in order to acquire the rights to the entire rail line. He’d already gotten the cheap labor; now he thought the steel drill would be the answer to his production problems because it wouldn’t rely on human muscle for the hammering.

But reality would prove that the machine operated more slowly than its hype and had a tendency to get clogged up by the powdered sediment.

So somebody dreamed up the idea of a competition between man and machine.

John Henry, by then renowned as the world’s best steel driver, was matched against the new drill at Big Bend. (Or so the legend goes. There’s some evidence, and Nelson believes, that the contest actually occurred at the Lewis Tunnel, about 40 or 50 miles away.) The competition lasted through the night and into the next day. John Henry, with his powerful muscles and his 12-pound hammer, won the contest, allegedly driving 15 feet while the machine could manage only 9.

The story goes that John Henry immediately succumbed from exhaustion. It may instead have been a heart attack, a stroke, or some other mining-related condition like acute silicosis, a lung disease (sometimes mislabeled as “consumption”) caused by the inhalation of small pieces of crystalline rock produced by the splintering of granite. The disease was so common among the tunnel workers that most of them died less than 10 years after they started working on the rocks.

John Henry’s wife, Polly Ann, was allegedly at his side when he died, and he left behind a baby.

***

The lyrics in one version of the song (“They took John Henry to the white house/And buried him in the sand”) were somewhat of a mystery until Nelson immersed himself in the research. After discovering an old Virginia Penitentiary postcard, Nelson concluded that the “white house” is a reference to a ditch behind a white building at the prison where hundreds of unmarked graves of men 18–30 years old were discovered about 30 years ago, and where locomotives “come rollin’ by.” There’s a train in the postcard.

The C&O Railroad was legally bound to ultimately send all prisoners back to the penitentiary – even those who died on the job.

Three hundred Black convicts died while working on the C&O and were shipped back to Richmond.

No further prison records exist for John Henry after he was sent out, so it’s likely that he didn’t make it back alive.

***

And what about the song itself? Nelson says that it started out as a “hammer song” – a tune sung by workers as they labored on the rail lines. It was about backbone and guts. Hammer songs were sung very slowly so that workers would let up a bit and avoid death by exertion.

“John Henry” would later become a blues lament when the Great Migration that started in the early 1900s brought Blacks out of the south and into New York and Chicago in search of jobs.

But it wasn’t necessarily only about race. Fiddlin’ John Carson, a white country singer, recorded it in 1924; he’d been a textile mill worker and Nelson thinks the song spoke to overworked laborers in general who were “fighting the machine.”

*Charles Seeger, his wife Constance, and children, including Pete on his lap, 1921*

Then “eventually the Communist Party takes it up,” says Nelson. “Charles Seeger [father of folk singer Pete Seeger] is responsible. . . . He sees it as about fighting against the capitalist machine. . . . It was used to organize Black workers. John Henry becomes this sort of poster boy who becomes the true American hero who fights against capitalism and ultimately is destroyed.”

Songwriters are our “enduring historians.”* Their works, passed down through generations, preserve the actual experiences of people whose stories might otherwise be censored or bent into a distorted narrative. The songs keep us from forgetting.

***

In the 1970s, epidemiologist Sherman James – now an emeritus professor of public policy at Duke University – was researching racial health disparities when he met a Black man who’d been born into a poor sharecropper family. The man had educated himself and acquired 75 acres of farmland, but he suffered from severe hypertension and peptic ulcers by the time was in his fifties. His name was, interestingly enough, John Henry Martin.

Dr. James eventually developed a concept called “John Henryism,” evoking both Mr. Martin and the John Henry of lore. The hypothesis was that chronic exposure to social stresses like intense bigotry can force people to expend such high levels of effort to cope with the stress that they suffer premature physiological costs. Exploitation and discrimination, Dr. James theorized, often compel people to go to superhuman lengths to prove their worth – working much harder than expected and exhibiting ferocious commitment to their jobs.

***

Some folk heroes are real, like Joe Hill, Calamity Jane, Johnny Appleseed, John Brown, Casey Jones, Spartacus.

Some – like Robin Hood – are debatable.

And others are clearly imagined.

But their commonality is that they’re generally not appointed leaders. They’re regular people, often from humble beginnings, who rise to the occasion when confronted with injustice.

On its basic level, John Henry’s story is just about a man with strength that few men possess. He’s like the fabled Paul Bunyan – the gigantic lumberjack whose likeness has inspired many a statue, along with his colossal blue ox “Babe.” A superhero, if you will. Simple as that.

Assuming Nelson’s research is relevant, though, John Henry’s life also reflects the consequences of the abuse that many accused and convicted Black men had to endure after the Civil War.

On an even larger scale, the story is about the potential effects of careless capitalism on the working class when employers without a conscience rely on hubris and greed and neglect the heart. The railroad barons, for example, would exploit former slaves, Chinese immigrants, and other hard-working laborers for years.

I believe wholeheartedly in capitalism, but as with everything else, it has the potential to veer out of control.

So is the story of John Henry uplifting or distressing? After all, John Henry’s victory proved also to be his demise.

Well, I want it to be a hopeful story.

I want to believe in a world in which the unique qualities of human beings will always transcend technology. That’s a fragile notion that could capsize in the oncoming AI wave, but let’s hope our greater angels keep us afloat.

I also want to believe in that moment when a little guy stands up to the big guy with all the power – and wins.

And because today’s world has grown increasingly disturbing, maybe I’m yearning for something fantastical that can save us from ourselves. I want to believe that it’s entirely possible.

***

At some point in the early 1870s, a huge rockfall in the Big Bend Tunnel killed an entire train crew, prompting the C&O to begin lining the inside of the tunnel with brick.

During that effort – which took 10 years and more than 6 million bricks – workers claimed to have seen John Henry’s ghost and heard the cold steel ring of his hammer.

Well every Monday morning
When the bluebirds begin to sing
You can hear John Henry a mile or more
You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring, Lord, Lord
You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring

Anything is possible.

***

* My dentist Dr. J.H. recently used this phrase about storytellers in a piece she wrote about her family history, and I am shamelessly cribbing it.

***

April 19, 1975 [age 19]:

“I decided that I’m going to quit [Rexall Drugs] on July 16^th, and it took me all day long to get up the courage to let [my boss] Mr. Jordahl know of my plans. I finally decided, when I was doing the ring-out and he was about to leave, but even then I put it off, my heart beat a hundred miles a minute and my throat throbbed and got heavy and I began to sweat like a pig, I mean I could SMELL myself, so when I calmed down I forced myself to blurt, ‘James Lick [High School] has given me an offer for next year which I couldn’t refuse,’ and I emphasized that it wasn’t personal. He looked sad at first, said [another employee] was leaving, too, and that he wanted to move to Seattle. I felt so sorry for him. But then he said something like, ‘Maybe we won’t be able to accommodate you till the 15^th, if we find someone sooner,” and I thought of how many years I’d been there and my face grew hot with anger.”

April 20, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’m worried about my social limitations and that living in the dorms will be hell on me in the fall. But instead of dwelling on that, I went to the liquor store to see [my friend] Morris and to exchange enthusiasms about the summer.”

April 28, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’m so bright-eyed about going back to school in the fall! [My brother] Marc brought me a new schedule of classes and there were all kinds of neat classes I’m interested in: ‘Backpacking,’ ‘Autobiography Writing,’ ‘James Joyce,’ and ‘Narcotics Abuse.’ ”

April 29, 1975 [age 19]:

“Hay fever season is going to be bad this year – today I sneezed continuously all the way home from Lick [High School]. Nonstop. So at work I sniffled and blew until Ola [the pharmacist] shoved some Actifed at me. That medication just mellows me out and mixes me up.”

May 3, 1975 [age 19]:

“[One of the high school teachers I worked with] told me she was really unhappy yesterday and I really think I know what her deep problem is – and this is PURE conjecture. I think she may be a homosexual who is losing her best friend (they’re roommates) to a man, and she is suddenly seeing that life for her does not hold the same promise that it does for everyone else. Why does God make people who have to feel like outcasts?? ‘What is there to live for?’ she said to me. And I felt like jumping up and screaming, ‘Well, look at me! I work 50 hours a week, I don’t have anyone, I’m neurotically introverted, I’m lonely . . . . So what do I live for? For the Moody Blues, good food, blue jeans, Santa Cruz, red sunsets, pancake breakfasts, Jack Kerouac, my guitar, empty streets at midnight – all the LITTLE things!’ ”

May 12, 1975 [age 19]:

“I went down to play softball with our neighborhood gang tonight, and of the uncomfortable results – namely, mosquito bites and terrible hay fever – only one was sufficient to cause me to grieve: I’ve lost my touch. Out of approximately 9 times at bat I got only one hit. The rest of my efforts dribbled out to the pitcher. I used to be GREAT! I could hit [my friend] Ted’s basketball hoop from any corner, I could outrun anyone in touch football, I could snag any ball that came within 40 feet of me at first base. And now – it’s disgusting. Humiliating, mostly. The demise of my youth. And the decline of a neighborhood hero.”

Smoke and mirrors

“If someone wants my bra, they can have it,” a woman in the waiting room announced.

I looked up. She’d been fussing with a set of lockers where those of us waiting for mammograms had been instructed to put our clothes and personal items, and she’d given up. “I can’t figure out how to lock it, so I’m just leaving it wide open,” she declared.

This week I had three medical appointments. All of them were routine, but I was royally stressed out the entire week.

Don’t get me wrong. Medical issues don’t scare me, I have a fairly high pain tolerance, and I’m not unduly fazed by the physical vagaries of aging. But appointments these days require the ability to navigate technology, rapid-fire instructions, mazelike offices, and complicated parking lots. Those are the things that scare me.

As I often joke, if someone were to tell me, “Paula, you have three months to live, and during that time you’re going to go through multiple rounds of traumatic medical treatments,” my response would be, “Well, that’s fine, but oh my God, WHERE AM I GOING TO PARK?”

Appointments involve, for me, a host of challenging and frightening steps. First, as a “pre-check-in,” I’m asked to fill out lengthy online questionnaires that, for reasons unknown, I then have to repeat when I get to the office. These involve recalling the dates of my childhood surgeries, all of my relatives’ health issues, and the exact day my period stopped. I don’t remember any of that.

(A few months ago I panicked at a questionnaire and forgot my address. Moments like that are particularly alarming to me because my father, his only sibling, and his mother all died of Alzheimer’s. It’s constantly on my mind – so much so that I participate in an ongoing UC San Francisco study called the Brain Health Registry, in which every few months I take mental acuity tests and answer other questions about my lifestyle including diet, alcohol use, social life, etc. I was asked to designate a “study partner,” and I chose Julie, of course, who herself participates by answering questions about me every six months. Despite my existential dread she continues to insist that, while I remain convinced that I’m slowly losing my mind, in actual fact I haven’t shown clear-cut evidence of that. “No,” she repeats every time I nag about it, “I’m reporting to UCSF that as of today, at least, you still seem to have all your marbles.”)

The day before the appointment I need to remember whether I am allowed to eat, drink, take my statin, or wear deodorant. So I post signs to myself around the house in enormous black Sharpie lettering.

Then comes the horror of all urban horrors: I have to navigate my way to the offices (scattered all over the city) and decide where on earth I’m going to park and, more dauntingly, how the parking lot works when inevitably I can’t find a spot on the street.

(Last year, for one particular parking lot, I typed up a long Word document as soon as I got home, instructing my future self about how to use the payment machines because it nearly took a degree in advanced physics to figure them out. But when I arrived at the same lot recently, those machines were gone and new ones had taken their place, with even more complex instructions! Upon exit I flapped, twirled, and waved my ticket around in front of the “Scan Your Ticket” rectangle for a solid 10 minutes while cars waiting to leave were piling up behind me, until I gave up and slapped the ticket drunkenly near a different rectangle until the gate finally opened, prompting a roar of applause from the backed-up cars. Well, it wasn’t exactly applause, but that’s how I chose to imagine it.)

Needless to say, by the time I arrive at the office I am usually bathed in sweat and anxiety. (And yet they won’t let me wear deodorant!)

Once safely inside, I’m shuttled from one check-in line to another before being hustled down the hall by a 23-year-old auctioneer who barks instructions at all of us uncomprehending oldsters. When she’s done with her rapid-fire spiel I just want to cry out, “Huh?” But instead I’m fighting hard to remember which way the gown is supposed to face, which clothes I have to take off, where the lockers are, how they function, and in which direction I will need to head for the next room, where someone is inevitably waiting for me while snickering.

And do I keep my socks on? I never know the answer to that one.

After the appointment comes what is often my biggest challenge: finding my way out of the exam room through a labyrinthine tangle of hallways back to the waiting room and out the door. Usually I circle the area, ask no fewer than 14 people how to get out of there, retrace my steps twice, and then accidentally find the exit. Once finally out the door, I breathe in a bracing gulp of San Francisco air, make a grateful sign of the cross, drive home, and immediately reward myself with a shot of liquor, time of day notwithstanding.

Anyway, back to Friday. There I was in the mammogram waiting room, puzzling over the locker situation and what to do with my clothes. There were about 16 lockers and eventually I chose locker number 4, successfully stuffing my belongs inside and locking the door on only the second try. Now, what else did I need to remember? Oh, yes – which locker was it?? “Number 4, number 4, don’t forget number 4,” I repeated silently. I was mastering this! (Unlike the hapless woman with the hanging bra.)

Except she wasn’t hapless. She was a tall, lithe, sophisticated woman 10 or 15 years my junior. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I assumed that that evening she’d be doing an academic book reading in front of an appreciative highbrow audience.

The third woman in the waiting room was actually repeating “locker 6,” “locker 6,” “locker 6” out loud, and she looked to be cosmopolitan as well. She had the pampered skin of a successful woman who probably went to the spa on a weekly basis. I figured she had to hail from Marin County.

“By the way, did you figure out how to park?” I asked her.

“Oh, that’s the only thing I didn’t have to worry about. I walked here because I live in the Marina,” she said.

Well, I was close.

The elegant author lady piped up and said that she takes cell phone photos every time she parks anywhere. She photographs street signs, parking lot positions, the angle of her car, everything. Otherwise, she claimed, she’d be doomed.

The Marina lady then proceeded to tell us about the time she forgot her locker number when she was at Disneyland, of all places. Not only had she forgotten the number, but she’d forgotten the location of the entire building.

After a few minutes, all of us were comparing notes about our inanities. It began to dawn on me that perhaps I’m not the only person in the world who dreads going to medical offices, gas stations, salad bars, City Hall, and grocery checkout lines for fear of embarrassing myself. Perhaps I’m not singularly inept. Perhaps I’m not losing my head while everyone around me is keeping theirs.

We’re all human beings, aren’t we? Maybe we need to not be so self-critical. We’re all bozos on this bus.

“You know,” I told the author lady, “I always feel that I’m a bumbling fool while people like you seem to have it all together.”

“It’s all smoke and mirrors, my friend,” she answered. “All smoke and mirrors.”

***

NOTE RE COMMENTS: Apparently WordPress is no longer asking commenters for their names, so everyone is being listed as “Anonymous.” If you’re commenting (which I love!), please leave your name if you’d like me to know who you are!

***

March 22, 1975 [age 19]:

“These two days have been both crazy and quiet, fun and disaster. [I was the maid of honor in my friend Robin’s wedding.] Friday night I drove down to Carmel with Robin and Guy. I’d had a small dinner at home, and we stopped in Gilroy to get some junk – cracker jacks, cookies, peanuts, pies, shoestring potatoes. But when we arrived they had dinner waiting for us! I could have puked! Lasagna, chicken, salad, and cheese pie. That night Robin rolled my hair and said she’d call me in the morning. Well, I woke from a dream at 6:30 a.m. thinking I was hearing a voice calling “Paula, PAULA!” and I rushed out into the hall like a fool, and no one was there. In the afternoon I took a long hot bath and I brought the shower curtain smashing down on my head. An hour before the wedding I was alone with Robin and her mother in the church dressing room where we beautified ourselves. I had my long royal blue dress on and a cross that Robin had given me and my hair tied back – I actually looked nicer than I’ve ever looked! I was nervous but managed to not flub up the ring-giving or the bouquet-passing. It was a short but moving ceremony that made me cry. At 8:00 I went upstairs to help get Robin ready to go, in the meanwhile going to the bathroom and discovering to my horror that the ties on my dress had been six inches submerged in the toilet.”

March 28, 1975 [age 19]:

“San Francisco again, this time with [my brother] Marc. We did an awful lot of driving around looking for parking lots. Also, on the way up there, we had an urge to suddenly turn off the freeway and look for a doughnut place proclaimed by Bruce Bishop to be heavenly. I liked the plain fried ones. In San Francisco we chased around City Lights and a few more record stores and bookstores and then went off to the Exploratorium. I wanted to go get lox and bagels afterwards, but Marc said he wasn’t hungry and couldn’t eat more than ‘one lock.’ That sent me into hysterics.”

April 2, 1975 [age 19]:

“Dr. Egbert [my allergist] informed me today that I have to start getting shots twice a week because I am allergic to dust, some trees, ragweed, bagweed, schmagweed, and every single kind of grass.”

April 3, 1975 [age 19]:

“The skies rained gray today and my [great aunt] Nella was buried. I was teary-eyed and wracked. I thought of all of our neglect of old people – damn damn damn we NEGLECT them so! I saw how our realities are so different – I’m hung up on Kerouac and the Byrds and I guzzle beer and write journals and they watch death grab their friends as they wearily dwell on remembrances.”

April 5, 1975 [age 19]:

“Coming out of Church tonight I saw [my friend and neighbor] Ted for a moment, and when I made as if to say goodbye he hesitated. Earlier during the Kiss of Peace I’d turned and seen him two rows behind, and I touched his hand with a smile big as the sky. So he hesitated outside and asked, ‘Why don’t we ever DO anything anymore?’ School, work, school, work. I want so much and try so hard to hold on to everyone but people go by the wayside sometimes. ‘Wait till summer,’ I promised, ‘just wait till summer.’ ”

April 9, 1975 [age 19]:

“Mom is having terrible trouble with her arm – they shot cortisone in her and took x-rays and still don’t know what it is. What if it’s cancer? Mom is the person I love the most in this world, and if she were to die I just couldn’t, I wouldn’t, I don’t even know, I couldn’t survive. I’d fall apart. I mean, I would be absolutely devastated if Dad or Marc or Janine died, of course, but Mom – I just couldn’t take it emotionally or physically. I pray every night that her smoking won’t cripple or blacken her lungs beyond repair.”

April 10, 1975 [age 19]:

“A couple of projects I’ve been working on lately: 1) Getting a BankAmericard. They sent me back a note saying that I had insufficient credit information to warrant their issuing me a card. Chevron had also rejected me. I turned to Mom in despair and asked how the heck I could ever START credit when they all say no because I haven’t started yet?! 2) Sending inquiries out to 13 firms recommended by the Library of Congress in search of Jack Kerouac’s spoken recordings. 3) Oh, yes, and getting rid of my athlete’s foot and my corn, succeeding only with the former.”

April 12, 1975 [age 19]:

“I saw three movies today in between a million other things. I had zwieback and coffee for breakfast, listened to a record for [my brother] Marc to see if there any scratches on it, cleaned the inside of my car, drove to the Pruneyard to see ‘Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ (alternating between laughing and crying), which was a great movie but I almost hit a kid in the parking lot, came home, washed the outside of the car, looked through a book of poems and songs to get ideas for my journal, washed my hair, listened to one of my vacation cassettes, read Tom Wolfe, ate dinner, and went to church. Then Ted drove us all to Blossom Hill to see ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ and my very first complete X-rated movie, ‘Emmanuel.’ All night long I had second thoughts about seeing that one, especially because I’d be with four guys, but I really wanted to see ‘The Owl and the Pussycat,’ which was first, and I knew that if I were too grossed out by the X-movie I could leave and slink into another theater. But I didn’t leave. I might even see another one sometime.”

April 14, 1975 [age 19]:

“I accompanied Elba Galindez to Round Table Pizza today where we sat for an hour, jabbering. Elba was in my 2^nd period science class [where I was a high school teacher’s aide] before she transferred to Campbell High School, where she was so racially ostracized that she moved back into this area last week. Her tales of her short sojourn at the upperclass white school made me hate all the distrust in the world. But her stories about her life in New York, San Francisco, Puerto Rico, and San Jose were so interesting that I just sat there enthralled, popping a million questions at her. And what stories could I tell? What do I do besides read and write and work? What great places have I been to besides San Franciso only 50 miles away?”

April 15, 1975 [age 19]:

“These are my fantasies lately: [My friend and neighbor] Ted and I roaring across the country this summer in a big old bus like the Merry Pranksters had, painted vivid red and orange, eating all kinds of bulk cheap foods, playing cards, burning across the night in frenzied excitement, lying in one sleeping bag as we did at Clear Lake last year, me playing with his hair in the nighttime breeze, buzzing into the East on a warm sunny morning, drinking rum in a New York City bar, and ending back here in Frisco holding hands and eating chocolate down by the water.”

April 16, 1975 [age 19]:

“GREAT NEWS TODAY! Mr Ledesma has nearly solved all of my problems! He told me that it is almost a certainty that they will hire me again part-time next year [as a high school teacher’s aide]; all I need do is clear it with Mr. Peters [the vice-principal] tomorrow and I’ll be set. I can quit Rexall [Drugstore] now and live in the dorms next semester and work here part time. Even if I work only three hours a day, I’ll be getting about $150 a month. And this summer I can be FREE and finally go visit Jeanne on the East Coast and see more of this beautiful country. Oh, please, Mr. Peters, say yes! Can you imagine, world?????”

Identity crisis

So it’s come to this: People can no longer tell Julie and me apart.

I let my gray hair grow out during the pandemic, and Julie (my spouse) lost quite a bit of weight. These seemingly minor changes have apparently turned us into identical twins.

Neighbors we’ve known for years have begun commenting on my amazing diet(!).

Others simply refuse to use our names for fear they’ll have gotten us confused.

Our neighbor Mary Clare – one of the few who can tell us apart – says that all the young people on our block think we oldsters are indistinguishable from one another.

Julie doesn’t mind this one bit, although you’d think she would because she’s almost seven years younger than me.

I, however, am distraught about it. I feel invisible enough as it is, but this new slap in the face is particularly painful. I feel like I’ve lost my identity.

***

It’s nothing new, this complaint that we become invisible in society as we get older. And most of the time I can deal with it. I’m unseen at the grocery store, a phantom on my morning walk with Buster (he gets all the attention!), one of a gray herd in line at the colonoscopy center.

That’s not a huge turnabout for me. I was never whistled at on the street anyway.

But every so often I’d get a respectful compliment in unexpected places. I have to admit that I miss that – being noticed.

Heck, someone at my workplace – whom I didn’t know well – was once overheard saying that I was “smoldering.” Now I’m just a pile of dry kindling.

***

A few weeks ago, when Julie and I were both in line for a crab sandwich at the ballpark, the vendor insisted that we had to be sisters. We corrected her but it didn’t matter – she continued to repeat it as if she didn’t believe us. I mean, did she not see my Italian nose?!

Maybe as we age we just become shriveled, interchangeable apple dolls.

(By the way, this “sister” thing has been happening to me for decades. Once in the 1980s I was at the beach with my girlfriend Cynthia and someone asked us if we were sisters. Why this is so important to strangers is beyond me – never mind that I was pale and blue-eyed and she was an olive-skinned Latina!)

***

Like all of us, I suppose, I once thought that I would be immune to the endowments of old age. I was young, lean, and athletic, without a malady in the world. And my body held up for a long time. But my rude awakening has finally come. Recently I tried on half a dozen pairs of nice pants I’d bought only about five years ago. After all, I still weigh the same. But for the most part, I couldn’t even button them! Only one of them fit, and I had to donate the rest. What on earth had happened? I guess the bulky items had shifted, and my waist had suddenly expanded. I flew into a rage.

***

This melancholy of mine, though, is not just about looks. It’s more about being recognized as a human being with a meaningful history and valuable ideas.

I have to say, throughout my life I’ve always been interested in other people no matter what their age.

Don’t get me wrong. Like nearly everyone else, I was a selfish young person. When I go through my diaries today, I want to apologize to every person I’ve ever met.

But I was nonetheless curious about others. As a child I couldn’t get enough of the stories my relatives on both sides would tell. I peppered them with questions. I laughed at their tales, which I always found hilarious. I made sure to interview my parents as they got older.

But I have no children, and no one seems to care what my story is or what I have to add. No one wants to interview me.

Now I know what my mother meant when, in her later years, she would lament that “It’s as if I’m not here.”

***

Mindful of my half-full glass, I’ll admit that sometimes being visibly “of a certain age” can offer an advantage. Not long ago I left a Giants ballgame alone and decided to walk as far as possible towards home. I felt good and strong and practically youthful as I covered almost 4 miles before giving in and boarding a jam-packed Muni Metro train at Castro station. Almost immediately a young man gave me his seat. I was actually happy to park my stiffening back, and of course I was grateful to him. But it also meant that my age was strikingly apparent.

***

Last week, though, brought the ultimate indignity.

Julie needed to use my desktop computer. It’s set so that when it’s in “sleep” mode, it uses facial recognition to wake up. I need to be sitting in front of my webcam or else it doesn’t turn on.

Julie plopped down in front of the computer and it immediately came to life.

“Good morning, Paula!” it announced cheerily.

***

March 18, 1975 [age 19]:

“This is gonna make you, the reader – myself in future times – laugh, but the main event of today was getting my eyebrows plucked. A new look begins. I went up to [my hairdresser neighbor] Mrs. Rosales’ house and had her perform the operation. O, the pain was horrible! My eyes were swollen with irritation and tears. [Her daughter] Susan put lipstick on me before I left, which I quickly wiped off as soon as I got home. But I think it’s all made a big impression on me. Soon I’ll learn to roll my hair and maybe put on a little bit of makeup and wear sexier clothes. I have only 6 months left of teenagerhood and I need to learn how to be an adult – their tricks, their games, their crazy ways.”

March 19, 1975 [age 19]:

“I had seven pancakes, an egg, and hot chocolate at Uncle John’s [Pancake House] this morning. They were having their usual Wednesday morning 79-cent all-you-can-eat special. I wanted some biscuits as a side dish but they wouldn’t allow it in the 79 cents.”

March 20, 1975 [age 19]:

“I keep telling myself that there are countless things I’ve got to think about – countless ways I could change my personality, countless goals to create. But I haven’t had a moment to spare since last summer. Not one moment to spend outside on the balcony with a beer and a star, pondering myself and my link with the future. In fact, I even wrote on my things-to-do list: ‘Think about yourself!’ because otherwise I’d forget.”

A travesty of a mockery of a sham

Readers, I need to rail this morning. San Francisco has declared the wild parrot to be its official animal and I am in a rage.

I cannot, of course, complain about a legitimate election result. I’m not one of those people.

But let’s examine, for a moment, the mechanism of this decision.

Two Chronicle columnists dreamed up the idea of asking subscribers to cast votes for their preferred new official San Francisco animal. The animals themselves did not choose to run, nor did they fill out any campaign paperwork. Instead, as far as I can tell (and there seems to be much secrecy around this), the candidates were selected by the columnists themselves, and readers narrowed down the vote-getters over time until a winner was evident.

So we need to keep in mind that it was Chronicle readers – not the city’s residents at large – who made the selection. And the fact that it was all done online eliminated the possibility of votes being cast by people with no Internet access and/or no exposure to the Chronicle. There were no in-person polling places and no mail-in ballots. People could cast multiple votes. The whole thing was skewed!

Everyone has been suspiciously tight-lipped about the data, but it appears that votes were cast by about 27,000 people (representing, by the way, only 3 percent of the city’s population).

The candidates were:

Bison (not native, but a few transplants have lived in Golden Gate Park for years)
Claude the albino alligator (obviously not native, but he lives at the CA Academy of Sciences)
Corgi (seriously?)
Coyote (not native, but they’re everywhere here, including our neighbor’s backyard)
Dungeness crab (finally, a serious entrant)
Goat (not native, but a bunch of ’em graze on Goat Hill to keep the weeds down)
Great white shark
Methuselah the Australian lungfish (another CA Academy of Sciences denizen)
Mission blue butterfly
Pelican
Penguin (yet another CA Academy of Sciences resident)
Raccoon (they do seem to throw lots of social events here)
San Francisco garter snake
Seagull
Sea lion
Wild parrot (not native)

Just one day following the closure of that informal “vote,” our city supervisors decided to make the parrot official, and a month later they approved the ordinance.

My own district supervisor, Myrna Melgar, wrote the resolution. If she thinks I’ll ever vote for her reelection, she can think again.

***

San Francisco is named after Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, so it’s fitting that we now have an official animal.

We also have an official instrument: the accordion. I wholeheartedly approve. It was imported from Italy, and at least one historian claims that it was San Francisco resident Guido Deiro who first played the instrument in this country. In June, the city’s Italian street festival closed with an entire symphony of accordions playing “That’s Amore.”

Our official flower is the dahlia. I don’t know what that is, so I have no comment. But the Dahlia Society of California boasts that “the Dahlia has reached its highest perfection in and about San Francisco, and . . . Dahlias originated in San Francisco are grown in gardens all over the world.” I guess that’s reason enough.

The city’s two official songs are “San Francisco (Open Your Golden Gate)” and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” An addition of “If You’re Going to San Francisco” would form the perfect trifecta, but I’m not in charge of such things.

(California, by the way, has a state lichen and four official state nuts. All of those nuts, I believe, live in Palm Springs.)

***

San Francisco’s resolution designating the wild parrots as the city’s official animal says that the birds “are a unique and beloved feature of our city’s natural environment.”

I disagree.

The parrots (technically cherry-headed conures) are not a feature of our “natural” environment. Even the resolution notes that their natural habitats are Ecuador and Peru. The birds didn’t show up in San Francisco until the 1980s, and no one is quite sure how it happened, although many speculate that they escaped from a pet store. Today they fly around the Presidio, Cole Valley, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill. Whoop-de-doo.

Yes, they’re unique and somewhat beloved, I suppose, by a subset of city dwellers, although none of the native San Franciscans I know has ever waxed rhapsodic about a parrot.

And I grant that they’re beautiful. The resolution notes that they’re “known for their stunning colors and boisterous personalities.”

Ah, now it gets more clear. It’s likely that many voters chose the parrots because they felt that the birds’ personality traits somehow reflect the spirit of all San Franciscans.

And then the supervisors piled on. The resolution likens the parrots to immigrants and mentions that San Francisco is an immigrant-friendly city. It mentions that the parrots’ “diverse, colorful and aromatic diet” of fruits and berries echoes San Franciscans’ love of healthy cuisine. And it claims that the parrots “are raucous and noisy, wild and free, and travel in tightknit flocks that exhibit acts of solidarity, much like their human San Franciscan counterparts who are known for their vocal public input, fierce independence and deep love of community.”

Well, hold on. Is that how an “official animal” is chosen? I thought it had to do with the animal’s evoking a sense of place, not a sense of the residents. And I assumed the animal would actually be native to that location.

***

My top three choices were sea lions, crabs, and – in the #1 spot – seagulls.

I would have much preferred seals over sea lions, but alas, seals were not even an option. (A huge oversight.) The Pacific harbor seal is the only marine mammal that resides in San Francisco Bay year-round, and it’s darned cute with its teeny front flippers. The San Francisco Seals were a heralded minor league baseball team in the city from 1903 until 1957, including a 26-year stint at Seals Stadium in the Mission District, where the Giants played their first two seasons. All of the DiMaggio brothers were SF Seals. We never had a team called the Parrots!

Anyway, my third-place pick, the sea lions, didn’t really appear around San Francisco until 1989 – right after the big earthquake, when boat owners started moving their boats away from the docks – and a colony of them now hauls out at Pier 39. To “haul out” refers to the sea lions’ habit of resting and, shall we say, making love on a particular spot when they’re not swimming and foraging. They’re bigger than seals (up to 800 pounds!) and emit a cute but very raucous bark. They like to nap, but they also like to party. (Just like San Franciscans!)

*Dungeness crab at Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco*

My #2 pick is the Dungeness crab – the most delicious crab species in the world. (Apologies to my Baltimorean friends, but it’s true. Chesapeake blue crabs are scrumptious and probably make much better crab cakes, but there’s nothing sweeter than a Dungeness. No need to make it into a “cake.” All you need do is serve it with sourdough bread and a dry white wine. A perfect meal.) The crab can be found all over San Francisco Bay and is currently the official mascot of Fisherman’s Wharf. And a Crazy Crab’z sandwich on sourdough is the best thing you can eat at a Giants game.

But my top choice for official animal is hands-down the seagull – technically, the Western gull. This town is surrounded on three sides by ocean, and seagulls are ubiquitous here. They patrol the skies and stroll the shores, never straying far from the sea. They’re zealously loyal to their territory, and they mate for life. They obviously love baseball because they circle above Giants games starting in about the 8^th inning (waiting to scarf up garlic fries). And their cries, calls, and squawks are everywhere, providing a constant and restorative natural soundtrack to life in the City.

On many a late afternoon I sit out in my backyard with a good book, watching the gulls fly overhead and listening to their caws echoing through the eucalyptus trees. It’s a lonely but comforting sound, always letting me know that the sea is near and that I’m home.

***

Shouldn’t a representative animal have a robust connection to the city that both residents and visitors can immediately identify?

If people all over the world were asked what animal reminded them of San Francisco, they would likely talk about something that reminded them of the Pacific Ocean – the edge of the continent, where San Francisco perches as guardian.

I guarantee you that they would never answer “parrots.”

Katherine Ets-Hokin, an archivist at the San Francisco Library’s History Center, recently was asked what her preferred official San Francisco animal would be. “Seagulls,” she responded. I rest my case.

***

February 10, 1975 [age 19]:

“I took [my sister] Janine down to the public library today where I found two great books on the Beat Generation. I swear I am insanely infatuated with that period of American literature. I want to gobble up all of Jack Kerouac’s books and Gregory Corso’s poems. Hah, I was even considering writing a paper/doing a project on those 50s beatniks just for my own satisfaction even though I’m not even going to school this year! I want to write like them and I showed two of my typewritten, alcohol-influenced works to Kathy Giammona [a high school English teacher]. They were the long epic letter I had written to Jeanne and the exuberant piece I’d typed about San Francisco. She read them and looked up and said, ‘O, but you are a romantic, aren’t you?’ and I answered oh, yes, terribly.”

March 7, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’ve been waiting for this weekend for so long – three days in San Francisco at the conference for SB90 [the statewide educational program that was funding my service as a high school instructional aide]. I’m sharing a room with [teacher] Julie on the 5^th floor of the Handlery Hotel. I just can’t contain my excitement! A hotel in San Francisco! I took a picture of a place across the street called Bardelli’s, and at night the neon glows in the rain and reflects on the wet streets. Our hotel is so luxurious. It has two big double beds, coffee, a TV where you can order movies, and an automatic shoe polisher!”

March 8, 1975 [age 19]:

“We’re supposed to be attending the [work] conference this weekend but it’s really dull and we’ve mostly just been bumming all around San Francisco. Our group took a picture near the hotel at a place that said ‘Girls Girls Girls’ on the outside. I hope the photo comes out because Mr. Jaffa is so cute! I swear, the classes at this conference are so disorganized and boring. I wonder if this is how the working world is going to be? I just sit in the back and doodle.”

March 12, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’ve started going to the allergy doctor this week: old Dr. Egbert, mad scientist with big wild eyes and hair sticking out in all directions. Between Monday and today I had a total of 95 skin tests; my arms look like a junkie’s – red railroad tracks covering my inner forearms. They take a thick metal sharp instrument and make ¼” long scratches in rows of ten, then place droplets of serum on them and for 20 minutes you sit there in great itching distress.”

Awkward!

It’s been a while since something mortifying happened to me, so I should have known that I was due.

I’ve suffered through a long litany of embarrassing moments in my life, some of which have been chronicled on this blog – for example, when:

I demanded that a stranger fix my window (https://mondaymorningrail.com/2016/06/20/broken-windows-and-empty-hallways/), I stood naked in my doorway fearing a fake earthquake (https://mondaymorningrail.com/2016/08/15/shakin-all-over/), my bathing suit slipped off at a waterpark (https://mondaymorningrail.com/2017/07/10/oops/), and I had to visit a repair shop with an X-rated videotape stuck in my VCR (https://mondaymorningrail.com/2019/07/28/devil-with-the-blue-dress/).

Believe me, those are mere flecks of paint in my immense masterpiece of embarrassing moments.

But onward I teeter through life, continuing to add to the gallery.

A few days ago, I was preparing to ice my lower lower back – part of my routine after exercising because I have sciatica, SI joint syndrome, facet syndrome, and/or any of a number of lower lower back issues that no doctor has been able to definitively diagnose. It’s a relatively minor scourge, but I do feel some pain when I exercise, so I ice afterwards even though it likely doesn’t provide one iota of help.

While I’m icing, I listen to music through gigantic over-the-ear headphones. That day I was listening to the Psychedelic Furs.

(I’ve been going through my CD collection alphabetically and ripping my favorite “primo” tunes to my computer and iPhone, employing a complex method of rating and analysis that would bore you to tears. Obviously I am up to the “P”s. I know, I know, I could just drag myself into this millennium and use Spotify or some other streaming service, but I want to curate my own collections, thank you very much.)

So this is the routine: I don the headphones, crank up the music, stand by the side of the bed, pull my sweatpants down to my knees, hold the ice pack on my lower lower back, lean forward, and slowly fall facedown onto the bed.

This is undoubtedly an impractical regimen. For instance, I could lie down and then grab the ice pack to place it on my back.

But whatever works.

In this particular instance, I had gone through the routine and was just about to fall forward onto the bed.

(I’ve reenacted the fateful moment in the photo below.)

But then, in between the seductive post-punk marimba notes of the Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Way” (a 5-star primo song if ever there was one), I thought I may have heard something. So I looked to my left.

Our housepainter was standing in the doorway.

He’d been working on the rear of our house, but he’d come up the back stairs with a question. I guess I hadn’t heard him knock, what with my tunes cranked up louder than a Liberace suit.

So he decided to just let himself inside, and that door is, oh, about 2-1/2 feet from my bedroom door, and it looks directly in.

So there I was, pants down, bent forward over the bed, wearing huge headphones, seemingly clutching my backside, and grooving to something he couldn’t hear.

Did he think I was engaged in some kind of weird solo sex game?

I can’t even imagine what he must have been thinking, and I’ll never know because I can never look him in the face again. But he backed slowly down the stairs while cupping his hand over his eyes as if he were looking into the sun.

Maybe it was the glare off of my white butt.

January 21, 1975 [age 19]:

“I love working with Mr. Nash [as a high school teacher’s aide], who gives hilarious lectures. About half of the time I’m busy setting up or helping with labs. The only thing is, Mr. Nash gives very nebulous directions and it’s really a challenge just to be able to do what he wants done. Many a time I’ve screwed up. Last week he sent me to the supply room for a pressure cooker, and with my acute knowledge of practical things, I had no idea what a pressure cooker was. So I rummaged around in the supply room for an interminable time pretending I knew what I was looking for until I realized that I was getting nowhere. Finally I started dragging random things out and holding them up so Mr. Nash could see me through the window and nod his head when I finally held up an actual pressure cooker!”

RIP, Donald N. Nash, 1947-2015

January 27, 1975 [age 19]:

“After all my classes [as a high school teacher’s aide] are over, I have about half an hour to wait before I am allowed to go home. Sometimes I play chess with Alan [a math teacher], but usually I sit around and talk. Julie Miyahara [a remedial English teacher] comes in from next door and we often talk about education. I have found that the best teachers are the ones who doubt themselves the most, who CARE enough to wonder if they really ARE good. Time and again Julie walks wearily in, frustrated, saying, ‘Oh, Paula, are we really teaching them anything at all?’ I get worried when people turn to me and I don’t know what to say, so I pretend I know what I’m talking about and I discourse on the evils of sight reading and the similar ‘innovative’ educational practices that emerged during the experimental age of the 60s. And I do it all with my usual pained expression.”

February 2, 1975 [age 19]:

“I’m sitting here thinking about the future and right now I have some tentative plans which will undoubtedly dissolve away. I’ve been accepted back into San Jose State for next semester, and I believe that I’ll continue with my current major [law enforcement]. I really don’t know what I want to do and it’s a terrible feeling. I’ve always ‘known’ I’d do police work but now I have these disturbing doubts, and I’m groping while everyone else seems to have found their way. I’ve regressed. All I can hear are Bobby Dylan’s words, ‘Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.’ Next semester I will NOT be at home, but whether in the dorms or in an apartment I don’t know. It will probably be a disaster, but maybe I can learn how to be social. Then two years of school, then a year’s or a summer’s travel, then I’ll live in San Francisco. I will get a job near the Wharf or North Beach or Chinatown, preferably in a bookstore, with long-haired intellectuals in an old building with a basement and ancient rickety stairs.”

February 6, 1975 [age 19]:

“The Chevron/Standard company sent me no credit card today but a rejection slip saying that they didn’t have sufficient information to guarantee my good credit. And I have two jobs! I think Dad is going to write a letter to them or something, but anyway, I’m tired of all the hassles on my shoulders, and the world bugs me.”

A fluke in Frederick

On a recent warm Sunday, Julie and I were beginning to emerge from what I call our Food Poisoning Apocalypse. Something – probably tainted crab cakes – had knocked us out of the human race for three miserable days. We were visiting friends in Frederick, Maryland, a historic, fetching Civil War town of about 80,000 people. I was still feeling a little weak and rather butchered, but it was time to work our legs and get outdoors, so we happily walked from our rented rowhouse to Nymeo Field at Harry Grove Stadium for a day of sun and baseball. I had no idea that it would turn out to be a surprisingly fortuitous venture.

Nymeo Field is home to the Frederick Keys (named after Frederick native Francis Scott Key), an unaffiliated collegiate summer ballclub that serves as a showcase for prospects. (The Keys had been a minor league affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles until Major League Baseball began slashing farm clubs in 2020.)

Starting this year, however, the field also hosts a still-unnamed Frederick team that plays in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, a high-quality league partnered with MLB that operates in cities without minor league franchises of their own. For reasons as mysterious as a knuckleball, the team’s moniker will not be announced until June 23. The final contenders are: Bone Shakers, Ghost Hounds, Rail Frogs, Sawbones, and Screaming Alpacas. Most of those names scare the bejeezus out of me – can you imagine screaming alpacas dominating your nightmares? – so I’m rooting for the least petrifying (and train-related!) “Rail Frogs.”

In the meantime, the players are wearing uniforms adorned with big colorful question marks. That’s low-level baseball for you.

There are no billionaire owners and superstars in these leagues. The players are underpaid and living on buses and in cheap hotels, but they’re doing it for the love of the game and for their dream of breaking into the majors. Only 10 percent of minor leaguers will make it to “the show,” and far fewer on independent teams will get there. But they press on until, for most of them, age and reality bring disheartening news.

There was plenty of extra room in the parking lot at Nymeo Field. Inside, an enthusiastically hokey announcer was making corny jokes about foul balls running “afoul” of something. On the outfield wall, billboards advertised a local ankle and foot doctor, Pepsi-Cola, and some kind of insurance. The scoreboard accuracy was, at times, questionable. In between innings, the young staffers worked hard. They raked the uneven infield dirt. They danced atop the dugouts to gin up the crowd. At one point they slingshotted free mattress pads, for some reason, into the stands.

For the spectators, seeing a game at this level means spending a few hours with your family, under a clear sky, rooting fervently for your town. All of the cliché sounds of baseball – the crack of the bat, the thwack of leather – are louder and more resonant in these stadiums. The action is personal and immediate. And it’s so affordable. The day we were there, we got to see a surprise doubleheader because the previous day’s game had been a rainout. That’s two games for the ridiculously low price of $15 – in the “expensive” seats. For a few dollars more, we could get a hot dog, a slice of pizza, or a funnel cake. And, of course, cold beer at a reeeeeeeeasonable price. I avoided the fatty foods but thought a beer would be okay. One of the local breweries – Flying Dog – had a stand at the ballpark, and the woman behind the taps offered us tastes as we chatted. It all throws back to an America before greed took over.

The crowd was thin. I’d say there were only about 17 people in the stands, but Julie claims that I have a tendency to exaggerate. So it’s more likely that there were 100 people there – in a stadium that holds 5,400. It was Mother’s Day, so maybe that kept the attendance small.

Yet somehow the loudest man on the planet ended up sitting behind us. I’ll call him Boomer. He was a large man, and his resounding cheers and wisecracks ricocheted around the nearly-empty stadium. He also jangled a piercing cowbell that rattled our ears. But he was polite. In fact, he asked us if the cowbell bothered us, and when someone is that solicitous I’ll inevitably respond that I’m not troubled in the least. At one point he offered us a piece of his pretzel, which was bigger than his head. We demurred.

The cowbell and the yelling continued throughout the game and somehow became a welcome part of the atmosphere. Boomer seemed to know his team well.

Meanwhile, as the game moved on, we took casual note of a relaxed-looking man at the end of our row who was congenially talking baseball with another fan. Julie began to suspect that the guy in our row had been an actual ballplayer. Possibly even a major leaguer.

I was skeptical. Why would a big-league player be watching an independent-league game at a ballpark in Frederick with a mere smattering of spectators?

But she insisted. She wondered if he could be Shawon Dunston, a shortstop who’d played for the San Francisco Giants and a handful of other teams in his career.

Okay, hold on now. Shawon Dunston is one of my all-time favorite Giants.

He’d been an All-Star – twice. He’d won the Giants’ Willie Mac award in 1996 for being the most inspirational on the team, with his big heart and smile. He played for 18 seasons, amassed almost 1,600 hits, and earned three World Series rings as a coach.

But much more importantly, his picture – which I cut out of the San Francisco Chronicle in August of 1998 and is now discolored with age – has been taped to the wall next to my desk for 25 years.

The reason this particular photo captured my heart is that, at the time, Shawon’s 5-year-old son Shawon Jr. – a Giants batboy – had been repeatedly asking after games, “Daddy, why don’t you hit home runs?” His father had always patiently replied that his career was winding down and he just wasn’t that kind of hitter. “Okay, Daddy, but why don’t you hit home runs?” Then on August 27, 1998, Shawon Dunston came into a game as a pinch hitter and swatted a three-run homer. His son, overcome with love and pride, couldn’t contain himself and ran out to the field to hug his father. That’s the photo on my wall.

Back at Nymeo Field, I was now starting to feel the thrill of possibility that Shawon Dunston could be sitting a few feet from me.

It’s rare that I’ve been really close to a professional ballplayer. My cousin Dennis Corti played at the AAA level for the New York Yankees back in the early sixties; he hit .294 with 12 homers in his last year (1964), but he was an outfielder and there was no way he was going to go very far with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris on the big-league roster. In 1966, our parents took us to Pacific Grove for a short vacation and at the hotel we ended up meeting Don Mossi, a Bay Area lefty who’d pitched for a number of MLB teams and had recently retired. Giants third baseman Matt Williams signed a ball for me in 1999 when I was volunteering to collect signatures for the soon-to-be new ballpark. And I got a photo with former Giants coach Bruce Bochy a few years ago when I met him at a charity event. But no words were spoken between us and he was not very friendly, to be honest.

Julie spent the last 15 minutes of the Frederick team’s exciting nailbiter of a game taking surreptitious photos of the mystery man at the end of our row – enlarging them, studying them, even analyzing his ring. She became convinced that it was Shawon. I wasn’t as sure, but I developed an ingenious and foolproof plan to ferret out his identity.

I would use my feminine wiles with Boomer and enlist his help without his ever realizing it.

It was clear that no one in our group would have the nerve to approach the stranger in our row and ask him who he was. But Boomer was obviously not shy. This big dude would help us – I just knew it.

When the game ended and Boomer was getting up to leave, I had to act immediately.

“Do you see that man sitting at the end of our row?” I asked him. “Do you think it could be Shawon Dunston?”

He looked over that way, interested.

“Do you mean the guy who played for the Cubs?”

“Yes,” I said (inwardly perturbed), “but more importantly, for the San Francisco Giants.”

“Well, I’ll go ask him.”

IT WORKED!

Boomer strolled over to the mystery man and I could hear him saying, “Those ladies over there were wondering if it was you.”

Holy cats, it was Shawon Dunston!

“It’s him, ladies!” Boomer bellowed over his shoulder as he left.

Wow. The guy who’s been on my wall for a quarter of a century was now sitting near me in a virtually empty stadium in Frederick, Maryland.

Again, I had to act. Throwing restraint to the afternoon breeze, Julie and I walked over, and I told him that we were from San Francisco and that he was one of my most-loved Giants and I wanted to thank him for everything.

This man, as I might have expected, was so gracious and kind. He explained to us that his son – the little 5-year-old in my photo – was playing outfield for the opposing team, the Lancaster Barnstormers, but he’d hurt his hamstring in the first inning of the first game (which we had missed). He joked that he didn’t like his son’s long hair but that it had come “from his mother’s side.” I asked whether he was still advising the Giants, as he’d been a couple of years ago, but he said that he’d left in 2020 and was “a nobody” now. We told him that he most certainly was not a nobody.

I’m typically not a celebrity groupie or a “fangirl” type, but for the first time in my life I asked a stranger for a picture. He seemed thrilled to oblige.

By the way, I would like to add that the man is in incredible shape. I felt like I was putting my arm around a stone monument.

As we were walking out of the stadium afterwards, Boomer zipped out of the parking lot in his truck and honked. We waved wildly and yelled our thanks.

These days I often have to remind myself that serendipitous moments are possible even on the most ordinary of days. So although I may not be feeling 100 percent, or I may be wanting to just slouch lazily on the couch eating Funyuns, it’s better to simply get up and leave the house.

There’s always a chance for happenstance.

***

Quick note: my piece in The San Franciscan is finally online!

A Bike, Some Undies, and a Gun

***

December 28, 1974 [age 19]:

“I picked up Jeanne [my friend who was visiting from the East Coast] at 12:30 at the airport in San Francisco and we left for our L.A. and Mexico vacation today. [We were in my old, tiny 1971 Toyota Corolla.] The trip was routine, save for a little rain, until we got to the Ridge Route [the 8,000-foot highway grade going from Kern County down into the L.A. basin]. Then it began to snow, and we had the brilliant idea of turning off to play in the snow. The exit, however, turned into a snowy mess, and we barely could move. Rather than get back on the Highway 5 on-ramp, Jeanne, who was driving, took the wrong road and we drove along parallel to the freeway but 100 yards away for half a mile, sliding in the snow. When we finally realized what was happening, we were isolated, alone, afraid, and unable to turn around. So we had to BACK down the road the half a mile, stalling every now and then. It was a nightmare. Back on the freeway we crawled along, and we learned that the CHP had closed the road down right after we’d gone through. But finally, driving in through flooded streets, we made it to Grammy’s house at 9:30. I’ll just never forget praying and shaking with fear on the Grapevine while we passed all those broken-down car corpses covered with snow.”

December 29, 1974 [age 19]:

“Yesterday we headed towards Mexico, settling down for two nights in the Motel 6 right on the border. Today we spent time first in Encinada [sic], walking around and buying liquor, then drove back up north, stopping for a walk on a beach. We parked in Tijuana so we could go into a bar (my first!) and drink margaritas. I had two (the second one was free, on the bartender) and then we drove off towards the border back into CA. Luckily we just looked innocent enough, I guess, to get past the customs inspectors, because the car in front of us had to pull over and open their trunk but we just had to answer a couple of questions. Thank goodness, because we were smuggling in 5 bottles of tequila and mezcal in the trunk.”

December 31, 1974 [age 19]:

“Of all of 1974 today had to be the most exhausting day. All morning and afternoon long we walked the entire length of the San Diego Zoo. Then at 5:00 [my friend Jeanne and] I drove to Anaheim, and the wind was blowing so violently that the Toyota swerved all over the road. We got to Disneyland and sat out in the parking lot drinking the mezcal from Mexico [it had a worm in it and tasted terrible!] until we ran into the Disneyland gates at 8:30 p.m. and had a great drunken time inside all night long going on the Matterhorn and the Haunted House and I loved the Pirates of the Caribbean that looked all purple and flowing through my hazy eyes.”

January 3, 1974 [age 19] [Ed.’s note: get out the violins again]:

“O you new year with your frightening implications. Why this black fear of life? [My friend] Jeanne and I are traveling on different roads. She likes meditation and I am skeptical, so she accuses me of not wanting to try new things. The past is falling away. Oh, it is terrible. I am alone. I want to be a writer and it’s such a useless dream. I have no direction. My personality twists within but never reaches the surface. How could I have been so naïve as to think that my friendship with Jeanne would never end? She is in love with Steve and ready to begin her happy new life with him in South Carolina. It’s really agonizing for me, and I’ve been bitter and cold. I should understand that she simply cannot continue dragging her life in the California mud. She has to settle down with her man. I’ve got to say goodbye for her sake. Her happiness is much more important than my sense of loss. So I’m here shedding tears for something lost and gone.”

January 4, 1974 [age 19]:

“[My friend] Jeanne and I drove home up the coast today, a gorgeous drive along 101 in our t-shirts, while we listened to The Band on my cassettes. It was warm and clear and we stopped to drive on Pismo Beach. I got to telling her about our Stations of the Cross ritual at St. Victor’s with all the incense that would make me so nauseated and I made it so funny that she laughed uproariously. After that we talked a fair amount, much more so than we had all week, about her love life with Steve and then about mine. Of course, I don’t have one. I tried to hint that my enigmatic relationship with Ted is more than platonic but of course it isn’t.”

January 5, 1975 [age 19]:

“The open road stretches before me now. I dropped [my friend] Jeanne off at the airport and she said that she would write and not break all of her California ties. I drove home alone not in utter sadness but in a dreamlike trance, watching the highway, knowing that this was the real culmination of my dependent existence, and that from now on a new life must begin: I must start making plans for the future, go back to school, leave home eventually, meet new people, tear myself away from the old. My new age has not dawned yet, but a red glow appears on the horizon. It won’t be long.”

January 11, 1975 [age 19]:

“I think I committed a felony today, which is pretty dumb since I’m majoring in law enforcement. Jeanne wanted me to buy her a lid of dope and mail it to her back East. I really didn’t want to do this at all; buying and carting dope around is a dirty and risky business. So I prayed that I would make it through safely. I called G– and he told me I could buy a lid from him for $15. I drove out to his house, gulping and shaking all the way, and bought the contraband. It was a small rectangle of stuff wrapped in thin Saran Wrap, about 5” by 2” or so. I had never seen a lid before. I put it in my spare tire compartment and drove home with EXTREME caution. Later, when the parents were gone, it turned out that disguising and wrapping was a problem. G– had given me the idea of taking a leg off a doll, so I went out and bought a $2 doll, but I discovered that the opening wasn’t quite big enough when, to my horror, it began spilling out on [my brother] Marc’s bed. Then I looked around my room for a suitable container and my eyes fell upon a can of tennis balls, so I emptied it, wrapped the dope in foil and put it in, stuck a tennis ball on top, shut the can, lay it in some straw inside a box, put a note in, unsigned, sprayed Lysol all inside, sealed the box, wrapped it up with a pound of package sealing tape, addressed it, wrote ‘Happy Birthday!’ on it, put 70 cents’ worth of stamps on it, and mailed it myself from the postal substation at work. I think it’s foolproof.”

January 16, 1974 [age 19]:

“One day this week after [my teacher’s aide job at a local high] school, Nancy Schwalen, a teacher, was talking to me about our future trip to San Francisco and about nightlife there and drinking and she suddenly asked, “Well, how old ARE you?” and I said nineteen and she said, “It’s funny, but I have a sister who’s your age and a freshman in college and you seem so much . . . .” and I KNEW she was going to say “younger.” All my life I’ve had this feeling that I’m socially very inept, very young. It’s a terrible insecurity. If only I were to be myself rather than talk embarrassedly to hide something. So I’ll work on it, on being as natural and as open as I can. But I still worry so desperately, about not keeping pace with my comrades, about being a little child forevermore. “ . . . . Older,” she said.

Bozos on this bus

My first job out of college was as a production assistant at Harper & Row Publishers in San Francisco. My boss, Laura, was a petite Italian spark plug from New York. She was widely respected but not as widely liked. I, on the other hand, thought the world of her.

One spring day I sat at my desk outside her office and began to sneeze. I have serious hay fever – not like the many people who claim to suffer from “allergies” because they occasionally have the sniffles. My fits could go on for an eternity. I once counted 53 sneezes in a row.

“Bless you!” she yelled unseen from her office.

I sneezed for the second time.

“Bless you!” she shouted again, this time with perhaps just the tiniest note of impatience.

“Laura, I have to warn you, this is a fruitless exercise because I could go on for a while,” I said in between paroxysms.

“Well, THEN SHUT UP!” she hollered.

I cracked up so hard, I think I stopped sneezing.

I’m going to generalize here, but I love New Yorkers. I think most of them are hilarious.

Some people would have taken offense at my boss’ sense of humor. In fact, one of her colleagues came over to me that day and apologized for her. (This same curmudgeon had also once terrified me by warning me that all of life’s joy gets sucked out of you once you turn 30. I was 23 at the time.) She, among others, thought that Laura was abrasive and demanding.

I didn’t feel that way at all. Laura, to me, was not only riotously funny but also a terrific mentor. I’ll never forget her and her affirmative influence on my life.

(By the way, I just learned that she is extremely active in retirement and has donated more than 600 hours of her time to local nonprofits, including the Boys & Girls Club of the Peninsula. God bless her.)

***

For the most part, I’ve learned to love and accept individuals’ idiosyncrasies, especially if their hearts are in the right place. Quirky? So endearing. Imperfect? Only human. Blunt and fussy like Laura? A dash of flavor.

Unfortunately, many disagree with me. The default position now seems to be instant contempt for others. People pick out the tiniest flaws in each other that they can run with.

Disdain makes people feel smug and – for some reason – fills them with endorphins, so it’s become a drug, like heroin.

It’s in our very culture now. We’re hungry for a quarrel.

***

Not all that long ago, human beings had no time to concern themselves with the perceived shortcomings of their neighbors. People had to work hard all day just to stay alive, for cryin’ out loud, and they needed each other.

But today most of those challenges have disappeared. Loafers now have plenty of time to sit on their couches slaying imaginary dragons, as if life were one giant video game. They’ve been desensitized by the interpersonal distance baked into (the ironically-named) “social” media. Then, as their worldview contracts, so does their ability to understand and embrace the whole of humanity.

These people are unfulfilled and insecure and yet sneeringly convinced of their own superiority. Somehow they’ve managed to conclude that they’re perfect – in the face, by the way, of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

***

“Decency,” I remember someone saying on The Crown, “is an easy quality to mock.”

Couch critics often pick on those most threatening to them – ironically, those most likely to truly do some good. Rather than get up off their butts and do something, they berate decent and courageous people who are at least trying. They look for ways to rain on others’ parades. It helps justify their own inertia.

As Teddy Roosevelt famously said in 1910, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles … The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

This tendency, I believe, has also extended to reviewers of the arts. A couple of years ago, Bill Maher remarked that movie critics these days often fault a film not for its artistry, but simply for not being the movie they would have made. Or because the film doesn’t reflect their biases. Not only is that careless and ignoble reasoning but it makes the reviewers feel self-righteous, when the fact of the matter is that they never could have produced a work of similar quality or import themselves.

Isn’t that the whole problem – that so many people have a need to feel self-righteous?

We’re devolving.

***

But Monday Morning Rail is going slightly off the rail and heading into a rant.

So let’s instead consider the antidote to all the hypercritical piety going around.

Let’s come back, for a moment, to our everyday interpersonal relationships, and think about the people we hold close.

In the natural world, the instinctive “desire” of an atom is to chemically bond with another atom to form a compound. Because atoms have an incomplete outer shell, they are often unstable by themselves. So they go looking for stability.

Sodium and chloride, for example, combine naturally to form salt, which is a most wonderful thing. In our bodies, salt transmits nerve signals, helps muscles function, carries nutrients, and balances our fluids and blood pressure. Of course, it also makes food taste really good.

I think that, as human beings, we have the same chemical need for stability. In fact, we’re almost involuntarily responsive to certain people.

We’re not all attracted to the same people, thank goodness. That’s what makes the world go ’round.

In my own life, I know that I wobble constantly towards others, trying to find that balance and steadiness.

I look for the heart beating underneath people’s appearance or their behavior. I don’t draw quick conclusions.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m a sweet Pollyanna who loves everyone. First of all, I certainly make judgments about what I consider to be bad behavior. I have my moral absolutes. I will jettison you in an instant if you lie, are rude to a service provider, think that cheating on your taxes is a bragging right, mistreat an animal, or disrespect the elderly. (“Respect,” Dr. Ruth Westheimer once said, “is nondebatable.”)

Sometimes, too, I strongly dislike people whom everybody else seems to moon over. In fact, I find some of my friends’ friends intolerable. But of course that doesn’t mean they’re objectively intolerable. In fact, it’s possible they’re just too much like me. The two of us may be magnetic poles who push back against each other in what science labels “repulsion.”

I also have aversions to certain celebrities for no rational reason. Elizabeth Moss, for example – a terrific actress and seemingly terrific person – absolutely freaks me out. It’s hard for me to watch her onscreen, and I have no idea why. (I have a similar and even stronger distaste for Fred Armisen. Coincidentally, the two of them were once married!)

Generally, though, give me an eccentricity or a quirk, and you’re eligible for my utmost affection. I don’t care that you count your steps, that the volume on the TV has to be set to an even number, that you crack your toes, that you collect banana stickers, or that you laugh inappropriately in elevators.

I admire you for the atoms at your core.

***

I’m not sure I’d want to be friends with me. I am sure that my inflexibility, neuroticism, moodiness, and tendency to ascribe too much import to the smallest of perceived slights can be turnoffs.

Yet my loved ones persist. And I with them. I so easily and clearly see the good in them, their creativity, the challenges they’ve gracefully conquered, their perspectives on life, their humor that keeps me uplifted when I’m feeling . . . well, stubborn, neurotic, and moody.

(By the way, I think all my friends and family members are good-looking. It’s the subjectivity in me, I guess.)

***

It’s best that we huddle up with people who listen to us, who’ll pick up the phone if we call, who are happy when we’re happy and sad when we’re sad and aren’t jealous when we succeed. People who won’t disparage us behind our backs. People who will lovingly tell us the truth. People we can trust.

I once read a Chronicle column written by a transplanted New Yorker who found himself brooding and depressed here on the West Coast. His new California pals were concerned, trying to analyze his feelings, suggesting he see a therapist. They drove him bonkers. Finally he called an old New York friend in the middle of the night. She answered.

“I’m depressed,” he told her.

“So what else is new?” she said.

He instantly felt better.

Those are the kinds of friends we want.

Back in the 1980s I once got down to a very skinny 113 pounds when I was despondent over a breakup and had stopped eating. My friend Ellen came to the rescue. “You look like hell,” she said. “Eat a sandwich.”

So I did.

***

I’m aware that this blog has been a bit haphazard, but that’s because sometimes I don’t quite know how to avoid all of the forces trying to drain the joy out of our lives through endless criticism and condescension. My personal salve is that for the most part I choose to ignore the fangs and claws of society at large and concentrate on the people I love.

I have no room in my life for the perpetually sanctimonious. We shouldn’t see each other as either angels or demons.

No one is perfect or even close to it. We all have our own vagaries, character flaws, and irritating habits.

But we also have traits that are fetching. We can only hope to stumble upon people in our lives who find our flaws acceptable and our quirks delightful. We need to surround ourselves with those who tolerate our imperfections while we in turn tolerate theirs. Who will get in the arena for us. Who’ll help provide us with stability, steadiness, and balance. Who’ll tell us to shut up and eat a sandwich.

We travel through life facing enough headwinds already. We need company.

Human beings may be limited and defective, but we’re in this together.

We’re all bozos on this bus.

Note: “Bozos on this bus” is taken from the Firesign Theater’s 1971 album I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus.

***

November 3, 1974 [age 18]:

“I had a day off, for once, and just had to get out. I ended up going to a $1 matinee called Slither that was suspenseful and really good. Then I wandered around downtown in book and record stores but ended up with nothing. I considered old Byrds stuff and This Side of Paradise and Tropic of Capricorn, but my money seems to like my purse better than it likes the open air. Tonight [my brother] Marc and I went out to eat at Roma Pizza, where even though I’ve been sick with the flu for a week I ate a huge meatball sub sandwich and half an extra-large pizza.”

November 4, 1974 [age 18]:

“Whew, I paid off my car loan today! And now that sweet little gray Toyota is mine, all mine! Oh, I’m elated! Now I feel somehow as if there is nothing to stop me, no one who can tell me what to do, ’cause I have a little car with decals and an FM converter and seat belts with shoulder straps!”

November 6, 1974 [age 18]:

“With great anticipation I accompanied Robin and Guy and Glen to the City to see a George Harrison concert at the Cow Palace tonight. But it was a disappointment. I’d spent SO MUCH money: $7.50 on the ticket, $3 on Kentucky Fried Chicken, and $2 on booze. At least the security people, who looked like they were searching everyone, wouldn’t search the girls, so the man just said “Move on, ladies,” and I did so, greatly relieved I got through with a canned daquiri in each coat pocket. But George Harrison was only fair and Ravi Shankar was TOTALLY BORING playing his tinkling sitar music. Billy Preston, though, who opened and played a grand total of three songs, far outdid the others. He was FANTASTIC! Glen and Guy offered me their dope and I refused. I was terribly tempted – 99% of the people there were smoking. I think the only thing that prevented me from smoking was embarrassment – I knew I’d cough and make a big scene and waste good grass.”

November 19, 1974 [age 19]:

“I’m 19. O, the nebulous age, when we all fade into oblivion. I stayed up until midnight because I was loath to see 18 depart.”

November 23, 1974 [age 19]:

“I lost my innocence today. I just wanted to get the whole thing over with, wanted to do it once for the sake of experience and the knowledge that I’d gotten away with something, then not worry about it again until I had to. So I called Robin and told her I’d bring over some records and an electric typewriter and help her with her paper. I must’ve looked like I was going away to camp when I loaded my car up; I was carrying about seven records and my journal and a few other manuscripts for Robin to read and a typewriter and a stack of paper – after I arrived I put on America [the first album by the group America, including the song “A Horse With No Name”] and set up the typewriter to write to Jeanne while Robin finished her paper, and then I looked up from my position on the floor and said, ‘Well, are we going to smoke [a joint] or not?’ I was really nervous at first; on my first hit, all the smoke poured out of my mouth immediately, it burned me so. But then I learned to hold it in my lungs, and we smoked it down to the end. Robin got stoned but nothing really happened to me. I felt a mite looser and time was distorted (one side of the record seemed to go on for hours) and I couldn’t type worth beans, but I didn’t consciously feel high. I’m not sure how I feel about it now. My conscious self doesn’t feel guilty about it; the whole event seems like a dream, and it’s hard for me to grasp the reality that I did it. I still can’t see the wrongness of it, and I want to do it again, with Jeanne, in Mexico.”

December 1, 1974 [age 19]:

“I had about 7 glasses of wine last night, but spaced them apart well so that I was never drunk. Bruce had a huge party at his house; I went just to “drop in” for an hour or so and ended up staying till 3:00 in the morning. I played doubles pingpong with Ted for a while, then went back inside to sit in a corner and watch the pool players. I got terribly depressed – though I told myself to mingle with the strangers, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then Ted sat down beside me in the corner and brought me a Coke, and we had the longest nicest talk we’ve ever had. We talked about traveling around the country this summer (although I don’t know how Mom and Dad would take to that idea). Enchanted, I got up at his bidding to play pool, and there I remained for the rest of the night. I was lousy but we had a good time. [My brother] Marc went home at 2:00 but Ted and I teamed up against a few stragglers. When I got home, Dad was standing in the hall and he unleashed a brief but raging torrent of words at me. Then this morning he came in and apologized to me – for the first time in 19 years! Oh, and I also remembered something embarrassing about last night. I’d been playing pingpong for ages, leaping around and all, with somebody handsome named Tony as my partner, when I found to my disgust and embarrassment that my zipper had been completely open the whole time!”

December 8, 1974 [age 19]:

“I want to briefly describe last night’s dinner, which proves that I do not have a future as a cook. [My brother] Marc and I are home alone; we’d decided to have chili dogs and burritos for dinner. Two mistakes: First, I was using a small pot in which to cook the hot dogs, so I couldn’t use a strainer to steam the buns. Against Marc’s better judgment I put the buns in the oven with the burritos, and when we took them out they were brown and dry and so brittle that Marc SNAPPED them in half. Then, I had left the hot dogs boiling so long that when I lifted off the cover I couldn’t even recognize them anymore, they had grown so big and fat and were split open and just rolling around the pot like malformed whales.”

December 10, 1974 [age 19]:

“Such terrible news, my dear sweet Larry [a pharmacist where I worked at Rexall] is leaving to get his doctorate in pharmacology. I really adore him. People I love are forever being lost to me. Come January he takes off, which makes me sad because he was such a great guy to work for, so nice and intelligent and we always spent every minute kidding around, insulting each other. One time he said I should become a dictator.”

[My 2023 hindsight comment: Hmmm, I’m not sure he was “kidding.” 😆 ]

December 11, 1974 [age 19]:

“We were doing this science experiment in class today [at James Lick High School, where I worked as a teacher’s aide], using a big tall metal ball on a stand which generates static electricity, and Mr. Nash wanted a volunteer with long hair to allow his machine to make their hair stand on end. Well, no one volunteered, so I was chosen, and he must’ve had the machine too powerful, because as I leaned my head near there was this loud “CRACK!” and a huge spark and I got a big shock on my forehead, screamed “OUCH!” in pain and the entire class went into hysterics.”

December 12, 1974 [age 19]:

“In my third period class [at James Lick High School, where I worked as a teacher’s aide] I have made great friends with the teacher, Kathy Giammona, and we sit around and philosophize and speak profundities.”

December 25, 1974 [age 19]:

“Today was a lovely peaceful quiet Christmas day with visits to our old Italian relatives and then a turkey dinner at home. Yesterday was more emotional. I went to Confession and with all the courage I could muster I confessed my experience with dope. In my head I vowed to stop sinning, but then today I’m thinking that I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep that promise.”

Frisco’s coolest cat

Years ago, a friend and I had a tradition that involved reciting to the other, while driving to a holiday dinner, a list of items for which we were grateful.

“John Madden!” I yelled out one year.

“Big Macs!”

“Opposable thumbs!”

“Oh, wait! Vince Guaraldi!”

Yes, the guy who wrote the score for A Charlie Brown Christmas – a TV special that, nearly 60 years later, may be the most popular Christmas show ever aired on television.

But he was so much more than that, especially to San Franciscans: a local boy; a boogie-woogie man with a wicked handlebar moustache who slid off piano benches and missed his own award shows and died young; and a beloved, talented central figure in the City’s cool heyday of nightlife and jazz.

***

Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was born in 1928 in North Beach, a close-knit Italian neighborhood in San Francisco.

At the time, North Beach – for the most part – had lost the unruly coarseness of the Barbary Coast days, and the beat movement had yet to arrive. But it was still an earthy place, permissive and rambunctious. Bootleggers and speakeasies found a good home there. Mixed-race jazz clubs – forbidden in most of the country – hosted traveling ragtime and New Orleans–style jazzmen like King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton.

A couple of Vince’s uncles were accomplished musicians, and the young boy hammered out beats alongside his piano-playing uncle Muzzy before beginning piano lessons of his own at the age of seven. The instrument became an obsession, and when he entered Lincoln High School (which had opened in San Francisco’s Sunset District in 1940) he did the usual musician thing, playing at dances, parties, and rallies – anywhere he could slam on the ivories. He would also meet his future wife, Shirley Moskowitz, there.

Guaraldi’s early influences were boogie-woogie players. Boogie-woogie is all about having a good time; it’s fast, danceable, and unrestrained. But it’s not easy to play. Scat singer Jon Henricks described it this way: “You have to split your mind right down the middle,” he said, explaining that one half of your mind plays the left hand and the other half of your mind the right. Guaraldi had no problem with that. He was a natural.

***

In the 1940s, during World War II, African-American shipyard workers and their families – mostly from the American South – moved to San Francisco and, along with musicians and other artists, helped transform the Fillmore area into an energetic jazz neighborhood deemed “the Harlem of the West.” A new kind of jazz called bebop was taking hold. Bebop evolved from swing music and incorporated improvisation, complexity, and fast tempos. The city’s jazz scene burgeoned as people kicked around town searching for all-night entertainment. Clubs were everywhere, sometimes three or four to a block. The crowds were intense and committed.

“Fog, Irish coffee, cable cars, hills, pretty girls, bridges, crazy restaurants, and jazz. That’s what people think of when they hear ‘San Francisco,’ ” wrote San Francisco Chronicle music critic Ralph Gleason.

Writer Jack Kerouac, who was slouching around the City by then and who riffed like a jazzman, talked about “the throb of neon in the soft night, the clack of high-heeled beauties . . . . Here were the children of the American bop night. . . . Everybody in Frisco blew. It was the end of the continent.”

***

*Guaraldi’s 1946 high school yearbook photo*

After graduating from high school in 1946, Guaraldi was drafted and shipped off to Korea for two years, where he served as a cook. Upon his return he enrolled in a music class at San Francisco State but wasn’t serious and never graduated. He also got a job at the San Francisco Daily News as a “printer’s devil” – an apprentice-level job that involved mixing ink tubs and loading type. (Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Benjamin Franklin were once printer’s devils.) But at some point he almost lost a hand in a printing machine and quit. There was no sense risking his meal ticket.

Vince continued taking every gig he could get – a random joint in Yosemite, an all-night lesbian bar in the Tenderloin – and spending his free time hanging out at jazz clubs like the Black Hawk, which opened in 1949 at Turk and Hyde. He wasn’t old enough to drink, but thanks to a (dodgy) agreement between the owner and Mayor George Christopher, the Black Hawk skirted liquor laws by allowing minors in and separating them from the rest of the patrons by chicken wire.

Eventually Guaraldi met Latin-jazz drummer Cal Tjader, and when Tjader’s pianist Dave Brubeck was injured in a 1951 diving accident, Vince joined the trio. His rip-roaring style, combining the buoyancy of boogie-woogie and the energy of bebop, was a deluge of adrenaline. “In the beginning, Vince was so excited in his playing, it was like trying to hold back a colt or a stallion,” Tjader remembered. “Eventually he became aware of the fact that you don’t play every tune like a bebop express running 120 miles an hour.”

***

By 1954, Guaraldi was fronting a house trio six nights a week at the “hungry i” nightclub in North Beach. Established in 1950 and owned by Enrico Banducci, the place catered to beatniks and bohemians and booked edgy or nonconformist comics like Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory, and Phyllis Diller. Jazz and comedy at the time were both progressive art forms. “The comics and the musicians hung out together,” Vince said. “We were outlaws; we lived in an underworld, at night.” Guaraldi would finish his sets at the hungry i and then jam until dawn at after-hours clubs like Jimbo’s Bop City, where musicians got in free after 2 a.m.

Short and a bit stocky, with small hands, Guaraldi would compensate by using his speed on the keys. Or he’d use his fists, or his elbows, to add emphasis. “Vince is always pulling splinters from his fingers, driven in when he claws at the wooden baseboard, behind the keys,” said Gleason. He was intense, bending low over the piano, often oblivious to what was going on around him.

“I watched one night as [Guaraldi] bowed his head over the keys and dug into a blues solo,” wrote jazz historian Doug Ramsey. “The intensity of swing increasing, his forehead almost touching the music rack, he worked his way up the keyboard in a series of ascending chromatic figures and played off the end of the bench, onto the floor. Guaraldi picked himself up, did not bother to dust himself off, slid into place and went back to work. He lost a couple of bars, but not the swing.”

He was a truly percussive player, “a rare and wonderful combination of melody, power and jazz swing,” remembered drummer Fritz Kasten. “His ‘time feeling’ was just wonderful; he was like a freight train. You just had to climb aboard, hold on and hope for the best.”

***

Guaraldi’s first studio album, Vince Guaraldi Trio, was recorded at Fantasy Studios in San Francisco and released in 1956. Sales were low, but he and his wife were able to buy a tiny house in Daly City, just south of San Francisco. He started growing a ridiculous handlebar moustache. And he kept up his gigs. For a long time he played steadily at the Black Hawk – six nights a week, three 90-minute shows a night. Imagine that kind of commitment and stamina, despite the cramped, smoky environs of jazz clubs at the time. “The stage was so small that Coltrane started his solo in the kitchen hallway,” remembered audience member Dan Celli.

“There was no ventilation, and everybody smoked in those days; when you inhaled, you’d get 75 brands,” said drummer Al Torre. “It was terrible; on every break, I’d stand outside and breathe fresh air. Every day, I’d lay out on the beach and clear my lungs.”

But when Playboy magazine ran an extensive feature on San Francisco’s food and entertainment scene, with a long section on jazz, it called the Black Hawk “the most swingin’ jazz club in town, and one of the craziest in the country. It’s a smoky joint, serving ordinary drinks, but the music is the end.”

A Chronicle reporter named Jim Walls described the jazz scene in the late fifties. “Near Fillmore and in the Tenderloin, especially, those institutions known as ‘after-hours joints’ present music and entertainment until long after dawn has streaked the sky,” he wrote, while musicians “slay the powers of darkness in an endless and often exciting jam session. . . . On weekends, especially, the . . . customers will fail to find even standing room in Bop City. The musicians steam away at one end of the big room. In front of them, a wall-to-wall carpeting of jazz buffs waves to the wind instruments like a field of ripe corn.”

Those days must have been just wild. Guaraldi drummer Benny Barth recalled one incident when the trio was heading across the Bay Bridge to an East Bay gig. He was in one car and Vince and the bassist were in another. “They came up beside me. It was a warm evening; they had the windows down, and so did I. They were both sitting in the front, sharing a joint. Then Monty reached over and passed it to me! Luckily, he waited until it was about gone, because I didn’t want to have to pass it back; I took a couple of tokes and threw it out. I guess that proves that we were musicians, tried and true!”

***

Guaraldi’s first commercial breakthrough came in 1962, when he and his trio recorded the album Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus, inspired by a 1959 Brazilian/French/Italian film called Orfeu Negro that had a bossa nova soundtrack by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa. Bossa nova is based on samba music and appealed to Guaraldi’s upbeat, percussive style. One side of the album featured his interpretations of Orfeu songs, and on the other side appeared two standards and two of his originals, one of which was “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” The tune was agile and delicate but also high-spirited, with a radical range of tempo. It really swung.

“Cast Your Fate” was released only as a B-side, relegated to obscurity by the record label. But DJ and musical director Tony Bigg at Sacramento’s Top-40 KROY-AM 1240 happened to be a jazz fan and loved the song. The station’s rule was that DJs could play one personal favorite every two hours. Bigg chose “Cast Your Fate” and played it constantly for a week. He also used portions of it as the news lead-in.

“Cast Your Fate to the Wind”

At some point, a music consultant named Ted Randal noticed that the song was getting huge sales figures in the Sacramento market (even though it was primarily played on only one station), and he began recommending the record to his clients nationally. At first the tune “got traction” mainly in California. But then cities like Memphis, Denver, and Kansas City picked up on it. It was unusual in those days for jazz instrumentals to do well on the pop charts, but the song became a hit and climbed into the Hot 100 in December 1962. It peaked at #22 in February and crossed over onto the “black” stations. (Radio was very segregated at the time.)

“Cast Your Fate” was nominated for a Grammy (Best Original Jazz Composition). Vince drove to Los Angeles to attend the awards ceremony but he forgot his tuxedo and wasn’t allowed in! And he won!

***

It made perfect sense that a whimsical song like “Cast Your Fate” was a San Francisco product. There were cultural differences at the time between the East and West Coast jazz scenes. Bassist Ron McClure – who would later become part of Blood, Sweat & Tears – put it this way: “West Coast music always had a lighter vibe; it wasn’t as intense as the New York bands. San Francisco was like Disneyland in comparison.”

“Greenwich [New York] is 10 years later, and 10 years more crowded; there’s nothing to groove out there,” Guaraldi said. “The West Coast scene is beautiful in its looseness and diversity. There is lots to do, and plenty of time to do it in.”

Personally, Vince was as loose as his music. He brought a mischievous excitement to his playing, with a capricious sense of humor on the side. He’d encourage musicians with shouts of “You got it! I don’t know what you’re gonna do with it, but you got it!”

Or after a song he’d crack up his band with, “Well, that was tense and nervous!”

***

*Vince Guaraldi Trio: Guaraldi (left), Fred Marshall, Jerry Granelli (1963* “*Franciscan,” SF State yearbook)*

The Black Hawk shut in July 1963. Around this time, enhanced construction on the stunning Grace Cathedral (an Episcopal church) in San Francisco was nearing completion and Rev. Charles Gompertz was beginning plans for a huge celebration set for May of 1965. He’d heard “Cast Your Fate” on the radio and tracked down Guaraldi, who agreed to compose an entire mass. The Reverend primarily wanted established hymns, but he would allow Vince to “improvise around it.”

The idea of a jazz mass didn’t sit well with everyone, and Gompertz received death threats by mail and phone. “People felt that I was bringing Satan into the church: bringing the music of the cocktail lounge – the den of sin and iniquity – into the holy and sacred precinct.” He also invited a controversial priest named Malcolm Boyd to give the sermon. Boyd was a civil rights activist who strongly opposed segregation and was one of the 28 Episcopal priests who were part of the Freedom Riders. To make matters worse, attendees had to buy a ticket, which in itself was controversial.

But the church overflowed. Vince, of course, added a bossa nova feel to the music. He also completely improvised when more than 1,000 churchgoers took Communion, which lasted at least half an hour.

In the end the mass was well received, and Episcopal Bishop James Pike sent a letter to Guaraldi expressing his “excitement and enthusiasm after hearing your contemporary setting for the Holy Eucharist.” Fantasy Records released the LP Vince Guaraldi at Grace Cathedral. And Time printed a piece with this photo caption: “Praising the Lord with blues and bossa nova.” One of the original cuts from the album, “Theme to Grace,” hit #2 on an L.A. radio station.

But Vince’s most beloved compositions, as yet unwritten, were about to hit planet Earth.

***

A little over a year earlier, it had been announced that Guaraldi would be composing the music for a documentary about the “Peanuts” comic strip written by Charles Schulz. It would be written, directed, and produced by Lee Mendelson, whose Burlingame company had recently done a special called “A Man Named Mays” (about Giants Hall-of-Fame outfielder Willie Mays). “I decided, having done a special on the world’s best baseball player, that I should do the world’s worst: Charlie Brown,” said Lee. He added animator Bill Melendez; DJ Don Sherwood of KSFO-AM 560 would narrate. Mendelson wanted a jazz score, and shortly afterwards he was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge, heard “Cast Your Fate” on the radio, and was “blown away,” he said. The rest would be history.

Mendelson met with Guaraldi at Original Joe’s restaurant on Taylor Street, and two weeks later Vince played “Linus and Lucy” for him over the phone – an original tune with an ebulliently hip rhythm and melody. The left hand playing a definitive bass line on piano was a Guaraldi signature, and the jazzy snare was front-and-center.

The tune would eventually come to epitomize the “Peanuts” spirit. “It was so right, and so perfect, for Charlie Brown and the other characters,” said Mendelson. “Vince’s music was the one missing ingredient that would make everything happen.”

“Linus and Lucy”

Mendelson got people like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Arnold Palmer, and even Willie Mays to appear in the film, but in the end, no one would buy it.

***

In early 1965, though, Mendelson got a surprise call from John Allen, who worked at an ad agency in New York. One of Allen’s clients – Coca-Cola – wanted to sponsor a Christmas special. (At the time, the only TV Christmas specials were Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.) Coca-Cola wanted an hour-long show to be aired before Christmas. Yikes. Lee hurriedly got in touch with Melendez and Guaraldi but also informed Coca-Cola that that schedule was insane for a production that would take a year or two to finish. So they settled on a 30-minute show (including, of course, commercials). Even then, it was an almost impossible feat to pull off an original animated progam in six months.

Guaraldi went down to Glendale, CA, to cut the tracks for A Charlie Brown Christmas with bassist Monty Budwig and drummer Colin Bailey. The only repeat from the ill-fated “Peanuts” documentary soundtrack was “Linus and Lucy.” Vince came up with two new songs for specific scenes: one for the ice-skating scene (“Skating”) and one for the onstage party that happened when the kids were left to themselves by Charlie Brown, the play director (“Christmas Is Coming”). He also wrote “Christmas Time Is Here,” a waltz that he thought would be a good title theme. The rest are classic holiday songs rearranged by Guaraldi.

The special includes an amusing cornucopia of mini-stories – in a world, of course, inhabited only by children and pets, with no interference from adults. It opens with Snoopy the beagle leading a line of ice-skating “Peanuts” characters. The sight of a frozen pond alone was magical for me, a California kid who’d never even seen snow at that point in my life. But catching snowflakes on one’s tongue? Beguiling. And then there was Guaraldi’s captivating “Skating” theme, with notes descending like lightly falling snow. Columnist Barry Gordon would later write that “[t]he cascading notes to Guaraldi’s Vivaldi-like ‘Skating’ are the most vivid representation of falling snowflakes in music.” What strikes me is how Guaraldi made sounds that magically reflect the absence of sound that occurs in a snowfall.

“Skating”

Charlie Brown is, as usual, depressed and full of angst, all too aware of holiday loneliness and disillusioned about the meaning of Christmas. “Charlie Brown, you’re the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy’s right. Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest,” Linus tells him. Lucy raves about wanting “real estate” and loving “the beautiful sound of cold hard cash.” Charlie Brown’s little sister asks for “tens and twenties” from Santa. Even Snoopy succumbs to crass commercialism when he gaudily decorates his doghouse for the lighting and display contest. But Charlie perks up when he’s given the assignment to direct the Christmas play. The task ends up frustrating him, though, when the “actors” seem to want only to goof off and dance to Schroeder’s [i.e., Guaraldi’s] joyful piano playing of both “Christmas Is Coming” (featuring Guaraldi’s trademark Latin syncopations) and “Linus and Lucy,” with Pigpen on bass and Snoopy on guitar.

“Christmas Is Coming”

Charlie Brown and Linus go off to find a tree, and they pick up what we all culturally now know as a “Charlie Brown tree” – sad, bent, and barren. The actors scoff.

Ultimately, though, Linus is able to answer Charlie Brown’s question about the real meaning of Christmas by standing alone on a stage, spotlighted, reciting Luke from the Bible: “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you . . . . Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’ ”

Linus, by the way, meaningfully drops his beloved security blanket when he says, “Fear not.”

Then, picking up his blanket, he finishes with, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”

Linus, as usual, got it right.

The whole scene was Schulz’s idea. Some people thought an animated comedy was too crass for a Bible reading. But Schulz thought Bible verses were for everyone.

There’s been some criticism, however, that the show is overtly Christian. Yes, Schulz and Guaraldi were Christians (Guaraldi a Catholic), but Mendelson was Jewish. The principal theme, really, is anti-materialism, with secondary themes of love, friendship, and respect for our differences. In the 2021 documentary Who Are You, Charlie Brown? podcast host Ira Glass of “This American Life” says, “I personally don’t celebrate Christmas. I’m a Jew. . . . Christmas means nothing to me. But the Charlie Brown Christmas special . . . I mean, does it get better than that?”

***

When the final cut of A Charlie Brown Christmas was done, Mendelson was worried. He and Melendez thought that it was too slow and that they had “ruined Charlie Brown.” The first screening at CBS didn’t go well, either. The executives were displeased about the use of children’s voices, and they didn’t understand the jazz score. In fact, they wanted to cancel the show. But it was too late; TV Guide and other publications already had listed the special.

It aired at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 9, 1965.

Jazz musician David Benoit, who was 12 when he saw the show that night, would later say, “We just tripped on the music. It was jazz, not the usual sing-song stuff that accompanied cartoons. It was so refreshing: There was humor and lightness. It was hip, like the characters.” A sixteen-year-old George Winston also watched. “That piano drove me crazy. I loved that piano. It just growled; it drove me insane. I was transfixed by that piano!” Because the closing credits were ridiculously fast, Winston didn’t know who had composed the score, but the next day he bought the newly released A Charlie Brown Christmas LP in a record store in Miami, and he said it changed his life.

The show was obviously an insane success. It was the second-most popular TV program that week (after “Bonanza”); nearly half the people in front of the television that night were watching Charlie Brown. And critics’ ratings were glowing. “Jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi’s lovely, gentle, mood-setting score . . . helped give the half-hour an unexpected and attractive contemporary tone, mature in an almost eerie yet enticing way,” wrote reviewer Rick Du Brow.

A Charlie Brown Christmas was given a 1965 Peabody Award. And it would win, in 1966, the Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program. Continuing his bad luck at awards shows, Vince was late, the doors in those days were locked when the show started, and he had to watch the whole thing from a hotel!

Why the accolades and popularity? Well, in my view, using children’s voices was a masterstroke. The script, while a bit of a patchwork, was funny and sweet. And most appealing of all was the zippy, colorful, percussive musical score.

The entire show was like a refreshing drink of cider on a crisp winter night.

***

By the late 1960s, music’s role in popular culture began to change. Rock and roll was getting more popular. Clubs like Basin Street West were starting to feature rock and roll or R&B along with jazz. Strip clubs were taking audiences away, and jazz clubs were folding; only a handful remained. In San Francisco, “urban renewal” tactics displaced more than 10,000 Black families, mostly from the Fillmore jazz district.

Always wanting to stay current, Guaraldi began incorporating jazz versions of pop in his sets – Aretha, the Beatles. He asked his bass player to switch from acoustic to electric bass, in accordance with the times. Vince himself was using the electric piano at times, loudly. He was looser, playing jams, experimenting.

But sometimes it was to a near-empty room. In October 1968 the hungry i closed.

The Matrix shut its doors in 1971. In November 1973, according to John Wasserman at the Chronicle, only three clubs featuring jazz at all were left in San Francisco: Keystone Korner, the Great American Music Hall, and El Matador. Jazz was just about gone from the American landscape by the mid-70s. It was mostly rock and pop, with country soon to dominate the mix.

Most people wanted to hear lyrics. They just didn’t have the intellectual patience for jazz.

***

Still, Guaraldi was happy. His family moved north to a larger home in Marin County. He would continue working with Charles Schulz on 17 “Peanuts”-related soundtracks. Altogether he made 14 studio albums, four live albums, and an additional five LPs with Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete. And he was staying local, playing at El Matador and at the Sweetwater in Mill Valley. For a while he even jammed with the Grateful Dead.

By 1975 Vince was laying down tracks for a future album and was also beginning to gig regularly at Butterfield’s in Menlo Park, a supper club that would soon become his second home. Butterfield’s was a laid-back place with a carved-oak bar, Victorian furniture, and Tiffany lamps. Guaraldi by then had reverted comfortably back to his all-acoustic roots. He “would dress in Levi’s and a paisley shirt: sort of a hippie thing, sometimes with a vest, with long hair and big glasses. Big glasses. Coke-bottle bottoms,” said his bass player Seward McCain. “He was really, really loose at the piano. At Butterfield’s, he had a regular piano bench, not a circular type. He would rock that thing back on its two legs, and sit way back like he was riding a low-rider motorcycle! After a gig, he’d mingle with the crowd. Everybody loved him; he had a wonderful following, with friends everywhere.”

Behind Butterfield’s was a motel called the Red Cottage Inn, where Guaraldi stayed on weekends when he played at the club. During breaks, the band would hang out there.

On February 5, 1976, Vince visited Lee Mendelson, telling him that he’d been hired to play “Peanuts” music on a cruise “and was excited about that.” But, said Mendelson, Vince also wasn’t feeling well. “His stomach was hurting him. A doctor had told him that he probably had a diaphragmatic hernia, and that they might have to deal with it.”

The next day, Guaraldi’s trio had a gig at Butterfield’s. They played one set, and drummer Jim Zimmerman went back with Vince to his room at the Red Cottage Inn.

“Vince was feeling sick to his stomach,” Zimmerman remembered. “He got up to go to the bathroom . . . and went down on the floor. I tried to bring him around and wasn’t successful.”

Vince Guaraldi was “pronounced dead on arrival at Stanford Hospital at 11:07 p.m.”

He was 47 years old.

The death certificate listed the cause of death as “acute myocardial infarction, due to or as a consequence of coronary arteriosclerosis with thrombosis and generalized arteriosclerosis.”

Guaraldi was buried in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, where many San Franciscans are laid to rest. His low-profile gravestone reads simply, “In loving memory,” with his name and life dates following, along with those of his mother.

“Peanuts” music was played at his funeral.

Philip Elwood wrote in the Chronicle, “Charlie Brown and his buddies lost one of their real pals when Vince Guaraldi died Friday night. . . . Guaraldi’s music, whenever and wherever, was always the perfect accompaniment to the life of the Bay Area. One of the main cogs in our musical life has fallen out. Without Vince, things just won’t run as well, or sound so good.”

“He could swing, man,” said jazzman Jon Hendricks. “He swung like a front gate.”

***

September 7, 1974 [age 18]:

“What I am currently ‘getting off’ on – tequila, reading hungrily, Ted, San Francisco, eating breakfast out, used bookstores, driving further and further, working as a teacher aide with no boss, little kid customers at Rexall, Jack Kerouac, my City notebook, non-parental weekends, sunflower seeds, Bob Dylan, sweet folk music, sleeping out on the balcony in cool night air, the 60s and all they represented, moderation (Bocciardi’s theory of), the vision of Christ-like Frank, wine, long-distance phone calls, photography, FM radio, bare feet, white clothes, accompanying [my sister] Janine on the guitar, night and cities and youth and drunkenness and life, writing writing writing and my idealistic dream of a grand discovery of America.”

September 8, 1974 [age 18]:

“[My brother] Marc and I are home alone this weekend. I wanted to go to Frisco or Santa Cruz but everyone was working. So I proceeded to begin a long epic letter I had promised Jeanne – hauled the typewriter and my favorite onionskin paper and carbons and my little torn-off bits of hastily scribbled notes and a bottle of Kahlua and Tequila up to my room and typed for hours slowly getting drunk. Then Marc and I drove (he, of course, behind the wheel; me trying to hide my condition but talking a lot) to Macy’s where Ted fed us sandwiches, doughnuts, and Cokes in the empty restaurant. On the way home we eventually discovered, much to our disgust but later hilarity, that we were nearly two hours behind because of a power failure the night before. So it turned out we had had lunch at 3:00 (we were WONDERING why Ted had looked at us so strangely.) After dinner of frozen egg rolls and TV dinners Marc wanted to go play cards at Joe’s but Ted and I were uninterested so I suggested going to Santa Cruz (I was sober by then). Once there Ted and I had a great time eating ice cream and drinking Cokes and walking in the dark along the beach, skirting the tide and talking on some steps near a railroad trestle. He is the boy I love most but platonically. Santa Cruz was a storyland of magical colors. But between my amateur driving and my night blindness, the ride there was terrible and we’re lucky to be alive.”

September 14, 1874 [age 18]:

“I really love my new job [as a teacher aide], and this week has gone by in a blur. I’ve somehow also kept up with [my part-time job at] Rexall. I’ve corrected stacks and stacks of test papers this week and am getting to know the names of all the kids. I’ve gotten lots of appreciative smiles from them and I LOVE it. But sitting home on a Saturday night now, with nothing to do, has prompted me to feel sorry for myself and my subservient condition. The parents have gone out and arbitrarily ordered us to stay home and do nothing. This simple demand irks me no end because it was unreasonable and unfair, and here I am paying room and board, and I’m subjected to this unmitigated crap. I’m 18-5/6 years old!”

September 15, 1974 [age 18]:

At work today [Rexall Drugs], after Mr. Jordahl [the pharmacist/owner] left for the day, I called in and won a Beatles album from KARA, and then when [my brother] Marc [who also worked there] and I had closed, locked the doors and all, we began going nuts, wildly throwing the cigarettes around and screaming, when we noticed that there was an old lady still in the store!”

October 4, 1974 [age 18]:

My day at school [where I was a high school teacher’s aide] was full of a lot of emotions, as usual. The kids are almost beginning to love me; in 5^th period, in fact, the less-well-behaved ones clustered around and asked me all about myself – what I wanted to be, how old I was, etc. Julie [Miyahara, one of the teachers] told me that her dream would be to go up to the City and work, and I answered, a little loudly, “Oh, yes, my dream is to get an apartment on the wharf and work in a dusty bookstore.” And there was no disabling stare but only a knowing smile. The possibility is becoming more real to me, this vision of making San Francisco my home. I could be a writer in jeans and a workshirt. Ha! And Mrs. Schwalen talked to me for over an hour after school about religion and education and old towns. If I did not have an agonizing cold, I would run outside and shout wildly.”

October 5, 1974 [age 18]:

“At work [Rexall Drugs] we are always looking out of the window. Joe once commented on this, asking, ‘What is it that we hope to see out there?’ All of life is one big expectation. This thing that we wait for, that we hope to see, is something grand and wild, something that will by its magic pull us out of those dark corners that comprise our lives. People can never recognize their own happiness. They can’t. They dwell in the past, because the present is never quite enough. It never quite satisfies us. Hence, the hope that tomorrow will be brighter, that soon the days will grow sweeter.”

October 6, 1974 [age 18]:

“I drove [my sister] Janine and three of her friends to the Century to see a movie, and in the intervening time I wandered around downtown. I stopped in at Jack-in-the-Box to eat, then stumbled upon a record I have been searching for for months, and had given up hope that it even existed. There in my favorite used bookstore, the one that abounds in Jack Kerouac, the one with the basement, I found my dream album. Yes, I found the soundtrack to ‘Easy Rider.’ “

October 13, 1974 [age 18]:

“Mom and Dad went to Reno and told us to stay home the entire weekend again (ridiculous!!). So we started out with [my brother Marc] intending to have a quiet evening of study with at home with Joe. But somehow it ended up with 6 of us lying drunk in the living room. Bruce had come over and re-described the Elton John concert I’d heard about so many times before, and soon we all got so excited that we put Elton John on the stereo at tremendous volume, called Morris to bring beer (we’d already had some for dinner) and vodka, then Ted came over, and we all sat around and had GREAT conversations about the future till two in the morning. It was so intimate. I loved it, but at the same time, all of the love in that room saddened me, for some reason.”

October 12, 1974 [age 18]:

“Oh, brother, another embarrassing condom episode! At work today [Rexall Drugs], a man came in and asked for what I thought were condoms. I couldn’t understand him very well even though I’m usually able to understand people with accents. So I did what I’m supposed to do – I put the condoms in a paper bag surreptitiously and rang them up for him. He left, but then a few minutes later, he came back in with another guy. The condom box was open and the friend pointed to what he’d really wanted (behind me on the shelf): FLASH CUBES! Oh, man, I could have died!! He must have thought I was a pervert or something!”

October 17, 1974 [age 18]:

“Only little things today, only little things. In science class [at my teacher aide job] I stuck my hand in a beaker and shattered it, cutting my finger badly and trying to nonchalantly hold a paper towel to my skin so as not to disturb the class with the oozing redness. At home I read a news story about a poetry reading in San Francisco with Kerouac’s old beat-poet friends – Ferlinghetti, McClure, etc. – and now I am excited about going up to the City to see them with my own eyes. At work [Rexall] later, we crowded around the front register watching the [World] Series on my T.V., and I lost 75 cents to pools, a bottle of RC to [my brother] Marc, and a Tequila Sunrise to Terry. At midnight we were at Joe’s with Ted to celebrate Joe’s emergence into adulthood, eating cake and ice cream, playing Password and O Hell and Mini-Mysteries, listening to the stereo, and talking about nightmares and dreams.”

October 20, 1974 [age 18]:

[NOTE: This is a really long one, and I am using the initial “M” to protect the sort-of guilty]

“It was an incredible night. Bruce, M., Ted, Marc [my younger brother], and I decided to go bowling, and after much driving around all over town in Bruce’s car we found an alley (Plaza Lanes), but, disgusted with everyone’s terrible scores, the high 80-cent line fee, and my being unable to find a light enough ball, we left early with plans to stop at the Bottle Shoppe, leave M. off to get a couple six-packs, then drive up Sierra Road like we had done this summer, to sit in the weeds and talk. Well, it was magical then, but it wasn’t magical tonight. First of all, it was cold – our jackets weren’t able to keep out all the cold. Plus there was alcohol this time, enough to make us all extremely paranoid. Bruce pulled off the road, and the five of us climbed over barbed wire to sit down on a grassy hillside. About two minutes later, Ted leaped to his feet and shouted “Cops!” An unidentifiable car crept toward ours at about 5 mph, with something that may or may not have been a searchlight. I thought: “TRESPASSING. OPEN ALCOHOL IN CAR. MINORS POSSESSING ALCOHOL.” My adrenalin surged and I galloped blindly downhill, full speed, in the blackness, not being able to see a foot in front of my face, terrified, thinking of broken legs, only dimly aware of others crashing along somewhere beside me. Eventually we stopped and huddled at the bottom of the hill, and the car passed. We never knew if Ted had made a correct judgment. Scared, Marc and I persuaded the others (with little trouble) to leave. All we wanted was a quiet place to drink our beer and talk. Bruce suggested a place near Anne Drew’s house, but we drove away when he led us into someone’s driveway. Then Ted told us about a secluded road up above Suncrest, and it sounded perfect, so we joyously drove up. “See that house?” Ted said, pointing. “It’s the only one around.” The house was quite a distance away. We drove to the end of the road, and – guess what – our headlights lit up a house not 10 feet away, and these two dogs, which we could not see, were barking ferociously, making all kinds of noise. Paranoid, we drove away, getting a glimpse of the dogs. They were little bitty things, Malteses or something, and we burst out laughing. But we were still scared, and when a car approached slowly, our hearts lept [sic]. It turned out, however, to be a car we had seen back on Sierra Road, a sight which led us to believe that that HAD been a police car previously, if it was enough to make this other car leave, too. Finally, Bruce agreed to let us use HIS house. When we neared his driveway, we realized that he wasn’t supposed to have anyone in his car, so we backtracked to M.’s. We all got in HIS car, and transferred the beer on the way to Bruce’s, out of the range of the curious glances of [M.’s younger brother]. Everyone but Ted, who brought the beer in by the side entrance, walked calmly in through the front door, past Bruce’s parents, and into the poolroom, where we relaxed, took off our jackets, and drank our beer. Marc didn’t have any, Bruce and Ted had a can apiece, I had two, and M. had two or three. It was really fun (except for clock-watching because we had to be home by midnight). I swear that I cannot hold liquor at all, because I can remember me once, when we were playing cutthroat, trying to shoot at a ball which WASN’T the cue ball. Anyway, at five minutes to twelve we packed up to leave, suddenly remembering that M. had to drive us all home. I was a trifle worried about his condition, especially when we were doing 45 or so on Piedmont Road. Then, as the new stop sign, which had just been put in at Sierra and Piedmont, approached, I saw to my horror that M. wasn’t going to stop. I shrieked “Stop!” but his reactions were delayed, and, though slower, we drove right on through. I held my breath, awaiting a siren, but there was none. However, coming along Suncrest, there were headlights in the mirror, and Ted looked back and said, “Swear to God, it’s cops.” I can’t even describe my fear. For one brief instant, after we pulled over, we sat in the car terrified. Then, to look “nice,” we all got out. It was a sheriff. He talked to M. while the three of us stood, in the cold, worried about our curfew. It was then that I remembered something Bruce had done when we left. He’d shaken up a car of beer and walked up to M.’s window, pointed it at our innocent selves, and – well – there was beer all over the upholstery, the window, and the side of the car. Anyway, by now the preliminaries were over and I happened to glance over at M. and there I saw something which shook the living hell out of me. The sheriff was shining a light in M.’s eyes, asking, “How much you had to drink tonight, son?” and M. kept kind of shrugging and didn’t answer. Then the cop said, “Now, look here, I can tell you THREW your liquor out the window ‘cause it’s all over the car here, son,” and I guess M.’s explanation must have sounded a bit contrived. Then the sheriff made him walk a straight line (which he could) and stand on one foot, which he managed only after three or four tries. (Later he told me it was fatigue – he’d gone on a long mountain climb that day.) I was tipsy myself and was nonchalantly trying to walk along the curb to see what’d happen if they tested ME. I don’t know to what extent they can prosecute intoxicated minors (me). But the sheriff was interested only in M. Never spoke to us. Finally he said, “Well, you won’t have to go in this time; I’ll just write you a ticket.” (It was only for 10 bucks.) I heaved the biggest sigh of relief you ever heard, oh, we were so lucky, and there was so much FEAR all night long. I swear I will never do that again – never!”

October 20, 1974 [age 18]:

“I’m reading Kerouac as fast as I can, eating Milk Duds, and growing old.”

When October goes

I have a brilliant idea about how to make the game of baseball much more enticing for spectators: each team must allow a fan to play one inning.

I’ve laid out this scheme to more than one baseball aficionado, and surprisingly it has not been taken seriously.

Here’s my proposal:

Before every game, any attendee who wants to voluntarily participate in “Bocciardi Baseball” is issued a numbered ticket indicating whether that person is a fan of the home or visiting team.

Shortly before the game starts, one lucky fan of each team would be selected in a drawing. And that person would get to play an inning of the game! Offense and defense. He or she would have to bat and play in the field. No designated hitters allowed.

There would be, of course, no limitation on eligibility. Participants could be of any age (18 and over), gender, or ability.

I’ve often wondered how a coach would manage the team in this scenario. What position would the fan play? I think it would have to be an infield position; that way, the other three infielders could help cover the entire territory.

Yes, it brings up a lot of logistical difficulties. Each team would need to have all sizes of uniforms and shoes at the ready, for one thing. But just think about what a scream it would be to watch. Consider the revenue!

Obviously in my fantasy I would be picked to play an inning with the Giants. If they put me at first base I could potentially be very effective, considering that that was my position growing up. In the 8^th grade our coach – Sister Barbara Anne – called me “Stretch.”

(Disclosure: that nickname may no longer apply.)

***

October is ending, glorious October. In San Francisco there is no changing of the leaves. But as the days shorten, the summer fog typically begins to wane. The sun finally reveals itself, although lower in the sky, and the air snaps like an apple. Most years, there are occasional washes of rain. Not enough to keep us indoors for long, but enough to feel like a quick autumn cleanse.

This is also the best time of year for sports fans. The baseball season heads towards the World Series, and football season is just gearing up. Meaningful games are taking place on chilly fields, with a lot on the line. There’s always someone to root for, always a sense of anticipation.

I grew up near the foothills of San Jose, surrounded by nut-brown orchards. As kids, the neighborhood boys and I adhered to the professional sports seasons religiously, playing whiffle ball in the spring and summer, flag football in the winter, and basketball on rainy October driveways in the fall. My best sport, I would say, was street flag football. On knee-grinding asphalt. We lived on a very steep hill, so teams facing uphill were at a decided disadvantage, but no one cared. I could catch anything and no one could catch me. Whatever the sport, we played until darkness closed in and our parents dragged us inside, against rigorous protestations. We were endless stores of energy.

Every night before bed I would fantasize about playing professional football. My favorite player was Jimmy Taylor, a powerful Green Bay Packers fullback. His number was 31, and because of him I wore that number throughout my life.

***

My mother, Beverly Steger, was an outstanding athlete in the late 1940s at Glendale High School in southern California. It surprises me how well-supported girls’ athletics were at her school. She played just about every conceivable sport, was frequently featured in the Glendale News-Press, and in the summer of 1950 was recruited after graduation for a regional semi-pro softball team.

*Mom on the right, in her high school letter sweater, 1950*

Mom never played slow-pitch softball – always fast-pitch – and she was a feared hurler. Only once during her high school years did her stoic, often belittling father come out to watch her play. On that particular day the coach decided to move her from the mound to shortstop – a position that she had never played and a move that, Mom thought, squashed the possibility of her finally impressing her father. The first hit was a line drive between her and third base. She dived for the ball and made a miraculous back-handed catch, body parallel to the ground. “White shorts on, legs exposed, everything skinned up,” she told me. “But,” she added proudly, “I showed him, didn’t I?”

Luckily, my own parents were truly interested in everything their children did. In high school I played basketball, softball, tennis, and badminton, and Mom and Dad came often to watch me play (well, Dad didn’t have much of an excuse not to – he was already on campus because he was the principal!). But I was just an above-average athlete, not an outstanding one, and my nerves hamstrung me.

Investments in girls’ sports then were at their lowest point. I remember playing basketball outside on terrible cement courts. (When I first started, girls had to play a ridiculous six-person, half-court, zone-only game, with just two dribbles allowed.) And coaching was often sub-par. In softball, for example, I insisted on using my own bat, which was a massive wooden club that I could barely swing. I just liked the feel of it. But no one ever told me that I’d never be able to get any bat-speed on that thing.

Of course, my best sport – flag football – didn’t exist for girls in my time. I had one opportunity to play in high school on “Powder Puff Football” day and as I recall it was a travesty, a comedy of ineptitude.

A few days after I graduated in June 1972, along came Title IX, which provided that girls’ and women’s sports funding in federally funded schools should be equal to that offered for boys and men. (A revolutionary concept!) The Women’s Sports Foundation says that in the ensuing 35 years, female participation increased 904 percent in high school sports and 456 percent in college sports as a result of the legislation.

I just read an AP piece about how girls’ flag football is “soaring in popularity” at high schools around the country. In fact, the California Interscholastic Federation-Southern Section has voted to approve it as an official sport for girls.

I wish I’d been able to take advantage of Title IX. I wish I could have played flag football or, better yet, joined a Little League baseball team. What if I’d had better coaching, a lighter bat, and a modicum of confidence? What if I truly had been taught the fundamentals? Maybe I could have played at least at the college level, who knows.

***

I don’t know how professional ballplayers survive the grief when they retire from their game. Their final moments on the field mark the end of their youth and the loss of the incredible camaraderie of playing a team sport. In my twenties and thirties I managed softball and basketball teams in San Francisco, learning what teamwork meant, discovering the cheapest pizza-and-beer joints in the City, figuring out how to close down the after-game bars and still drag myself into work a few hours later, and – most importantly – making intense lifelong friendships.

But I hung up my cleats at about age 40, realizing that although I could still run well on the basepaths, it was beginning to take me waaaay too long to get my legs moving out of the batter’s box. It was time.

I miss it so much.

***

Sometimes Julie and I spend the end of our day bragging about our athletic exploits. And by the time we’re done, the tales of our sports heroism have become bloated with exaggeration. Did you know, for example, that when playing intramural football Julie once did a full pirouette in the air while going up for a fingertip catch in the endzone? But did you also know that while playing street football I once went out for a pass, leaped, snagged the ball with one hand, and came down in a cactus? Completion!

***

The World Series will end this week (and what a thriller it’s been so far), but before the baseball playoffs started this month I made a mental list of the postseason teams and my feelings about them:

Teams I love:

Cleveland Guardians

Their new name may be terrible, but they play old-school baseball.
They haven’t won a World Series since 1948.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland.

St. Louis Cardinals

It’s a storied franchise.
Three great players are retiring this year (Pujols, Wainwright, and Molina).

NY Mets

I love New York but hate the Yankees, so the Mets get my support.
Darin Ruf, one of my ex-Giant boyfriends, plays for them after a heartbreaking trade this year.
Their manager Buck Showalter used to manage the Orioles, who play in Baltimore, an area where many of my friends live, and I really like the name “Buck.”

Toronto Blue Jays

Bob Brenly, one of my all-time favorite Giants, played for the Blue Jays after he was released by the Giants.
Also, there is nothing to hate about Canadians.

San Diego Padres

Haven’t ever won a World Series.
Players don’t have gross scraggly beards.
The great Tony Gwynn (RIP) played with them for TWENTY years and often took less money than he could have gotten elsewhere because he wanted to stay with the Padres.
But a deduction for Manny Machado. Ick.

Teams I’m torn about:

Houston Astros

Caught cheating when they won a World Series in 2017 (but it was the Dodgers they beat that year so I’m torn . . .).
I really, really, really want future Hall-of-Famer and Renaissance man Dusty Baker, who managed the Giants for 10 years, to win a World Series as a manager.

Philadelphia Phillies

The underdog Phillies beat the abhorrent Atlanta Braves in the 1993 postseason (see below), so there is a very large and special place in my heart for the Phillies.
But a deduction for Bryce Harper. Ick.

Seattle Mariners

They’re the only MLB team to have never been in a World Series.
But I loathe the Seattle football team (Seahawks) – and their gum-snapping, USC-cheater coach – with the heat of a thousand suns, which has poisoned me against any professional team from Seattle.

Tampa Bay Rays

They’ve never won a World Series.
But in game 6 of the 2020 World Series, the Rays’ manager foolishly removed pitcher Blake Snell, who’d allowed only two hits, which led to a *&^%$#@ Dodgers win. Unforgiveable.

Teams I loathe:

Atlanta Braves

I got an ulcer during the 1993 baseball season, when the Braves beat out the Giants (104 wins to 103) in the last great pennant race before wild cards were instituted.
Also, their “tomahawk chop” is a loathsome nightmare.

NY Yankees

I’m sick of them and their endless piles of money.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Odious. No need for an explanation.

***

As I’ve written before, someone once asked me to explain why I love watching sports and I found it hard to come up with an answer. For me, much of it revolves around passion and adrenaline and hope, and the older I get, the harder I fight not to lose those things. As a profoundly emotional person I don’t think I ever will, but I make sure I keep stoking the fire.

One of those passions is a fierce sense of place. I know it sounds ridiculous to believe that your local team somehow represents you and everything you live for, but that’s how I feel. When I was growing up, San Jose didn’t have a professional sports team; my allegiances lay with the Giants and the 49ers because San Francisco was the closest big city. After having lived in the City for more than 40 years now, my ties have only grown stronger.

But it’s also a form of love. Sports allow us to care fiercely about something outside ourselves — a person, a school, a town.

As a child I was famous in my family for insisting that we delay dinner and keep the television on after any team won a postseason game because I wanted to see what I called “the happy locker room scene.” Champagne dumped on heads in sheer reverie. (Pre-goggles, when men were men!) That’s really what I lived for. Sports allow us to be fervently happy for others.

Julie once told me that she’d seen her father cry just a few times in her life. Once was when he thought a tornado was bearing down on his family. (It missed them, thank God.) All of the other times were because of sports teams (especially the UK Wildcats).

As for my own father, well, on a memorable October afternoon in 1988, I saw him literally crawl across the floor in anxiety as 49ers quarterback Steve Young ran out of gas and tripped and stumbled across the goal line after a miraculous 49-yard game-winning run against the Vikings.

Sports fanaticism is something we can share when we watch a game together and root passionately for our team. We can scream, scare the dog, throw popcorn in the air, high-five each other, and spill our beer together, collectively, with one heart.

As the great sportswriter Roger Angell once said, “It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificantly and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring – caring deeply and passionately, really caring – which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives.”

***

A couple of weeks ago I tried on an old glove that I hadn’t worn in a couple of decades. I must have broken it in really, really well because it was still soft and, unlike me, hadn’t cracked one bit. Three of us played catch in a local park and it felt sooooo good. I can still catch the ball like a champ, but now that I’ve had rotator cuff surgery, let’s just say that I don’t think I’d do too well as a fan-player in my made-up baseball game. I probably can’t throw 30 feet, let alone 90.

While we were tossing the ball around, some twenty-somethings walked by, looked at us gray-hairs, and smiled.

***

Is the passion we have for sports all about playing or all about watching? Well, it’s both. It’s about the way our lives evolve – starting with the little child watching games on TV with family and falling asleep dreaming of scoring a winning touchdown. Then the glory years of playing sports ourselves, perhaps too long, until dusk falls and the toll on our bodies forces us to stop. And finally, in the autumn of our years, we become mostly spectators again, relishing our memories, lying about our exploits, rooting heartily against the teams we disdain and lustily for the teams we love.

For me, the passion and the adrenaline make me feel alive. They keep me, somehow, young.

And how can we make it last?

Play catch no matter our age, before winter really sets in.

Watch football with people we love on chilly Sunday afternoons.

And hold close the memories of those childhood basketball games on slippery neighborhood driveways in a warm October rain.

Oh, for the fun of them, when I was one of them.

And when October goes
The snow begins to fly
Above the smoky roofs
I watch the planes go by

The children running home beneath
A twilight sky
Oh, for the fun of them
When I was one of them

“When October Goes,” by Johnny Mercer and Barry Manilow

***

September 6, 1974 [age 18]:

“And so today another chapter in my life begins. I was hired for the teacher aide’s job. (I think Mr. Salazar’s daughter didn’t actually want the job.) It will be $365/month gross instead of the $500 Dad told me. I had to go down to the Police Department to get fingerprinted, then drove to the bookstore to buy ‘Ulysses’ and two Jack Kerouac books. Tonight, all is quiet. Everyone is tired from their first couple days at school. I’m lying around and thinking about my writing, which is ca-ca.”

Finally a writer!

This will be the shortest blog I’ve ever written, but I’m writing it because I am doing handsprings right now – or I would be if I didn’t have a phobia about being upside-down.

You see, a few short minutes ago I was speaking to the editor-in-chief of The San Franciscan, an independent magazine that features excellent writing (including poetry and fiction) and photography.

Everybody who’s anybody in San Francisco subscribes. (Well, I just made that up, but I know it to be at least partially true.)

Last February, the magazine put out a call for submissions. Although I felt that it would be my absolute dream to write for this publication, I did nothing. But my friend Julie R. in Maryland, who also subscribes, e-mailed me this short note:

“I’m sure you [saw this call for submissions], but I just wanted to give it a little boost. You would fit right in this terrific magazine, and you have so much to say about San Francisco.

Don’t say no! At least consider it.”

(That’s the essence of a great friend: someone who can support you while preemptively calling you out on your nonsense.)

After I stopped laughing about “Don’t say no!” I officially wrote to the magazine staff and pointed them to my blog. Not because I had any hopes whatsoever, but just to appease Julie. That’s it.

Months came and went. I assumed there was no interest and it all receded from my memory. Except for my constant simmering feeling that I’d let Julie down.

But then came the out-of-the-blue e-mail from The San Franciscan about a week ago, leading to today’s phone call. It turns out that the magazine wants to publish, in an edited form, my blog post about Margaret Valentine LeLong, who bicycled from Chicago to San Francisco in 1897 (see https://mondaymorningrail.com/2021/05/30/a-bike-some-undies-and-a-gun/).

It will likely appear in the Winter issue (January), but there’s always a chance it could get pushed off to the Spring.

I just wanted to thank you, dear readers, for sticking with this blog. An acquaintance once complained that my posts are “too long and full of too many facts.” Ha ha. I know that’s true. But some of you continue to read it anyway.

Honestly, a few days before the magazine contacted me, I was contemplating stopping the blog.

But now I’m over the moon.

Blogging is, in my view, a hobby. Getting published in The San Franciscan, though, means I can finally say I’m a writer.

And I’m reminded of something the acclaimed author Anne Lamott once said:

“Today’s writing advice: Remember, it will not go smoothly, or possibly not even well. Butt in chair: just do it, one disappointing paragraph at a time. Victory!”

***

August 3, 1974 [age 18]:

“The family is gone and I had just settled down for an evening of listening to records when Ted and Joe arrived, prepared to see a movie. We procrastinated so much that we decided to go into the City instead, then threw out that idea and ended up driving blindly along Highway 17 hoping to run into the Nimitz drive-ins, which we did, and saw ‘The Skin Game’ and ‘Uptown Saturday Night’ till 2:30. Then Ted and I dropped Joe off and went out for breakfast – omelets and hotcakes – and had a nice talk about ruts and freedom. It is now 4:30 in the morning, and I just walked in the house, which if the parents knew would, I am sure, cause them to lapse into terrible fits.”

August 8, 1974 [age 18]:

“[My aunt and uncle] Jackie and Fred are downstairs with Mom listening to news reports on Nixon’s resignation speech. Dad is driving wildly out to the San Jose Municipal Golf Course after [my brother] Marc, at whom he is totally furious for going golf-ball-hunting out at 11:30 at night. In fact, he just arrived home without my poor brother, prepared, I am sure, to kill him. [My sister] Janine and [my 4-year-old cousin] Lisa are in bed next to me, chattering about all kinds of things. And I am listening to Dylan on my new earphones, agonizing over life.”

August 20, 1974 [age 18]:

“I’ve pretty much decided to take a year off school and apply for a real job for next year. Dad suggested that I apply to the ESUHSD [Eastside Union High School District, where he was a principal] as a teacher’s aide, which would be six hours a day and $500 a month, and I could keep my job at Rexall. So I went down to the district office yesterday to apply. I was scared sitting alone at a big desk with an electric typewriter and a timer for my typing test. My fingers were trembling uncontrollably and I was expected to type 40-45 words a minute but I managed only 20 words a minute with myriad mistakes. It was so embarrassing! I called later and they said I got a 92% on the written part but that I should come in again today to try to do better with my typing. This time I skidded through with 37 wpm and 3 mistakes. So I had an interview with Mr. Peters [at James Lick High School], who said he WILL hire me if I commit myself for the full school year. I have a week to think about it. Meanwhile I also applied to B. Dalton’s [a bookstore chain] this morning. Working in a bookstore would of course be my dream job – unless I were Bobby Dylan’s personal chauffeur.”

August 17, 1974 [age 18]:

“Last night after work I hit the record stores with Marc and Joe to take advantage of sales (I bought ‘Tea for the Tillerman’ and ‘Blonde on Blonde’ and “Nashville Skyline’ and the Byrds), then we played poker at Morris’ house and had pizza at Lord Byron’s. I was off by myself at the pizza place trying desperately to beat the driving machine and finally succeeded after feeding it four quarters. Then today I went to San Francisco with Carolyn. We parked the car at USF and took a bus down to see ‘Godspell,’ then to dinner at Slater Hawkins, then back to see another play, ‘Grease,’ – a Broadway play. I really loved both plays AND my sirloin tips dinner and with student rush tickets plus the Diner’s Card I managed to do the whole town on $10! But God! How I love the City! If only I could live there! It was cool and windy and clear and oh that sweet breathtaking moment when we came out of the play: sharp night, lights in a million brilliant colors, crowds of people, and the beautiful San Francisco skyline.”

August 31, 1974 [age 18]:

“Well, gang, I have done it. I called Mr. Peters and informed him that I will be taking a year off from college and will accept the [high school] teacher’s aide job for the next year. I should be grossing $450 a month, with $50 going to Mom and Dad for room and board, and some towards my car until I pay it off. But oh, I want to be a writer. If I could do it, if I had an ounce of talent, I would write an immense Wolfean epic incorporating the whole of America’s life and substance into it. I also have a deep sense of nostalgia and a dark awareness of the bitter brevity of life.”

September 1, 1974 [age 18]:

“I lost an important store key at work [Rexall Drugs] today and emerged frustrated with a sore back. [My friend] Morris and I went out to get corn dogs on 1st Street and eat sundaes at Farrell’s. He has a profound belief in me as a writer. Then until midnight I talked with [my friends] Ted and Frank, who is newly returned from Canada. For an hour and a half straight I stared transfixed at Frank’s long blond hair and his beard and his deep kind eyes of some Christ-like god.”

September 2, 1974 [age 18]:

“[Our neighbors] The Schweglers had a dinner for [our neighbors] the Dunns and all I know of today is that I gorged myself on food and drink like some obscenely fat Roman emperor.”

September 3, 1974 [age 18]:

“A surprise today regarding the teacher aide job I thought I was getting. Apparently Mr. Peters [the principal] has been getting some static from a higher-up named Mr. Salazar, whose daughter also applied for the job. Mr. Salazar says that I wouldn’t be able to relate to Black and Chicano kids. It kind of hurts my feelings and makes me mad at the same time because I am just going to be helping the students with their reading and math and I think they will like me. The verdict will be reached sometime this week so I just need to wait and see what happens. The suspense is terrifying. With uncontrollable longing I watched the boys depart for college this morning, and with aching regret I listened to them chatter excitedly about green sheets and Togo’s sandwiches. If I indeed do get the opportunity to be a teacher’s aide, then my burning desire to be of some value will be satisfied. But if not, the days will be dry and tasteless, and I will be a lonesome dropout.”

September 4, 1974 [age 18]:

“No word about my job yet. Today I dragged Mom and [my sister] Janine up to the City on a ridiculous strange chase to gather material for my writing project that I have tentatively entitled ‘San Francisco and Onward,’ a project which may well fizzle out before it gets off the ground. Needless to say, I gathered no material. Instead, there were lots of maps and parking lots. All we did were 1) buy cold cuts, 2) go to City Lights bookstore, and 3) eat lunch at a Chinese restaurant that was so expensive that all we could afford was a huge pile of fried wontons. I ate a MOUNTAIN of them and got really embarrassed because the waiters were pointing and laughing.”

The joy of discovery

Every so often I descend into a blackout period.

And no, I’m not talking about drinking excessively, although I’m not one to rule that out.

I’m talking about my personal rule when it comes to new experiences. For example, let’s say I’m going to see a concert. And let’s randomly say it’s Springsteen. If I wanted to, I could go online and pull up the setlists from every show on the current tour. I could find out about all the surprises so far, all the old chestnuts he’s been grabbing from his back pocket. And if I were to dig a bit further, I could read about the killer solos, Bruce’s hilarious stories, and what bandana colors Little Steven wore.

But I don’t want to know these things in advance, because then there is no element of surprise, and thus less of a chance for joy.

So I declare an “information blackout.” I do no research, and I allow no one to tell me about anything remotely related to the experience.

That’s because I want that mind-blowing, sudden rush of adrenaline made possible only by the unexpected.

***

I fully acknowledge the benefits the Internet has brought. Health and medical information at our fingertips, for example. I can now dash online and find out what fatal illness I’ve contracted when the tiniest inkling of a symptom shows up. And I can find a support group.

Nevertheless, I think the ability to know everything has robbed us of the joy of discovery. Of surprise. Of astonishment.

In 1980 I set off with a girlfriend in a ’67 VW bus that she had converted to an RV. (Well, an RV with zero amenities.) Neither of us had driven to other states before, and our goal was to cover the entire country by car, mostly by camping out. We had neither cell phones nor navigation systems. All we had were paper maps. We had no idea what we would find, and little idea what the rest of the country even looked like. Every day was a discovery. We befriended strangers, tried new foods, stumbled onto beautiful parks, heard new accents, completely immersed ourselves in different ways of living, and followed uncharted roads – all with no planning.

Is that possible today? It is, in theory, but no one would do it. Instead we sit for hours at our phones or computers, planning out each move, checking Yelp or TripAdvisor to ensure that our experiences will be “five-star.”

Of course, the problem with uber-planned experiences is that they don’t bring joy. Either they’re a disappointment or they merely live up to our expectations. Very little exceeds our expectations.

***

In the old days, discovering music and artists was possible in one of two ways. Typically, we would hear new stuff on the radio (limited to a handful of Top 40 AM stations and, later, a few savvy DJs on FM stations). It was out of our control, of course; we were at the mercy of what the DJs played and, if we had a favorite song, we had to be lucky enough to be tuned into the right station at the right time to hear it. I remember loving “The Sound of Silence” and feeling ecstatic when I happened to catch it on the radio. Those first few notes and – whoosh – a shot of adrenaline.

Or, if we hankered for something new, we could buy a record and take our chances. Because I had limited funds in those days, I shopped mainly at used record stores. My favorite record haunt in San Jose would slap a colored sticker on each record to denote the condition of the album. I would gently remove the LP from the sleeve, hold it up to the light, squint, and look carefully for scratches or pits. Most of the time my method worked. I’d bring the record home, set the needle down into the grooves, and listen to a dozen new songs with tremendous anticipation. Usually at least one would bring me great joy, but if I was lucky, it would be an entire album.

***

Getting tickets to a concert used to be a feat of endurance, patience, and ingenuity. Pre-Internet, there were essentially two choices: you could use your phone to repeatedly dial TicketMaster (or BASS or whoever your local ticket broker was) and hope that you’d be lucky enough to get through. It worked a couple of times for me but ultimately it became nearly impossible.

The other option was the most reliable: you’d line up. Hours in advance. Perhaps a day in advance. I’d join a line of die-hards in the frigid San Francisco dawn and hope that the tickets wouldn’t run out before I made it to the counter. It was a crapshoot. My legs would ache. My closest nail-biter was the time I waited in line at the Record Factory for Springsteen tickets in September 1980. In those days, BASS (Bay Area Seating Service) sold concert tickets in person at record stores. Three of us got in line in the morning, behind only about 20 people, but the machines were so slow that my two companions left me sometime during the day and I was still there at 5:15 p.m. Beyond my aching legs, the greater problem was that the BASS computers in those days shut down at 5:25 p.m. on the dot. Everyone knew that tickets were running out any minute, and the line could be cut off right in our faces. The people behind me were really vocal and getting obnoxious, trying to physically insinuate themselves ahead of me. But I was not about to let that happen and held my ground with some well-placed elbows. And as karma would have it, I was the very last person to get tickets. Behind the stage. At 5:23.

(I don’t exaggerate. It’s in my diary.)

I was ecstatic. Getting tickets was a crapshoot, and I’d won.

“This is bullshit!” one of the scorned women behind me screamed. “We should have gotten those tickets! We’re FROM NEW JERSEY!”

I kind of got her point.

***

That old process may have been brutal, but it separated the true fans from the rest of the plebes. Now a guy with a keyboard or a screen can casually sit at home eating a hoagie while buying tickets for a show he may or may not decide to attend. After all, he can always scalp them. And it’s just easier to sit on the couch. After all, the show will stream online somewhere, right?

***

People don’t call each other on the phone much nowadays, and when they do, they often text each other first and make a “date” for the call. There is just zero spontaneity anymore. Imagine growing up the way I did, when the phone rang and we had no idea who was on the other end of the line. Yes, it could be a huge disappointment to lift up that receiver, but much of the time it was a lovely surprise.

In the late seventies, long before there were personal cell phones, I was visiting my grandparents in southern California and absolutely obsessing about a girl I’d just met in San Francisco. Someone who would turn out to be my first love, although I didn’t know that at the time. I was dying to talk to her, but of course I couldn’t place a call from my grandparents’ phone, which was on a desk in their kitchen. So, with a pocketful of as many quarters as I could scrounge, I peeled off in my ’71 Corolla with an excuse I can’t remember. It was winter, and the rain was pounding. I drove around the dark wet L.A. streets until I found a phone booth, pulled over, and ran through the rain giddily to the booth. I had no idea whether she would be home, but my heart was screaming with hope. I was cold and soaked and that only made it sweeter. And decidedly more romantic.

Ring.

“Hello.”

Thrill. Avalanche of adrenaline.

*Public phone booth on San Vicente Boulevard in Los Angeles, California*

***

Before all of us had Internet access, places like restaurants got their reputations primarily through word of mouth. There were exquisite little neighborhood spots that were known mainly to people in the ’hood because people all over the country weren’t Googling “artisanal tapas places” and taking over local joints to the detriment of the actual locals.

The same was true with attractions like national parks. You couldn’t make reservations in advance (there was no such thing) and had to make the effort to travel to different places and scope them out on your own. Effort and risk. Maybe a particular trail was a bust, or just maybe it led to the most gorgeous, solitary view you’d ever seen in your life.

But times have changed. A woman named Andrea Howe tweeted recently: “At Disneyland with the family and probably 50% of toddlers are strapped in their strollers on iPads or phones. At Disneyland. We are so screwed.”

***

*Arden Wood Christian Science Community*

I walk my dog Buster every day and pass scores of other dog walkers in the neighborhood. To my dismay, I’ve noted that about 90 percent of the people are staring down at their phones. Nevermind that they’re completely ignoring their pets, who could be meandering through foxtails, stepping in gopher holes, or ingesting something unimaginable. These people are also missing out on the world around them. On one of my walks a few years ago I found myself peering through an iron gate and exclaiming to Buster (yes, I do that!) about the beautiful gardens that lay behind the gate. It looked like Eden in there. Just then, one of the residents came up behind me and trustingly let us in. On the grounds was a Christian Science retirement home, and I ended up befriending the resident, Joanne, with whom I had lunch on more than one occasion. (By the way, those Christian Scientists go all out in their retirement facilities and their meals are incredible!) She was a sculptor from New York, full of gritty metropolitan stories, and I’ll never forget that serendipitous moment we met.

On another dog-walk last year, I met a man who’d written a book about Abraham Lincoln. We had a long chat and he insisted that I wait while he zipped inside to retrieve a copy before sending me off with it! Julie couldn’t understand how I walked out the door with a dog and came back hefting a book about Lincoln.

When I’m not meeting local characters, I’m happy to check out old houses, say good morning to my neighbors, smell the food and coffee up on West Portal, and take in the ocean view.

Cell phone not required.

***

The Chronicle recently ran a story about how Major League Baseball was taking a look at “augmented reality.” Fans at the ballpark could hold their phones in front of their faces – while the game was going on! – and their screens would overlay the action with stats and diagrams showing trajectories, launch angles, velocities, fielders’ ability to cover ground in a certain amount of time, and other bits of information completely unnecessary to the appreciation of baseball. The league execs didn’t think that youngsters could appreciate the beautiful and delicate balance of the game without augmentation.

I hope it’s a long time before this abomination comes to fruition. Never mind that micro stats don’t enhance real fans’ appreciation of baseball one iota. More importantly, what about the senses? The crack of the bat, the umpire’s call, the smell of a hotdog, the first refreshing sip of a cold beer?

And how about the swift thrill of a great diving catch?

***

Again, I admit that knowledge at our fingertips can be helpful. For example, not long ago I drank a huge slug of Gatorade before I realized that a big slimy blob of something had slid down my throat. I was pretty sure it was mold, because the opened bottle had been on the counter for weeks. In a panic I rushed to the Internet, which reassured me that stomach acid would take care of it. Since I have enough stomach acid to dissolve heavy metals, I figured it would be okay.

That was a relief. Now, what would have happened in 1974? Well, perhaps the end result would have been the same. I would have panicked, Mom would have told me I’d be fine, and I would have just gone about my business, because there was no Internet to potentially convince me I was doomed!

***

I don’t think this is too far off topic, but I’ve read lately that young people aren’t having much sex anymore. And that was the case before the pandemic kept them physically apart. It’s just more engaging to be connected to their screens. Less effort. Less risk.

(I don’t understand it. Honestly, I always say that at the end of my life my one regret will be that I didn’t have more sex!)

Today’s kids also, apparently, care less about driving than my generation did. When I was young, we couldn’t wait to drive. It was all about freedom, yes. But it was also about the full engagement of the senses. The radio blaring, the windows down, the wheel in our hands, the smell of grass in the summertime.

And we never knew what was around the next bend.

***

Sitting on our butts in front of a screen doesn’t yield joy at all. The brain gets wrapped up in repetition and reward, and that fulfills us in some way.

Pulling ourselves away from our screens takes effort, doesn’t it? And it allows for chance, which means there is risk involved.

Risk and effort, I think, build character. Do we always need to get exactly what we want? And do we always need to know exactly what is coming our way?

Sometimes we actually have to work for the unexpected.

Because if we’re constantly connected, and constantly in front of a screen, then that, my friends, marks the end of happenstance.

***

May 28, 1974 [age 18]:

“Today was rather a day of torture, for I believe I studied more than I have ever done in my life. We are having a final midterm in Drama tomorrow (I am a borderline B-/C+), and I have to read over seven plays, five essays, and my notes. The task was almost impossible. I studied from the moment I got home from school till the moment I went to work, than at work from 7:00 to 9:00, then for an hour on the phone with a friend, then until 11:30, when I plunged into sleep, and then I dragged myself out of bed at 5:00 this morning and studied until I had to get ready at 7:00. It was absolute murder. I kept getting all of Chekhov’s characters in the 3 plays we read all mixed up – all those Russian names, and everyone seems to be alike, representing work or degeneration or age or a love of the past or whatever. So then this morning what does he give us but a final unlike anything he had described, with no terms and no quotations but only a few relatively easy essays! I almost flipped! But I would rather have studied in vain than to have studied insufficiently. Then I whizzed over to my Speech class, looked at my current grade, decided I was too strongly an “A” to take the last quiz, and drove home happy.”

May 30, 1974 [age 18]:

“The times are strange. I’m in some sort of limbo now, intense schoolwork behind but fragments of studying still necessary now and then for my remaining finals. And when I am free of all this, what then? What will summer hold for me but more working at Rexall? Ha! We look for dreams, we in our eager youth. We await our long, romantic summers and the lovers who will come to us one day and carry off our hearts. We look for trains and blurring landscapes and new faces. And yet – I have so much to learn, so much naivete to conquer, so much more SAN JOSE to cope with.”

June 7, 1974 [age 18]:

“Carolyn called tonight, saying that she and her sister were going out to a movie, and would [my sister] Janine and I like to go? I drove – we had decided on ‘The Sting’ – and the movie was good but certainly didn’t deserve Best Picture. (I still vote for ‘American Graffiti.’) The funny thing is that while we were driving to the theater, Carolyn was showing me a ‘shortcut’ and only when I was about to turn onto an on-ramp did I realize that I was going onto the terribly crowded [Highway] 17, so I screamed ‘No! I can’t merge!’ and I stopped the car right on the on-ramp and got out and made Carolyn run into the driver’s seat so she could take over and do the merge.”

June 16, 1974 [age 18]:

“I managed to get enough courage today to ask the boss for a raise. After a long runaround he gave in and raised me 10 cents, so I am now making a mighty $2.00 per hour!”
Two days later:
“I had told Mr. Jordahl [my boss] some time ago that I’d love to fly ’cross-country this summer but my finances were holding me back. So today he turns to me and says, ‘Well, I figured out on my pocket calculator that if I give you $2.10 an hour this summer, that’ll be 92 extra dollars to fly back East with.’ So I stared, openmouthed, thanked him more than once, and came out with a 20-cent raise in two days!”

June 25, 1974 [age 18]: [Ed.’s note: And to think my career goal was to become a detective]

“I don’t know why I don’t notice things sometimes. There was a strange incident tonight as I sat at my desk. I noticed a most peculiar and obnoxious smell. But, true to form, I remained innocently oblivious, until Mom came in because she could smell the powerful odor. It turned out that something had gone wrong with my desk lamp, and two inches away from my face it had become so immensely hot inside that the base of the lamp had melted, sinking in on top, and burning my desk underneath. The whole family cannot believe how I could NOT have noticed it, TWO INCHES AWAY, and now I am paying for the consequences with a headache and nausea from the plastic fumes.”

June 27, 1974 [age 18]:

“I’ve realized that the terrible idea which has succeeded in filling me with so much anguish is the expectation of spending almost my life savings on a plane ticket in August. So, now I’ve decided to forget the possibility of such a trip, at least for the present (perhaps a golden opportunity will show up). So today I instead bought a most wonderful bodyshirt, completely to my expectations, white, long-sleeved, soft, with strawberries, and hopefully, as soon as I can find a pair, I’m going to get some long white pants and wear my new clean whiteness to see Cat Stevens.”

July 4, 1974 [age 18]:

“I made a hasty, wild decision to drive up to San Francisco alone today to ‘write.’ For the most part, I had a grand time, enraptured by the city I love so well for its magic. I should hopefully be able to express these feelings soon in my journal. The facts are these: Most of the day was spent ‘in search of’ something, because I don’t know my way around San Francisco yet, and I have a TRAGIC sense of direction. After finding a bathroom, I settled down to eat four pieces of Fish ’n’ Chips (I had wandered around the wharf for a long while, gazing at the fish and smelling their delicious, salty smells, but alas – they were too expensive) and read the newspaper to find out about any exciting events. I read that the composer of ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ would be performing in the Cannery, so I struck out for there because I HAD to see him. Afterwards I wandered some more, played pinball machines, went to Ghirardelli Square, and saw a cinematic show called ‘The San Francisco Experience,’ which didn’t inspire me at all except for the idea that the city was ‘indifferent to fate.’ I then decided to eat in Chinatown, but, after a nightmare of driving, unable to park, I left in frustration. Finally, I settled down for a few minutes in the park where Jeanne and Carl and I had sat years before, wrote a bit, and gazed out to sea.”

July 6, 1974 [age 18]:

“Whew, this weekend has been rather crazy. I went to the library this morning, the big one, in search of information about San Francisco for my notebook, then to the Pruneyard to see ‘Our Time,’ a depressing story about a girl who gets pregnant and then dies. Then home to eat fish ‘n’ chips, and to Church. Though I settled down for what I thought would be a quiet evening, Ted and Joe and Bruce appeared, and soon, after a futile search for a movie to see, we somehow decided to go to Santa Cruz. So at 9:00 at night we drove over the hill to the Boardwalk in our shirtsleeves. We spent all of our coins in the Arcade and I loved it. There was a warm breeze and I had a great talk with Ted and I felt like the whole beautiful world was mine. Unfortunately we had to be home by midnight for Bruce Otherwise, I would have liked to have done innumerable crazy things.”

July 11, 1974 [age 18]:

“I finished another piece of writing for my journal tonight (or this morning, rather) which put me into a happy state and kept me there for the rest of the day. A writer’s work is every bit as hard as Thomas Wolfe portrayed it to be. You sweat blood.”

July 27, 1974 [age 18]:

“I was [a bridesmaid] in Colleen’s wedding today. I had three thoughts before I went: I was 1) curious about how to wear a long dress, 2) dreading the dancing, and 3) totally eager to eat at the reception. But when the moment came I shook like a leaf, and heard later that my nervousness was quite apparent all during my walk down the aisle. Tom Gallo, practically an Adonis among men, in my opinion, was my escort.”

July 31, 1974 [age 18]:

“The law enforcement classes which I so desperately need are closed, and it will do me no good to maintain a partial schedule, since I will still be forced to go to school an extra semester. Therefore I have decided not to go to school next semester (or most likely for a year) but seek alternatives. I need to leave myself some time to catch up to the world, else I will be graduating at 20 without ever having lived at all. My dream is to go up to San Francisco, the place so dear to my heart, to live for a while. Mom was dubious about it, repeating that I was “making a mistake,” but Dad even offered suggestions on where I could work in San Jose. I would like to work for the phone company and be one of those collectors who drive around and get coins out of phone booths.”

An honest voice

Because of COVID, too many years have passed since I last attended a live concert. So I recently threw caution to the wind and decided to see the same artist twice, within four days, in two different cities.

For once, no, it wasn’t Bruce Springsteen.

It was a true American treasure, as far as I’m concerned. Actually, an Americana treasure. It was Rosanne Cash.

***

Yes, I know I’ve always said that I generally prefer male vocalists and that in my version of hell I’d be forced to listen to Joni Mitchell and eat couscous all day. But even oldsters like me can evolve.

“Seven Year Ache”

Rosanne Cash is a fairly late discovery of mine. I’d known of her only from her 1981 hit single “Seven Year Ache.” That song earned the coveted Paula Bocciardi 5-star rating, but I didn’t follow her career because I was primarily a mainstream rock and roller. My adrenaline pumped to Bob Seger, John Mellencamp, and of course Springsteen.

I was also a rabid fan of “folk rock” – Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel.

But pure country music was completely unappealing to me. When we were young my father would turn on the scratchy AM country station every time we climbed into the family car. And it embarrassed me. I thought it to be musically simplistic and lyrically vapid. To prove my point I would always reference “Drop Kick Me Jesus (Through the Goalposts of Life).”

Man, I missed out on a lot.

***

The CD that changed everything for me was Rosanne Cash’s The List. It was a collection of songs inspired by an impromptu music history lesson delivered by her father, Johnny Cash, more than 35 years earlier. Johnny had taken Rosanne on the road with him the day after she’d graduated from high school, and on the tour bus he’d handed her a list, written on yellow legal paper, of what he considered to be the 100 essential country songs. The tour lasted 2-1/2 years, and during that time she soaked up everything she could about the evolution of country music while learning how to play guitar from musicians like Mother Maybelle Carter and Carl Perkins.

The List includes some songs I already knew like “Sea of Heartbreak” (a duet with Bruce Springsteen!) and “Girl From the North Country,” the Bob Dylan tune on which Johnny Cash had collaborated so beautifully on vocals. But the one that hooked me was “500 Miles,” a folk song I’d sung since childhood while strumming awkwardly on the guitar. As a teenager I’d wept to the Johnny Rivers version on Johnny Rivers Rocks the Folk. Songs about loss and farewells always tugged at me, even at a young age. But Rosanne’s rendition was the best I’d ever heard. It was plaintive and resonant and just about broke my heart. It also won the coveted Paula Bocciardi 5-star rating.

“500 Miles”

***

The first of my two Rosanne Cash shows this year was at the San Francisco Jazz Center. It’s a modern auditorium, filled with deep grays and purples, swiveling seats, and lots of space. Space between rows, acres of air above our heads. Rosanne doesn’t sing jazz, but she’s had a deep affiliation with the Center over the years, and every so often she spends time there as an artist in residence. As usual she was accompanied by her guitarist husband John Leventhal, who also adds his lovely soft harmonies. We sat in the balcony, where the sound was pristine but not loud enough for my taste, and where we could see her, but not closely enough for my taste.

Much of her set was taken from The List and included, to my joy, “500 Miles” and “Sea of Heartbreak.” She reminded us that Springsteen had sung the latter as a duet with her. “Is he here tonight?” she quipped.

I wondered about the makeup of the audience that night. I believe that most of the people were likely subscribers to SFJazz (I’m not) and possibly somewhat unfamiliar with Rosanne’s music. The applause was polite and intellectual.

I would have a far different concert experience just three days later.

***

*Rosanne Cash (tallest child) with her siblings and parents, Vivian (Liberto) and Johnny Cash*

Rosanne Cash was born in Memphis in 1955 (a stellar year!) but grew up in southern California. Her mother – Johnny Cash’s first wife – was Vivian Liberto, a beautiful woman of European (including half Italian) descent. Or so Rosanne thought, until she learned – during an episode of the PBS show Finding Your Roots aired just last year – that Vivian’s maternal great-great-grandmother had been an enslaved Black woman. The KKK had harassed Johnny in the 1960s because they believed his wife to be Black, and although Cash wouldn’t have cared if she were, he didn’t know the truth at the time and had gone so far as to publicly deny the rumors in order to save his career.

After the tour with her dad in the early 1970s, Rosanne worked in London for a while at CBS Records, where Johnny had gotten her a job as an assistant in the artist relations department. After returning to the States she enrolled briefly at Vanderbilt as an English/drama major, but she soon dropped out. All she wanted was to be a songwriter, in the mold of her muses Mickey Newbury and Townes Van Zandt. She shifted her life to L.A., asked country singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell to produce a few of her own songs for her, and eventually, with the help of her dad, was offered a recording contract with Columbia Records in Nashville.

Rosanne cut her first Columbia album, Right or Wrong, in 1979 at the age of 23 and a year or so later broke through strongly with Seven Year Ache, which reached number 1 on the country charts and yielded three number 1 singles. By then she’d married Crowell and had a baby, and the family moved to Nashville.

As the years went by, Rosanne continued to make albums, some of which were successful, and they generated a few hits. But she was increasingly disappointed with the music biz. She was bothered by the “pressure to be a certain way, to toe a certain line, to start a fan club (which I refused to do), to participate in big, splashy events, and to act as if the country music scene were a religion to which I belonged.” She resented the “narrow aesthetic” and the “established hierarchy” and “wanted to be in the trenches, where the inspiration was.” After making an introspective record called Interiors that was essentially abandoned by Nashville Columbia, Rosanne asked for a transfer to the label’s New York division. “You belong in New York,” her dad told her. Management was all too happy to let her go, and she headed for the Big Apple in 1991. By then her marriage to Rodney Crowell was falling apart.

Rosanne asked John Leventhal to produce her next album The Wheel. The album’s themes were fire, water, wind, and moon; she was in a “New Age mind-set” then because of her pain over the divorce, its effect on her children, the move, etc. The Wheel wasn’t a commercial success, and Rosanne resigned herself to the fact that her work would never be accepted on Top 40 radio. She asked to be released from her Columbia contract. It wasn’t about the label at all, she says. It was about her needing to figure out how her songwriting could meld her life experiences with the musical history and connections that had been a part of her since birth.

***

Her new path carried her in the right direction, and the ensuing years finally brought about her greatest artistic and personal triumphs (and one huge challenge). Rosanne married John Leventhal in 1995. Her voice and songwriting became richer and richer. After her father, mother, and stepmother passed away, she released Black Cadillac in 2006. The album deals primarily with loss; the black Cadillac was the car that drove her dad away after he died.

“Black Cadillac”

“The House on the Lake” is about missing her father’s Tennessee home – the wood and nails and “the smell of heavy rain.” It’s all about the complexity of grief: the surreal sadness, bitterness, confusion, and loneliness, and then the oddest flicker of hope. She searches for her family through her pain, and her musical past percolates through her memories:

you must be somewhere in the stars
’cause from a distance comes the sound of your guitar
and I will look for you in Memphis and the miles between

The record earned a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album and found its way to the Billboard Top 10.

But the very next year threw her a curveball – really, a fastball aimed directly at her head. She found herself facing major brain surgery: a “decompression craniectomy and laminectomy for Chiari 1 and syringomyelia,” to be precise. She’d had terrible headaches and neck spasms for 12 years, then began getting fevers and infections along with fatigue. The surgery involved sawing open a credit-card-sized piece of the back of her head, cutting through the lining of her brain, breaking her top vertebra, freeing her trapped cerebellum, and releasing a bunch of spinal fluid. She had a much-worse-than-childbirth (as she described it) headache for months afterwards and had to re-learn things as simple as walking up a stair. Her hearing became so acute that any stimulation involving noise upset her; in fact, music with lyrics was too complex and unbearable. And she sometimes scrambled her words.

In the end, though, the surgery was a success.

***

The List was released in 2009. Although Rosanne considers herself a songwriter first and foremost, she felt that The List had to be recorded because the songs “were so clearly a part of Dad’s musical genealogy, and therefore my own. . . . [I]t was a record I wanted to make for my children as much as for myself or the honor of my ancestors.” It was awarded Album of the Year by the Americana Music Association.

But some of her best work was yet to come. Believing that she had to get back to songwriting after doing a full album of covers, she released an original album in January 2014 on Blue Note Records called The River & the Thread. She described the album as “a mini-travelogue of the South, and of the soul,” and it was inspired by trips she took with her husband through the heart of Dixie. The original focus of the trips was a project to restore her father’s boyhood Arkansas home, but she and John also visited William Faulkner’s house, the Mississippi Blues Trail, the Tallahatchie Bridge, Robert Johnson’s grave, and sundry other musical landmarks.

*Johnny Cash’s childhood home on the Cotton Highway*,
*Dyess, Arkansas*

The album is an atmospheric masterwork. Like Faulkner, she captures the swampy, beautiful, humid, molasses-dark gumbo of the American South. It’s about magnolias, mahogany, and whisky, about sludge and secrets. She sings of hard truths. Her voice is like loam, deep and rich.

The songs cover a lot of history: the Civil War, her father’s impoverished New Deal childhood in the Arkansas Delta, Rosanne’s own return to Memphis after a pilgrimage to Europe. They’re about finding her roots and discovering that although her life had taken her in many directions, the South would always run through her. “Music can unlock a frozen memory that melts into the seeds of our creativity,” she says.

a feather’s not a bird
the rain is not the sea
a stone is not a mountain
but a river runs through me

“A Feather’s Not a Bird”

The River & the Thread was the Number One album that year on Americana radio. In early 2015, Rosanne won Grammy awards for Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Song, and Best American Roots Performance. It turned out to be a good year for her: she also was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

***

I love Americana music. Maybe I don’t need the constant blasts of youthful rock and roll adrenaline any more. Or maybe my musical tastes just got broader. For me, it’s all about good songwriting. It’s not about novelty tunes like “Drop Kick Me Jesus.” It’s about artists like Woody Guthrie, Gordon Lightfoot, Lucinda Williams, Joe Henry, and Dolly Parton. Or Wilco, Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, the Marshall Tucker Band, Steve Earle, Whiskeytown, Townes Van Zandt, Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin, and the Avett Brothers.

So, what exactly is Americana? According to americanamusic.org, it is “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues, resulting in a distinctive roots-oriented sound that lives in a world apart from the pure forms of the genres upon which it may draw.”

With this diverse mix of ingredients, Americana can’t help but be a recipe for bridging cultures.

***

According to Rolling Stone, in 2015 Rosanne played a show in Mississippi at Dockery Farms, a sharecropping plantation known for being one of the birthplaces of the blues. At the afterparty, one of the musicians – an 88-year-old local harmonica player – told her, “When I was behind the mule in the cotton fields back in the Fifties, we had a radio on the porch and whenever your daddy [Johnny Cash] came on the radio we all ran out of the fields to gather around and listen.” Rosanne remembers that she started crying, thinking about the unseen connection. “This man has been playing the blues harp his whole life and I owe what I’m doing to him and, yet, I’m getting all the attention,” she says. “It just struck me so profoundly how much we need to honor him and his tradition.”

In 2021, Rosanne received the Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded since 1960 to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture. She was the first female composer to receive this prestigious honor.

Rosanne Cash has officially become an ambassador for the history of American music.

***

Cash has recorded 15 albums, and her most recent, She Remembers Everything, was released in 2018. Rolling Stone called it a “masterclass.” It’s really about the passage of time – our battles, losses, victories, pain, struggles, loves, ghosts, and memories both beautiful and haunting. Life’s train whistle, once staccato and cheery, has stretched into a longer, more reflective sigh. Because of the album’s wisdom and maturity, she says that she couldn’t have written it 10 years earlier. Her voice is strong and unapologetic.

The title song is dark. It honors women who live with suppressed trauma (“outside this waking dream, she remembers everything”).

“I read once that every time an old woman dies, a library disappears,” she often says.

But much of the album is about strong relationships and the ties that bind, often despite wounds and struggles. A nervous, eerily beautiful guitar line runs through “The Only Thing Worth Fighting For,” co-written with Lera Lynn and the great T Bone Burnett:

weren’t we like a pair of thieves
with tumbled locks and broken codes
you cannot take that from me
my small reprieves, your heart of gold

weren’t we like a battlefield
locked inside a holy war
your love and my due diligence
the only thing worth fighting for

I’m an idealist, though, so my favorite tune on the album, “Not Many Miles To Go” (yes, a Bocciardi 5-star), is an upbeat semi-rocker that confirms the ultimate promise she and John have made to each other:

thank you for the things you said
for not joining me out on the ledge . . .
thank you for the diamond ring
the baby boy and world on a string
the field guide to honor
and a thousand acts of love

I don’t miss living so much faster
I’ll take care of your Telecaster
you might miss the way I keep the beat
time keeps slipping through the curtain
from this point on there’s nothing certain
except there’s not many miles to go
and just one promise left to keep

When I listen to this song I am always reminded of the love I have for my family and friends – especially the ones who have talked me off ledges – and my fierce loyalty and unspoken promise never to leave. I hope you know who you are.

“Not Many Miles To Go”

***

A few days after seeing Rosanne at SFJazz, we drove 50 miles north to Napa, where she would be performing at the Uptown. The Uptown is a historic art-deco venue built in 1937 that is leagues more intimate than the Miner Auditorium at SFJazz. It holds about 863 people and the distance from the last row to the musicians is only 98 feet. Our seats were very close to the stage; Julie and I were mesmerized by Rosanne’s lanky fingers on the guitar.

This was a much rowdier crowd. Rosanne took an informal poll of raised hands and discovered that for most of us, it was our first live music event since pre-pandemic days. Everyone was energetic and anticipatory. There were shouts of encouragement and lots of requests. This was clearly her kind of audience: boisterous, appreciative, devoted.

And the show was stellar from beginning to end. Rosanne changed up her setlist, much to my delight. She chose songs from every period of her career, starting off with “Modern Blue” (a favorite of mine from The River & the Thread) and reaching back to “Seven Year Ache,” a song I’d never heard her play live before.

“Modern Blue”

She was loose and funny. At one point her husband John said something apparently sentimental about their many years together, but I couldn’t understand what the heck he was trying to say. She validated my confusion. “John,” she said to him right on stage, “I have no idea what that means, but we can parse it out later.”

She also added an amusing story to her “Is he here?” quip about Springsteen. She said that at one of her shows Bruce really was in the audience. At her request he ran up on stage to join her on “Sea of Heartbreak,” at which point she noticed with amusement that the jeans-and-leather-jacket rocker was actually wearing “Dad khakis.”

And one last tidbit: “How many of you saw the new Beatles documentary Get Back?” she asked. I was in the middle of watching it at the time – a compilation of footage from the band’s 1969 recording sessions. “Well, do you remember the photographer on the roof? He’s a friend of mine and is here tonight.” Much shouting and applause. Jeez, I thought, that guy must be 100 years old. Rosanne seems to know everyone.

***

Before the Uptown show, Julie had set out from our hotel to get a cheeseburger. Because I have a nervous stomach, I typically don’t eat before social events. I debated whether I should go with her, just to get some air and exercise, but my laziness won out.

Not long afterwards, Julie sent me a text. She was at the restaurant waiting for her take-out. “Oh, and one other little thing,” she wrote. She’d been walking down some empty side streets and saw a mound of red hair walking towards her, carrying some shopping bags. No, it couldn’t be, she thought. But it was. There was no mistaking the hair. It was Rosanne Cash.

Rosanne seemed distracted, probably thinking about her setlist for that night. She and Julie exchanged a few pleasantries.

I was, of course, jealously furious.

***

Rosanne still lives with her family in New York and remains dedicated to honoring the American songbook and the legacy of her famous family. She will never be tied to the dictates of any one place or any one style.

*Rosanne Cash and husband John Leventhal*

Over the years, she’s talked about how she feels about country music, noting that it used to be about hard truths, loss, and family but is now more focused on “sexual heat,” becoming “shiny and rich and rather shallow” as pop music continues to seep in.

“We all need art and music like we need blood and oxygen,” she says. “The more exploitative, numbing, and assaulting popular culture becomes, the more we need the truth of a beautifully phrased song, dredged from a real person’s depth of experience, delivered in an honest voice.”

As Rosanne’s friend, songwriter John Stewart, once told her, “We are all just radios, hoping to pick up each other’s signals.” Her signal, strong and true, has reached me.

***

NOTE: Many of Rosanne’s quotes in this post came from one of my most cherished books, her autobiography Composed. The New York Times called it “one of the best accounts of an American life you’ll likely ever read.”

***

February 13, 1974 [age 18]:

“[College] registration was so traumatic for me this year. I ended up with no less than THREE English classes and no more than ZERO law enforcement [my major] classes. I am going to end up an English major yet! It was terrible. I got there at 5:15 and I didn’t even get my registration number until 9:30. All those hours out in the icy cold were so miserable that at times I felt like crying, and my feet were frozen so badly that they hurt. Anyway, my classes: The first is Critical Writing—Drama, a course required for English minors. I hate the class. The professor is exceedingly arrogant and puts down student writing as though we were all a bunch of incompetent imbeciles. He gave only C’s on the first paper we turned in! I dread every paper we have to write, for fear of placing my amateurish writing under his scrutinizing nose. My second class I would have to rank as Number One. It is my upper-division Shakespeare class. The reading load is heavy – we read a play a week – and there is a quiz after every play, but I enjoy it and have learned a lot. The quizzes are essay questions, so we have to be able to grasp the deeper meaning of the play, the diction, the characters, the importance of certain scenes. Such is real education. The professor is wonderfully enthusiastic, bubbly with a good sense of humor, and the time flies in that period. I finally understand Shakespeare very well now, and I can read his plays smoothly and easily and actually ENJOY them. I don’t know what to think of my third class: Speech—Contemporary Dialogue. It has been a total waste of time so far. All we have done is watch a taped dialogue of two obscure students named Rocky and Charlotte, concerning their marriage. It’s been painfully dull. My next class is English 1B. It’s kind of boring, but I haven’t gotten lower than an ‘A’ on the essays, which take me only 20 minutes to write. The contrast between this class and Drama is astounding. We’re now reading ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘Macbeth’ – Shakespeare is coming out of my ears! Finally I have my Geology class, which I LOVE. Professor Anderson is young, dryly humorous, and looks like Richard Chamberlain. I adore him. He squints to see the clock, just like I do. His lectures are so interesting that I barely mind the length of the class. Field trips are coming up, too. We’re not memorizing rocks or anything like that, but concentrating on the interactions between air, land, and water – you know, typical ecology-oriented stuff.”

February 16, 1974 [age 18]:

“I’m home by myself this weekend and [my friend] Jeanne and I decided to get drunk. So, after work we set off to buy booze at [our friend] Vivian Blades’ 7-11 in Milpitas. Once home we set everything up and even took pictures. I wore Mom’s cool lumberjack shirt. Well, Jeanne launched into a long story about Eric and Larry while meantime I drank continuously. Then IT hit. Oooh, boy. Altogether I had half a liter of Miller and then half a fifth of wine, too fast. I have never felt so ill in my life. In one second, Jeanne started to spin crazily, and I couldn’t see. It was like being on the operating table and going under. I ran downstairs and heaved two or three times and stayed in the bathroom about half an hour until I could be able to stand up to stagger upstairs and go to bed. I will NEVER do that AGAIN!”

April 10, 1974 [age 18]:

“At 11:00 today, [my friend] Jeanne and I headed off to San Francisco, Jeanne behind the wheel. Once there, we headed for a gas station, one where you get a free car wash, and that was one of the best things all day! We were so snug and safe in the little car and this funny-looking canvas thing sort of crawled over the car and Jeanne started laughing and saying, ‘What is THAT?’ and then we both broke into screaming hysterics. Off to the Ferry Building to take a ride into Sausalito. We ate our picnic lunch down by the ocean and watched the rough waves. After a cone at Baskin & Robbins and a stop at the Wherehouse [record store] to fruitlessly look for ‘Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Part 2,’ we left for Golden Gate Park. We inquired about horseback riding, but the place was booked up. So we went to the Planetarium show, which was something about the future of the earth, but I don’t really remember — I was dozing off periodically because I was groggy from the Ornade [antihistamine] I had taken in the morning. Next we rode the cable car up and down, hanging onto the poles for excitement. It was neat. The driver looked like a Frenchman, with his black curls and moustache, beret, and print shirt and vest, and once we stalled and they had to pour sand on the tracks. There was a man on the corner screaming about sin and salvation and telling the world to repent. But I guess the weirdest part was walking by a little park and seeing a sign that said ‘Park closed’ but inside we caught sight of two men wearing tuxedoes, one in black and one in white, playing croquet! That was like a dream.”

April 16, 1974 [age 18]:

“Our night was interrupted by horrible vandals who threw boulders and bottles at our house and broke the front window, our screen, and the school car’s windshield. The police came. Ted was a witness but there are virtually no leads. Dad thinks someone was mad at him for something he might have done at school. [My father was our high school’s principal.] I was really shaken up. The parents are totally paranoid now about leaving me alone when they go off to the lake, and rightly so, I suppose. Therefore they have given me six million orders for this weekend: I shall not be out late, I shall sleep in their room [which was away from the front windows], the shotgun will be loaded and kept in the closet, I can listen to records in the living room only with the lights off, etc.”

April 20, 1974 [age 18]:

“Friday I skipped my Drama class to study ‘Othello,’ took the quiz, told why I thought Othello was a tragic hero, and noted that, if the discussion afterwards was indicative of the ‘correct’ response, I failed miserably. I cut Speech also – that ridiculous class – and played two sets of tennis with [my friend] Jeanne, emerging the victor. I came home, listened to Bob Dylan who was hopelessly stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again, and drove down to Jeanne’s for dinner. It was so immense that I must list the food: white rice, homemade biscuits, fresh string beans, fried chicken, mustard greens, squash fritters, strawberry shortcake, and Ovaltine.”

April 21, 1974 [age 18]: [get out your violins again; I’d just learned that my best friend Jeanne would soon be moving back East]

“I wonder, wonder how I will fare when I am left behind. For two years now I have been led by this refreshing friend. I can foresee this eternal grief closing suddenly in upon me in June. I can see me torturing myself listening to ‘Sounds of Silence’ or other songs reminiscent of those two years – ‘Maggie Mae,’ ‘Mandolin Wind,’ ‘Song Sung Blue,’ ‘Scarborough Fair,’ ‘Whiter Shade of Pale,’ ‘To Sir With Love,’ ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ I can see my tears and my flashing daydreams of things past. I can feel the deep, immense, unforgettable ache for something dead and gone. And what is to become of me? How can I start all over again? How can I possibly forget, wipe clean from my mind, all the glorious, youthful exultance I have known for just a moment? No answers, none at all but a dark feeling of this impending crisis of wracked emotions. Time, with its terrible tricks . . . .”

April 23, 1974 [age 18]:

“I want to tell about last Sunday morning. I answered the doorbell and there stood [a young man who lived down the street]. He has a crush on me and he had done this before – visited when he knew I was alone, hoping, I believe to be let in, shuffling around on the front porch. So I grew suspicious. He had two one-dollar bills in his hand, and asked if I had dropped them. I said no and he stammered out some desperate attempts at conversation and I sent him away. Reluctantly he left. Then that night I found out that he had suddenly joined the army. Looking back, he had only wanted to talk to me of his impending big step. I am a horrible person and will feel guilty about this until the day I die.”

April 24, 1974 [age 18]:

“Yesterday I drove to Jeanne’s and we were going to play tennis but the air turned gray, and after our simultaneous exclamations at the snow on the hills and her immediate suggestion to go up to it, we did. I actually drove Mt. Hamilton Road, scared to death but loving every inch of it. Then we romped around in the wonderfully clean snow, pretended we were Admiral Perry and his companion up at the North Pole, planted the ‘American flag’ (a broken branch), and got very cold and wet. I left with an aching head because Jeanne’s last snowball had hit me in the face and I recoiled and bashed my skull against a boulder. After seeing my wet clothes, Mom remarked that if I make it until age 21 alive, she will breathe a loud sigh of relief.”

May 24, 1974 [age 18]:

“If there had been a way for me to savor every day, every moment of this last week with [my good friend] Jeanne [before she moved back East], I would surely have done it. But the seconds have flown, and those sweet days of UC Santa Cruz visits and playing tennis and bumming through San Francisco and seeing Billy Jack twice and drinking tequila will fade, as all our life’s moments fade, slowly into our memory. I dropped her off at the airport today and had a speech prepared but didn’t say anything at all. Today all my fatigue caught up with me unmercilessly [sic]. My eyes were totally bloodshot, my stomach was upset, my head hurt, and I felt downright sick. I haven’t had any sleep to speak of for a week; also, I think my nerves, or my heart, or whatever, is (are) strained from all my sadness. And why did we have a lack of a real goodbye? That is preying on me. I am almost ashamed. If only I could go back in time. She was such a sun in my life – if only I can push aside the clouds somehow, I will make it through.”

May 26, 1974 [age 18]:

“I believe that I am surviving Jeanne’s farewell quite well. Perhaps I have been preparing myself for it all along. Of course, now I have finals and the end of school to occupy my mind, but in a week and a half or so, it will all be over, and I will once again be thrown helplessly into the world of long work hours, hot sweltering days, some sort of guilt-ridden hassle over family vacation, sunbathing, numerous lonely weekends, a diet, two weddings, and basic boredom. I have an intolerable urge to take the train ’cross-country, see all that land appear and fade away before my eyes. Thomas Wolfe loved the train – I could sit in it and write for three days straight. But who has $278?”

May 27, 1974 [age 18]:

“I saw ‘American Graffiti’ for the third time last night, along with ‘Pete ‘n Tillie,’ some mediocre comedy with Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett. Dad treated; I drove the whole family, squeezed uncomfortably in my little car. I love ‘American Graffiti,’ love its music and its characters and its overwhelming nostalgia. But nobody in the family liked it! How is that possible?”

Lonesome traveler

A few years ago I was staying at a small family-run hotel in Lucca, Italy, near my grandparents’ birthplace. The daughter, Giulia, had just spent a few days across the border in Switzerland and was entertaining her brother Giovanni with an anecdote about a Swiss train station. They were howling with laughter. Giulia apparently had been waiting on the platform when the Swiss passengers around her suddenly grew enraged, barking angrily at their watches. It was practically an insurrection.

The reason for all the anguish?

The train was 3 minutes late.

*Giovanni, Giulia, and their mom in Lucca, Italy*

The cultural difference between these two countries, adjacent to each other, is astounding, and I understood the Italians’ amusement. In Italy, structure and punctuality mean nothing. It’s perfectly normal, for example, for restaurants to open 45 minutes later than their posted hours; no one bats an eye. Highway lane lines are “merely suggestions.” And the train system is seemingly unconcerned about timetables.

The Swiss, on the other hand, make some of the world’s best watches. They are just . . . precise.

Despite my Italian last name, large nose, and tendency to weep without provocation, I fear that I inherited the lion’s share of my DNA from my Germanic mother. I crave order and precision and am happiest when I am organizing something. Please don’t throw me a curve ball. Inconsistency terrifies me.

Except when I’m on a train.

***

Normally I don’t let much time elapse between Amtrak rides, but it had been three years since my last trip when I decided to hop aboard the California Zephyr in September. It would be my usual ’cross-country trip to Maryland, with a train change in Chicago. But this time it was in the middle of COVID.

I’d been extremely careful throughout the pandemic. I rarely went anywhere, depended on food deliveries, saw friends and family mainly through Zoom calls, and had a mask glued to my face.

But by September 2021, I was vaccinated and the omicron variant had not yet emerged. In Baltimore it was going to be hot as blue blazes, so I knew I could eat my meals outdoors. And my friends out there were all perfectly fine with my getting off a long-distance train and dragging all kinds of germs with me. So I decided to take a chance and finally use my twice-postponed ticket.

***

It is impossible, on Amtrak, to be Swiss. It demands, instead, that you be Italian. On a train, you have to roll (sometimes literally) with each moment. The Amtrak experience requires the utmost in patience and flexibility. Nothing is consistent; very little is predictable.

Consider, for example, the temperature on board, which, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with the time of year. On this trip, the conditions in my room ranged hourly from sauna to meat locker. Most of the time it was like the frozen Yukon in there. I had brought a light fleece on board, but it was no protection against the frigid air blasting from the ceiling vent, despite my moving the vent lever to the “closed” position. (By the way, the sleepers also have useless “temperature controls” that have not worked since Jimmy Carter was President. Yes, some of these cars are nearly 50 years old.) I ended up stuffing an entire box of Kleenex (something useful that Amtrak actually provides!) in between the vent slats. That method helped mitigate the arctic conditions until nighttime, when the room inexplicably became an inferno. And on it went.

The in-room showers are not all that functional, either. One prevailing problem is that the water drains so slowly that it accumulates and begins leaking under the bottom of the door into the room itself. On this trip the drainage was virtually nonexistent, and to make matters worse, the waterstripping was loose and flapping. So I had ONE MINUTE to shower before the water rose the inch it needed to start pouring out under the door. There was no time for shampoo, let alone conditioner. It was a lightning-fast cleansing.

Speaking of hygiene, tooth brushing in a sleeper requires a great deal of physical flexibility. The attendants come around and pull down the beds in each room fairly early (say, about 7 p.m., when some people are still at dinner!), so you have to perform your evening ablutions after the bed is down. In room A (the smallest room, which I unluckily landed) the sink and bed are right next to each other, and I measured the distance between mattress and sink to be precisely two inches. There’s obviously no way to stand in that small space, so you must kneel unsteadily on the bouncing bed if you dare brush your teeth!

I’m telling you, trains are not for sissies. Sleeping can be a challenge, and the nighttime ride can be really rough through places like Nebraska. The tracks have gotten worse over the years, and it’s not unusual to be whipsawed back and forth all night while dealing with the sensation that the leaning, thrashing, jouncing train is going to imminently fly off the tracks.

Finally, to top it off, the Amtrak timetables are merely suggestions. In part because Amtrak shares its tracks with freight lines, the trains are rarely on time. I can usually count on being a couple of hours late into Chicago. But I’ve been lucky. This winter, I heard, was especially rough on passengers. Trains were up to 19 hours late. Imagine the Swiss having to deal with THAT! Insurrection City!

***

It’s possible that some of these challenges can be addressed in the near future. The recently passed federal infrastructure bill includes $66 billion in rail funding, including $22 billion for Amtrak.

Before the pandemic hit, the system was carrying more than 30 million passengers a year. Train travel is 46 percent more energy efficient than car travel and 34 percent more efficient than travel by air.

But Amtrak has been chronically underfunded, and it needs help. Its aging fleet is falling apart; tracks are decrepit; bridges, tunnels, and stations are crumbling; and there are shortages of machinists, electricians, train operators, and other staff.

Hurricane Katrina washed out many of the tracks along the Gulf Coast, especially between New Orleans and Orlando, but freight rail companies that control the tracks (despite Amtrak’s paying them fees) have stonewalled about rebuilding – for the last 16 years! Big cities like Nashville and Phoenix need passenger rail. And people in rural areas throughout the country, especially in the Midwest, depend upon trains as a low-cost, essential mode of travel, especially to locations with no bus service.

In my view, a great country needs a comprehensive, up-to-date rail network. It’s part of our lifeblood.

***

Because of federal TSA rules, there was a mask mandate on Amtrak. (Sleeper car passengers were allowed to remove our masks only in our room and only if the door was shut.) I was happy about the policy; I’m older and fall at the higher end of the risk aversion scale. I also didn’t want to infect any of my friends waiting for me at the end of the line.

The beleaguered Amtrak staff meant business about the mask mandate and served competently as enforcers. But no one can police an entire train every second. I went out to the observation car on the first day of my trip, partly just in hopes of getting warm. Everyone was masked, and I settled in. But about two minutes later, a 10-year-old sprite named Brandy with oversized glasses and a blond ponytail tapped me on the shoulder, plopped herself next to me, and announced that she loved the purple color of my fleece. Her mask was down completely under her chin and she yakked with me for 20 minutes about the trip she was taking with her mom, who was “between jobs.” It sounded like the family had recently split up, and Brandy seemed wobbly about telling me where she lived. She pointed out that trains blow their horns going around bends; I was appreciative of the information and mentioned that I loved the sound of the train whistle, even in the middle of the night when we roll through towns. She emphasized how much she loved the dark tunnels we were passing through and told me that she wished there were such a thing as an underwater tunnel for trains. Well, hang on to your hat, I said, because the Bay Area’s BART trains actually go under San Francisco Bay. Wow, was that a thrilling revelation!

How sad, though, that all the while she spoke I was concerned that her little mouth, which was two feet from me and into which she was shoveling barbecued potato chips, could spew dangerous COVID germs my way. Never mind that I’d taken all the precautions I could. How much paranoia must we endure? I decided that I wouldn’t let fear prevail and that I would continue entertaining this tiny child who was probably going through some tough times.

But shortly after she finally scampered away, a group of young men came in, none of whom was in mask compliance. Despite an otherwise empty car, they hovered right next to me, and one of them was coughing like a barking seal. Nope, I thought. I decided to skitter back to the meat locker that was my room.

That was my last trip to the observation car, and the last time I left my room, other than to lumber off the train at the infrequent station stops, where smokers pulled out their Marlboros while I breathed in some mountain air and made sure that my legs still functioned.

***

Despite my being an introvert, on past trips I relished being forced to sit with other passengers at meal times. Unless you’re traveling in a foursome, you’re asked to eat with strangers. Small talk is easy; the diners all have stories to tell about where and why they’re traveling. But during COVID we were allowed to sit only with our traveling companions. So it would have been just me alone at a table, which seemed pointless. Instead I opted to have my meals delivered to my room.

*Amtrak’s spectacular “Signature Railroad French Toast”*

With very little human interaction for multiple days, I tried to make the best of it. I would write, read (The Fran Lebowitz Reader was a good distraction), and listen to my superbly curated (if I must say so myself) train playlist. On the other hand, I also had way too much time to obsess about my imperfections and battle with my regrets.

In my case, lengthy self-reflection reminds me of 10,000 moments that I wish I could take back, when I had been thoughtless or ignorant or some combination of both. One of the films I had downloaded for my trip was the documentary Crip Camp, which was a stunning look at the difficult and courageous lives of people with disabilities. The film follows some young disabled activists and covers their 28-day occupation of federal offices in San Francisco in April 1977. That remarkable sit-in helped pressure the Carter administration to sign civil rights legislation for the disabled, which led to changes like the installation of ramps and sidewalk curb cuts and wider restroom stalls. It’s difficult to imagine a world in which these things didn’t exist and had to be fought for.

I was a student at San Francisco State University in the late 1970s, and on nice days I would climb the stairs to the roof of the Student Union to eat my lunch. One day the roof was suddenly closed off, and the explanation was that students in wheelchairs didn’t have access. I remember being angry and feeling that the able-bodied were being punished. It wasn’t until I saw this movie that I realized that the roof closure was likely the direct result of the 1977 sit-in. Without the closure, apathy like mine would have kept disabled people from enjoying what I enjoyed. How could I have been so thoughtless and ignorant?

Yep, that was one of my 10,000 regrets, and I had lots of time to think about it on that lonely train.

***

I was lucky, though, to be entertained by the witty commentary of our terrific veteran Zephyr conductor Brad Swartzwelter. Brad is a wordsmith, philosopher, musician, and teacher of history, geology, and railroad lore. Sometimes when trains are stopped for who knows what reason, he takes out his guitar and plays requests. At one point, as we were passing through a particularly unappealing section of the Colorado landscape, he announced that we were looking at “the handsome industrial underside of Grand Junction.”

Between Brad’s announcements, and with so much solitary time on my hands, I would watch the entire country roll by and imagine all the scenes in the great American play that was taking place outside the windows, in the fields, on open highways, in warehouses, behind closed doors. Somewhere workers were packing up fruit; somewhere activists held up their signs; somewhere a child was learning to read; somewhere a songwriter searched for a chord; somewhere a cook was rolling tortillas; somewhere a trucker headed for home; somewhere a couple was falling in love; somewhere a doctor had just saved a life.

“The traveler can abandon himself to the rich pastime of window-gazing,” wrote the photographer Walker Evans. “Along the paths of railroads, the country is in semi-undress. You can see some of the anatomy of its living. A backyard with its citizen poking into a rumble seat for a rusted toolbox; an intent group of boys locked in a sandlot ballgame; a fading factory wall; a lone child with a cart. Out on the plains, the classic barns and the battalions of cabbages. . . . One fleeting landscape can flush the mind with the images a child feels with train trips: waking at dawn to see a cool cornfield cut by a rutted road; a farmer in his wagon drawn up at the crossing. . . . He who travels by rail over the lesser lines of the U.S.A. clangs and shunts straight into his own childhood. . . . . A well-sooted depot today is what railroad stations have always been – focus and embodiment of heartbreak; citadel of boredom; and withal, portal of renewal.”

***

I’m filled with sadness every time I begin my return trip home from the East Coast. It’s partly because I’m leaving my friends behind, but also because I never know whether this will be my last train ride. In youth our lives are full of hope and adrenaline. But as we get on in years, each experience is filled with poignancy. We never know whether it’s the final time we’ll be doing something or seeing someone. Every special moment for me now is a combination of appreciation and angst.

I suppose there are a lot of lessons to be learned on trains. How to be flexible, for one thing. How to be socially engaged with all kinds of people (usually). Or (on this trip) how to be savagely alone.

This pandemic ride was a desolate one. It tested my durability and I frequently questioned my decision to make the trip.

On the other hand, I wish I were back on board – right now.

***

January 6, 1974 [age 18]: [Note: another one that merits a violin]

“There is a funny kind of sadness clouding my days now. It’s the nightmarish feeling you get when you lose something very precious to you, which you know is irrecoverable. I am losing, slowly but very distinctly, the magic feelings which have been a special part of my childhood, and with these feelings goes my childhood itself. I am perched on the threshold of adulthood, yet to enter would only tear brutally away an essential part of me, for no matter how old I may live to be, I will remain a child forever, at heart and in spirit. To wrench myself away from the magic song of youth and innocence which rings within me would be like death itself. Yet time flows on, forever forward, and I die a thousand deaths watching it carry my magic world away from me.”

January 13, 1974 [age 18]:

“[My parents were out], so after a dinner dominated by a game of TV trivia and then Password, [my brother] Marc went off to play poker, and [my friend] Jeanne and [my sister] Janine and I, in a burst of wild spontaneity, drove down to Speedee to buy whipped cream so we could have a cream fight. The fight lasted all of 45 seconds, because the cream ran out too fast, and I escaped untouched while the other two were just gooey with it. Then I cajoled the boys into playing ‘sardines,’ a form of hide-and-seek, and together with a mob of little kids we ran screaming up and down the street, in pitch black and cold, until midnight, when we all broke up and came home to clean up before the parents returned. At one o’clock or so I finally drifted off to sleep thinking about the peck orders in chickens.”

January 9, 1974 [age 18]:

“Philosophizing is absurd; all we can ever be certain of is that we really know nothing. Often I think it is a terrible scourge to do any amount of thinking. Analysis only leads to a heavy heart, I have concluded.”

January 15, 1974 [age 18]:

“The day began well and ended terribly. After my break I nonchalantly threw all my books and my purse into the car and locked it, and I walked off to the Shakespearean Festival, where I had a great time. But then, the shock – I walked merrily back to the car and saw the wind wing jimmied open and the car broken into and my new purse, my beloved space pen, a huge amount of cash ($45), my picture of Wayne Yamada, and all my cards (driver’s license, etc.) GONE. I drove home angry, well, raging at the world but broke into anguished sobs when I told Mom. This is like a nightmare to me. How dumb I had been! O, these foolish deeds of ours that are irrevocable.”

January 19, 1974 [age 18]:

“I’m home all alone again this weekend, as the family has gone up to Clear Lake. There is a wonderful, almost ecstatic sensation I get when I am free to do as I please. I can sleep away the morning, eat frozen dinners, listen to the Beatles or Bobby Dylan full blast until long, long into the night, and sing to my receptive make-believe audience. And I can sleep nude!”

January 21, 1974 [age 18]:

“I wrote furiously, like an absolute demon, to finish my final poetry paper today. At 1:30 or so, Mom and I rushed down to school and I ran in to hand it over to Dr. Elsie Leach as Mom circled the block. Afterwards we went to all three used record stores, where I bought myself a used Johnny Rivers album for 25 cents (plus tax) and a new Three Dog Night album, ‘Golden Biscuits.’ Bruce and I had sat out in his car, in the dark, listening to his 8-track of it on New Year’s Eve, and I remember getting an awful lot of romantic ideas from that situation. So now I have something to remember December 31, 1973, by.”

January 24, 1974 [age 18]:

“Ted Morrow – how many times I have wanted to sit down and write a story about him! [He was my neighbor and friend.] He is one of the funniest, kindest young men the world has ever seen. The past two nights we’ve been playing pinochle. I look back on the years we have spent growing up together and we have had a strange affinity. It seems that we haven’t said that many words to each other since the day we met in my undeveloped backyard, he ten years old and I nine, he with poison oak all over his face. We always played together – every sport, every street game, every board game – yet were also distant in many ways because we didn’t talk much. I think we have always loved each other, and always known it. Now that we are older we finally joke and laugh, and someday one of us will leave the other behind, but I’ll always remember him.”

January 31, 1974 [age 18]:

“I’ve dealt with some bizarre people while working at Rexall. One lady slapped her prescription on the counter and told Mr. Jordahl [the pharmacist] to fill it correctly or she’d throw him in jail. And Mrs T., who made us go to Lucky’s and buy her some groceries to deliver to her house along with her prescription! And Mrs. V., who threatened Mike with an umbrella when he made a delivery to her house. Then there was the lady who raged for two hours over a 29-cent box of tinsel which was just like the 19-cent sale tinsel we had advertised but had run out of – she started yelling that she was going to call the Better Business Bureau. I guess one of the interesting aspects of working in a drugstore is all the people to whom I would like to scream, ‘Ah, shove it!’ ”

In search of purpose

And now I spend my days in search of a woman we called purpose
And if I ever pass back through her town I’ll stay

Lately I’ve been in a writing funk. In 2021 I penned only three blogs: a story about a woman who bicycled from Chicago to San Francisco in 1897; a retread of a previous Fourth of July poem; and a lightweight tale about my phobia of vendors’ booths.

For someone calling herself a blogger, that’s just pitiful.

So what the heck is going on? Has COVID isolation simply made me sick to death of myself? Have I run out of ideas? Am I an empty, inert husk with absolutely nothing to say?

***

That’s what I was glumly thinking while I drove myself to CookieFest 2021 in Sacramento last month.

Every December I get together with half a dozen women who worked for the same San Francisco firm – The Shorenstein Company – in the late 1980s and have been reuniting annually for 32 years to exchange homemade cookies and hometown stories. Walter Shorenstein was a wealthy investor and real estate magnate who at one time owned or managed 25 percent of the commercial office space in San Francisco. The CookieFest ladies were all young then, but in those days you could be an artist or a poor student or an office clerk and survive easily and happily in a pluralist town that also sported an awfully big share of multimillionaire civic giants like Walter. I never worked for the man and in fact would not know him if I bumped into him on the street (which would be a major shock; he’s been dead for 11 years). But for whatever reason, I was invited into the CookieFest fold about 25 years ago and honestly can’t remember why. Maybe it’s just a “San Francisco oldtimer” thing.

Or perhaps it’s my world-famous molasses cookies.

Anyway, this year I was feeling a bit empty and pointless until one of the ladies mentioned my teenage diary entries that I post weekly on Facebook and attach to the ends of my blog entries. I had been considering stopping the diary posts, frankly, but the women were chortling and reading the posts aloud and going on about how my time-capsule diaries bring them a burst of delight every Thursday.

I had no idea. To me the posts are naïve and silly but to others they’re refreshingly honest and funny. They apparently splash rainbow paint on people’s gray COVID mornings.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes we don’t even know when we’ve given someone a gift.

***

One of the CookieFest women has told me, more than a few times, that she is still looking for her purpose. I could probably rattle off a dozen ways in which I know her kindness has helped me and others, which would be purpose enough, but I don’t know whether it would make a difference to her. So many of us feel lacking if we haven’t found a grand raison d’être or racked up accomplishments that have reverberated around the world.

A few days after I retired I decided to fulfill my lifelong adult goal of sitting in a coffee shop and reading, without a schedule and with nowhere to be. I walked up to my neighborhood Peet’s Coffee lugging an 800-page(!) book called Chief. It’s the autobiography of former California Chief Justice Ronald M. George, for whom I (indirectly) worked. One of the appendices is a list of the Chief’s judicial offices, memberships, awards, lectures, publications, and noteworthy cases. The list goes on for an eternity – pages and pages. It suddenly occurred to me that I was coasting into old age with absolutely nothing to show for it. It made me wonder: what achievements could even possibly be inscribed on my gravestone? “She, uh, was a bureaucrat. Nothing of note.”

But perhaps, for most of us who aren’t Chief Justice George, our purpose has been fulfilled incrementally, all along the way, by the good we do that we don’t even know about.

Perhaps our value in life is not at all based upon scale. It’s based upon character and decency, surely, but also upon the ways in which our words and actions – slight as they might seem – improve the lives of others.

We may not sport a grand résumé, but the effects of our benevolent gestures can ripple exponentially. And silently.

***

Sometimes I think about all the people who’ve lifted and sustained me in the smallest of ways through their words. People who talked me off a ledge, advised me against doing something dumb, helped me through heartbreak, boosted my confidence, nudged me in a direction that almost imperceptibly changed my orbit for the better. I can still remember every word they said to me – in some cases decades ago, in other cases just yesterday. Yet they have no idea.

Someone I’d just met gave me a book that got me through a devastating time. Someone suggested I apply for a job I felt was over my head. Someone gifted me with drum lessons despite my self-conscious resistance. Someone offered my band its first real gig when my mates and I had no idea what we were doing. Someone I didn’t know lent me money to buy a Springsteen ticket and ended up being my first love. Someone unknowingly called me at just the right moment, on just the right day, when I was about to mentally fly apart. A stranger with absolutely no ulterior motive told me I had nice eyes. A couple of people strongly suggested I start a blog. A friend once told me I was an idiot and was right.

***

Not long ago I was walking the neighborhood when I needed to cross the street to avoid some asphalt work. The morning fog had been heavy, and one of the workers told me that the road was really slippery and that he would help me across. For a millisecond I imagined myself defiantly pushing back against his conception of me as a little old lady needing help across a street. But I relented and took his arm, ultimately relieved that I had acquiesced. I mean, the street was indeed really slippery. And after all, who is to say that without his assistance I wouldn’t have taken a nosedive, ended up in the hospital, developed sepsis, and died?

A few years ago we had dinner with some neighbors at an Italian restaurant in North Beach. Soon after we sat down I realized, much to my horror, that I’d left my purse in the car. (What else is new?) Immediately our neighbor stood up to go retrieve my purse from the parking garage. He was willing to miss out on 20 minutes of Manhattans and merriment just to protect me from having to navigate the dark garage alone. (And I do mean “navigate,” because everyone knows I wouldn’t have been able to find the car.) Why should he go and not me? Well, he’s a tall ex-D.A. and not, I suppose, as easy a prey. And what if he hadn’t offered? Who is to say that I wouldn’t have ended up in the morgue?

I joke (sort of), but we really don’t know, do we, how many times we’ve been led away from a bad turn by a seemingly innocuous act of grace?

***

I can think of only one instance when people’s good intentions had an adverse effect on me. It was when they inadvertently convinced me that my plane was going down.

I’m just one of many folks who suffer from fear of flying (aerophobia). Nothing awful has happened to me in the air, but someone once told me that a disabled plane takes a full two minutes to plummet out of the sky, and although I have no idea whether it’s true, I can’t get that terror out of my head. Anyhoo, a few years ago we were preparing to visit Julie’s family in Kentucky, and the night before the flight, an unusually large number of people called me – some of whom otherwise never spoke to me on the phone. And for whatever reason, many of these people ended up saying “I love you” to me. Now, I am a sentimental person, but typically I don’t run around saying “I love you” willy-nilly to others. I mean, it’s really kind of rare. Yet on this night, I heard it over and over again. It made no sense. Something was terribly wrong. I became unswervingly convinced that the plane was going to go down and this would be my very last night on earth.

All those nice people were unknowingly contributing to my horror and dread!

It took all of Julie’s powers of persuasion to drag me to the airport the next day. I think I may have had to take an Ativan. (Or, as one friend calls it, “Vitamin A.”)

***

Last week, Stephen Colbert mentioned that when he was at his dying mother’s bedside, his sister started to sing the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have To Do Is Dream.” When Stephen joined in on harmony, his mother asked if she was already in heaven, hearing her two children sing to her so beautifully. Colbert was interviewing Elvis Costello as he told the story, and he thanked Costello for having browbeaten him into learning the harmony part to that song many years ago. Elvis’ encouragement had, many years afterward, assisted in the heavenly passing of Colbert’s mother. Costello had had no idea.

***

In the Fall of 1962, the San Francisco Giants were playing the New York Yankees in the World Series. My third-grade teacher, Mrs. LaCosse, bless her heart, brought a large floor-standing radio to school and tuned in. (Yes, kids, the World Series was sometimes played during the day in those bygone years.) I was 6 years old but already a major fan by then, so I was ecstatic. The Series went to Game 7, and the Yanks were winning 1-0 in the bottom of the 9th with two outs. The Giants, though, had a couple of baserunners, so what happened next was likely going to decide the game. The great Willie McCovey came up to bat and absolutely scorched a line drive towards Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson. It looked like a sure Giants victory. But the ball sank from topspin, and Richardson made the catch. Except for those few feet, the Giants would have taken the World Series, and I would not have had to wait more than half a lifetime for the SF Giants’ first World Series title.

I think Charlie Brown said it best:

These kinds of scenes happen in sports untold times a year. We fans live for them – for the adrenaline, the elevation of hope, the miracle. But in sports we get to immediately see the results of the slightest happenstance. In life, we don’t, do we? We might be able to later identify the moments that have altered the course of our own lives. But most of the time we have no idea when we’ve changed someone else’s.

***

Now that old age has snuck up on me, and I still grapple with my own purpose, I can only hope I’ve made a difference once or twice myself along the way.

For the rest of you, I can tell you this: most of you have made a valuable impact on my life with a single word or gesture. A word or gesture that you yourselves would rate a 1 on a numerical scale, but I would rate a 10. That’s how much the simplest of our interactions have meant.

You, my friends, have nudged me gently, silently, often unknowingly, onto new trajectories, and you’ve made a cosmic difference.

***

I’m going to try to shed my writer’s block in 2022. I need to stop sitting around and hamstringing myself with melancholy. Whatever my purpose is, it can be achieved only by living.

I need to stop burning daylight.

[Opening quote from The Avett Brothers, “The Once and Future Carpenter,” The Carpenter, 2012.]

October 6, 1973 [age 17]: [another oh-so-dramatic entry]

“Falling in love is all I think about. Day in, day out, minute after minute, the relentless, incessant torture. The heartbeat at the sight of a passing stranger. The lonely Friday nights. The overheard conversations. The lonely theaters. The people gone away and never forgotten. The longing. The ebb and flow of unfulfilled desires. The over-emphasized friendships. When, O when, will this awesome solitude cease and time not be so lonely?”

October 26, 1973 [age 17]:

“I won another radio contest! It’s called the KYA “Give-a-Shirt” contest, in which at a given signals everyone calls in, and they take a certain caller, and that person goes on the radio to be told what he or she has won. It’s always a shirt PLUS some great prize, nearly always $50 or $100 or a motorcycle. On impulse I called in and was the seventh caller from San Jose, so was really, really excited, knowing I’d get the money, at least, or if I was really lucky, a motorcycle, which would be my dream come true. So I waited breathlessly, could barely talk, and on the radio he said, ‘KYA gives a shirt – and then some – to Paula Bocciardi of San Jose. Know what else you got, Paula?’ ‘I have no idea.’ . . . tension . . . ‘A Proctor-Silex BLENDER!’ My heart just fell to my knees. Why on earth would anyone want a blender???”

November 12, 1973 [age 17]:

“I’m pretty sure I’m getting a surprise party because [my friend] Jeanne and [my sister Janine] have been whispering a lot. But I’m enormously worried, because what if there is dancing? I don’t know how I can prevent it, though. I overheard a parental conversation at noon today which led me to believe that the party is going to be at 6:00 on Sunday, when I get home from work. That means I’ll be in a dress – yick! Isn’t this terrible? I am really and truly ashamed of myself for not appreciating everyone’s efforts. But I tacked up a list on Mom’s bulletin board so she’ll be able to tell all the guests what gifts I want.”

November 15, 1973 [age 17]:

“Jeanne was in town today and I suggested that we go to Uncle John’s Pancake House because I know of an All-the-Pancakes-You-Can-Eat special for 79 cents. We didn’t realize how far it was until we began walking. It was MILES – 15 long blocks! O, so far! We took the bus part of the way back because I could barely walk after eating 16 huge pancakes.”

November 17, 1973 [age 17]:

“Ack – I know my [18th birthday] surprise party is going to be tomorrow! Problems: 1) feigning surprise, 2) my response to the gifts – I’m always bursting with gratitude inside but have trouble with physical manifestation, and 3) dancing? But then, I don’t know what boys could possibly be there because I don’t really know any!”

November 19, 1973 [age 18]:

“Today was my 18th birthday. Two things of note happened: 1) I went in to donate blood. I’ve always wanted to, but I also wanted to get my free Herfy’s hamburger (given to the first 500 donors). Besides, it made me feel good and useful (and a bit heroic). But after they put the needle in, seven minutes went by and my blood wasn’t coming out fast enough. So two nurses twisted, turned, and shoved the needle around until they gave up and said it wasn’t worth my time. Always a failure! At least I got the hamburger, though. 2) On the way home I went straight to our firehouse to register to vote. I had totally forgotten that I’d have to choose a political party, and when he asked me my intended affiliation, I hurriedly blurted out ‘Republican’ but now I’m not too sure.”

November 25, 1973 [age 18]:

“All I did today was play poker over at Ted’s house. Most of my money was thrown away on a game called Black Mariah, which is full of excitement and suspense but is a game that only the foolish play because it requires so much money. I lost over $1!”

November 30, 1973 [age 18]:

“I don’t think I’ve described my classes yet. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at 7:30 I am bored to death by my Criminal Law teacher and his long gray hair because 1) his voice is garbled; it burbles as tough there is some thick liquid in his throat, and he pauses continuously between phrases, and 2) he looks at the clock unconsciously every 5 to 10 seconds. I write the lyrics to Bob Dylan and Paul Simon songs in my notebooks to pass the time. My only other class MWF is at 8:30, entitled ‘Critical Writing: Poetry.’ The teacher is brilliant, and she is not boring, but she is old – probably close to 50 – and saggy and wears gray clothing, heavy shoes, and low-hanging necklaces. Her hair sets like a lid upon her head. She talks with perfect diction, which annoys me because she contorts her mouth into awful grimaces and laboriously spews forth each word. And she is also extremely arrogant. I love poetry, though, and listen intently to the discussions, although I never contribute. My first class on T and Th mornings is Psychology with 500 other kids in one of my favorite buildings, Morris Dailey. Professor Rutherford looks rather like a young Mr. Healy [my high school senior English teacher], but he possesses far superior steadfastness and virility. He is a very intelligent man and so interesting that even his 75-minute classes do not drag for me (which is quite a feat, since I normally lose interest after half an hour). I also have Shakespeare. The teacher questions us orally all the time, which I hate because I usually never read the play until the last minute (like during my break before class); in fact, many is the time I’ve cut class so as not to be embarrassed. My other class on Tuesdays and Thursday is Environmental Studies. Two professors teach: Dr. Harvey, whom I enjoy very much, and Ms. Pitts (I call her Miss Nancy), who speaks at kindergarten level and makes terribly feeble attempts at humor. A real drip!”

December 22, 1973 [age 18]:

“Well, we are up at Grammy’s house now [near L.A.], and I am infused with my typical Christmas elation. I slept about 90% of the day, and then I had three glasses of champagne for dinner. I was in the living room, alone, in the dark, listening to Johnny Rivers through the headphones, when Grampy came in and asked why I was listening to headphones when everyone could hear the stereo loud and clear out in the kitchen. Oops! I guess I hadn’t realized that the main speakers were still on. It was so nice, though; I was half-asleep and the music was like a dream in my head. It now seems, for me, that there is no other way to listen to music than while you’re full of booze.”

December 25, 1973 [age 18]:

“I’ve been wondering what in the world I was getting from Mom and Dad for Christmas, and I was really hoping that I might even be so fortunate as to get a car. I guess I was disappointed, then, that there was no nice new shiny blue sportscar awaiting me, with tiny seats and an AM/FM radio. I had my hopes up that now I could move to the dorms because I’d have a means of transportation. But I’d been sort of warned because [my sister] Janine had told me that my gift was worth about $25, and for that price I’d have been getting an AWFULLY cheap automobile. Anyway, I DID get two nice gifts. One was the Beatles 4-record set that I wanted, and the other was a really nice book on American Literature with photos and all. So please ignore my greed or whatever this appears to be; I really got a lot of joy out of buying presents for others and I am not one big lump of selfishness.”

December 31, 1973 [age 18]: [Ed.’s note: Oh my God with the drama again!]

“I suppose that I shall try to put this year into perspective. I still believe in Jonathon [Livingston Seagull] with all my heart, but the ideas in the book – levels of consciousness, the soul, transcending, freedom of thought – those ideas seem so naïve and phony to me now. They’re not – ah, they’re as beautiful as I ever thought they were – but they’re idealistic and my idealism, though it has far from disappeared, has waned considerably. My desire for a ‘love’ this year has failed to manifest. With the terrible NEED I have for human affection, I often wonder how I survive without the romantic relationship I crave. I’m like a thirsty man in the desert. At least one occurrence was of major import this year, though: I got a job. It is quite a nice job [drugstore clerk], and the sense of communion between the employees helps. I love the customers as well, much as I gripe about them. I can surmise that being employed has made me grow up quite a bit. Certainly it has given me a great deal of experience (not to mention money). But anyway, here I am – lost, a little lonely, a baby. If 1974 is better than ’73 I shall be content, because this year has brought me little more than myriad repetitive days with a few personal losses thrown in. My soul is raging endlessly; I am so restless, so full of a terrible ache for a grand adventure, so haunted by unfulfilled dreams of a better life. I have so much to be thankful for: a good family, excellent health, fair intelligence, a decent moral sense, a clear conscious. So why this ravening hunger for something more? The world turns while my confused young spirit goes unnoticed.”

February 11, 1974 [age 18]:

“O, oh, I cannot even DESCRIBE how terrific Bobby Dylan’s concert was tonight. He sang something like 19 songs, most of them with The Band. Even The Band’s solos were nice. We were so close to Bobby Dylan that we could see him sweat. They were $7.50 seats, behind and to the side of him. At first, I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed – Dylan was singing too fast, and he ended every line on a high note, and ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe,’ one of my favorites, didn’t sound at all the same. But everyone was so together: kids wearing jeans and smoking dope and knowing that Dylan was ‘the greatest’! Jeanne and I drank beer. Oh, TONS of beer – tons and tons. First we had large beers and then we ordered a bucket of beer! So when the end came rolling around we were quite buzzed – and then he sang “Like a Rolling Stone’ and all the kids spilled out into the aisles. We gave him such an ovation that he did three finales. I came home ecstatic and flying on a cloud – he had been TEN Paul Simons!”

February 21, 1974 [age 18]:

“For a long time now I have been trying to determine how my own egotism differs from others’, for I could sense my egotism and yet also sense that I could not be classified with the arrogant people. A couple of days ago I came very near to the answer. I love to have my journals read, to be thought of as kind and humanitarian, and to be loved. But I don’t BELIEVE that I am a writer, or that I’m selfless, or that I am capable of being loved. My inferiority complex, then, dictates that ‘You’re in actuality a nothing, but you WANT people to think you’re great, and you let them think so, however much in ignorance they may be.’ ”

February 25, 1974 [age 18]:

“Oh, I am so exceedingly depressed. My drama professor read my thesis paragraph out loud in class today as a perfect example of a TERRIBLE introductory paragraph and what not to write. Man. I wish I had a car.”

March 1, 1974 [age 18]:

“I feel like I live in a dream because I live entirely in my mind, dreaming away in books, writing, or music. Thus my lack of practical knowledge, my inability to cook, sew, shop, or find my way around. [Ed.’s note: nothing much has changed.] And the more serious matter of personal relationships, not knowing how to project myself to other people. So, to cure the problem, I’m going to force myself into the swinging life.”

February 27, 1974 [age 18]:

“As Jean Chiaramonte and I were walking sleepily back to her car after school this afternoon (we’re in somewhat of a car pool), she and I were stopped by a man with a tape recorder. It turned out that he was from radio KXRX and was the ‘Man on the Street’ who roams around asking people various questions. Well, we were both excited – I mean, ME, singled out? I had half-assumed that all such programs were contrived. Anyway, I was at a total loss for intelligent thoughts – he asked if I thought we should limit the price increase in milk and I said no, that with inflation we’ve got to expect everything to go up, or some such bull. And he also asked if (relating this to Patricia Hearst) I felt that kidnappers should be sentenced to death if they did not kill their hostages and I said no, their sentences should be stiffened but the death penalty was too severe. It was really a common, NOTHING answer – I think I was a little shook up from the unexpectedness of the situation and the microphone in my face – so I didn’t expect to be on the radio at 5:30. I wasn’t. Ah, but I was [on] this morning at 6:40 A.M. when I’m sure all of San Jose heard me. It was the stupid milk question. Oh, well, so much for fame and glory.”

March 3, 1974 [age 18]:

“I hopped over to Santa Cruz today. Jeanne [a friend at UCSC] and I went back to our favorite private beach again, and built a fire and cooked hamburgers in little tin pie plates with barbecue sauce and cheese and ate them on English muffins. Then we walked back along a railroad track and ate again in an old hotel in our jeans with a bunch of elegantly-dressed people, none of whom were under 60. We had a talk in which she persuaded me to buy a car rather than move into the dorms. Finally, we saw ‘Cinderella Liberty’ and ‘Play It Again, Sam,’ realizing too late that we would see the last movie end right after the last bus came by the theater, so we ended up taking a TAXI home. A taxi! The first time I’d ever ridden in a taxi! It was a wonderful night!”

March 6, 1974 [age 18]:

“I’ve been doing a great deal of want-ad searching for cars. It has been awfully discouraging – I must expect to pay $2,000 minimum, and I have only $1,100 in the bank. I don’t want a box – I’d love a sleek, cool model – but Toyotas and Datsuns appear to be the cheapest and most economical in terms of gas. So tonight we went out car-hunting. I looked at a Datsun, 1972, 17,000 miles, $2,100, and when I drove it, it got up to only 20 to 25 mph FLOORED. I dropped the idea, understandably.”

March 7, 1974 [age 18]:

“O my God I have bought myself a car! I haven’t paid anything on it yet, of course, but have made arrangements to secure the loan and then transfer the pink slip tomorrow. It’s unbelievable – what a big decision I have made! And I’ve also decreased my chances of moving out to almost nothing. Oh, well, tomorrow I shall have my Toyota Corolla with its black racing stripes and its FM converter (which is the best part) and its 24 miles to the gallon and its automatic transmission. Ah, I have so many plans for it – Santa Cruz (possibly) next weekend, San Francisco, Monterey, tobogganing, even L.A. Jeanne will be shocked when she sees it. I have already bought CSUSJ decals for it. Tomorrow I shall drive away from the DMV in it and just cruise around town until it gets dark, maybe visiting a few friends to show off. O, I am so PROUD!”

March 10, 1974 [age 18]:

“It is almost pitiful to know that I had two papers and two plays to do this weekend and I did absolutely NOTHING. All morning I cleaned [my new] car out and washed it, all afternoon we went shopping for auto supplies, and all night we worked outside fixing up the car again. It looks great now – we put in a mirror and floor mats and a trash basket, filled the glove compartment, installed the FM converter (actually Bruce Schwegler did that), etc. But I still haven’t gotten any schoolwork done. Oh, but I love this car. Having something of my own, to love and cherish, till death do us . . . O, sweet car – sweet silver striped little Paula Bocciardi Toyota Corolla auto!”

March 15, 1974 [age 18]:

“All that sticks in my mind about today is the ‘dinner’ which I attempted to make. Alone, using the notebook which I have been slowly putting together, I managed to totally destroy an entire meal. First, the fish – the sole turned to absolute mush, so I gave it to the dog, and the crappies turned as hard as a brick. The [frozen] beans and spaetzle were fair but I heated them too long, so there were little brown pieces intermixed with the rest. About 1/3 of the eggplant was edible, but the rest were not only half-burned, but soft in the middle and raw on the outside. The biscuits [my brother] Marc described as being made out of cement. The salad and chocolate chip cookies, at least, were delicious – but that’s because [my friend] Jeanne made both of them. It was my first full attempt at a dinner, and perhaps it will be my last for a long while.”

March 17, 1974 [age 18]:

“I was worried terribly about the gas situation. I wanted to be able to fill up completely on Saturday so that I would be sure to have enough for the remainder of the weekend. [Our local gas station owner] claimed that he would run dry by then, but it turned out that the gas line was surprisingly short. So I drove to Santa Cruz to see Jeanne. We went on the roller coaster down at the Boardwalk and were terrified out of our wits, to say the least. Then drove slowly to Aptos along the coast, very beautiful, and ate a most excellent meal there at Manuel’s after having sat out on Sea Cliff Beach reading old Archie and Romance comic books. Then over to the Aptos Twin Theaters and were an hour early so we spent the wait talking to each other in the visor mirror of my car about all the weird things we do. We saw ‘Serpico’ – a great movie! Then we walked out of the theater after 10 awful minutes of ‘Catch 22’. Finally we spent a little while reading each other’s journals, and I can say that her poetry is far superior to mine. What a glorious day.”

Booth Phobia

Are you perchance, dear reader, afraid of buttons? If so, you likely have koumpounophobia. Perhaps you’re frightened unnaturally by peanut butter, in which case your condition may be arachibutyrophobia. Or you may suffer from octophobia: fear of the figure 8. Some folks are clinically afraid of gravity. Or ferns. Or the color purple. Or, believe it or not, knees.

My fears – and believe me, I have multitudes – tend not to be established phobias. This blog has already chronicled two of them: my stresses related to gas stations and to salad bars. (See https://mondaymorningrail.com/2016/09/19/panic-at-the-pump/.)

But I’d like to talk about a third condition of mine: “Booth Phobia.”

Right off the bat, I have to admit that I neither coined the term “Booth Phobia” nor identified the condition. Those credits go to my friend Maryl, who recently confessed to the affliction when she told me about a book fair she once attended. After she wandered – at her peril, as it turned out – into a booth inhabited by a children’s book author, the author insisted on showing every page of her book about cats to an entrapped Maryl, who could only stand by, painfully feigning interest, while the woman leafed through the book at a snail’s pace, accompanying each dramatic turn of the page with a long explanation of her creative process and the backstory of each illustrated cat.

Oy!

At any rate, as I was listening to this story I realized that I, too, suffer from Booth Phobia. In San Francisco we’re blessed with some terrific farmers’ markets as well as (before the pandemic, at least) any excuse for a street fair. What’s odd is that I absolutely love the idea of these events and want desperately to attend them and come away with a raft of sophisticated purchases. But once I arrive, I’m paralyzed with fear of approaching any of the booths.

I think it’s all about performance anxiety, which is something I have in spades.

For example, I began my adult recreational softball career at first base, which is the position I’d played throughout grammar and high school. I was comfortable there and good enough to be nicknamed “Stretch” in the 8th grade by an enthusiastic nun. But early in my Parks and Rec days, my team’s pitcher left one night in the middle of a game to use the bathroom. And she never returned. Ever again. (True story.) So the coach, faced with the task of replacing her mid-inning(!), hollered at me to abandon first base and take the mound, and from that point on I was the pitcher. Unfortunately my wildly successful debut as the team’s ace hurler did not necessarily extend to all of my starts. In that first game I’d had no time to fear that I would stink up the joint; the role was thrust upon me and it was an emergency situation. But my successive games were unpredictable because of my crippling performance anxiety. After all, when you’re a pitcher, all eyes are upon you. So I would famously make a visit to the bathroom before each game, sick with worry that I would cost us half a dozen runs on my helter-skelter walks. Which did happen once or twice. At the end of the season I received “The Pepto-Bismol Award” from my oh-so-funny teammates.

Later, during my early years playing drums in a rock band, my performance anxiety was so bad that my feet would shake like a rattlesnake. One helpful friend who worked for the San Francisco Symphony told me that some of the musicians would take a pill called Inderal before their concerts. Inderal is a beta-blocker that effectively slows one’s heart rate. Well, that revelation was all I needed to hear. I begged my doctor for a prescription and started popping those things like a corner junkie.

Anyway, the point is that my Booth Phobia is related.

As you all know, the artists at street fairs and the farmers (or their representatives) at farmers’ markets usually occupy their booths alongside their wares. And I’m deathly afraid of talking to these people.

The fears are two-fold: 1) that I will hurt their feelings if I don’t buy something, and 2) that I will demonstrate my stupidity by asking a clumsy question.

If – out of the corner of my eye – I see some art that interests me at a street fair, for example, there is no way that I will enter the kiosk and take my time looking around at the paintings. Typically there’s a hungry-looking artist sitting inside amongst his watercolors, and I can’t fathom the thought of assessing his stuff and then strolling out, as if his life’s work is lousy and meaningless. Can’t do it. Instead, I quickly breeze by the perimeter, cast a sidelong glance at the art, and go inside only if I am taken by something so strongly that I can’t possibly leave without buying it. And if I walk in and have some serious second thoughts, well, I buy the painting anyway.

Think about it. We aren’t normally forced to directly convey to painters, or jewelers, or photographers, or authors our judgment of their creations, except at a street or craft fair. We look at, and purchase, their work in galleries or bookstores or other places where the artists are not present. But in these booths, they can see our reactions and sense our judgment. I assume it must be an awkward situation for them, too. And I don’t want to be a cause of their pain!

As far as farmers’ markets go, I simply don’t know how to tell a good peach from a bad one. All I know is that anything at a farmers’ market tastes better than the same thing at Safeway. Beyond that, I feel hopelessly ignorant. So if I do screw up the courage to buy something, I will simply shove the first vegetables I see into a bag because I have no idea what I’m doing. I just don’t know how to talk with farmers about the peculiarities of their cucumbers!

At least at Safeway no one watches me ignorantly squeeze the produce, so no one can cast judgment on my choices. But at farmers’ markets I sense uneasily that the people in line behind me are all manored ladies in vests and visors, with styled hair and fancy totes, staring at me because I have no idea how to purchase escarole.

***

At the end of my conversation with Maryl, she brought up another source of anxiety: her fear of getting her own drink at a fast food-type venue. Of course, I suddenly realized that I share the same fear and never can figure how the whole process works. I guess that will have to wait for another blog.

For now, though, I would love to hear from you, dear readers, about your own non-clinical phobias. Please don’t hesitate to share them in your comments.

***

August 2, 1973 [age 17]:

“I keep wondering if I’ll ever get over Pat Sears. Aw, I guess it’s a common error for immature people like me to think someone is the perfect match in the world, which I suppose isn’t so, but is easy to believe. He is the only person I have ever fallen for. I remember last Thursday Barb said, ‘Oh, Paula, now don’t worry. Someone, someday, is going to love you for what you say, what you do, how you talk – love every breath of you.’ If only she is right!”

August 9, 1973 [age 17]:

“It’s time for my vanity to show through as I give a brief rundown of my current physical condition. My beloved new [wire-rimmed] glasses – my pride and joy – have probably helped a bit, at least to make me appear older. The progress of my diet is up in the air, right now. At this time of the month I usually gain any number of pounds. The thing is, I have been on the brink of ‘this time of the month’ for three weeks now. All weighings are thus invalid for a while. My face looks quite the same – awful. Those vitamin C pills have not done a great amount of good, but perhaps they’ve spared me from a few colds. My ‘tan’ – well, I’m browner than usual but I have a 2” strip across my stomach which is much darker than the rest of me and which looks utterly absurd. The cause of this phenomenon is unknown.”

August 11, 1973 [age 17]:

“One of my many strange quirks is that I simply cannot eat by myself without reading something. Yesterday I dragged out my old term papers, scrapbooks and such and really marveled at their development, especially at the things I wrote in the 3rd grade. It so amazes me how rapidly we progress – at a geometric rate, I’m sure, if it could be calculated mathematically. Even my freshman year in high school produced some terribly ignorant stuff (though now that I think of it, I was only 12 or 13 then). I hate my work. It’s terrible. When will my intellectual maturity come, or – horror of horrors – has it already? I wonder how stupid I am right now.”

August 26, 1973 [age 17]:

“I have a new literary hero. His name is Thomas Wolfe; Look Homeward, Angel was divine, and as soon as I can scrape up the energy I will have to read the terribly lengthy sequel, Of Time and the River, and then on to every other word that he has ever written. Walk Whitman lives in my eyes as the greatest poet of all time. There have been so many heroes in my life: Jimmy Davenport [SF Giants] and Jimmy Taylor [Green Bay Packers] in the world of sports, Spencer Tracy in acting, Paul Simon in music, and in politics Abe Lincoln, U.S. Grant, and Eisenhower.”

September 10, 1973 [age 17]:

“I felt a little rush of ecstasy this morning when B. Dalton’s [bookstore] called to say that The Human Comedy was in, a joy that waned a little when I saw its price ($6.95!). But, I merrily drove over to Eastridge [mall] to get it. I don’t know why books make me so happy – maybe so that I can know what others think about life so that I can quote them.”

September 14, 1973 [age 17]:

“Another wasted day, or so it seems, vacuuming the rooms we always vacuum on Fridays, reading Of Time and the River with love and awe, hungrily paging through books on photography at the public library, desperately scribbling down words of frustration to add to my journal collection of broken dreams, wearily trudging off to work, only to finally return home to devour whatever dinner lies in wait, read with tired, heavy eyes more words of absolute beauty by Mr. Wolfe, and drift reluctantly off to sleep. My life is horrible, unceasing monotony. Someday I’d like to get drunk and thrown in jail.”

October 1, 1973 [age 17]:

“All that happened today was that [my brother] Marc and I snuck out in the truck to pick up Bruce. Mom was gone, and it was 2:00 so we knew Dad wouldn’t be home. But just as we drove off down Suncrest we both screamed in terror because there was Dad coming up the hill! Later, while I was at work, Marc was yelled at, at dinner, but I, thank goodness, missed it. And I guess all had been forgotten by the time I got home. Mamma mia.”

October 6, 1973 [age 17]:

“I still pray at night. I’ve discovered that most of the things I pray for in earnest come true. I’ve always had a problem, though, in that I never know if I should pray for such a selfish thing as falling in love, so I never really do, except perhaps a hasty mention in passing.”

Cheeseburgers in Paradise 2

Former San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll published a column about Thanksgiving and gratitude every year. The bones of it, and most of the meat, remained the same, but he continued to update it annually to reflect the changing times or his evolving wisdom.

Five years ago, when I was first starting this blog, I wrote a poem about July 4 that I would like to re-publish today. Its bones and meat are the same, but in the spirit of Mr. Carroll, I’ve cooked it up a little differently.

If I’m ever convicted of capital crimes, and afterwards sentenced to death,
I know what I’ll want for my very last meal, just hours before my last breath.

Don’t give me a pile of hummus, my friends, not caviar nor any peas.
Don’t make it a gourmet, artisanal feast; just give me a cheeseburger, please!

You can skip buying brie or Jarlsberg cheese; a big slab of cheddar’s delicious.
Whatever you do, don’t add a fried egg – by God, that is just sacrilegious!

The bun can be laden with gluten and lard, the beef need not come from Japan.
You can grill it or broil it, on stove or on flame, in a cast iron skillet or pan.

Its invention is claimed by multiple folks. Some say it was born in the west;
Some say Kentucky and others say Denver and everyone thinks they know best.

Well, whoever decided to slap on that cheese and throw that ground beef on the grill
Should have earned a gold medal, a Hollywood star, and a monument up on a hill.

The cheeseburger’s part of a glorious feast of distinctly American things.
I hope we remember, this Fourth of July, the blessings our citizenship brings.

I suggest as we gobble our hot dogs and pie, and drink a Sam Adams (or two),
That we put down our phones and reflect on the things that this country allows us to do.

If you shut your eyes tightly and listen quite close, you’ll hear the American song:
A racecar’s low roar on a Darlington track, a freightcar chugging along.

A carousel ride at a carnival fair, the crack of a bat on a field,
Guitars being tuned on a boardwalk stage, a church’s bell vibrantly pealed.

A tenorman wailing just before dawn, the whoosh of an eagle in flight,
The choice of a dozen talk-radio shows to make us less lonely at night.

A cowboy’s rough boot on an old tavern floor and a trucker unpacking his load,
Sinatra’s voice and a shot of good booze and another one just for the road.

Now open your eyes and take a good look at the landscape we’re privileged to share.
Strap on a backpack and camp ’neath Sequoias and drink in the starry night air.

Pack up a Winnebago, instead, or hop on an overnight train,
Cross mountains and desert and wide fields of corn to the rocky coastline of Maine.

Rev up your Harley or jump in your car and seek an alternative byway
Like Route 66, or the Purple Heart Trail, or the fabled and eerie Blues Highway.

Marvel at Rushmore’s eminent shrine, see Nashville or old Santa Fe,
Silently raft through a bayou down south, go crabbing in Chesapeake Bay.

Or pull on your blue jeans and pick up a book, if you feel like you want to stay in.
Read some Walt Whitman, or try Langston Hughes, or spend some good time with Huck Finn.

Try watching a classic western, perhaps, directed by Sturges or Ford.
With all the saloons, and all of the barfights, and all of those whiskeys poured.

Check out some different musical styles, some truly American voices:
Leadbelly, Seeger, Guthrie, Odetta, are some of the earthiest choices.

Put on some hip-hop, some ragtime, or jazz, take records out of your trunk,
And listen to Usher, or Redbone, or Ella, or low-lying New Orleans funk.

While we count all our blessings, let’s never forget the rebels who once brought us here:
A gallop at midnight through Lexington’s streets and the warnings of Paul Revere.

Or the valorous statesmen whose brilliant resolve established the new Declaration,
As they swore on their fortunes, their honor, their lives to the fledgling and sovereign nation.

We’ve made our mistakes; God knows there’ve been plenty, and they’ve come at a terrible cost.
Consider the Native American tribes, and the lives and the lands that were lost.

Consider the sins that slavery wrought, remember the crosses that burned.
Consider the immigrants scorned and demeaned, remember the families interned.

But call me a patriot, call me naïve, allow me this simple contention:
That our modern-day impulses lean towards the good and are rooted in noble intention.

Think of the nurses, think of the cops, our pharmacists, farmers, and teachers.
Think of the folks who deliver our mail, the factory workers, the preachers.

Think of our immigrants chasing their dreams while leaving their countries behind.
Think of their hope, and think of their grit, not knowing quite what they will find.

America’s pluralism shores up our strength; we’re bolstered by all our dissension.
If one group completely misses a wrong, another group then pays attention.

So how ’bout we root for the underdog, leave lights on for neighbors in need,
Let’s offer our hearts to the wayward man, and bandage our comrades who bleed.

Test out the roads less traveled, my friends. And tamp down the cynical snark.
Let’s honor the heroes who gave us their lives, and the artists who left us their mark.

***

July 16, 1973 [age 17]:

“I was left alone again this weekend, so yesterday I endeavored to cook a meal by myself, consisting solely of a hamburger steak. Though I did manage to successfully heat up a pot of canned gravy, I also managed to destroy the hamburger. Every time Mom leaves me directions she says to put the burner on ‘two,’ and every time without fail I forget and use the quick-speed burner and – instant frazzle. The moment I threw the hamburger in, the instant there was contact between meat and cast iron, it turned black. So I tried to turn it over and it broke into a million tiny bits. It looked like dog food. I’m such a clod.”

July 17, 1973 [age 17]:

“Today began with a visit to the eye doctor and then to the optometrist, resulting in my finally winning the endless battle [with my parents] and choosing a pair of wire frames. I was thus consecrated a ‘hippie.’ ”

July 19, 1973 [age 17]: [NOTE: THIS ENTRY SHOULD WIN THE OSCAR FOR EXTREME MELODRAMA]

“I’m feeling desperately sorry for myself. Things are not going quite as I had thought, or hoped, they would. Pat is still not here, and I had hoped he would teach me how to dance. I’m missing Jeanne more and more. I’m realizing more and more that this is going to be another lonely summer, that I can forget about playing tennis altogether, that Jeanne is not going to be around any more. And working six days a week is wearing me out, grabbing hold of every spare minute of time, preventing me from doing the reading, and, more importantly, the writing I did so want to do this summer. My world is caving in on me; it’s getting hard to breathe. O, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I’m despairing, all my hopes shattered, countless broken dreams.”

July 21, 1973 [age 17]:

“I went to the [St. Victor’s 8th grade] reunion today. It was fun (though I ate too much) and super seeing everyone. But then I began drinking wine and beer, and for some reason I lost my head and kissed Mike [xx] and he tried French kissing which I’d never done, and I was revolted.”

July 27, 1973 [age 17]:

“The only thing of note I did today was go to the dentist. There, after miraculously surviving the fluoride ordeal [fluoride always made me gag], I was told that I still have to have a crown put on one of my bottom molars. Apparently, the filling is chipped beyond repair. It must be done, despite my protests and agonized looks. After Mom’s description of her experience with crowns I dread the whole process. She tells of hours of drilling, of reducing the poor tooth to a mere point, of driving a gold wedge into the gum. It sounds ghastly. After all my childhood encounters with the Dentist, times when in my traditional submission I endured pain without complaint, I now find myself reduced to a frightened baby. I both fear and hate dentists with surprising intensity, and I wonder if I will be able to last until August 13th without committing suicide.”

A bike, some undies, and a gun

When Margaret Valentine LeLong decided in 1897 to ride a bicycle, alone, from Chicago to her home in San Francisco, everyone implored her to reconsider. No woman had ever dared try such a thing. Dangers abounded: wildlife, marauders, injuries, dehydration. Bikes at the time were clunky one-speed bonebreakers. And the roads, which offered peril even to the ordinary automobile, often were full of mud, rocks, chuckholes, and planks.

There were no bike lanes. There were no sag wagons. There were no fast-food joints or convenience stores. There were no motel chains. And there were no cell phones.

So the odds were heavily stacked that year against Ms. Margaret Valentine LeLong.

***

Bicycles had been available in this country since about 1877, when they were first imported from England. Called “ordinary” bikes, they sported the huge front wheel and tiny rear wheel we’ve all seen in Victorian-era drawings. They were slow and difficult to ride, and both easy and painful to fall from. For all that, the cost was almost prohibitive, except for the wealthy; priced at $100, the bikes would set us back about $2,596.83 in today’s dollars.

But then came the “safety bike” at the end of the 1880s, and it was chock-full of innovations. The wheels were now the same size. A drive chain, a front fork, and a leather saddle became standard. Tires were pneumatic; rather than being constructed of solid rubber, they contained pressurized air, which made for a smoother (although far from luxurious) ride. Best of all, the price “plunged” to $60 – still outrageous, but at least more affordable.

Because of these changes, the number of bicyclists in the U.S. grew from 150,000 to up to 4 million between 1890 and 1896. It was an absolute explosion in the industry. Biking elicited a fervent passion among Americans; it enabled people to get away from their reliance on horses and offered an escape from increasing urbanization – while providing exercise and a good dose of the sun. And for women in particular, bicycling was a literal vehicle towards achieving freedom and independence.

In San Francisco (where, frankly, “a good dose of the sun” was rarely applicable), allegedly 65,000 bicyclists (half the population!) filled the streets – dodging streetcars, horses, and pedestrians – during the 1890s. Bicycle clubs sprang up everywhere, and although most were for men only, a ladies’ group called The Falcon Bicycle Club (FBC) also got started. An 1895 photo remains of their clubhouse – an old horsecar – out on the dunes of Carville on the western edge of the city. Surely Margaret Valentine LeLong was a member.

By the way, the FBC often held dinner parties for local notables, newspapermen, socialites, and bohemians of all stripes. Among the hilarious satirical descriptions the club sent to the local press was this one from August of 1896:

“A most delightful banquet was given last Saturday evening by the FBC. . . . The following was the very unique menu:

Soups – Whalebone, Lampwick, Corncob and Lozenges.

Fish – Carp, Octopus, Catfish and Cartridges.

Game – Pedro, Oldmaid, Smut and Cribbage.

Entrees – Brown Beans, Baked Beans, Barnacles, Spidertoes, Froglegs and Frangipanni.

Vegetables – Bunions, Soft Corns and Halpruner.

Relishes and Booze – Mother-in-law Fried, Roasted, and Deviled; Ice Cream, Doorjamb and Vaseline; Sponge Pies and Leather Pies, with or without Buckles; Cream Coffee and Chocolate; Café au Lait and Rouge et Noir; Good-night Kiss and Dream of Grandmother.”

I wish I could have been at THAT party!

***

It isn’t readily apparent why Ms. LeLong decided to ride her bicycle thousands of miles alone, and my guess is that she would have been scornful of anyone who dared ask that question. San Franciscans in those days were an independent lot, she was visiting friends in Chicago, and according to the Chicago Tribune, she did it “purely for enjoyment.”

We don’t know much about her. None of the (very abbreviated) newspaper accounts mentioned her age at the time – perhaps it was considered uncouth. But the Tribune’s six-sentence mention of her feat did manage to include a description of her as a “slender little woman” who stood 5’2” tall and weighed 114 pounds. (Obviously those were crucial statistics.) It also referred to her as “Mrs.,” but her own account of her experience never mentioned a husband or family back home.

[By the way, her name was spelled “LeLong,” “Lelong,” or “Le Long” in the many resources I checked, and I’ve decided to use “LeLong,” just for consistency’s sake.]

Ms. LeLong formulated her plans “[i]n spite of the opposition of every friend and relative who was on hand to register a protest (and those at a distance objected by mail),” she would later say. And although her loved ones’ opposition may have been related to the inherent dangers of her trip, resistance to the very notion of female bicyclists was quite strong. In some states it was altogether illegal for women to ride. Cycling was considered to be so challenging for the female constitution that it could lead to insomnia, depression, and heart problems. It could cause “bicycle eye,” which occurred when a rider had to look forward too long while her neck was bent. Worst of all, it could bring ruin to “the feminine organs of matrimonial necessity.” The Woman’s Rescue League of Washington, D.C., apparently claimed that bicycling prevented women from having children. Another charge was that the “friction between a woman and her saddle caused illicit sexual arousal.”

Ah! No wonder women flocked to bicycling in droves!

Then there was the matter of attire. Women had been accustomed to wearing skirts while riding side-saddle on horses. But some female cyclists thought that long, flowing garments could get caught in bicycles’ moving parts, so they chose bloomers instead of skirts. Bloomers were loose, harem-style pants, some of which fastened – gasp! – under the knee. Oh, the scandal!

A huge backlash ensued. One mayor condemned the new pants for being a “menace to the peace and good morals of the male residents.” In 1895 three bloomer-wearing female teachers were prohibited from riding bicycles to their school in Flushing, Long Island (New York). The scandalous pants had come to represent women’s rights and freedom, and people were simply outraged!

Margaret rode a “drop-frame” safety bicycle (with a low, curved cross-support) because the standard cross-bar used by men would get in the way of her skirt. Yes, despite everything I’ve just said about women’s liberation and bloomers, Margaret preferred skirts.

In any case, she climbed onto her bike in Chicago on May 20, 1897, dressed in her skirt and her leather shoes – laced to the knee – that she had had modified with heavier soles. Bicycles were yet to come equipped with baskets, so she brought only some extra underwear, some toiletries, a handkerchief, and a tool bag – all of which she somehow managed to strap onto the handlebars. In her tool bag was her final essential item – a pistol.

***

“And so one morning in May I started,” wrote Ms. LeLong in the journal Outing in 1898, “midst a chorus of prophecies of broken limbs, starvation, death from thirst, abduction by cowboys, and scalping by Indians.”

The Illinois roads at first proved to be rider-friendly, for they were generally smooth and level. But from the get-go the headwinds were a formidable demon, and even Margaret’s attempts to get up before the chickens were fruitless. “Let none flatter themselves they can get up before an Illinois wind,” she noted wryly, “for it blows all day, and it blows all night, and it always blows straight in your face.”

On one occasion, the combination of wind, mud, hills, bogs, and swirling sand convinced her to stop early in the day at a hotel in a small Iowa town called Homestead, where she would “spend the rest of the day expressing my opinion about the League map of Iowa, which is a snare and a delusion.” She would also spend the day trying to comprehend the norms of the town’s denizens.

In the mid-1800s, Homestead had been purchased by the Amana Colonies, a group of German Pietists who were originally members of the Lutheran Church but were persecuted in Germany by both the government and the Church. They’d relocated to the United States – first to New York and then to Iowa – in search of some seclusion and peace. The Colonies operated as truly a self-sufficient and communal settlement for 80 years, relying exclusively on their own farming and craftsmanship until they formed a for-profit organization during the Depression (and by the way, the Amana appliance cooperation was part of that organization).

“These are some of the things I learned,” she would later write. “The Amanna [sic] Society is co-operative in the fullest meaning of the term . . . . Everything is community property, and the man who joins the society with only the clothes on his back has the same rights and consideration as the man who puts in thousands. . . . Each male member receives thirty dollars per year spending money, in addition to his living; each female member, twenty dollars. This sum they are entitled to spend as and where they please, but permission to leave the settlement must be granted by the council.

“All business of the Amanna Society is transacted by the council, and the purchase of even a sheep or a keg of beer is a task requiring much time and patience. One would think all that was necessary was the proper amount of greenbacks and negotiations with the head shepherd or brewer. These are but preliminary steps. It involves consulting every member of the council, from the shepherd to the president, and back again. . . .

“I am afraid their laws for the management of lovers would not find favor among our American youth. If a young man shows a more than brotherly interest in one of the pretty blonde mädchens [young girls], and she shows a disposition to be more than a sister to him, an investigation is immediately made, and if he declares his intentions serious – other things, such as parents, being propitious – he is allowed a farewell interview with the maiden, and then hustled away to one of the other settlements, there to stay one year [ed.’s note: whaaaat?] to prove the strength of his attachment. If his intentions are not serious, he is hustled off just the same, but without the farewell interview. Every May-day all the unappropriated maidens, dressed in their Sunday gowns, are loaded into gaily decorated wagons, and, blushing and giggling, are taken the rounds of the settlements for the inspection and selection of the unattached men.”

Ms. LeLong’s overnight stay in Homestead, although it yielded neither a suitor nor a gourmet meal (“beer soup” did not particularly appeal to LeLong’s San Francisco sensibilities), nevertheless was filled with the proprietor’s warmth and kindness, and her stays for the rest of the trip were similar. Despite the social mores of the age, her gender was never questioned, nor was she ever threatened by another human.

***

It was far from easy mechanically to ride a bicycle in those days. Balance was tricky. The coaster brake (which is engaged by backpedaling, and which many of us had as kids) was not invented until 1898, so Margaret’s bike likely was equipped with a heavy front “spoon brake” and nothing on the back wheel – always a recipe for taking a header over the handlebars. And the roads – well, they were like angry opponents. In San Francisco, the year before her trip, more than 5,000 bicyclists had marched down Market Street in a rally for decent streets. Paved asphalt was not yet the norm, and the country’s rutted and cratered roads – even in urban areas – were often nearly impassable. Someone with an eye for poetry once called them:

“Wholly unclassable
Almost impassable
Scarcely jackassable!”

***

Nebraska came next, and for a cyclist, Nebraska was more preferable for riding, even though the scenery in Iowa had been lovely. “Iowa is described in the guide-books as a ‘fine, rolling country,’ ” she wrote. “For the cycler this means that you roll your wheel up one side of a hill and down the other, with never a level spot between to rest the sole of your foot upon. This is especially true of the western part. If you can forget your grievances against the roads long enough to stop and admire, the scenery is beautiful beyond description. What a relief to a weary wheelman to cross the muddy Missouri and go skimming over the smooth gravel roads of Nebraska. In Iowa the road will go several miles out of its way to climb a hill; in Nebraska it makes some attempt to go around.”

Wyoming, of course, brought mountains, trees, and stone, and the landscape toughened. As a result, one nearly regrettable decision resulted in a rather painful battering for Ms. LeLong. She’d decided to take the “Happy Jack” road between Cheyenne and Laramie, which was about 52 miles at the time and a bit shorter than the alternative. The road (what is now Highway 210) was named in the 1880s after a local rancher who, while transporting lumber and hay to Cheyenne, earned the nickname “Happy Jack” because he simply would not stop singing. But the Happy Jack Road did not, for Margaret, prove altogether happy. I’ll let her tell the tale in her own words, which are far more eloquent – and funnier – than mine:

“A two thousand foot rise in thirty miles, and a thousand foot drop in the other twenty-two miles is the record of the ‘Happy Jack’ road. For twenty miles the road is good, and the grade gradual, then trouble begins. Up and down, in and out, over rocks and through sand runs the Happy Jack road, and at every mile your breath comes harder and your knees grow weaker. . . . Numerous dents, bruises, and abrasions on myself and wheel mark the moments when I became lost in admiration of the wild grandeur of the scene, and forgot that I was riding a bucking bronco of a bicycle.”

At one point Margaret flew off of her bike at the bottom of a particularly unnavigable hill. Fortunately a log cabin sat at the bottom of the cliff.

“I landed at the bottom without breaking neck or wheel, though the two men who came out of the cabin seemed to think I ought not to have a whole bone in my body.

“I was not asked to dismount. I had already done that on all fours, with the wheel on top, but I was invited in to dinner, with true Wyoming hospitality. Mr. Shaw, the owner of the place, the famous ‘Cabin Under the Rocks,’ cooked the dinner, scolding all the time, in a good-natured way, because I had not arrived sooner, and there was nothing left but scraps. If that was a dinner of scraps, then may I always dine upon scraps. Fresh antelope steaks, mountain trout, caught in front of the door, and canned peaches from my beloved California, all washed down with milk that had never known the pump.”

But she still had to find lodging. I don’t know why she couldn’t stay at Mr. Shaw’s cabin, but propriety and a lack of a spare bed may have dictated the situation. Or perhaps it was too early in the day (late afternoon, I presume) to consider bedding down for the night. Her host advised her that halfway between the cabin and Laramie was a place called “Dirty Woman’s Ranch,” where she could stay.

On the way, of course, she took another tumble.

“A long, steep hill, with a barbed-wire gate strung across it half way down; a barrel-hoop in the middle of the road, and a badger hole at one side. Thirty seconds later add to the scene on one side of the road a woman, all of a heap; on the other a pea-green bicycle, and down by the gate a brown hat and white veil. I carefully wiggled around and found no bones were broken, then sat up and began to cry. Then I laughed, but the laugh had a hysterical sound, and I quit. There is no use having hysterics all alone, eight miles from the nearest house. I wonder what women would do without hairpins. I took one out of my hair and picked the gravel out of my knees, and cried some more; got up and straightened my handle-bar, put on my hat wrong side before, wiped my eyes and started again. I will confess that for several miles I saw the road through a mist of tears. Eight more miles I made somehow — just how I don’t know — then the house I had despaired of finding that night came in sight.”

But the Dirty Woman’s Ranch had no beds. (I know; I don’t understand, either.) It was after dark by then, and about 12 further miles to Laramie, with no houses in between. So a stranger, who happened to be milking his cow nearby, threw her in a wagon and set out for a house on another road altogether.

“Behind two bucking, half-broken broncos, in a wagon without springs away we went – away we went over boulders that jolted me off the seat down on to my poor, lame knees, into the bottom of the wagon. Every time the driver slowed up, in response to my agonized plea for a moment’s rest, the broncos bucked. Down we went into canyons, black with shadows of night, through passes where the rocks seemed to meet over our heads; up over ridges, where we lost all trace of the road, and crashed along over sagebrush and boulders.

“Twinkling lights almost beneath us, the yelping of dogs, and a chorus of profanity, told us that our arrival had been noted at Cazorus’ cattle ranch. Down, down we went, I with both feet braced against the dashboard, and a silent prayer in my heart, the broncos kicking, and the driver swearing.”

But they made it, and Margaret was met with a meal, bandages, and a great deal of sympathy.

***

It was while she was still in Wyoming that Ms. LeLong’s revolver came in handy. She’d just finished wading through a marsh when she noticed that a nearby herd of cattle was starting to size her up. The prevailing wisdom for such a situation was, counterintuitively, to advance slowly towards the herd, shouting and waving one’s arms. “This sounds very simple sitting safely at home with your cattle before you in the form of roast beef,” she said. “It is a very different thing when facing a pawing, bellowing herd of cattle in the middle of a Wyoming cattle range, your knees knocking together, and your heart making quick trips from your head to your heels and back again; every nerve tingling with a wild desire to run and no place to run to. Not a tree, a bush, a rock, or even a telegraph-pole.”

So she drew her pistol and fired five shots in the air, “scattering handkerchief, curl-papers, and powder-box to the winds to get at the cartridges in the bottom of my chatelaine bag. I loaded as I ran.” Much to her relief, the noise prompted the cattle to first run in circles and then, thankfully, retreat.

***

Leaving Wyoming behind, Ms. LeLong was delighted to be traveling through the Weber Canyon in Utah – a place whose beauty she found to be “little short of Paradise.” Her only complaint was that the creeks were generally not bridged, and sloppy irrigation ditches resulted in standing water everywhere. On one occasion she was rescued “from a maze of creeks and mud-puddles” by two men returning from a fishing trip who immediately invited her to share their bounty – 400(!) trout. After they made camp and the men were preparing the fish, Margaret “was unanimously elected to make biscuit. Now I can make biscuit, but I want all the modern improvements in the way of utensils. Here I had neither mixing-board, rolling-pin, flour-sifter, nor biscuit-cutter, so I take credit to myself that those biscuits were eatable at all. We baked them in a Dutch oven, and many burnt fingers and much merriment resulted from trying to get them out.”

***

Unsurprisingly, Margaret’s journey across Nevada, through the Great American Desert, was anything but picturesque. But after the desert came the greatest payoff. “From Reno to San Francisco the roads are good, the scenery beautiful, and the water like wine after the alkali of the desert,” she wrote. “At every turn of the wheel I felt my spirits rise, and when I finally crossed the State line and stepped once more on California soil I wept a little weep for joy.

“You who have had only tantalizing glimpses through the cracks of the snow-sheds, know but little of the beauty of the scenery between Truckee and Blue Canyon. It amply repaid me for the many miles I had to walk and push my wheel up the long, steep hills. One day among the snow and rocks of the summit of the Sierras, the next spinning along through orchards of the Sacramento Valley where the trees were bending with their burden of fruit. Although the scenes around San Francisco bay had been familiar to me for years, they seemed wonderfully new and beautiful to me. The Oakland Mole seemed the entrance to Paradise, and San Francisco, Paradise itself.”

***

Margaret Valentine LeLong cruised into San Francisco on July 8, which was 50 days after she left Chicago. I’m going to guess that she covered 2,500 miles, because she certainly didn’t ride in a straight line, which means she averaged about 50 miles a day. Her record was 86 in one day, which impresses me greatly because I get tired just driving 86 miles.

The major newspapers of the day covered the end of her trip and granted the story a couple of sentences. The Hayward Daily Review was the most long-winded:

“She was on the road . . . without a puncture. She made the journey not to save expenses, for it cost twice as much as by rail, but for the sake of the adventure and the experience. . . . She did her own washing, had the good sense not to try for the record, and rested when she was tired. . . . On the way she lost eight pounds, made a detour from Ogden to Salt Lake, rode the railroad track for numberless rough and bumpety miles, and walked an average ten miles a day. She is muscular as few women are, and is as brown as the proverbial berry, for she even tanned her hands through her thick chamois gloves. But she is not the least bit footsore or weary, and she would do it again.”

***

Researching stories like these often leads me down divergent paths. An interesting coda to this tale is that a fairly well-known artist named Minnie Valentine LeLong lived in San Francisco at the time. She’d been born Minnie Valentine Cox in Iowa in 1863 (she married Charles LeLong), which would have made her 34 years old at the time of the bike ride. Could she have been our cyclist? Well, “Minnie” indeed can be a nickname for Margaret, and one illustration in the Outing article about her trip was attributed to “Le Long.” But in those days women were typically married by the age of 34 and probably would have been deemed much too old for cycling alone across the country.

Considering that her writing was so witty and creative, though, it is not a stretch for me to imagine Margaret as an artist. Besides, how many M. Valentine LeLongs could there have been in San Francisco in the late 1800s?

I just don’t know. I suppose it will remain a bit of a mystery.

In any case, whether she was a distinguished gallery artist or not, Margaret had much to be proud of. She was a fearless young woman, boldly progressive, pioneering in spirit, with strong legs, a quick wit, and unrelenting optimism.

“To men, the bicycle in the beginning was merely a new toy, another machine added to the long list of devices they knew in their work and play,” declared Munsey’s Magazine in 1896. “To women, it was a steed upon which they rode into a new world.”

Margaret Valentine LeLong happily rode her steed into the unknown, her face turned towards the sun. She was, I think, the best of America.

***

3/2/73 [age 17]:

“I worked the register at Rexall for awhile today and then got shown the “ring-out” procedure, which is how to count money and checks and get everything ready for the bank, which took an hour and a half of explanation and I don’t think I remember a thing. I am so stupid. My feet and body are tired, but cashiering was fun and I did work for three hours ($4.65); if I work 20 hours a week, I’ll make $31 (not clear), so maybe $100 a month clear. I like the cute little kids with all their change. The only strange part was walking the mile home in the pitch black and rain, but even that was nice. I whistled the entire second side of [the Simon & Garfunkel album] ‘Bookends’.”

3/7/73 [age 17]:

“I am disappointed that Joe did not show up last Friday. I do not want to remain an old maid forever. There are guys in my AJ [law enforcement] classes whom I like but they are either too old or not aware of my existence. I recall my old heartthrobs and how they slid by the wayside. But I can understand – I’m almost entirely devoid of personality.”

3/8/73 [age 17]:

“Mr. O’Neill died last Wednesday; I missed the rosary tonight because I was at work. Death puzzles me exceedingly – I wonder if people’s demise is caused by merely Fate or if God has a hand in it and people are somehow ‘chosen.’ If so, what would be the criteria? Last summer, I thought people died when they ‘perfected this level’; I was under the ridiculous assumption that I was nearing such a state, and that I would die within two years ([my sister] Janine said in summer of ‘74 she’s going to give me a ‘still alive’ party). Father Prindeville says God wants the person with Him in heaven. I don’t worry incessantly about death as Dad does, but I’m not exactly looking forward to it.”

3/10/73 [age 17]:

“Boy, was I embarrassed at work today. I was behind the counter with Mr. Jordahl and a guy came up and asked for some Trojans. I didn’t know what they were, so I yelled back to the pharmacy, ‘Mr. Jordahl, where are the Trojans?’ I guess the whole store could hear me. Well, Mr. Jordahl came scurrying out and told me he’d help the man. Afterwards he showed me where they were (down behind the counter on the right-hand side), although he gave me no instructions. I finally realized that they were rubbers! I just don’t know anything about them! And boy, was my face red!”

3/23/73 [age 17]:

“I had a two-hour break today at school and since, miraculously, my homework was all caught up I decided to wander. Priorities were 1) food, 2) books, and 3) records. Unfortunately since it is Friday, I was forced to eat a fishburger at McDonald’s. [Ed.’s note: no meat on Fridays!] I roamed around in a bookstore which professed to be cheap and as it was completely unorganized I became disillusioned and left. Finally, I looked up record stores in a telephone book and found Discorama, which turned out to be so wonderful that I am sure I will frequent it on many Fridays. They have used albums and I bought ‘Reflections’ by the one-and-only Johnny Rivers for 73¢.”

4/8/73 [age 17]:

“I am trying the carbohydrate diet, so after work today I had 13 pieces of chicken, counting dinner and after-dinner snacking.”

4/9/73 [age 17]:

“Mom went into Rexall this afternoon. And when she returned, she informed me of a conversation with Dorothy, the Post Office lady who works there. Apparently Dorothy commented on how mature (???) I was, and said that they all love me. Boy, does THAT shock me. I was getting really paranoid there for awhile; I mean, I AM awfully clumsy – last week I ran right smack into the big tall vitamin display and the next day knocked a metal coffeepot off the counter. Perhaps they pay much less attention to those things than I do. (I don’t even know if Mr. Jordahl noticed the coffeepot incident, yet I don’t see how he could help but hear the parts clanging all over the floor.) At any rate, it doesn’t appear that he has any intentions of firing me.”

4/10/73 [age 17]:

“[A friend] finally wrote to me and told me about her first sexual encounter and I am STILL A-1 confused about it all.”

4/13/73 [age 17]:

“I swear – I had a test in every one of my classes today and I did not study one moment last night. I really had intended to, but [my brother] Marc called me downstairs to play Password and Stadium Checkers with Joe and Morris and him, and I was so tired by the time we finished that I went straight to bed. I think this no-carbohydrate diet is contributing to my perpetual exhaustion. Still, I am greatly shirking my schoolwork. So I got up at six this morning and got to school by 7:30 so I’d have two hours to study for History. I did, but then I had no time to prepare for Philosophy. I’m sure I didn’t exactly pass with flying colors. I DID manage to get another “A” in Biology, though, which I studied for after I ate lunch and spent a bunch of time listening to the Stones in the listening rooms. I really should crack down on myself.”

4/15/73 [age 17]:

“Well, it happened again. I had intended to get so much schoolwork done today and I didn’t touch it for ONE SECOND. I went to the 10:30 mass and since it’s Palm Sunday it lasted until close to noon. When I returned I cleaned my shoes and did a few other jobs until I was invited to play poker with the four boys at Joe’s and could not resist. I won almost a dollar, which just about paid for my movie ticket tonight. We all went to the Serra and saw ‘Bless the Beasts and the Children’ and ‘Last Picture Show.’ The day didn’t end until midnight. I had no time whatsoever to study.”

4/18/73 [age 17]:

“This morning I was back home from school by 9:00, cooked myself a breakfast of four scrambled eggs and three slices of bacon, cleaned up the house, and let the dog run loose while I read endless pages of History in the garage. At 1:30 I began walking to work because Mr. Jordahl wanted me to come in at 2:00 to learn about some insurance work. I had had a lunch of five slices of Spam – two with cream cheese on top. I worked my seven hours. Now it’s 10:00 and I just finished my bath. My dinner will consists of tuna and cheddar cheese and root beer as [our neighbor] Mr. Morrow told me that ice cream and pie is awaiting me over there.”

4/19/73 [age 17]:

“Presenting ‘Another Rotten Thursday’ or ‘Paula the Klutz Does It Again.’ The day began well, with Jeanne’s overdue letter not arriving only a minor disappointment. At eleven or so I took off for Judy’s [on my bike]; I visited with Robin and her for awhile, then rode to the library to browse through the records and try to find a book on the physiology of emotions for my own interest, but could find none. Well and good. At 12:30 or so I set out for Sue’s. Upon arriving at Hostetter, I saw that the right lane was closed and I’d have to walk the bike through mud. I decided to continue down Capitol to Trimble or Landess. I put some air in the tires and nervously rode on because I hate chancing Capitol. The road narrowed; I waited for a clear space and then pedaled a mile a minute down the edge of the road. A truck was coming; I zipped on, my right front tire hit a 1/2-inch crack, and I was thrown out onto the road, bike on top of me, right in front of the truck. He screeched to a halt; I crawled out slowly from under the bike, people were stopping to ask if I was hurt, I dazily [sic] shook my head no (I was on half a hay fever pill), and trembled all the way to the Chevron station at Trimble. I was scared, now that it was over. I decided to call Sue to come get me; I was quaking when I discovered she wasn’t home. So I called Judy and she came. It was when I tried to put the bike in her car that I realized how sore my left hand was; it still is, and swollen too, so I guess I’ll have to tell the parents when they get home. O Lord, and how I used to disgustedly tell them, ‘Oh, I’m NOT going to get hurt!’ Robin came over later to help fix the bike (it was mostly just twisted) and to talk about life a little. That was nice and I appreciated it. Then when I went in to take my shower, I spilled Mom’s bath powder all over. I vacuumed it up and when I took the vacuum hose off in the sewing room, I spilled all the powder all over again! So I vacuumed it up again. I’m such a clod. Then Mr. Morrow took his family and me out for pizza and I blew my diet. Geez, what a day!”

May 2, 1973 [age 17]:

“I got trapped in a stall in the bathroom today and had to crawl out. The space between door and floor was minuscule and I was forced to slither out like a snake – a rather undignified position.”

May 9, 1973 [age 17]:

“I am actually going to have electives to take next semester, but the classes at [San Jose] State are just too general for me. My preferred four electives would be a whole class on Walt Whitman; one on rock music; one on the history of World War II; and one on parachuting.”

May 15, 1973 [age 17]:

“I just remembered that I used to pray FOR God: ‘God bless Mom and Dad, Marc and Paula, Janine and God.’ How absurd!”

May 20, 1973 [age 17]:

“Jeanne and I took off for San Francisco at 1:30 today to see Paul Simon. Mr. Schwegler had given us directions to the Opera House to pick up the tickets, and with me navigating it was a nightmare of confusion. Once we got to the City I think it took us another hour and a half to get there – our map is outdated and didn’t show all the one-way streets! At one point we even ended up coming on the freeway BACK towards San Jose! We decided to go to the museum in Golden Gate Park first to pass some time, and we finally got there at 4:30, only to discover, after we had paid, that it closes at five. Good grief! Getting to the Wharf to eat dinner was another example of poor navigation, and the Fish ‘N Chips I suggested when we finally got there were awful. After stopping on Van Ness to get a couple cans of Coke, four boxes of Milk Duds, and three packages of M&Ms, we made it to the Opera House with an hour to spare, but I spent all that time running up and down the streets of San Francisco trying to find a place to change into nice clothes. But Paul Simon more than made up for all our trials. Afterwards Jeanne and I stayed outside to wait for him and he came out and walked right by us (with Art Garfunkel!) and he is very short and I just can’t describe how wonderful it was.”

May 24, 1973 [age 17]:

“I forgot to tell about my Philosophy oral report last Friday. I had typed up a technical document of about six pages beforehand, but due to a total lack of rehearsal, the other three members of the group took too much time, leaving me only eight minutes. Realizing my lack of adequate time, I began skipping areas and then lost my head altogether, ad libbing about the soul and consciousness and ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ – oh, I was classic. And do you know that I got an A on it? And I made everything up!”

May 26, 1973 [age 17]:

“Last Tuesday I went to see a counselor to talk about my woes concerning the generalness of school. I was hoping he would tell me about some unknown programs – maybe one where I could go to Paris for a year and study for free, or one where I could be transferred to another school and study ‘Law Enforcement in Vermont.’ Ah, but there was no such luck.”

May 28, 1973 [age 17]:

“I’m beginning to detest my appearance. First of all – my hair. I must be the only college student in the world with bangs. My hair is too thick and heavy, and now that the weather is hot I’m beginning to be annoyed by it. If I don’t chicken out, I may cut it all off this summer. Then, my face. Yecchh. All broken out. Mrs. Czarnecki claims that Harry and Judy were saved by Vitamin C, so I bought myself some chewable tablets and I’m beginning to take them every day. Thirdly, I’m obviously too fat – 135 pounds. My legs are like barrels. Fourthly, the upper half of me is so darned small. How humiliating. And finally I cannot get a tan and my skin is so white I look sick.”

June 7, 1973 [age 17]:

“I went with Jeanne to her Birth of a Poet class at Kresge College [UC Santa Cruz] today. Th teacher is William Everson, who used to be called Brother Antoninus and is a beat poet! I was so excited to see him, especially now that I’ve been reading ‘Visions of Cody,’ BUT the class was in a sweltering dome at a temperature of (no exaggeration) 110 degrees. There were a bunch of students with no shirts on who had painted themselves, and it was so hot that all the paint was running down their skin. They were like human watercolors! I’ve never seen anything like this and I would have appreciated it more but to tell you the truth I was just miserable in that heat. I wish I could have stayed overnight in the dorm but Dad would never have allowed me to sleep in the midst of a mob of ‘hippies.’ “

June 11, 1973 [age 17]:

“Sometimes I simply cannot understand my feelings towards human beings. Am I a humanitarian, or do I totally hate mankind?”

TBT, 1969 or 1970 [age 13 or 14]:

[NOTE: This is something I found in my files a few days ago. I have no recollection of it, but it appears that I was writing my future bio: tongue-in-cheek, but grounded in wishful thinking.]

“Bocciardi (Bo CHAR dee), Paula, 1955-. Great athlete, musician, comedienne, detective, intellectual, and politician. Plays on professional football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis, swimming, badminton, track, squash, soccer, lacrosse, equestrian, and sky-diving teams. Received highest awards in all sports. Took Gold medal in all events in 1972 Olympics. Set mile record – 3 min. 31 sec. High jump – 8 ft. 3 in. Pole vault 30 ft. 2-1/2 in. Long jump – same. Broad jump 11 ft. 9 inches. 50 yd. dash – 4 sec. Longest sky jump – she was dropped from a rocket. Better than Glen Campbell at the guitar, better than Liberace at the piano. Voted world’s best comedienne. Wrote 56 books – all million sellers. Ranked no. 1 detective. Apprehended criminals of all crimes since 1901. In 1970, shot 3 times in leg, 2 times in arm, 5 times in head, once in stomach, yet managed to bravely crawl away and handcuff the crook. Joined up with the Hardy Boys. I.Q. of 187. Able to outwit everyone, even Mr. Romero [my English teacher]. Was senator, governor, and finally – 1st woman President! A great person truly.”

June 16, 1973 [age 17]:

“Yesterday at work [at Rexall drugstore] a hippie-looking guy asked me, ‘Where are the (mumble mumble)?’ I couldn’t exactly understand him but it sounded like he said ‘breast bracelets.’ That seemed kind of repulsive to me but I figured it must be part of the new cult or something I walked over to Dorothy and said, ‘uh, could you help this man?’ She was busy at the post office and said, ‘Well, what does he want?’ I tried to act cool and said that he wanted some breast bracelets. She looked very puzzled but then he wandered over to the wall and we heard him say, ‘I found it!’ He came back with some Binaca. I guess he had actually said ‘breath sprays’!”

June 17, 1973 [age 17]:

“Last night Judy and I went to see ‘The Harrad Experiment’ and ‘Lovers and Other Strangers’ at the Meridian Quad theaters. For the first time in my life the people at the door were making everyone prove that they were 17, or maybe 18, I’m not sure. I’m not an ‘adult’ yet so I was kind of scared but either I look old or my CSUSJ student body card was indicative of my age ‘cause they let me in. I wondered why the rigamarole but I got my answer when I saw ‘The Harrad Experiment.’ Total frontal nudity, time and again, boys and girls! I was nauseated by the talk about how if you follow society’s conventions and want one faithful partner you’re being possessive and selfish! That’s just bull!”

Typos on trial

I’d never imagined I’d be a party to any kind of court case. But there I was, in a San Francisco courtroom, clutching a McDonald’s bag that I’d found in the restroom and suing a newspaper owner over a bunch of typos.

Intrigued?

It had all started on Thursday, January 28, 1982, when – according to my diary – I’d spent a good portion of the day entering a “Spot-the-Blooper” contest in the Sunset Independent, a now-defunct local newspaper covering San Francisco’s Sunset District, the largest neighborhood in the City (about 80,000 people). The contest’s rules stated that entrants should look for errors over four issues of the paper and submit a list of them on a postcard. The winner who found the most errors would get $1 per “blooper.”

Well, I loved reading my Sunset Independent with great fervor every week, and I already knew that it was always absolutely fraught with mistakes. I also happened to be making my living as a freelance proofreader at the time. So I figured I had this contest in the bag.

I found 359 errors.

Imagine my excitement. In those days I made so little money that I couldn’t even afford cheddar cheese.

Diary entry, January 29: “I found so many mistakes yesterday that I had to type it all up on paper and it took me 5 hours, taking time out for dinner.”

I sent in my entry. But on February 11, before heading off to work, I opened that week’s issue of the Independent and could not believe my eyes. The paper declared the winner to be a man who had found 41 typos.

I was, to put it mildly, royally incensed.

February 11: “Today was Sandy’s going-away luncheon at ICS. We went to MacArthur Park, and I had grilled gulf shrimp and tons of their ‘onion strings’ and two glasses of wine. I was fairly useless afterwards, so I came home and drank a bunch of rum so I could call the Sunset Independent. They were really nervous and hemmed and hawed and said the contest judge wasn’t there and would call back on Friday, but I never got a call. So on Pam’s advice I’m going to write them a letter. It ain’t the money with me, it’s the principle.”

Pam Pecora was a friend of mine who had finished law school a few months before, and she was my go-to source for legal advice. So I proceeded to angrily pen a scathing letter to the newspaper, demanding that without a reasonable explanation within a week I would either go to court or pursue my case with the Consumer Fraud unit of the District Attorney’s Office.

The paper then employed an odd strategy.

February 18: “Today we got the new Sunset Independent. And oh how they must have scurried around after getting my letter yesterday, ’cause they PRINTED IT along with a stupid ‘explanation’ that said many of my bloopers had to do with spacing, whereas in fact maybe 3 of my 359 did. Amazingly ludicrous. I tried calling the editor again, but she rudely wouldn’t answer my questions. All she kept saying was that it was the judges’ decision. Finally she said, ‘They didn’t agree with some of your errors.’ I said, ‘So, in other words, they didn’t agree with even 41 of my errors.’ All she said was, ‘I don’t know, it’s all in a file somewhere, and I don’t want to dig it out.’ Boy, was I burning and churning.”

Apparently I burned and churned for only a couple of hours before calling the Consumer Fraud people and asking them to send me a complaint form. It arrived two days later. Imagine a government agency responding so quickly today. Two days! That hardly gave them time to get it into a mailbox!

At any rate, I filled out the form forthwith, and on March 4 a representative from the Consumer Fraud unit telephoned me. (By the way, I’m going to call the editor Laura Silva rather than her real name, for reasons I will make clear later on.)

March 4: “Well, hey, Consumer Fraud called, and the woman there – named Sydney – told me that I have an open-and-shut case, even in the opinion of the D.A.’s men there. She tried twice to talk sense into Laura Silva, the Independent’s editor, but she said Silva was rude and a real ‘schmoo.’ ”

“The D.A.’s men”? I think I’d been watching a little too much Karl Malden in “The Streets of San Francisco.”

March 8: “I talked to Sydney again. She said she’d had a message from Laura Silva (the famous editor), and when she called her back, Laura only repeated that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. So why had Laura left a message to call her? She must really be nuts. Anyway, I guess her latest excuse for my not winning is that I didn’t send my entry in on a postcard. First of all, can you see me writing 14 pages on a postcard? Secondly, the second issue of the paper stated that we could send in letters! It looks, anyway, as if I’ll be going to small claims court.”

Sydney had done all she could for me. Typo fraud was just beyond her purview. So I called the Small Claims Legal Advisor at the San Francisco Municipal Court and girded my loins for battle.

The first thing I resolved to do was find an expert witness. Because I’d been in the publishing biz for a few years, I had a squad of word nerds around me. I decided on Kathy Reigstad, a production editor and former colleague of mine from my days at Harper & Row. As it turned out, she’d gone to law school for about a year and had always fantasized about being in court, so she was ecstatic at the prospect. Her role was to determine how many of my “bloopers” were legitimate errors. I would sue for that number of dollars in addition to – per the guidance of the Small Claims Legal Advisor – punitive damages of $100. I could soon be rolling in it!

The next thing I had to do, according to the Advisor, was determine who was in fact the owner of the newspaper. To accomplish this, he suggested that I go down to City Hall and attempt to look it up in the Fictitious Names Index. Instead, I enlisted the help of my girlfriend Cynthia, who came up with the ruse of calling the paper’s office pretending to be a journalism student doing a project on newspaper ownership. The office clerk who answered the phone bought it, and he told her that Laura Silva was indeed the owner.

Check.

All I had to do now was wait for Kathy’s evaluation, then send a letter to the Independent with a demand for the exact amount.

A week later, Kathy called me down to the Harper & Row offices to go over my entry, and we came up with 249 valid errors. That sounded fair to me. So I sent the newspaper a certified letter and, as soon as the receipt came back to me, I went down and filed the small claims case. Cynthia served the warrant. My day in court would be April 28 at 8:15 a.m. Things were moving quickly.

April 13: “I’m sitting here tonight watching ‘People’s Court,’ one of my favorite new shows. It’s interesting to me to hear the variety of situations in which people shaft each other, and to hear the judge’s assessment of right and wrong in each case, I am especially getting more and more interested now that my own case is coming. And I am starting to realize that it is easy to sue, and that as they say on the show, it’s much better to go to court than to take the law into your own hands; maybe more of us can strike back at the myriad of people who rip us off.”

Obviously I was feeling righteous about the situation. But as the trial approached, I got more and more jittery.

April 27: “Tomorrow morning’s court date looms larger and larger, and it’s practically consuming me. My stomach was ulcerous – burning all day, in fear of my having to speak in court.”

Kathy Reigstad and I arrived in Small Claims Court (Dept. 1 of City Hall, at the time) extremely early on the 28th. I was so extraordinarily nervous that when I emerged from the women’s room I absent-mindedly picked up a stranger’s McDonald’s bag and carried it with me into the courtroom!

As you might expect, the bailiff smelled that breakfast sausage sandwich and handed me a mild reprimand. I scurried back to return it to the restroom.

Kathy amused me with her asides as we were waiting. “I don’t know if this is the right time to tell you,” she said, “but when I had to be in moot court in law school I cried.” Meanwhile we were trying to determine which person was Laura Silva. When a really gorgeous woman walked in, Kathy turned to me to pronounce, “We’re dead.”

But it wasn’t her. The real Laura came in and sat right next to me, not knowing that her tormenter was at her shoulder.

Our case was the first one called, which terrified me because I’d wanted to watch for awhile and get some tips from other people’s presentations. But no.

And true to form, I blundered right from the get-go.

“I started clambering onto the wrong chair in the beginning, saying, ‘Is that right, Your Honor?’ and he motioned me to stand in front of him, with a smile.”

I presented my side somewhat shakily and at lightning speed, ignoring both the speech I’d spent typing up until midnight the night before and my reams of documentation. Then came Silva’s turn, and the judge seemed to partially take my side from the very beginning. Silva wasn’t as respectful (i.e., scared) as I was, often finishing her responses snidely with, ‘Is that it? Am I through?’ And the judge even seemed sympathetic to some of my more questionable corrections. For example, he demanded to know whether she would count “proofread” and “proof read” in the same paragraph to be an error. She said no, along with this doozy: “That first one is two words. The letters are just squished together. You can see a line between them.”

“That’s the PROOFREADER’S red line!” he answered, with more than a little exasperation.

Another gem involved her misspelling the name of Fanning’s Bookstore. Silva claimed that she was under no obligation to spell the name of the bookstore correctly, especially since she had no time to look up the name in the Fictitious Names Index.

I told her that I had simply called Mr. Fanning and asked him for the correct spelling!

Finally, when the judge looked at Kathy’s carefully enumerated list of errors, he told Silva, “Paula’s list contains 49 spelling errors alone, which by itself beats the 41 that the winner had.”

“Well, uh huh, that’s true,” Silva admitted.

For crying out loud, why had this woman ever thought it was justifiable to declare someone else the winner? All she had to do was declare me the winner with 42 typos and I would never have felt cheated or taken her to court. Now she was spending her time defending her ridiculous excuses. What a waste! None of it made any sense to me!

The judge concluded by telling us that he would commission a third party to scrutinize my entry, and that we would get the decision in the mail.

As I walked out of the courtroom past the gallery, still a bit wobbly, a young guy about my age took my hands in both of his and said, “That was a very nice presentation.”

“I tell you, that sweet gesture made my whole day happy.”

A couple of weeks later, the judgment arrived.

May 12: “On the way out the door at 2:00 this afternoon, I found my court judgment in the mail, a piddling $80 victory. I’m glad I won, but it sure would’ve been nice to get more money for all the work I put in. And I feel a little sheepish calling up people like Mom and telling them that I only got 80 bucks.”

The cherry on top was that Silva waited so long to send me my check that her time limit expired and I had to lean on her with another letter. But she eventually coughed up the dough.

So that was it. Justice had prevailed, although it seemed like only partial justice. I still have my lengthy list of bloopers, and even with the mellowing of age, I still maintain that I had a couple hundred valid entries. Who was this “third party” who came up with such a cockamamie count? Obviously not an English major!

***

So where are these dramatist personae today?

As far as I can tell, Kathy Reigstad lives in the Pacific Northwest and still works as a copy editor, including for Harper Collins Publishers in New York. She was a dedicated, kind, competent editor and delightful human being.

Sydney Fairbairn, the earnest young woman from Consumer Fraud, is an attorney in Marin County.

My friend Pam Pecora Hansen is an attorney in the San Francisco D.A.’s Office.

Laura Silva, as it turns out, owns a large shop in my neighborhood! Oy! I have never stepped foot in her store, even though there’s some great stuff in there. But I’m too afraid that if I bought anything she would recognize the name on my credit card, even after so much time has passed, and I shudder at the thought.

She may well be a lovely person. After all, it’s been nearly 40 years, and we’re all different people from what we were half a lifetime ago.

On the other hand, maybe she’s still a schmoo.

***

2/9/73 [age 17]:
“Two learning experiences, one quite in contrast to the other. This morning I took Mary to school early in order that she be able to attend a History class. I went along to her class for lack of anything better to do and because I simply LOVE learning! The program was actually quite interesting. (Judy asked today what class I was reading Walden for. I answered that I was doing it for fun. ‘God, I NEVER do that!’ she replied.) And the other experience? Well, yesterday I was propositioned in the Student Union. I rudely turned the guy down. He must’ve been hard up.”

3/9/73 [age 17]:
“Mom and Dad went out tonight so I naturally went in the sewing room to listen to four records at ear-splitting volume. My tastes are not limited; Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand hold as much appeal for me as do Neil Diamond or Johnny Rivers or the Four Tops. My sole material desire in the world is to own a stereo with four speakers at the very least. I know the quality of every radio station around; I can sing the words to almost every song that was ever written. It’s kind of ironic that I am so wanting in musical talent, and I have the worst voice this side of the Rockies.”

2/19/73 [age 17]:
“Dad had to go to a basketball game tonight, so we’re not going to Clearlake until tomorrow. Instead, Jeanne took me to a ballet at Flint Center, “Swan Lake,” with Rudolph Nuryvev [sic]. I guess it was okay, but my mind wandered all over the place. It was so boring!”

2/20/73 [age 17]:
“On my break today all I did was eat. So much for my diet. I had three pieces of pizza, a tuna sandwich, some French fries, and a glass of root beer.”

2/22/73 [age 17]:
“I had a dream that I was in an elevator and the doors never closed and it started going up and down, faster and faster, never stopping. I grew dizzy, became disoriented. It was awful. I’ve tried to analyze what it all means – maybe the elevator is my world, for I am helplessly confined by something beyond my control. Alone, scared, out of place, confused. I woke up with my heart pounding like crazy and I was gasping for breath. I tell you, one of the most glorious feelings in the world is waking up from a horrible nightmare and realizing you are still alive.”

2/25/73 [age 17]:
“I’m slowly recovering from a bash on the head [my sister] Janine gave me with a pot while we were drying the dishes. It was accidental, I think. I’ve finally decided to make some attempt at learning to cook, or at least to make preparations for my eventual independence, so I’ve bought myself a little notebook in which I shall observe different dinners and write them out. Eventually, I shall also include other domestic chores, such as washing, repairs, etc.”

2/28/73 [age 17]:
“I’m still trying to get over the shock, but Mr. Jordahl from Rexall Drugs by Lucky’s called today about an interview; I went down and without any real questions he hired me (it’s advantageous that he knows Mom). The pay is really raunchy – $1.55 an hour – but I’ve accomplished the one thing I wanted to do: no more Clear Lake. I don’t know what I’ll do when they [my family] go away for the weekend, or how in the world I’ll get to work (in the dark? with no car?). We’ll solve that problem when we come to it. Maybe they’ll pawn me off on somebody or I’ll have a friend come over, which’ll be really nice. O, blissful freedom!”

Our noble home

Very few people know this, but I once saved the life of Chelsea Clinton when she fell from the window of a burning dormitory at Stanford University. I leaped out of my passing car and caught her on the run, like a wide receiver.

I’ve also saved the lives of Jenna Bush, Amy Carter, both Obama girls, and Ron Reagan, Jr.

As you can see, I haven’t been partisan.

These fantasies (yes, none of this really happened) have been a part of my evening ritual for decades. I go to sleep each night imagining myself to be the hero I have always wanted to be. In these scenarios I never knew that the people I was rescuing were public figures. And sometimes, but not always, I would sustain gruesome injuries.

So why did these people falling from burning windows have to be the children of Presidents? Because I figured that only then would I be invited to appear on the Johnny Carson show and be lauded as a hero in front of millions of Americans.

(Never did I consider the fact that Presidents’ children might have had Secret Service Protection and would more likely have been rescued by someone with sunglasses and a gun. That would not have fit well with my design.)

***

I hear people overuse “amazing” so much these days that I could just scream. If everything and everyone is amazing, then nothing is amazing. Let me tell you something: a horsefly can catch a pellet fired from an air rifle. Now, that’s amazing.

Along those lines, the other overused word that gripes me is “hero.”

As I’ve said before, to me a hero is someone who throws himself on a grenade. He risks his life to save another person or, on a larger scale, his family, his community, or his country. And he is selfless. He does it for neither fame nor money.

(Needless to say, a hero doesn’t have to be a man, but I didn’t want to get too mired in pronouns here.)

So if I ever really do catch someone falling from a burning building, would that act fit the definition of heroism? I’d say so, unless before I started my sprint I yelled at an onlooker to film the whole thing so that I’d go viral and end up on Colbert.

My great-uncle Reuben Steger, whom I discussed at length in “Their Last Full Measure,” was a true hero. He absolutely knew he was going to die at the Battle of Buna in World War II when he saved at least half a dozen lives running through machine gun fire to drag his wounded men to safety. Eventually, on the sixth or seventh foray, his luck ran out. He was 25 years old. The Army gave his parents the Distinguished Service cross he earned for “extraordinary heroism.”

Of course, one needn’t die in order to qualify as a hero. A couple of weeks ago I read a news story about Chief Warrant Officer Joe Rosamond, a helicopter pilot with the CA Army National Guard. Thirty families were trapped at a place called Mammoth Pool in the wilderness, taken by surprise when one of the California fires came raging at them at a savage speed. All ground attempts at reaching the stranded campers had failed. A rescue effort by a CHP helicopter had likewise failed. Another plan had been diverted because the air conditions were so hazardous. Finally the operations commander called off all rescue attempts, but Rosamond was already in his chopper and on the way, not to be dissuaded. He was determined to save those people or die trying, and frankly, there was a good chance he would. He couldn’t make out anything past half a mile, even through his night-vision goggles. By the time he landed on a boat ramp, his own windshield was black with ash and it was impossible to see through it. Then he had to go back twice. Twice. The operation was so harrowing that afterwards he would liken it to his missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He saved 214 people.

*Harriet Tubman with rescued slaves, c. 1887*

And what about Harriet Tubman, the brutally-beaten slave who escaped and made 19 return missions to rescue dozens of slaves using the Underground Railroad, each time putting herself willingly in grave danger? Had she been detected, she would have been drawn and quartered.

Or the unbelievably courageous divers in 2018 who rescued 12 young boys and their coach from a cave in Thailand. The undertaking was physically treacherous and mentally terrifying. All of the kids, and their coach, survived. But one of the divers, Saman Kunan, died of asphyxiation in the cave. (Another one, by the way, died 10 months ago from a blood condition he contracted during the rescue.)

Or Amy O’Sullivan, who made Time’s list of 100 influential people last month. A long-time ER nurse, she helped care for the first COVID-19 patient at Brooklyn’s Wyckoff hospital. A short time later, she came down with the disease herself and spent four days intubated, hooked up to a ventilator. After two weeks she went back to work.

***

When we were very young, my siblings and I had an album called America on the Move. It was part of the 1959 multi-LP set “The Golden Library,” which featured collections of patriotic tunes, songs about faith, nursery rhymes, and other music. One of our favorite songs from the album was “Casey Jones,” about the railroad engineer who gave his life for his passengers on his “farewell trip to the Promised Land.” I actually have a one-minute recording of the Bocciardi kids singing this tune in 1962:

“Casey Jones” by the Bocciardi kids

Jones, a railroad engineer, died in 1900 at the young age of 37. On his last run, with six cars of passengers, the train was heading out of a blind curve when the engine’s fireman spotted a freight train parked on the track ahead. It was too late for Jones to stop, and he knew it. After yelling at the fireman to jump, Casey stayed aboard, blowing his whistle and braking the train as it went crashing through four of the freight train’s cars before leaving the track. He spent his last moments on earth mitigating the potential effect of the collision on those for whom he had responsibility. All of the passengers (and the fireman) survived. Casey did not. The story goes that his body was found with his hand still clutching the whistle and the brake. He was a true hero.

***

But what about those who display extraordinary selflessness without risking their lives?

I’d like to call attention to one of my favorite ballplayers: Buster Posey, the storied catcher for the San Francisco Giants.

Sure, he has potential Hall of Fame stats, is a six-time All-Star, won the NL Rookie of the Year award in 2010, and was the National League MVP in 2012. But he’s not a “hero” to me. I think it’s ridiculous that we so commonly apply that label to athletes who hit baseballs or sink baskets or score touchdowns while playing a game they love and pulling in more money annually than most of us will ever see cumulatively in our lifetimes.

But there’s something special about him that I recognized when he first came up with the Giants. He went about his business quietly. He wasn’t a showboat. His teammates immediately looked up to him. I’d say that he’s been a steadfast role model.

But this season he proved to be much more than that.

Just a few days into the summer preseason, Buster had just finalized the adoption of twin premature baby girls and had been told that after spending at least four weeks in neonatal intensive care, the babies would have vulnerable immune systems for a number of months. He reported to camp for a day or two but was visibly tortured. After talking to doctors, he made a decision that was personally excruciating but, for him, clear-cut.

He opted out of the 2020 baseball season altogether.

“These babies being as fragile as they are for the next four months, at minimum, this ultimately wasn’t that difficult a decision for me,” he said. “From a baseball standpoint, it was a tough decision. From a family standpoint and feeling like I’m making a decision to protect our children, I think it was relatively easy.

“My wife, I, and our other children are just overwhelmed with joy to welcome them into our family to love them unconditionally and just share life with them.”

Buster and his wife Kristen gave up $8 million when they made this choice.

Now, let’s face it, that’s a drop in the bucket for them and will make no difference in the quality of their lives whatsoever.

But Posey also gave up a season of, for him, just a few dwindling seasons left. He is 33 years old, and for a catcher, that means he’s nearing the end of his playing career. After a lackluster 2019 as a result of postsurgical difficulties, he’d been absolutely tearing up the first Spring Training in early 2020, hitting a whopping .455. This had the potential to be a dominating year for him – perhaps his last. Yet he opted out. For most professional athletes, that would be tantamount to torture.

The most noble among us, though, are willing to devote ourselves to causes well beyond our own self-interest. To country, or community, or family. Buster and his wife have been struggling to adopt – which in and of itself is a selfless act – ever since they had biological twins in 2011. But meanwhile they have been devoting their energies to the Buster and Kristin Posey Fund, which is dedicated to battling pediatric cancer through awareness and research.

“It’s not acceptable,” Buster once said about childhood cancer. “We can’t sit here and talk about how bad this is, we’ve got to try to help.”

To whom much is given, much will be required.

Buster has given back in abundance. Not just talk, but action. Not just money, but time. He’s what a man – especially a man of means – ought to be.

He has character.

So I want another category. I want a category for people who make personal sacrifices for others, even though those sacrifices might not involve life and death.

I’ve decided to use “lodestar.”

Buster Posey is my lodestar. Add that to his legacy.

So as I sit here today on this metaphorical pier, at the edge of the Pacific, while the country rocks and swells and stumbles darkly behind me, I think of all the lodestars still lighting our way. I think of all the great men and women who silently, and without acclaim, provide reason, patience, calm, truth, integrity, and sacrifice.

Ever the optimist, I believe that, with time, they will help bring us back to our once-noble home.

9/20/72 [age 16]:
“Oh, I am so excited by the prospects of learning. All the books I’ve gotten – they all are filled with so much wonderful new information that I want to read very word and to keep them forever. I don’t like the early hours of college; in fact, I have to pick Robin up at 6:45 tomorrow because she has to get there especially early. I don’t like my lack of sleep. And of course my laziness makes me extremely adverse [sic] to studying, or any kind of work. But the bright promise of learning – I think it is worth everything.”

9/21/72 [age 16]:
“I wonder if I am the only near-17-year-old in the entire world who has had such a meager love life. I am so-o-o-o lonely for real companionship. I don’t think there is any guy I really like right now, and I may never have the chance to. I am young, have a weird voice, and am far from good-looking. In fact, I’m not sexy at all, and I suppose I suffer from lack of feminism [sic]. My face . . . oh, yecch.”

9/27/72, ONE WEEK after starting college [age 16]:
“Boy, I’m so tired! College requires such a large amount of reading – I get headaches every day now. Between tons of homework and my daily Bible reading (which takes quite a bit of time) and my daily letters and baths and hairwashings and homework, I never have time for FUN anymore!”

10/4/72 [age 16]:
“At dinner tonight, Dad told me that my dear beloved [former high school teacher] Mr. Bernert told him that whenever he hears that ridiculous song ‘I’m the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA’ by Donna Fargo, he thinks of ME. I’m still trying to figure out what he could possibly mean.”

10/4/72 [age 16]:
“Our first biology field trip today was to Alum Rock Park [in San Jose]. I enjoyed it, because, besides the fact that I am in love with Dr. Shellhammer, the teacher, I now have a far greater ecological appreciation for the Park. And to think I used to call it a dumb place . . .”

10/5/72 [age 16]:
“I had the ‘tremendous’ privilege of seeing the Vice-Presidential candidate Sargent Shriver today at [San Jose State]. I was with Mary Pasek, and I almost fainted. Why? Because 1) it was very hot and I had on a sweater OVER a jumper, 2) there were 4000 people there, 3) I hadn’t had lunch at all, and 4) I suppose he wasn’t too thrilling for me to listen to.”

10/14/72 [age 16]:
“Since Sue came home this weekend I took her and Barb to Baskin’s and Robbin’s tonight. Night driving scares me. Then we came to our house and talked. I loved it. Sue is religious now, very into the Bible, and she is exceedingly happy, just in the way she talks it shows. We talked of religion, mostly, and once more I felt warmed over with love for humanity. Mom laughed at the whole affair, saying, ‘You feel obligated to be worldly. Why can’t you talk about fishing, like boys do?’ ”

10/16/72 [age 16]:
“It was strange, but Mrs. Espinosa called today (you know, the school nurse who I went skiing with) just to see how I was. It was really nice. The thing is – I honestly keep wondering to myself how anyone could LIKE me, let alone care enough about me to call. I mean, I’m such a quiet, sullen, moody, morose person.”

10/18/72 [age 16]:
“Our Biology field trip today was to Villa Montalvo, and Dr. Shellhammer walks so fast that the rest of us have to jog. But I did so willingly; I have developed a passionate love for running. I first saw that in the movie ‘Tribes,’ where the guy claimed that he could do any physical feat by putting ‘mind over matter,’ and I then thought it was a bunch of bull, but now I really believe it. When I am running, I can daydream – as long as I am not running uphill, where concentration is required.”

10/25/82 [age 16]:
“I got my second English paper back today with a B- on it. I have always taken great pride in my writing. It would not be too bad if Dr. Haeger’s comments were justifiable, but I disagree with 95% of them. I like my word choice better. Also, I certainly am not going to change my style. The fragments, dots, dashes, etc. that I use are not accidental grammatical errors; they are techniques I use on purpose to contribute to the effect of the paper. Hmmm. Last week I claimed that I had no interest in grades. Perhaps I should rescind that.”

10/27/72 [age 16]:
“I was thinking about [San Jose] State today, how I love it but I hate it. It’s far too big. There are so many people that I’m forced to be alone, solitary in the midst of others. Is that understandable? There is no chance to cultivate any close friendships, or really get to know anyone. We have 25,000 students! I spoke with Yolanda Parra today and she seemed so open and loving. But she gave me a blank stare when I mentioned my ‘there are so many people that I feel all alone’ theory. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m a ding-a-ling.”

10/28/72 [age 16]:
“[My friend] Judy came over today at 12:30 and we worked on her essay on busing for 4 hours. Actually, I wrote the whole thing – just dictated while she wrote it down. I’m glad I could help, but – what do I know about busing??!”

10/29/72 [age 16]:
“Tonight I asked Robin over to watch ‘Yellow Submarine’ and a Peanuts special, where my beloved Linus won an election! I love him – he’s so cute and kind and wise and intellectual. He’s my man.”

12/5/72 [age 17]:
“Barb and I rode up and down the elevators at Duncan Hall yesterday. We had just eaten an entire bag of too-salty cornnuts on empty stomachs. Then these elevators – in Duncan Hall they’re so FAST that your stomach exits. We got in two separate elevators on floor 6 and rode up and down trying to find each other. Eventually we did, but only after I’d gotten a million drinks of water on a million different floors . . . plus the cornnuts, plus the elevators – Barb and I were so nauseated. We each went home, took two aspirin, and went to bed.”

12/11/72 [age 17]:
“Gadzooks! Robin has decided to have a wild party sometime during Christmas vacation. I guess it’ll have all the vices, bar none. For some totally absurd reason I would love to go, so that I could at least know that I have been in a tempting environment and have resisted it.”

12/12/72 [age 17]:
“I have almost resigned myself to the notion that there is no possibility of my ever becoming lucky enough to fall in love. And how can I live my life alone? True, I am young, but I see future repetitions of my present daily, weekly, monthly, yearly pattern. It’s almost unbearably depressing, yet I remain clinging to the hope that perhaps someday I will stumble miraculously upon him. In the meantime, I sit and wait . . . and cry every once in a while.”

12/19/72 [age 17]:
“I’m still worried about Law Enforcement and if I will indeed remain with it. There are so many things I want do to: be a psychologist, work with the physically handicapped, read to old people, get people off drugs, write, be a cop. And I don’t think that I could do everything at once. And the thing that I would really like to do, above all else, is to move out and go to college for 50 years. Of course, I’d have to have a part-time job on the side.”

12/23/72 [age 17]:
“Another rotten day. Both the 49ers and the Raiders lost by way of flukes in the last few seconds. Pittsburgh caught a deflected pass near the ground and ran a touchdown in the last 5 seconds to be victors over the Raiders. And the stupid Cowboys scored two touchdowns in the last 2 minutes to wrest victory from the deserving hands of San Francisco. The only good thing was [my cousin] Ronnie’s appearance. I love just looking at him – he’s so cute and now he has a moustache. A pleasing sight is no substitute for sweet victory, however.”

12/25/72 [age 17]:
“About all I do up here [in southern CA at my grandparents’ house] is listen to music. [My uncle] Fred brought over his two-record set of Neil Diamond’s live concert at the Greek theater (which he and [my aunt] Jackie witnessed) called ‘Hot August Night.’ It’s an eight-dollar record! While I listen to that I’m writing an entry for my journal about the past year called ‘Shades of 1972 Revisited,’ which is so lengthy I may never finish. Otherwise, I’m wearing the grooves out of ‘Sounds of Silence’ and ‘Songs for Beginners.’ I don’t write while I listen to those because I love them so much that I need to listen intently.”

1/5/73 [age 17]:
“Once again, for the jillionth time, I feel terribly guilty. [My friend] Robin has decided to move out tomorrow – has even informed her parents – and I didn’t discourage her in the least. I feel as if I’ve contributed to the ruination of a young person’s life. She doesn’t have much money, and her parents will be hurt. Will Robin regret it forever? Will she go off the deep end, as I believe she already has? (I heard rumors, partly verified, that at her party she gave a couple of weeks ago there was a lot of ‘making out.’)”

1/6/73 [age 17]:
“It was once again brought to my attention today that as far as practical knowledge and skills go, I am a total failure. My complete uselessness in the household infuriates Mom to high degrees. But I need not know how to cook exotic things for myself, because I can easily subsist on hamburgers and root beer.”

1/8/73 [age 17]:
“Our tennis class was cancelled today so Barb and I took the bus (a first for me!) to her house where I had rice and egg fu yung and won ton soup. Wow, what a lunch! Her parents were astounded at my universal appreciation of food.”

1/12/73 [age 17]:
“We came up to Clearlake today and I’m freezing to death. One small fire and an inadequate heater cannot warm my perpetually shivering body with their meager warmth. Small things make me happy, though. They bought us a colossal bag of sunflower seeds, which makes my studying much more enjoyable.”

2/1/73 [age 17]:
“My constant praying has paid off. The wait in line outside from 6:00 to 10:00 to register for this semester was not too bad. I had on long underwear (with no bra – it felt weird), my yellow sweatshirt, Levis, and my blue jacket. The only parts of me that got cold in this freezing weather were my feet – they turned numb. I was number 83 in line and got all the classes I wanted AND the sections I wanted! (except tennis, so I took badminton) God is a great guy, but today he was exceptionally terrific.”

Paula’s pandemic pointers

I may have committed a felony last week. I’m not really sure. But it involved throwing a bag of bagels from a 10th-story balcony.

This coronavirus can really mess with one’s routine.

I don’t know whether the act of throwing something down to the street from 10 stories up is illegal. When I first looked it up, I found the term defenestration, which I always thought meant the act of shaving one’s legs. Anyway, although defenestration does mean throwing something or someone out of a window, it apparently connotes an impulse both deliberate and forceful, especially when it comes to tossing one’s enemies out onto the street to kill them.

My online reading of the California Penal Code proved inconclusive. I mean, I came away pretty sure that if the bagels were thrown deliberately to hurt someone, it would be considered an assault. (Especially if the bagels were stale.) However, if there was no malicious intent . . . well, that wasn’t directly addressed.

Finally, I cryptically texted a police officer friend and asked whether, hypothetically, it would be illegal to toss a bag of bagels off of a 10th-floor balcony towards a person waiting to catch them. “Of course not!!” was the response. “Unless it hits them on the head and kills them. Then you might be looking at a murder charge!”

***

I was supposed to be on my biennial train trip to the East Coast right now. Boo hoo. Instead, I’m cooped up just like the rest of you, but I’m one of the luckier ones because I have no aging parents to worry about, no children to homeschool, and no paychecks to forego. My heart goes out to everyone suffering from the disease or its economic effects, and my deepest respect goes out to everyone on the front lines keeping my vulnerable arse safer – delivery people, grocery clerks, mail carriers, and especially health care workers.

So I’ve decided to do what little good I can and help you all through the pandemic by recommending the top 10 products (and activities) I’ve discovered while sheltering in place.

You’re welcome.

***

Recommendation #10: Do something so silly it makes you giggle.

Regarding the above-mentioned felony: My friend Char Sachson recently mentioned that she was baking homemade bagels and that we should let her know if we wanted any. After that conversation, the only thing on my mind, 24 hours a day, was the possibility of nabbing some of those bagels.

The only slight glitch was that she lives in a high-rise condo building, and for various health and logistical reasons it was best that we not do a personal handoff. So she suggested the “bagel drop.” This would involve her sending the bagels plummeting to earth from her 10th-floor balcony.

IMG_0827 with red circle — *View from street up to Char’s balcony. Char is circled in red.*

Char said that she would make us three kinds of bagels, put each type in its own paper bag, then put all three paper bags into a bigger paper bag. Julie and I would drive down to her neighborhood near the Civic Center, park on Franklin Street, and get into position under her balcony for the drop. On the way there, Julie and I were on the phone with Char, plotting the details of the caper and laughing harder than we had since this whole pandemic started. I mentioned that we had recently gotten some cream cheese delivered so it would be a perfect time to acquire the bagels. That’s when Julie commented that she liked jalapeños on hers, and Char was aghast. “Only a shiksa would put peppers on a bagel,” she scoffed.

That made us laugh even harder.

Sure enough, there were a couple of parking spaces right near Char’s balcony. We’d decided that Julie would attempt to make The Catch. We were both wearing masks, but she was also wearing her baseball glove. My job was to take photos and hope that the “sports mode” on my camera, which shoots multiple frames per second, would capture the exact moment of the catch.

We positioned ourselves and gave the sign that we were ready. Char let ’er rip. The bagels fell to earth much faster and harder than we had anticipated. Julie said she hadn’t accounted for wind and trajectory. The bag smacked off Julie’s glove, caromed off her forearm, and then hit the pavement with an explosive boom that echoed far down the city streets.

I had my camera trained on the right spot but never even saw the bagels come down. I just heard the boom. As bad luck would have it, the camera’s shutter captured only the moment before and the moment after impact. Dang!

Julie was okay, although her arm was a bit sore. All three interior bagel bags ripped open on impact, but the outer bag survived and kept the bagels from rolling into Franklin Street. And the bagels were, thankfully, intact.

Success!

Julie preparing to catch bagels — *Julie milliseconds before impact.*

My friend Julie Riffle, after I’d recounted the story to her, said that we should have calculated the force of impact beforehand. Well, I never took physics, so that had not occurred to me. She actually spent some time after the incident to perform a number of calculations (with the disclaimer that she hopes no physicists are reading this blog because these are very rough estimates) and concluded that “the force at impact is dependent on the surface it impacts. If the surface is soft and gives, the impact is less, or if the object itself gives, the impact will be less. This makes it very hard to calculate since the bagels first glanced off of Julie’s glove and arm, which would have lessened the impact. And then there’s the effect of the bagels (and/or bag) being displaced upon impact with Julie and ultimately the sidewalk. So, I started with the default for d (distance traveled after impact), 0.1 m representing the movement of Julie’s arm after impact. This gave the result in Newtons which equals 609.18 lbs of force at impact. But if the bagels had missed Julie and hit the sidewalk, the distance traveled after impact would have been only the displacement of the bag and/or bagels, since the sidewalk would have presumably not been displaced. This would result in greater impact.”

Does anyone understand that?

By the way, she also commented that Char should have made a tiny parachute for the bagels. Maybe next time.

*Char’s delightful and delicious bagels*

***

Recommendation #9: Toss the Caravella.

Limoncello has been all the rage in the States for some time now. It was first offered to my parents and me back in 1998 on our trip to Italy. We were sitting outside our small hotel on the outskirts of Rome. Our young waiter poured it for us and told us that it “helps with digestion.” He also told us, excitedly, that he was soon going to California with his girlfriend and was especially looking forward to seeing “Joe’s Meat.” We were puzzled. It came to me, though, after a few seconds. “Ah,” I said, “Yosemite!”

il-convento-original-limoncello-of-sorrento

I was quite pleased with myself for figuring this out before my parents did.

Anyway, as you all surely know, limoncello is a lemon liqueur. People over here often say “lemonchello” but it’s actually pronounced “LEEmonchello.”

We’ve been buying the Caravella brand, which is the only kind carried by Safeway, our local supermarket. But a couple of weeks ago we picked up an order of wine (I just can’t get enough of it these days) at our neighborhood wine store (curbside), and we noticed on the store’s website that they carried only one kind of limoncello and it was not Caravella. It was Il Convento. I don’t like change, so I was skeptical, but I finally agreed to give it a try.

It was glorious. Birds started singing when I brought the tiny glass of liqueur to my lips. It was not thickly sweet like the Caravella. The consistency was lighter. The color was a yellow pastel. It tasted more like lemons, and like Italy. It was springtime in a bottle.

Il Convento. Get some.

***

Recommendation #8: Poo-Pourri. Go with it.

I don’t think I need to dwell too long on this product, in case you’re reading this blog post over breakfast. Suffice it to say that about a year ago, some friends suggested that Poo-Pourri is an essential suitcase item for travelers sharing hotel rooms. You spritz it into the toilet before you go, and it covers up any odors. I had my doubts but added “Buy Poo-Pourri” to my Microsoft Outlook calendar, a year into the future. Well, the year came ’round, the “reminder” popped up, and I decided to give the product a try. Danged if it doesn’t work like a charm. And it doesn’t work by just covering the odor with a strong, cloying smell, which is what I feared. It just makes the odor disappear altogether. A miracle! I don’t understand it. Anyway, many lovely scents are available, but I would recommend buying the sample pack and figuring out which one you like. The vanilla mint is, in my view, especially nice.

***

Recommendation #7: Crisp some prosciutto in the microwave.

It’s quite possible that the mere suggestion of microwaving prosciutto could be considered a crime of heresy in Italy and could net you some jail time. I know my nonna would thrash around in her grave if she were to catch wind of this nonsense. I’ve been eating this thin-sliced Italian ham delicacy my entire life and never heard of microwaving it until this pandemic. But Julie discovered it online and then used it to slightly modify a recipe she found for Prosciutto Pasta with Peas and Parmesan Cheese.

Pasta_juliasalbum.com - prosciutto-pasta-peas-parmesan-cheese — *Prosciutto Pasta with Peas and Parmesan Cheese*

Let me just say that the result entered the realm of the god-like. The microwaved prosciutto is crispy, and a bit like bacon, but much more delicate and, in my opinion, much more concentrated and flavorful.

I interviewed Julie so that I could properly replicate her technique:

proscuitto-crisps_Familystylefood.com — *Microwave-crisped prosciutto*

“Line a microwaveable plate with two layers of paper towels,” she says. “Lay 2-3 slices of prosciutto on the plate, then cover with another single layer of paper towels. Microwave for one minute. If it doesn’t look too fried, do another 30 seconds and continue microwaving for 30-second intervals until it is crisped. Remove plate from microwave and use a paper towel to wipe off any grease sitting on the prosciutto. Let it cool for a bit. Once it’s cool enough to touch, crumble each slice into small pieces. Then sprinkle it over the pasta.”

Give it a shot!

***

Recommendation #6: Embrace your hair.

*Julie says my hair looks like the Wizard of Oz. Our niece Tara merely says it looks “voluminous.”*

***

Recommendation #5: Try Mark Bittman’s no-knead bread recipe.

The aforementioned Char Sachson – who apparently has become a baker extraordinaire – suggested that we try making our own bread. I used to bake sourdough bread but it was a pain in the arse and never really worked for me. Julie groaned at the thought of kneading bread. But the recipe Char recommended requires no kneading! In fact, it is called “No Knead Bread,” and although it takes 15-21 hours to make, the dough is “largely unattended” and probably requires only 30 minutes or so of effort on your part. Each loaf is a perfect loaf, every time.

https://www.markbittman.com/recipes-1/no-knead-bread

Bread 2 — *Julie made this wonderfulness!*

***

Recommendation #4: Have a delightful time exercising – finally.

Many of you know that I hate exercise and that occasionally I work out for only 30 seconds at a time and consider that a coup. We recently bought a stationary bike and I glumly figured I would never warm to it – until I discovered BitGym.

BitGym is an app. I don’t normally like apps of any kind. But this one is a marvel.

Everyone around me is sick to death of hearing me waxing poetic about BitGym, but in a nutshell it makes you feel like you are riding your bike through the California redwoods or on the streets of Paris or along the Atlantic shore. And you need no special hardware or connections whatsoever! More than 170 high-resolution video rides are available (they add more every month), and these are real trips that volunteers? employees? drones? have filmed, complete with location sound so that you can hear the leaves rustling, birds singing, hikers clomping, waterfalls roaring. By tracking your eye movements the app knows that you are exercising, so as soon as you start pedaling the landscape starts flowing. I hooked my phone up to our TV so that the gorgeous scenery is up on a huge screen and I actually do believe that I am biking through Nova Scotia. When the company says its rides are “immersive,” they are not kidding. In fact – and I am not making this up – on more than one occasion I have felt like I was too close to a cliff and about to tumble off the side of a mountain, so I’ve actually yelled, “Be careful!” to myself!

I love this thing.

The free version, which I used for a while, limits the user to 10 minutes per “tour,” and the choices are fewer. The pro version costs me $8 a month, but I think it now may be up to $10 or so. EXCEPT that the company is making it completely free through May 31 because so many of us are quarantined!!! Isn’t that lovely??

Let me tell you, I can get on that bike and pedal for way more than 30 seconds – maybe up to 45 minutes or so – and feel like it’s nothing.

And you don’t have to worry about flat tires, traffic, or bad weather! The weather in our downstairs room is always a perfect 55 degrees.

By the way, you don’t necessarily need a bike. You can use it with other aerobic machines like treadmills or ellipticals or rowers.

So if you want to make your workouts more pleasant, please give this app a shot and then thank me profusely later.

[Note: Unfortunately, my back pain is not allowing me to ride our stationary bike anymore – for now, at least. But if it ever gets better, you’ll find me in our downstairs room, merrily riding through a jungle in Costa Rica.]

***

Recommendation #3: Get some Bob’s Red Mill cookie mix.

Wouldn’t it be great to bake the perfect chocolate chip cookie from – gasp! – a mix?

Well, it’s not only possible but a certainty.

And you’d be supporting Bob’s Red Mill.

Bob Moore, the founder of this wondrous company, is 91 years old. He got into the milling biz quite late in life, which is a minor story unto itself. He was living in southern California, working at gas stations and tire stores, when he strolled into a library and randomly pulled John Goffe’s Mill off the shelves. The book is about a man with zero experience who bought an old grain mill.

Well, that sounds fun, doesn’t it? At least, it did to Bob.

Long story short, Bob and his wife Charlee bought an abandoned mill in 1978. Its headquarters are now in Milwaukie, Oregon, and you’ve probably seen Bob’s natural, organic stone-ground flours and steel-cut oats on your grocery shelves.

Charlee – the love of Bob’s life –passed away in 2018, and Bob’s Red Mill is estimated to be worth around $100 million. But he refuses to sell. Instead, he’s transferred ownership of his company to his 500+ employees, with their shares dependent upon how long they’ve worked there. The man is a gem.

Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix

The company makes over 400 products. But the best might be the Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix. The mix is gluten-free, which might be an added bonus for some of you. The website says that it is “a taste of childhood,” which is absolutely true. It’s easy to prepare (you add eggs, water, and butter) and the website notes that you can use their “Egg Replacer,” which we did because we had no real ones. Even though I normally eschew substitutions, we heartily recommend the Egg Replacer!

Finally, the site says that the cookie mix is “crafted to achieve crispy edges and a soft inside.” Also absolutely true!

And that’s why it’s the perfect chocolate chip cookie: just the right amount of chocolate and the right amount of sweetness, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Unfortunately, these days the mix goes in and out of stock on the Bob’s Red Mill site seemingly every few minutes (https://www.bobsredmill.com/gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookie-mix.html). It’s also sometimes available on other sites online. A package costs $6.49.

Grab some when you can – quick.

***

Recommendation #2: Buy this shirt.

I’m sure I’ve driven my health care family and friends nuts because I thank them for their public service every single time I talk to them. I mean, at least two have been working directly with COVID-19 patients! So I bought this Life Is Good t-shirt, and I wear it regularly, in their honor. It costs $28.

Women’s:

https://www.lifeisgood.com/healthcare-heroes/womens-rocket-med-flag-crusher-tee-71114.html?dwvar_71114_color=09826&cgid=healthcare#start=1

Men’s:

https://www.lifeisgood.com/healthcare-heroes/mens-rocket-med-flag-crusher-tee-71115.html?dwvar_71115_color=09826&cgid=healthcare#start=1

By the way, the company donates 10 percent of its net profits to The Life Is Good Kids Foundation, which “focuses on improving the capacity of childcare professionals to build healing, life-changing relationships with the most vulnerable kids in their care. Today there are over 10,000 Life Is Good Playmakers who have helped over 1 million kids heal from the trauma of poverty, violence and illness.”

Thank you to Alicia Darnell, Lynne Eckerson, Jane Malone, Julie Riffle, and all the healthcare workers out there.

As for the rest of you, you can shell out 28 bucks for this adorable and meaningful t-shirt, can’t you?

***

And my #1 recommendation: Dole out compliments for others’ endeavors.

I’ve been trying to play the piano lately. I took a year of lessons when I was 7 years old and I still have the old piano my parents bought me, as well as my old music books. I am terrible, of course, and I’m not being falsely modest in any way. I can read most of the notes in the treble clef (right hand) and a few in the bass clef (left hand), and that’s it. The only songs I attempt to play are patriotic tunes and antiquated folk ballads. My technique involves sporadic plunking at a dirgelike tempo while I hit at least 30 percent bad notes. (Much like a 7-year-old beginner.) My showpiece tune is a sluggish version of “My Old Kentucky Home,” which I’ve played on the order of 3,000 times.

I try to play only on weekdays, and only when our doors and windows are shut so there is no chance of anyone hearing me. However, the other day my sweet young (yes, to me 30-ish is young) next-door neighbor texted me the following:

“I heard you on the piano on Wednesday last week. It was beautiful! I could have listened to you play all day! It reminds me of my sister back home [in Ireland].”

This one simple gesture has brought tears to my eyes nearly every day since. I think about the kind young soul – who, because of the pandemic, is being deprived of night life and many of the other joys of youth – taking the time to text a senior citizen and turn my halting, hesitant, discordant plunking into something beautiful. Thank you, Lauren Mason.

How about complimenting someone today?

***

9/17/72 [age 16]:

“I really haven’t been thinking at all about school [college]. I suppose the thought of it is so horrible that I purposely try to put it out of my mind. But now it’s almost here, and I guess I will just . . . well, go, tomorrow. Oh, me, oh, my. CLUTZ – that’s what I am. The question is – is college for klutzes?”

9/18/72 [age 16]:

“Well, I can now say that I’ve made it through one day [of college]. Buying books was a hassle – I’ve bought 5 out of the 7 books I need for 2 classes, and it’s already cost $26. Book-buying is a hassle. My rides are still hassles; in fact, I don’t know how I’m getting to school Wednesday. Tomorrow I drive Robin and Mary and I don’t know where to park, since apparently both parking lots are too small to accommodate the stupid Travelall. I’m confused and oh-so-tired, but – I don’t know – the excitement, the people, the learning prospects – something is making me happy.”

The girls of summer

On a beautiful May day in 1954, on an innocuous ballfield in Charleston, South Carolina, two Negro League professional baseball teams faced each other in a preseason game. It wasn’t a particularly big deal for the players. The dry infield dirt, as usual, crunched under their spikes. Gloves were oiled, rawhides roughed. But looking back now, it’s clear that that moment was definitely a big deal. Three of the players warming up on the field that day were women. They were the only women, in fact, to ever play professional baseball.

Mamie “Peanut” Johnson was pitching for the Indianapolis Clowns. Infielder Connie Morgan was on the bench. Toni Stone was up to bat for the Kansas City Monarchs. Johnson had been throwing a shutout until Stone stepped into the box and sliced a base hit to the outfield. But she took a careless lead on the next pitch and Johnson picked her off first. It was baseball as usual, but they were not the usual ballplayers.

They were the girls of summer.

***

Baseball as usual, of course, has disappeared for now, and we don’t know when it will return. I’d been planning on writing about these three women for nearly two years, but I backed off when I learned that a play about Toni Stone was due to open in San Francisco this March. Frankly, I was incensed that the theater company had stolen my idea.

Because of the pandemic, unfortunately, the live production of Toni Stone didn’t happen. Yet perhaps now, more than ever, we need stories like these. You do not have to be a sports fan. This story is about much more than that. It’s about sexism, racism, talent, and guts.

***

From her earliest days in Saint Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, where most of the Twin Cities’ black population lived, Marcenia Lyle “Toni” Stone had an absolute obsession for baseball. She thought of nothing else, dreamt of nothing else. “Whenever summer would come around [and] the bats would start popping, I’d go crazy,” she said. But it was the 1930s, and her parents thought it was unnatural and unseemly for a girl to be crazy about a “boys’ game.” On top of that, Toni wasn’t at all interested in makeup or dresses or boys or any of the girlie fascinations that were thought to be “normal.” Everyone called her “Tomboy Stone,” and it was not necessarily a flattering moniker. Still, no one could deny that she was the best athlete, of any gender, in the neighborhood.

Stone started out playing in a summer Catholic boys’ league because a priest named Father Keefe needed someone to beef up his church’s ballclub. She then joined her high school softball team but quit after a year because the pace was too slow. But one spring day in 1936, at the age of 14, she stopped at a local park to watch a bunch of young white ballplayers coached by a man named Gabby Street, who had once played for the San Francisco Seals and the Washington Senators and who was then managing the minor league Saint Paul Saints. On that particular day, he was running a baseball camp for white boys in the area. Toni desperately wanted to play, and she was unaware of the fact that her race and gender were two strikes against her. Two strikes meant nothing to her anyway. So she began a campaign of relentlessly haranguing Street so that he would allow her to prove her skills.

Although Stone didn’t know it at the time, Gabby Street was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The group’s activities had begun to wane nationally, however, and the last Klan meeting in Minnesota had been held seven years earlier. Street began to wear down. “I just couldn’t get rid of her until I gave her a chance,” he said later. “Every time I chased her away, she would go around the corner and come back to plague me again.” Second base was her preferred position, so he asked her to field grounders and hit a few balls. And he was more than impressed. A few days later, on her 15th birthday, he bought her a pair of baseball shoes, and she thought it was a miracle. She had never owned anything “official” like that. He also allowed her into the baseball camp. Those white boys couldn’t believe their eyes when a black girl walked onto the field.

But she quickly proved her mettle.

Although Toni was not a good student in high school, she became an astute student of baseball in that camp. The game is packed with more nuance than those who don’t follow it could ever imagine. Under Gabby Street’s coaching she also honed her athletic abilities and learned the more intricate skills, to the extent that she was asked to join a few summer barnstorming teams of amateur African-American ballplayers. In addition to her comfortable position at second base, she’d play center field on those teams and sometimes even take the mound to pitch.

Barnstorming teams typically were based in cities that had no major league teams, and they spent much of their time on the road. (Note: The Minnesota Twins, formerly the Washington Senators, did not move to Minnesota until the 1961 season.) Keep in mind that in that day and age, being on the road for Toni and her teammates was not all fun and games. On one of Toni’s trips to Bloomer, Wisconsin, with her Twin City Colored Giants playing a white team, the man announcing the lineups blithely declared over the loudspeaker, “And now the starting lineup for the niggers.”

***

After dropping out of high school at the age of 19, Toni left her barnstorming Minnesota teammates behind and hopped on a bus headed for California, to see “what was over there on the other side of the fence.” Her sister Bunny lived in San Francisco, where men and women of all races had come to work in the shipyards. It was 1943, and the war effort was increasing. Toni had no idea where Bunny lived, and depending on when she would later re-tell the story, she had somewhere between 53 cents and $7 in her pocket. Her belongings consisted of a few items of clothing, her Goodwill baseball glove, and the cleats given to her by Gabby Street. To find her sister, the only thing she could do was comb the city’s streets. Incredibly, a few days after she arrived she was walking down a random alley when Bunny happened to look out the window and spotted her!

As I’ve written before, San Francisco is a mix of cultures, with so much to offer that any marginalized person can come here and find identity and acceptance. That happened to Toni. “I love my San Francisco,” she once said. “I had my hardships there. But they treated me right. Old San Francisco folks taken me over.” She had long had a passion for jazz, and the city’s Fillmore District was alive with it. She would hang out in Jack’s Tavern there, not only listening to the music but engaging in conversation with people more worldly than those she had known in her neighborhood back in Saint Paul. It was there that she would meet Aurelious Pescia Alberga, the much-older man whom she would eventually marry. He and the owner of Jack’s got Toni a spot on a local American Legion baseball team. Needless to say, she was the only woman on the squad. The team was part of a junior league, which required its players to be 17 or younger. It was now 1948, and Toni was 27 years old, so she decided to “change” her age by subtracting 10 years from it. It got her onto the team, but it also was the genesis of a long lie, and in years to come her fake youth would create unrealistic expectations and prove to be more of a hindrance than anything else.

Ultimately Toni found a place to live in Oakland through a priest at St. Benedict’s (because of Father Keefe, she would always have a soft spot for the Catholic Church). And she wrangled a job at Foster’s Cafeteria in the Fillmore District, although she would soon need more money and would end up doing physical labor down on the docks.

The next year, Stone was recruited by the San Francisco Sea Lions, a black barnstorming team that traveled throughout the country. (Note: The San Francisco Seals, part of the Pacific Coast League, did not include any black players.) She played second base and hit leadoff. Virtually no records were kept of those games, so no stats are available for me to quote. We do know that at some point Toni discovered that she was being paid less than her teammates, so she joined the New Orleans Creoles when they presented a better offer – which would indicate that her play was impressive. The Creoles went 44-8.

Better records are available for 1950, and by the middle of the season Toni was batting close to .300 for the Creoles. Meanwhile, she continued to fib about her age. She was a 29-year-old posing as a teenager. But she still had guts like no one had seen before. During one game in Iowa, a double-play throw from her third baseman ripped its way through her weakly made glove and knocked her out cold. Her teammates stood around pouring water on her (I’m not sure how that “treatment” was supposed to help), and when she regained consciousness she immediately stood straight up and screamed “Let’s go!” It stunned the crowd.

It was after the 1950 season, though, that Toni did a more audacious thing. She went and got married to the 67-year-old Aurelious Alberga.

No one really knew why she did it. In the first place, she had never had a boyfriend, had seemingly no interest in sex, walked around in men’s clothes, and, frankly, had been considered by many to be a lesbian. Yet her marriage to Alberga, in whatever form it took (they had separate bedrooms from the start), would last until his death.

Alberga was a well-known black social and political leader, and he provided stability and financial resources to the couple. But for a while, at least, he resisted the idea of her playing baseball, so she sat out for about a year and concentrated on home repairs and domestic chores.

Meanwhile, she was dying to get back to the diamond. During her hiatus she wrote to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League – the one featured in the film A League of Their Own – but it was not only “all-American” but also all-white, and she never received a reply.

***

By 1953, some of the Negro League players had joined Major League Baseball (MLB), which had integrated six years earlier, and few Negro League teams remained solvent. But half a dozen were still in existence, including the Kansas City Monarchs and the Indianapolis Clowns, who had won the 1951 league championship. The Clowns’ young shortstop, Henry Aaron, had left for the Boston Braves in the middle of 1952, and they needed infielders. The players were well aware of Stone’s play with the barnstorming Creoles, when her powerful arm, her defensive abilities, and her speed (she’d been able to run the 100 in 11 seconds) had impressed them. So she was offered a spot in the Clowns lineup for the 1953 season and joined them for spring training that year. The owner did try to convince her to wear short skirts on the field, but she threatened to quit and he relented. I mean, seriously, who can effectively slide in a skirt??

At this point, don’t forget, everyone assumed that Toni was 21 years old, and they also assumed that she could move like a dancer and run like the wind. But she was a full decade older than that and edging past her prime.

After only two days of practice (the extent of “spring training,” in those days, for the Negro League) and a month of preseason games, Toni Stone officially played her first game as starting second baseman for the Indianapolis Clowns on May 15, 1953. She was 31 years old. As she took the field against the Kansas City Monarchs in Beaumont, Texas, she earned her place in history.

She was the first woman to ever play professional big-league baseball.

***

Just a few words, at this point, about the Negro Leagues. They were not minor leagues; they were not repositories for lesser talents. They were the beginning of organized professional baseball for black (and Hispanic, by the way) athletes who were not yet allowed into Major League Baseball. That would not happen until 1947, when Jackie Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, and Willie Mays were some of the former Negro League players to follow Robinson into the majors and ultimately into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

The Negro Leagues lasted for 40 years, but they started to wane significantly once MLB began attracting their best players. The owners typically weren’t compensated for the departure of their superstars, and many of the teams went bankrupt. By 1960 they were defunct. The loss was bittersweet, because the Negro Leagues had helped spur economic growth in black communities and helped provide a sense of social cohesion among people of color. Their passing was greatly mourned.

This year we celebrate their 100th anniversary. It was in February 1920 that Andrew “Rube” Foster – owner-manager of the Chicago American Giants – convened a meeting with the owners of seven other independent black baseball teams to form the Negro National League. For true baseball fans and also for historians, it’s a really big deal. In fact, on June 27, 2020, all MLB players, coaches, and umps are (were?) slated to wear a Negro Leagues logo on their jersey. A host of other celebrations have been planned as well. The nature of those commemorations, however, remains to be seen.

***

A little more than halfway through that ’53 season when Toni Stone made history, her Indianapolis Clowns were in last place, despite Toni’s .364 average – fourth in the league. (Ernie Banks, by the way, was in second place.) Still, the team ranked first in attendance among all the Negro League teams – due almost exclusively to the presence of Stone, most observers agree. By season’s end, though, her batting average had dropped to .243, and almost all of her hits were singles.

It gave her cause for worry, especially because at that point a couple of other women were about to join the team.

***

Mamie Johnson was living with her grandmother in Ridgeway, South Carolina, when she first started playing ball in corner lots as a little girl. According to Michelle Green’s book A Strong Right Arm, a “pie plate was first, the broken piece of flower pot was second, and the large root about three feet from the lilac bush was third.” Home plate was the “smooth white lid of a five-gallon bucket of King Cane sugar,” the sweetest in the South. The “baseball” was a bunch of tape wrapped around a rock. And Mamie could throw that thing, powerful and smooth. She had a fastball, a change-up, and even a knuckleball, and the neighborhood boys had a tough time connecting with her pitches.

peanut johnson 1_National Visionary Leadership Project — Mamie Johnson

When Mamie’s grandmother died in 1945, it was decided that Mamie would move in with an aunt and uncle in Long Branch, New Jersey. She was about 10 years old, and it was not a popular move with her. Not only did she miss the sweet southern air, but there was no baseball at the school she had to attend. It was just softball, and she hated it and refused to play. The ball was way too big, and the pitching was underhand. Sissified blasphemy! But she had gumption, and one day she passed by a field on which a bunch of kids were playing baseball. All boys, of course. And all white. (Sound like a familiar story?) Although told she couldn’t play, Mamie noted that the team was sponsored by the Long Branch Police Athletic League and she hustled right on down to the police station to ask the officers – repeatedly – about whether local laws prohibited a girl from playing baseball. Eventually she wore everyone down and was allowed onto the team, which ended up winning the division championship two years in a row.

For a couple of years Johnson played for other sandlot teams, as well as for an all-black semi-pro club. Like Toni Stone, she also got wind of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and in her case she actually took a bus with a friend all the way down into Virginia to try out for the team. Once they arrived, though, exhausted but ready to play, they were told that no “colored girls” were allowed.

In 1953, when Johnson was playing for a sandlot team, a man in a pinstripe suit who’d been watching their games for three weeks came up to her after he’d witnessed her strike out a series of batters with a particularly voracious fastball. (By the way, she was about 5’2” and weighed 92 pounds.) His name was Bish Tyson, and he was a former Negro League ballplayer and now an unofficial scout. He told her that the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro League team, would be coming to town for some pre-season exhibition games and would be looking for new players. He was taking a gamble on her; after all, she had no high-level experience on the playing field and no exposure to skilled coaching.

When she arrived at the field in September for what she thought were widespread tryouts, she discovered that the only person trying out was her! She also noted that the Clowns had another female playing for them – second baseman Toni Stone. Mamie did well in the batter’s box and threw to some great hitters that day, and right there on the spot they signed her. She’d be allowed to play in postseason barnstorming games throughout the fall and then would join the permanent roster the following season. Johnson quickly quit her job selling ice cream and boarded the Clowns’ bus, without getting a lick of input (or approval) from her husband. “It didn’t make any difference because I was going to play anyway,” she said.

By 1954 Johnson was in the regular pitching rotation and took the mound about every six days. Her curveball came to her when, in Kansas City, the legendary pitcher Satchel Paige complimented her throwing arm. He was retired from MLB and back to playing in the Negro Leagues with the Monarchs. He told her to stop squeezing the ball as tightly and showed her his curveball. Allegedly. Years later, at a conference about the Negro Leagues, Mamie corrected the story. “He didn’t teach me how to throw it, he taught me how to perfect it,” she said. “I knew how to throw it.”

One day she faced hard-hitting Hank Baylis, third baseman for the Monarchs. Baylis reportedly stepped out, turned around, and hollered to the fans, “Why, that little girl’s no bigger than a peanut. I ain’t afraid of her!” She reached back, uncorked her fastball, and struck him out. “Call me Peanut,” she yelled back at him. From that point on she was Peanut Johnson.

***

At the end of 1953 the Clowns were also starting to look at Connie Morgan, who would be a more direct threat to Toni Stone because Morgan, too, played second base. Toni started to see the writing on the wall. Peanut Johnson and Connie Morgan – two 19-year-olds – were both slated to be her teammates on the 1954 Clowns. Toni was in her thirties, and the decision had been made that only one female at a time would be in the lineup. To add insult to injury, owner Syd Pollock offered her $350 a month, which was less than the $400 a month she’d been paid the previous year. So she made the decision to sign with the Kansas City Monarchs, who offered her $400 a month and the possibility of a $200 year-end bonus.

Constance Enola (“Connie”) Morgan, born in 1935 in Philadelphia, had played five seasons with the all-girl North Philadelphia Honey Drippers, with whom she’d logged a .368 batting average. She’d read about Toni Stone and the Indianapolis Clowns in Ebony magazine and penned a letter directly to Syd Pollock, requesting a tryout. He obliged in October 1953, and she signed a two-year, $10,000 contract after impressing the team with her defensive skills at second base. She was right out of high school. She’d never had male teammates, and at that point most of her time on the field was spent behind the dish, at catcher. But she could play any position except pitcher, and she shared the same chutzpah and self-confidence that Stone and Johnson possessed.

We don’t know as much about Morgan as we do about the other women, but we do know that her defense was spectacular. She was only 5’4”, but she was strong, and manager Oscar Charleston – a Hall of Famer, and universally considered to be one of the greatest ballplayers of all time – said “her throws across the diamond rank on par with many major leaguers.”

***

So, what was life on the road like for Negro League players? The teams played almost every day for eight months, with two (and occasionally three!) games on Sundays. Unlike MLB ballplayers, who usually had days off for travel, Negro League players had no such luxury, often riding on a bus for up to 400 miles between games with no break. Syd Pollock meticulously recorded every conceivable kind of stat, and according to his publicity material, “The Clowns have traveled 2,110,000 miles. Once played in a town with a population of 476 and had 1,372 fans at the game. Largest crowd 41,127 in Detroit. Smallest 35 in Lubbock, TX during a tornado. Have had the same bus driver for 17 years, worn out three buses and 19 sets of tires.”

By the way, for bathroom breaks, the bus would stop so men who had to pee could just line up on the side of the road and do their thing. The women, of course, had to walk off into the woods or a culvert, often in the middle of the night.

While traveling in the South, the players had to drink only from certain water fountains and shop only in certain stores. Many of the gas stations were “Whites Only.” Restaurants below the Mason-Dixon line often provided no service to black customers, and much of the time those places were the only food establishments in the area. Once in a while the players would be allowed to go to a back window to pick up cold food. When white people were traveling with the team, sometimes they would pick up a load of food at “white” cafes and bring it back. But they had to be careful; servers had been known to spit into glasses of Coke being served to black people.

As for hotels, many refused rooms to black people, and it was often a scramble if schedules got changed. The Negro Travelers’ Green Book helped out when the team was traveling in the South. But for Toni, there was an added burden. It started when she was turned away at some of the hotels – the few who would serve African-Americans – because they assumed she was a hooker for the players. When the hotel owners pointed her in the direction of the nearest brothel, she found that the kindness of the ladies there was better than some of the everyday treatment she received from the outside world. The women not only provided her with a place to sleep but also fed her, laundered her uniform, gave her extra money, lent her a car, and often even attended her games. It was the prostitutes who always helped her out in life, she would say years after she’d left professional baseball.

One night after a game in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Toni’s rattletrap team bus caught on fire for no apparent reason. Almost all of the players’ belongings and equipment were lost, although Toni had managed to grab her glove before bailing out of the bus. No one, of course, immediately stopped to lend a hand. When a sheriff finally came by, he called his dispatcher. “Nothing serious,” he said. “Just a bus burning up with niggers on it.” Help didn’t arrive for two more hours.

The players knew they had to be infinitely careful about their behavior, especially in southern towns. The smallest of infractions –and sometimes no infraction at all – could get them jailed or killed. “Reckless eyeballing” was one of the ridiculous charges potentially facing a black man. Any white woman could accuse any black man of looking at her too long, and he could be put away. Coaches would tell rookies to “keep their heads down and their mouths shut.”

At ballparks in the South, black major leaguers usually were not allowed in clubhouses and were required to change clothes on the bus. Even more ridiculous – if that’s possible – black fans often had to completely leave the stadium to use a toilet!

Unlike today’s ballplayers, who sit out a game if they have a hangnail, the Negro League players had no physicians available and simply had to play through almost every conceivable injury or health condition outside of a coma. Players who got spiked, for example, would make paste from coal-stove soot, rub it on the (often very deep) wound, and lay a spider web on top of everything to protect the wound because there were no bandages available!

Toni Stone, in particular, was no stranger to being spiked, or to being hit by pitches. Many of the men in the league – including some on her own team – resented playing with or against a woman so much that they either ostracized her or blatantly tried to hurt her. Some teammates even threw to her directly in a baserunner’s path to make it easier for the opposing players to gash her with their metal cleats. She ended up with a lot of scars to prove it, although later she would shrug them off as being battle wounds.

Meanwhile, sportswriters were beginning to be more callous about the women in the league, considering them to be novelties and concerned that they were somehow emasculating the men and the sport. “It’s thrilling to have a woman in one’s arms, and a man has a right to promise the world to his beloved – just so long as that world doesn’t include the right to play baseball with men. . . . This could get to be a woman’s world with men just living in it!” screamed one such insecure writer.

***

After 1953, the league was on its last breaths.

Connie Morgan played only one full season with the Indianapolis Clowns. She never quite found her footing offensively, hitting only .178 with seven singles, a double, one stolen base, and one RBI in 45 at-bats.

Peanut Johnson hung on for a bit. She played for parts of three seasons with the Clowns and ended up with a dazzling win/loss pitching record of 33-8 and a batting average reported to be between .262 and .284.

Toni Stone_Negro Leagues Baseball Museum — Toni Stone

The 1954 Monarchs season was not a good one for Toni, who was now 32 years old and 12 pounds over her typical playing weight. She was trying too hard, and her batting average never crossed what is now derogatorily called the Mendoza line (.200). As a result, her temper was closer to the surface. During one game she was called out by the ump on a pitch she thought was a ball, and the catcher yelled “pussy high” after the ball crossed the plate. Enraged, she leaped on the catcher’s back. She would later say that she didn’t know what made her the maddest: the call, the catcher’s vulgar and sexist remark, or the fact that manager Buck O’Neill loved retelling the story.

The Monarchs would come in last place.

Toni Stone retired at the end of the season. The owner gave her $400 for the month but refused to hand over her $200 year-end bonus. It wasn’t the money that mattered, though. “Not playing baseball hurt so damn bad,” she lamented, “I almost had a heart attack.”

After these three women left the game, no woman would ever play professional baseball again.

***

Toni had a hard time adjusting to life after Negro League baseball. She settled back into her home on Isabella Street in Oakland. Her mom and sister lived nearby, but she felt unmoored. She spent time alone with her mementos, reliving the glory days, and occasionally she took to drinking a bit too much. She was always suspicious of visitors claiming to be sympathetic reporters, who on more than one occasion stole her mementos. But she was also suspicious of bona fide reporters, who, she thought, would go to great lengths to make her seem more sophisticated, educated, or feminine than she really was.

In the 1960s, though, she emerged from her funk. She began playing rec baseball and coaching neighborhood teams. She attended Oakland A’s baseball games, sitting by herself behind home plate. In June of 1975, Stone threw out the first pitch at a Giants game. She also did work for local hospitals and served as an occasional home caregiver. When her ancient husband Alberga turned 100 years old in 1984, he asked Toni to give up playing recreational baseball, and finally she agreed. She was in her sixties. After he died at 103, she could often be seen riding her bike around Oakland.

Peanut Johnson earned a nursing degree, moved back to Washington, D.C., remarried twice, and had a 30-year career as a nurse. After retirement she managed the Negro League Baseball Shop in Maryland, which not only sold memorabilia but also taught the public about the historic nature of the Negro Leagues and about living during Jim Crow. It was impossible to get baseball out of her soul, and she remembered only the good times. When asked how she felt about her days in baseball, she would say, “Have you ever won a million dollars? Just to know I was good enough to be there was a tremendous thing for me. If they didn’t let me play, I wouldn’t be who I am today, and I’m very proud of that.” She passed away on December 18, 2017, at the age of 82.

Peanut Johnson 2_Smithsonian — Mamie “Peanut” Johnson

Connie Morgan went back to business school, graduated in 1955, and enjoyed a career that included working for the AFL-CIO, the largest union federation in the country. But her subsequent days working for a furrier aggravated her arthritis, and when she switched to driving school buses she developed kidney disease and had to retire at the age of 40. According to Martha Ackmann, Morgan “rarely talked about the Negro League. To many who saw her, she was just the lonely woman who sat for days by the window of her Federal Street row house with only the light of a flickering television set.” In 1995, she was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, and the next year – after living with constant dialysis – she succumbed to her kidney problems at the age of 61. For years her grave at Mount Lawn Cemetery in Philadelphia was unmarked. A travesty. But in 2014 she was finally given a headstone through the Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project.

***

Incredibly, the Baseball Hall of Fame did not even officially recognize the Negro Leagues until August of 1991. Seventy-five former Negro League players were invited to Cooperstown that year, and Toni Stone was one of them. It was the second-happiest day of her life. The happiest, according to a tale she would oft repeat, was the day she got to hit against Satchel Paige during a barnstorming game. Paige loved to toy with batters by outright asking them, ahead of time, which pitch they’d prefer to see. He did the same for Toni. “It doesn’t matter which pitch,” she yelled back. “Just don’t hurt me!” Satchel had a lot of pitches in his bag o’ tricks: the bee ball, the two-hump blooper, and a raft of others. She didn’t even know which one he unleashed on her, but she smacked it over second base. Yes, that was the happiest day of her life.

Toni Stone Alberga died of heart failure in an Alameda nursing home on November 2, 1996. She was 75 years old.

A year later, a baseball field named for her was dedicated at the Dunning Sports Complex in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

***

The year Toni Stone died, Minnesota playwright Roger Niebor wrote a play entitled Tomboy Stone that had a brief run at the Great American History Theater in Saint Paul. “I suppose the number of women who could travel and play like that, discriminated on the basis of race and sex the whole time, would be few,” he said. “And to do it with the energy and intensity of Toni Stone evidenced the power and beauty of the human spirit and made me proud to know her.”

To “power and beauty” I would add “fearlessness.” Those women needed to be physically tough and to have no problem squatting in a dark culvert at night or playing through serious injuries with no medical attention. And they had to be courageous enough to suffer relentless racist and sexist taunts and all the other consequences of breaking barriers more than a decade before the Civil Rights Act was signed.

Finally, I would also add “dignity.” No matter what they faced, these women continued to live their lives with self-respect. And when they retired from the game, and their departures garnered no attention, they showed no traces of bitterness over the ways they were exploited by team owners. Even in later years, when they spoke of their reverence for the game and for their time in the big leagues, they never dwelt on the fear they lived with on the road, the inconveniences, the scorn.

They played with passion, these women. Passion got them through the tough times.

Like a lot of war veterans, Toni Stone “didn’t talk too much about her baseball life,” said her niece, Maria Barlow. “But she was the first woman to do a lot of things. She wouldn’t consider herself a feminist, but she knew that she wanted more in life and she was fighting for it. She stood up to people, like the white owner, and fought for her pay. She stood up for herself. I saw the letters that she wrote. And she did it all by herself. She didn’t have anyone helping her or clearing the path for her. My aunt was one of the strongest women I’ve ever known.”

All three are gone now. But they represented the best of America. And for a brief moment in time, they were our girls of summer.

***

Note: Much of the information in this piece was taken from the beautifully researched Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone by Martha Ackmann and from A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie “Peanut” Johnson by Michelle Y. Green.

***

7/24/72 [age 16]:

“I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I have begun reading the Bible. Seriously, and completely. I have only gotten through Genesis. It is interesting reading, though sometimes the ‘Jason had two sons, Esau and Aron, and Aron had . . .’ and it continues for pages is boring. It may take me a year or two to read it, but I want to conquer it, just as I conquered ‘Leaves of Grass’ (of which I finally bought a copy, the cheapest paperback available, 95 cents).”

8/5/72 [age 16]:

“I rode [my bike] down to Confession tonight. Big deal, I missed Mass once. But I won’t miss it again. Hey, Auntie Jackie called yesterday and asked if I could fly down to her house [in southern CA]. I really want to go, and I love to fly, and I’ll be AWAY. But Mom and Dad are against it, and as yet they haven’t produced an answer. If they say no, I’ll croak!”

8/8/72 [age 16]:

“The [Santa Cruz] beach was awful today – it was completely cold and gray and overcast and there were absolutely no waves at all. No surf + no sun = no fun. (A Paula Bocciardi original – perhaps I should have it patented.) I didn’t even go in swimming, although I did wade a bit. Mom and Dad still haven’t given me an answer on the trip down south. They better hurry. If they don’t let me go, I will stay mad the rest of my life!”

8/10/72 [age 16]:

“It’s hard to believe that I got to come down South [to visit my relatives in southern CA] today. At 6:55 we took off from San Jose, and Grammy and Grampy picked me up in Burbank at 7:43. Fantastic, that plane ride! I mean, all by myself and it was so miraculous looking down on the earth. I was not afraid at all. I also love it down here. [My aunt] Jackie is a neat-type parent, and I like her way of life (except her house isn’t very clean). Today I was introduced to a new way of life. We drove down to [my aunt’s friend] Renee’s store. I met Renee – she’s a middle-aged hippie and owns a boutique shop and sells organic health foods. A friend of hers was in there, another free-spirit musician, playing his guitar and singing. The place smelled like a funny spice, which I can still smell, and was so hot I almost passed out. Also, I had one of her homemade organic fruit drinks and it nauseated me.”

8/14/72 [age 16]:

“I pulled one of my traditional ‘Paula Bocciardi the klutz’ tricks today. Dad had given me five dollars for this trip [to southern CA] along with the strange words ‘Don’t spend it’ (don’t ask what that’s supposed to mean) and [my cousins] Carla and Ronnie and I went down to a record store in Hollywood to get Andy Williams’ ‘Days of Wine and Roses’ for Carla. I stuck the bill in my pocket and – ack! – it had a hole in it. I LOST it! What will Dad say?”

8/15/72 [age 16]:

“Oh, wow, today was the best day of all. Grammy took [my aunt and cousins] Jackie, Kathy, Lisa, and me (Carla was too tired) to Magic Mountain in Valencia. I loved it. You pay $5 to get in, but after that ALL THE RIDES ARE FREE, yeah. I liked the log ride because there are two slopes that are straight down. And I also liked the bumper cars, because we met some guys (I swear they are all cute down here) and had a ‘war’ with them. From 8:00 to 8:45 we saw TRINI LOPEZ (free!). And Grammy saw GLEN CAMPBELL stroll by, and I’m sick because I didn’t see him. 1:00 to 11:00 – total time, 10 hours.”

9/9/72 [age 16]:

“Mom and Dad and [my visiting uncle and aunt] Fred and Jackie and [my cousin] Lisa and I went off to the Cannery and the wharf and Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco. I’ve seen them a million times but I love San Francisco for its hilaric [sic] craziness. The city has a grand, majestic, mysterious beauty but the cars and the people and the streets – they’re all crazy. Two guys came near to blows in the middle of traffic and some girl who thought she was a witch was cursing some guys, and the musicians – it’s so crazy!!”

9/11/72 [age 16]:

“The very worst possible thing has happened. Dad mentioned tonight that we are going to Clear Lake this weekend. O, I did so want to make the most of this very last weekend before I start college! I don’t want to go to that horrid place I hate so dreadfully! Maybe if I play it straight and be calm and cool and good, something’ll happen. Please, God!!”

9/14/72 [age 16]:

“Today was a nothing day except I found out some wonderful news. We are not going to Clear Lake this weekend. I wanted everyone else to go and just let me stay at [our friends] the Rosaleses at night, but instead we are not going at all. Now I feel guilty. I don’t know if I should, since I HAVE put up with it for so often. Maybe it wasn’t wrong to ask – God heard my fervent, fervent prayer and granted it, so perhaps it’s okay. I don’t know. I can’t help but feel guilty, but my joy and relief right now overrules it. Yeah.”

9/15/72 [age 16]:

“The time for college is growing near, and I am no more emotionally prepared for it than I am sensible, and THAT’S not at ALL. My car pool situation is very confusing, which doesn’t cheer me up at all. My best friend and teacher and confidant is going away, and the thought of homework kills me. Only a few days left, and I am so scared. Oh, my aching heart.”

9/16/72 [age 16]:

“I went to see ‘On a Clear Day’ and ‘Last of the Red Hot Lovers’ with Jeanne, and something a lady in the latter movie kept saying has been bothering me. She was always in a constant state of depression, and told Alan Arkin that he couldn’t be able to think of three kind, loving, decent human beings, and I’m wondering if humanity is all that bad. Who would my three be? [My cousin] Carla, Sister Kathleen Mary, and Abraham (my Bible hero). Linus and Charlie Brown aren’t real, and Christ is God. I don’t know if I could think of anyone else.”

Yours sincerely, pruning away

My new nose-hair trimmer has arrived.

Yes, let the shame begin.

For some reason, over the past year or so I’ve convinced myself that among the many unpleasantries of aging is the sudden growth of a miniature forest in one’s nostrils. I swear I can now see hairs growing out of my nose in full force, and I worry that I’ve unknowingly sported them for many years. But Julie insists that she has yet to see a hair descending from either of my nostrils.

Maybe they’re a complete figment of my imagination. Or maybe the only way another person could spot the hairs would be to come within an inch of my face and peer at an upward angle directly into my nose – as I do when I nervously check the mirror every morning.

Still, my resolve to vanquish the hairs has persisted. It took many months, but eventually I screwed up the courage to do some major research on nose hair trimmers. After all, I’d always assumed that this was “a guy thing” – like ear hair, which, thankfully, I have yet to claim.

Anyway, I clandestinely made my purchase (no one needed to know, really), settling on the ConairMan NE150NSCS Cordless Nose and Ear Hair Trimmer. The “ConairMAN” model name only increased my humiliation. But I overlooked that. I like Conair hair dryers, so I figured they know what they’re doing over there.

***

Let me digress for a moment with a somewhat-related story. Back around 1988, I read a “Dear Abby” or “Ask Ann Landers” letter from a mother of a minor-league baseball player. (Or maybe he was in college – I can’t remember and I’ve looked fruitlessly for this old column online.) This woman said that while her son and his teammates sat on the dugout bench, to pass the time they would reach over and pull out each other’s nose hairs. She was concerned about this practice because she had heard that it could kill you. I’m not sure why this was an etiquette question, although I suppose it certainly could be considered rude to indiscriminately yank out someone else’s bodily hairs. Anyway, either Abby or Ann did some calling around and found out that, indeed, pulling out one’s nose hairs could be truly dangerous, potentially leading to infections like meningitis.

This particular column has really stuck with me. First of all, since then I’ve been terrified of absent-mindedly pulling out one of my nose hairs and then dying a few weeks later of a raging brain infection. But I also continue to find it hard to fathom that men would sit around and entertain themselves by pulling out nostril hairs. Not to mention how adept and precise one would have to be to expertly clamp one’s fingers around another person’s solitary nose hair!

***

I have to admit that, a time or two, I’ve disregarded the advice column and recklessly pulled out a nose hair via tweezers. But then recently I decided to research whether tweezers were at least safer than a ballplayer’s unsanitary fingers. Not really. It turns out that no less of an icon than Dr. Mehmet Oz has warned about meddling around in that area of the face he calls “the triangle of death.” Using tweezers in and around the nose apparently can cause infections that might travel to your brain and lead to a hideous condition called “cavernous sinus thrombosis,” which is in many cases fatal.

Yikes. It was time to try out the trimmer.

I was quite nervous and scared about turning that thing on for the first time, fearing that I would slice the insides of my nostrils to ribbons. After all, the way it works is that the batteries power a bunch of tiny blades that spin around and carve off the hairs. The instructions were that the user should stick the trimmer in NO MORE THAN 1/4” (this seemed to be very important, and it struck the fear of God in me) and then move it around in circles. I tried this many times and just couldn’t see or feel any results. It could be that I didn’t have a nose hair problem in the first place. But I couldn’t be sure. I felt unsettled.

So I did what any tech-savvy retiree does these days: I turned to YouTube.

Perhaps not surprisingly, a number of YouTube videos address the proper way to use a nose hair trimmer. I was drawn to one young man in particular because he was very handsome, had an accent that seemed to be a cross between Wisconsonian and Middle Eastern, and spoke in an incredibly precise and earnest way. So I decided to give his video a try. And I’m glad I did, because I learned two important things from his demonstration:

I need to be much better about measurements. It turns out that I had completely miscalculated what 1/4 of an inch is. Perhaps out of an abundance of fear, I probably put the trimmer only about 1/50th of an inch up my nose. That just ain’t going to do anything.

“Moving it around in circles” means moving the trimmer all around the inside walls of your nostril. It does not mean putting it in one position and twirling it like a top, which is what I was doing.

This was such crucial information!

Amusingly, the fellow in the video took great pains to tell his viewers that he would have no need to show us how to use the trimmer in the left nostril after he’d already given us the instructions for the right. This made sense. “I only showed you how to trim one of my nostrils, because the process for trimming the hairs inside of the other nostril is identical,” he says, very deliberately. “Obviously I would be doing the exact same thing with the other nostril, but you don’t need to see it again.”

True. I don’t.

Nevertheless, I could watch this guy for days. He’s just so darned cute and caring!

***

Okay, that was settled. The video couldn’t have been more clear. Sure enough, when I tried it again, the trimmer snapped and crackled and made a lot of noises, so apparently it was doing its job inside my nose. It gave me a sense of satisfaction, and I prided myself on my good grooming.

I did, however, slather Neosporin all around the insides of both nostrils when I was done. You just can’t be too careful about cavernous sinus thrombosis.

***

7/21/72 [age 16]:

“We happened to drive by a recent accident on Piedmont Road a few days ago and it scared me a little. Dad called later and told us that Mark Teresi had been killed and I am still wondering about death. I believe that death comes upon perfection of this level. Essentially, we have the potential to be perfect beings; we are but a perfect mind (or soul – I am not yet certain what the mind or the soul are, or if they are one and the same) clothed in physical bodies. When we manifest that potential perfection, we no longer need our bodies to exist in the next conscious level. At the funeral mass today Father Prindeville’s sermon said that God took Mark because He wanted him for Himself – because he had proven himself in this life. That MUST be right. I hope I am not coming close to perfection! I’m afraid. In fact, a few weeks ago I told [my sister] Janine I thought I’d die in two years. But now I realize how far from perfect I am.”

7/20/72 [age 16]:

“Today was Jeanne’s last day at home for a month, so I rode down to her house and together we rode to Barb’s vegetable stand (which was a mistake, because the roads were too dangerous). On the way back, both of my tires went flat in San Ysidro. Upon returning, I was exhausted but I knew she wanted one last tennis match, so we did. (Me, 6-4, 7-5.) At 6:15 we walked back to her house and had pizza for dinner. I didn’t realize that that was all we were having! I had only three pieces, thinking it was merely an appetizer!”

7/23/72 [age 16]:

“For some very strange reason, I have been proclaiming to the walls, ‘I love you’ lately. Yes, just walking into my room, smiling, and shouting out the phrase. Now, I am surely going crazy. The love in my heart grows by leaps and bounds, and I don’t know for whom. Perhaps, it is for humanity in general. The world is beautiful when you love. Last night, [my neighbor] Ted . . . and I went to see [the spaghetti western film] ‘Duck, You Sucker’ and I loved it. But Ted, he BEGGED me to come and he’s so nice and I love him, brotherly, but I don’t know how to express it.”

The Ballad of Jimmy Garoppolo

(photo credit: San Jose Mercury News)

Come gather, ye sports fans around the bay,
In honor of somebody special today.
If you’re one of the Faithful, then surely you know
That I’m talkin’ ’bout Jimmy Garoppolo.

It’s been 40 long years since Mr. Montana
Was our quarterback dropped from the heavens like manna.
For all of these decades my hero’s been Joe,
But right now it is Jimmy Garoppolo.

He’s one of four brothers from north Illinois –
A charming and handsome Italian boy.
Supremely athletic from head down to toe,
He favors his Papa Garoppolo.

The Patriots took him in 2014,
But Brady had already been on the scene.
So he sat on the bench and collected his dough
While the world lay awaiting Garropolo.

After three idle years he was suddenly traded
To the Niners – a team whose fortunes had faded.
But when Jimmy came in, we won 6 in a row
And our savior emerged as Garropolo.

Of all the league’s players he’s clearly the hottest,
Yet despite his perfection he’s humble and modest.
Those eyes and that smile, you have to agree:
There’s no one more handsome than our Jimmy G.

And oh, what a sportsman, oh, what a baller,
So cool on the field, and under the collar.
His completion percentage thwarted each foe,
So we pinned all our hopes on Garropolo.

In 2018, though, he tore up his knee,
Still, that didn’t stop our tough Jimmy G.
A year spent on rehab, and taking things slow,
Re-focused our Jimmy Garropolo.

He came roaring back, went 13 and 3,
Brought joy to The Faithful, brought rapture to me.
After clinching the West, to the playoffs we’d go,
Trusting our leader Garoppolo.

In the playoffs we conquered Cousins and Rodgers –
Two storied teams we made look like old codgers.
We stuck with the ground game. Few passes we’d throw,
But that never bothered Garoppolo.

He has no big ego, he plays a team game,
His goal is not credit, nor glory, nor fame.
Calmly preferring to always lie low
Is the style of our Jimmy Garropolo.

In my youth I always loved Brodie and Tittle,
But now we’ve got Bosa and Mostert and Kittle
To round out the team, to create the tableau
Anchored by Jimmy Garropolo.

After 25 years we were back in Miami.
My heart, it was racing, my hands, they were clammy.
A Super Bowl ring was at stake now, and so
I prayed for my boyfriend Garoppolo.

The Chiefs were a worthy, ethical team –
Their edge rusher speedy, their QB supreme.
But their much-deserved victory won’t dim the glow
Of our season with Jimmy Garoppolo.

The way to beguile Paula Bocciardi
Is for SF to hoist the Trophy Lombardi.
And sometime quite soon, Goodell will bestow
The trophy on Jimmy Garoppolo.

In the meantime I’ll hoist up a hearty beer
To a team that gave us a helluva year,
To a season whose highlights partly will owe
To the efforts of Jimmy Garropolo.

And for now I’ll just think of his beautiful skin,
His beard and his dimples, his darling cleft chin,
For I challenge you now to find someone you know
Who’s more gorgeous than Jimmy Garoppolo.

So when I’m on my deathbed, before I’m at rest,
I hope I’ll be granted one last request:
It’s not cabernet, it’s not escargot,
It’s to gaze at my Jimmy Garoppolo.

2020_02-02_Paula_Super Bowl-2 — With my signed Joe Montana football (thank you, Leon Emmons!) and my decades-old Niner troll

***

5/28/72 [age 16]:

“I have decided to minor in English, because lately I have found myself developing a passionate affection for writing. It’s frustrating, because I try constantly and I can’t write well. I want to learn how to. Maybe Law Enforcement isn’t the thing for me; I hate to face my own doubts, though. I wrote a poem this weekend but it is really bad. I mean REALLY bad. If only I were smart and talented like [my brother] Marc and [my sister] Janine. If only I had some kind of talent other than being a semi-good athlete.”

6/14/72 [Graduation Day, age 16]:

“Well, I graduated to the flowing strains of ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ today and what can I say except that my heart aches for school (I’m bored already). I’ve had my last class, last tennis, last everything. Oh, God, I just can’t write how sad I am. At graduation Mr. Healy and Carl Blanchette gave me kisses and then we ate at Ming’s, which was the most delicious. Jeanne’s family was there too, and we were so embarrassed! Afterwards we stopped over at the Blanchettes’ house where I got another kiss from Carl. We just played pingpong. I got home at 1:00 and cried. Jeanne gave me a book today. It was very good.”

6/16/72 [Two days after graduation, age 16]:

“Help! I’m going crazy, insane, out of my mind!! I’m bored stiff, I miss everyone! God! I am wracked with despondency. I wish I could go back in time. We’re at Clear Lake now and Mom said, ‘We’re going down to Buck’s pier to fish. Want to come?’ and when I said no she said, ‘Life is going to pass you by’ and I, sprawled on my bed in desperation, cried, ‘It already has!’ ”

6/13/72 [age 16]:

“Oh, gosh bless it. I woke up this morning with a wonderful cold and a swell sore throat to go along with it. I am absolutely, positively miserable. Now I can’t go swimming at Clear Lake, and swimming is all I have up there. Mr. Snyder said he’d teach me how to waterski. That’s shot. Crud crud crud! My cold keeps me using up Kleenex after Kleenex. (I must have used a million.) My bad throat is descending to my chest, and when I sneeze, wow! the pain. Nuts. The worst, most depressing thing for me is sitting inside doing nothing, letting my hair and body increase in dirtyness [sic], not taking advantage of every possible moment before college, as I have been trying to do. O God, why must I get colds at the most inopportune moments?”

6/27/72 [age 16]:

“I am contenting myself with working feverishly in crossword puzzle books. We went bowling tonight. I didn’t want to go, but I figured the family would scorn me if I didn’t. The four adults and [my sister] Janine bowled. I kept score. It was my first time keeping score and I found it very enjoyable. Everyone considered me to be odd.”

7/6/72 [age 16]:

“Boy am I scared about [college] registration tomorrow! I’ll be on my own, looking for advisors and such. Help!! I am doing some deep thinking about death and what comes next. From Jonathan Livingston Seagull and my own scant intellect I have come to the rather shaky conclusion that next comes a higher, more advanced level of consciousness, and ‘heaven’ is the perfection of the highest level. That’s simple, but Catholicism brings up millions of other ideas, e.g. hell, purgatory, limbo, seeing God, etc. I’ll discuss these as I master them.”

7/10/72 [age 16]:

“Mom and Dad want me to get a job, so tonight I went down to Baskin & Robbins, which is opening soon on Landess and Morill. Mary, Denise and I applied for a job. However, [the manager] stressed that it would entail my working weekends. Now – Clear Lake problem. Mom & Dad say ‘absolutely not’ to staying home alone on weekends; therefore I’ll have to call him tomorrow and decline. But it seems to me that if I am ‘responsible’ enough to work for myself I’m ‘responsible’ enough to stay home. I am mad that I was both forced INTO and OUT OF the job. I AM old enough to stay home alone, but there is no use arguing. I shall seethe inwardly and let them know about my contempt.”

7/14/72 [age 16]:

“The Law Enforcement people at [San Jose] State said I cannot have English as a Minor – oh, no! – unless I get Departmental Approval. But they BETTER give me their approval. I want English! Got to write! (Not for a living, I’m not good enough. Just for my own satisfaction. And I want to learn how to do it well.) Apparently they want me to take Psychology or Sociology or something. Ugh! How boring!”

7/15/72 [age 16]:

“I’ve begun to realize that Clear Lake can be all right if I make the most of it. We and the Chamberlains had a neat hamburger dinner at Buck and Virgie’s and it really was fun. Also, [my brother] Marc and I broke one of their trophies playing pool. More about college – You know, I’m actually looking forward to it now. Not the required P.E. swimming, but the PEOPLE. Those Law Enforcement guys were so wonderful, and I was talking to a neat guy in line Saturday and I met some nice girls. I love people – I declare love for everyone! Yeah!”

7/17/72 [age 16]:

“It is so very odd that I have no vices whatsoever. (I take that back, slightly; there WAS a stage, many years ago, when I read every obscene book I could get my hands on, but that is past.) At the present moment, I do not smoke, I do not drink, do not swear, do not take drugs, do not gamble, do not indulge in sex, and do not watch dirty films. In fact, I observe all the Commandments. My parents do five of the seven above. But I am 100% pure!”

I’m always drunk in San Francisco

“The San Franciscan has one foot planted precariously on a hill and the other planted firmly in the past.” (Herb Caen)

Sometime during the late 1800s in San Francisco, a young rounder named Charlie hoisted a couple of drinks at Curten’s saloon, a rowdy hole-in-the-wall south of Market Street. It was a Saturday night, and perhaps he hoisted more than a couple. At any rate, when he awoke on Sunday morning, he found himself – involuntarily, of course – on a cargo-laden clipper ship, facing seas rougher than the ones in his own head. The vessel was heading out on a long, dangerous voyage to England around Cape Horn in South America. Charlie had been shanghaied.

In port towns like San Francisco, it was a fairly common practice at that time for unscrupulous “crimps” to incapacitate and/or kidnap men and force them to board ships in exchange for payment, or “blood money,” from the ship’s boarding masters. This was known as a shanghai. Experienced seamen were in short supply, so any healthy body would do. Unfortunately for the unwitting, fledgling sailors, it was illegal to leave a ship before the conclusion of its voyage, so they were stuck on board for years of servitude, against their will.

Charlie was on his ship, the A.G. Ropes, for three years until it finally returned to dock in San Francisco. Still understandably furious, he vowed that his first act onshore would be to shoot old man Curten or, even better, boil him in oil. With his three-year grand total pay of $5 in his pocket, Charlie set his sea legs onto the dock and began making his way towards Curten’s. After stopping at a couple of bars along the way, he took out half his remaining pay and bought himself a revolver and ammunition. A few more bars later, he arrived, feeling no pain, at his destination. Sure enough, the owner was there, and he flew out from behind his bar to grab Charlie with a mammoth bear hug and a raucous greeting.

“Charlie, what the hell happened to you? I’ve missed ya for the last three years. The last time I saw you, you was in here having a good ol’ time. I’ve been so worried, my man! Come on in; your drinks are on me!”

Well, Charlie couldn’t refuse a good stiff snort of whiskey. Or two or three, if they were free.

The next morning he woke up on a whaling ship, bound for Alaska. The ship would be gone for three years.

***

Among all the books I’ve collected about San Francisco, the quirkiest one is a tiny hardcover out-of-print book that is so obscure it cannot even be found in an online search save for an entry in a 1966 copyright catalog. Rooted Deep, only 78 pages long, was written by Ward H. Albee, Sr., a stevedore and firefighter who spent his teenage years living on Telegraph Hill just a couple of blocks off the water. His book is a memoir as well as a recounting of stories he heard in his youth, and Charlie’s is among those tales.

Mr. Albee was brought up in the bawdy, lawless, corrupt, frantic, and cockeyed part of San Francisco that was the Barbary Coast. It extended along San Francisco’s brawling waterfront, where saloons, brothels, casinos, dance halls, and other gin joints were home to the assorted rogues and wanderers who lurched along those streets. The air smelled like men and rotgut, but there was a world of commerce going on, and in a few short years, the Gold Rush and the transcontinental railroad swelled the population of San Francisco from 1,000 to 100,000.

The lure of money, the whistle of a train, and endless whisky. San Francisco is a city with a provocative past, and in some ways it’s as bawdy, lawless, corrupt, frantic, and cockeyed today as it ever was.

That, my friends, is why I will always love it.

***

This year marks the 40th anniversary of my living in San Francisco. For months I’ve been wanting to write something evocative and coherent about my beloved home, but my usual fears of not doing it justice have held me back. To be honest, I’m still really afraid to hit the “publish” button. The City’s beauty and allure, first of all, are nearly impossible to put into words. And I can rattle off a list of attributes until I’m exhausted, but my relationship with San Francisco is so much more personal than that. It’s about sensation, emotion, history, the accumulation of experiences.

San Francisco is not the same town, of course, that swept me off my feet when I unpacked my boxes here in 1979. And I am not the same person. I recognize that, which makes my task all the harder. Still, despite our changes, this city and I have had a wonderful, longstanding, besotted affair, and San Francisco remains, to this day, one of the great passions of my life.

***

Let’s get this out of the way first: I am not a San Francisco native. I will always be envious of my friends who can make that claim. But neither was Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who did a pretty fine job (hello, Pulitzer Prize) of writing about this town for 60 years. Not long ago my friend Val, who did grow up here, invited me into a closed social media group for SF natives. I protested. She insisted, though, that no one loves San Francisco more than I do and that I deserved to be included.

I suppose she’s right. The truth is, I may not have grown up here as a child, but I grew up here as an adult.

***

1962_06_Anita Phillips house, 879 28th Avenue, San Francisco_Mom, Janine, Marc, Paula — Mom, me, my brother Marc, and my sister Janine (sitting), visiting Anita and Don Phillips, 879 28th Avenue, SF

It was June of 1962 when I first made the acquaintance of the City by the Bay. I was six years old. My family lived on the west side of San Jose, in a small house in a middle-class neighborhood. Next door to us lived Anita and Don Phillips, a wonderful older couple who carried around the sorrow that their only child had died of lockjaw after falling out of a tree and onto a piece of rusty metal. They took a shine to me and vice-versa, and after Don’s job as a furniture salesman took him to San Francisco, they invited me to stay with them. I imagine I was with them only a day or two, but Anita brought me to Golden Gate Park, only a few steps away, and to the zoo. Their small but classic home on 28th Avenue in the Richmond District had a dining room – a concept completely new to me. Oh, what enchantment!

A fairytale house, with a shimmering chandelier and a beautiful built-in china cabinet. A bag of bread, my little hand reaching in and feeding ducks along a small lake in the Park. A red plastic key to turn on talking exhibit boxes at the zoo. Russ Hodges on KSFO radio, announcing that, out at the ballpark, Willie Mays was rounding third.

I was too young then to know that I would not have existed without San Francisco. My Italian grandmother immigrated here from Italy with her brother in 1906, just in time for the Great Earthquake. Displaced by the temblor, she moved across the Bay to San Leandro, where she met my grandfather. Their second child, my father, became a language professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Although he always said that he was bewitched by my mother the minute she enrolled in his Italian class, I like to think that they both fell in love on their first date – at the long-gone Leone’s restaurant in North Beach, 450 Broadway, San Francisco, in 1951.

***

It wasn’t until my high school years, 1968-72, that I reconnected with San Francisco. Annual school field trips turned us loose among the post-Summer of Love flower children. I remember looking up with both curiosity and longing into the windows of Victorian hippie pads, getting glimpses of pottery and macramé and Jim Morrison posters and wondering what it would be like to live here. This city, she could take your breath away then. There was no other place like it.

Painted houses, psychedelic head shops, Hare Krishnas, tie-dyed shirts, the smell of patchouli and incense, and the insistent pound of bongos played by shirtless men in parks. “White Rabbit” on the radio.

After graduating from college with a Law Enforcement major and a minor in English, I told my parents I wanted to finish up my English degree at San Francisco State. Its English department had a stellar reputation. But most of all I had discovered Jack Kerouac and the other Beat writers, and the pull that San Francisco had on them was pulling me as well. I was already driving to the City as often as I could to hang out at City Lights bookstore in North Beach, and I could still feel the Beats there, even though it had been 20 years since their heyday. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the store’s owner and Beat poet extraordinaire, was often behind the counter. There was an Italian bookstore in the neighborhood, too, and Italian delis and cafes, and I could buy a cheap book and a loaf of bread and sit in Washington Square Park among the old men on the park benches. Little did I know that I would meet Ferlinghetti and edit one of his books, a mere five years into the future.

I got my English degree after three semesters at San Francisco State and immediately and through sheer luck got a job with Harper & Row Publishers down near the waterfront. But what really ignited my affair with the City was a romance into which I had been swept during my last few months in college. I fell in love for the first time, and I realized that – for a gay person in the late 1970s – San Francisco was the place to be. The city was still reeling from the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk. But a new movement was taking hold in San Francisco. Gay people were moving to the city in droves, and “Castro clones” – men who dressed in flannel shirts and jeans and sported mustaches – were everywhere. San Francisco had a warm heart, open hands, and a tolerant eye. It was whimsical, it was wild, it was affectionate, it was sensuous, it was all-embracing. For a young person, of any orientation, the life in this town turned into one big party.

Wow. I had hit the vein. This was the place where I was meant to live.

***

“If you’re alive, you can’t be bored in San Francisco. If you’re not alive, San Francisco will bring you to life. San Francisco is a world to explore. It is a place where the heart can go on a delightful adventure. It is a city in which the spirit can know refreshment every day.” (William Saroyan)

I got my first San Francisco apartment in 1979. In those days, San Francisco was an economically diverse place. There was a beautiful symbiosis, I think, among all of the city’s strata. Hungry artists could draw breath easily alongside millionaires in mansions.

It was, in essence, a place where one could live cheaply and yet live richly.

Our studio apartment cost $190 a month, and it was minuscule. It didn’t matter, though, because I lived in a great college neighborhood near UCSF that seemed to offer everything. I browsed in used bookstores and record shops, went to double features, ate cheap ethnic food. My girlfriend was a waitress at the Front Room pizza parlor a block away, and she brought home hot pizza and vats of salad dressing nearly every night. I even invented a sandwich that they put on the menu – Bay shrimp and melted cheddar cheese on a warm, crisp sourdough roll. We cooked a lot of pasta and drank cheap red wine, and despite our cramped quarters we gave frequent dinner parties, taking the bathroom door off its hinges to use as a dining table. (Which made it interesting when a guest needed to use the facilities.) At times, too, I still slouched around North Beach alone, jacket collar turned up, naïvely believing that somehow I could still find those traces of Beat poets hanging out in the alleys.

There are other American cities just as vibrant as San Francisco – New York, certainly, and Chicago, and Los Angeles. But the difference is that San Francisco is neither raw and gritty nor an expanse of blondes and freeways. It is 7 miles square, eminently walkable, a small town in a big city’s shoes.

Around every corner, through every window, and behind every door was something new and novel. As I walked its streets I felt, at times, as if I were riding a slightly tipsy carousel of blended sound, smells, and color.

The clang of the cable car bell and the rumble of its tracks. The flapping of swans’ wings on the Palace of Fine Arts lagoon, and the echoes of their mating calls through the rotunda. The slaps and groans of pilings on the wharf. The happy, rainbow-painted old Victorians. Blues and jazz pouring out of North Beach and the Fillmore. The dusty whiffs of old books piled in stacks. The cheap flats where the writers and the musicians and the eccentrics lived, hungry but certainly not starving in those days. Street artists, jugglers, dancers, mimes, raconteurs. The roasted smell of Hills Brothers Coffee in the air south of Market. Secret alleys, some conspiratorial, some brightened with murals, others populated by young families and topped with drying laundry. Old brick buildings with friendly doormen and cranky elevators. The robust aroma of thick steaks from Tadich Grill at noon, exhaling into my office window. Salt air, sourdough, and fresh crab down at the Wharf. Old men shouting in Italian and playing bocce in North Beach or downing cappuccinos at Tosca. Downtown bike messengers racing to deliver manuscripts to printers. KABL radio’s tagline “in the air, everywhere, over San Francisco” delivered by an announcer’s deep melodious voice and accompanied by a cable car clang. The low call of the foghorns, warning of the ocean rocks.

San Francisco was, as Giants outfielder Felipe Alou once said, “alive, breathing an air all its own.”

“Ah, San Francisco,” I would often write in my young, idealistic journal, “the city of my dreams.”

***

The San Francisco Chronicle was my morning-coffee habit before work. Herb Caen, who’d started writing for the paper in 1938, was like a good friend starting off my day. Back then you could sometimes see him roaming around town, always looking jaunty in a hat. His deep adoration of the City permeated the daily columns he tapped out on his trusty Royal typewriter. Caen sent personal responses to every one of his letters, and I have a few of ’em myself.

***

After I’d worked a year at Harper & Row, the company moved its staff to New York, and I refused to go. So I became a freelancer, working for book, magazine, and newspaper publishers all over San Francisco, the Peninsula, and Marin County. I edited a book by, and got to meet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti (who, by the way, turned 100 earlier this year). Later when I worked at a nonprofit political publisher, vendors were always squiring my boss and me to fancy three-martini lunches. On many a workday afternoon I leaned over manuscripts sporting a pickled grin.

I may have lived paycheck to paycheck, but oh, the food and oh, the spirits!

***

For me, perhaps above all else, the City then was a place where I could be myself and not have to worry about the judgment of strangers. In those days the social climate for gay people in this country was not as warm and accepting as it can be now. In San Francisco, though, gay bars and bookstores and softball leagues and music and comedy clubs offered an array of activities in a carefree, safe environment. And even outside those like-minded venues, SF was just a downright welcoming town. For this conservative girl, it was a heady buzz.

When I found myself single again, I decided to organize a few Parks & Rec basketball and softball teams. Some of the softball games started at 9 p.m., which, in the summer, meant that out near the ocean the fog would have already rolled in thickly and the outfielders could not possibly see the batter. They could only pray that batted balls would drop into their mitts and not onto their heads. After the games it was cheap pizza and endless pitchers of Anchor Steam, and somehow we’d close down the joints at 2 a.m. and then head back to work in the early morning hours.

Meanwhile, I was dating like mad. So many nights I’d come home late after this or that adventure, usually alone, never afraid, through the misty, western streets of the city. The fog always felt like a cloak, hiding the mysteries and promises of a night without limits.

Herb Caen used to say that San Francisco was always a mecca for round pegs in a largely square world. I saw it as the place where the chimes of freedom were flashing.

***

Much to my joy, my sister often allowed her kids to stay with me by themselves. On one such visit, my young niece Sara wanted to go looking for San Francisco landmarks that Laura Ingalls Wilder had mentioned in her 1915 letters to her husband. Among them were the reclining lion statues at the western edge of Golden Gate Park. Sara squealed when she saw them, still on their perches, reminders of days past. We visited the Exploratorium and the Zoo. We rented paddleboats on Stow Lake, where I’d fed the ducks as a child, and ate a Kentucky Fried Chicken picnic lunch on the grass. At the end of the day she declared that she wanted to go out to the beach and “sit on a rock and talk.” It occurred to me that that’s not something you can do everywhere.

“Auntie Paula,” Sara said when she finally allowed me to tuck her in that night, “this has been a perfect day.”

By the way, she ended up getting married in Golden Gate Park. The cuisine? KFC.

***

Around the time I hung up my cleats, I started playing drums and put together a band. We got recurring gigs at a south-of-Market former speakeasy called Spike’s. Spike’s had deep red walls, black curtains, surrealistic paintings, and an underground vibe. Our first show, which started after midnight, drew such a huge crowd that there was a line down the street. Where else could a bunch of women with very little musical experience attract such an ardent following at 1:00 in the morning? Later on our venue was Kimo’s, a two-story dive on Polk Street that specialized in drag shows, rock and roll, and cheap drinks. As Hunter Thompson once said about San Francisco in general, Kimo’s was a haven for “mad drinkers and men of strange arts.” The place was dark and poorly managed and smelled of age and spilled beer, but we were allowed free rein to set our gig schedule, collect whatever cover charge we wanted, and play all night. Like much of San Francisco, the joint had a tawdry yet creatively liberating history. Metallica once played a surprise set there.

***

I remember vividly the day I heard Herb Caen passed away. It was February 2, 1997, and the news made me heartsick. Obviously I had never known the man, but he had been a daily part of my life for almost 20 years, and he’d always made me feel connected to San Francisco’s past and present. That night, Julie and I went out to dinner at the Beach Chalet, a restaurant and brewery overlooking the water where I could wallow in my gloom. I ordered my usual burger on a crisp sourdough roll, along with a hearty ale. The bartender stopped serving for a few minutes and informed the assembled diners and drinkers that we needed to raise our glasses in remembrance of the great newspaperman. His voice was full of pathos. The locals there knew exactly what had died inside us. Herb Caen was our beloved touchstone, our morning fix of the City. The voice of “Mr. San Francisco” was silent. What would happen to us now?

Herb, by the way, loved a martini. Vodka. On the rocks, with a twist. Shaken, not stirred. He called it “Vitamin V.” At his memorial, comedian Robin Williams announced that a special “Herb Caen communion” would be served, consisting of martinis and sourdough.

***

A couple of decades have passed since then. Most of my friends have gone, many of them back to the East Coast where they grew up. “When are you moving?” one of them asked when Julie and I retired, as if that were the default.

Here’s the deal. Age or infirmity might intervene at some point, but for now, I want to stay right where I am, tethered strongly to this place by a near lifetime of sturdy roots.

So what would I miss about this city if ever I had to leave her?

The topography and natural beauty. The ocean, the hills, the clean air, the crisp breezes. (The Dutch, by the way, practice an activity called uitwaaien, or “outblowing.” It’s about spending time in the wind, and it’s purported to have the effect of clearing one’s mind and engendering a feeling of relaxation and happiness. On the day we got married, the wind was titanic. Skirts were lifted, hair was whirled. My sister Janine snapped a photo of one gusty moment, all of us screaming with laughter. This has been a perfect day, I thought to myself.)

The way the temperature surprises you every day, depending upon the vicissitudes of the fog. Will it appear? Will it hang off the coast, or will it come rolling in? And if so, how far? Will it blanket the city, or will it cling to the edges?

Crazy ballot initiatives like the one involving Brendan O’Smarty, my all-time favorite SF character. Mr. O’Smarty was a ventriloquist’s dummy. His owner was Bob Geary, a police officer who liked to take the puppet on his rounds to help ease tensions. When Officer Geary was told by management that he had to get rid of Brendan, he succeeded in putting the matter on the ballot. The referendum – “Shall it be the policy of the people of San Francisco to allow Police Officer Bob Geary to decide when he may use his puppet Brendan O’Smarty while on duty?” – passed.

Our small but character-filled 1930s house with its gravity heater, hallway telephone nook, center patio, stenciled mahogany beams, wall sconces, breakfast room with built-in cabinets, art deco split bathrooms with pedestal sinks, and downstairs room cool enough to be a wine cellar, at a dependable 55 degrees.

The red fire alarm call box on our streetcorner, installed before everyone had a home phone.

Some of the greatest medical care in the world, which is perfect for me because – as I’ve said many times – my ideal retirement spot is across the street from a hospital.

The San Francisco Chronicle each morning with breakfast, still a necessity.

The floating stage at the Fairmont’s Tonga Room, a 1940s Polynesian-themed bar with an indoor “lagoon,” periodic “rainstorms,” and bold tropical drinks.

Surfers, peeling off their wetsuits out on the Great Highway, having just ridden the waves on . . .

The rocky, roaring, crashing, thunderous Pacific Ocean, carrying cargo ships to the end of their voyages home.

Buses, trolleys, streetcars, and cable cars that may be quirky but that can get any San Franciscan anywhere in the city at a decent price.

Liguria Bakery in North Beach, the only place that makes focaccia that tastes like Italy, the way it did when I was a child.

Seafood right off the boat, fresh, at neighborhood butcher shops and delis.

Dungeness crab, the sweetest in the world, eaten chilled and pristine with just olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, and a hunk of . . .

Sourdough bread. Robust flavor, chewy inside, and a crisp crust.

The legendary San Francisco Giants, who arrived in the city – with the greatest player to ever take the field – just as I became aware of baseball. Half a century later they handed San Francisco the first of three World Series and caused me to weep for three days.

America’s most beautiful ballpark, an easy streetcar ride away. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, a crab sandwich on sourdough, and sweeping views of San Francisco Bay.

The Palace Hotel at Christmastime, with its enormous gingerbread houses and snow globes, its elegant Garden Court dining room which has been designated as an indoor historic landmark, and its classic but casual bar overlooked by “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” a 6×6 foot, 250-pound Maxfield Parrish mural.

The 50-year-old, world famous, naughty, serious, playful, beat-pounding San Francisco Pride Parade.

The organist at the historic Castro theater, who rises up like a phoenix from the stage before every program, playing a medley of classics before ending always with “California, Here I Come,” then “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” then finally, with great bombast, “San Francisco, Open Your Golden Gate,” to thunderous applause, before sinking back down into the stage as the curtains open.

Colorful Victorian, Italianate, Queen Anne, and Marina-style homes, each a visual feast of bay windows, facades, arches, cornices, columns, and gargoyles.

Our gilded and majestic City Hall, where I got married.

All the dive bars that are still great bars, full of characters and character, like . . .

The Riptide out at 47th Avenue and Taraval, near the shore. Heading west, it’s been pointed out, the next closest bar is in Hawaii. Sporadic free food; the last time we were there, they were doling out lasagna, “courtesy of Alisha.” Surfer spot. Warm yet cool. Nostalgic yet youthful. Knotty pine décor. A wood-burning fireplace. Cash only. And, as Springsteen might say, cold beer at a REEEEA-sonable price.

The Balclutha, an old “tall ship” I like to visit in the winter, when the docks are nearly empty. Retired and moored down at the wharf for many decades, she once carried her cargo around Cape Horn, then joined the salmon fishing industry and made several trips up to Alaska and back. In her time she carried pottery, cutlery, whisky, wool, tallow, canned salmon, lumber, and fishermen and their supplies. She also appeared in the film Mutiny on the Bounty, and now she rests. Very few square-rigged ships are left, and this one is a beauty. I love standing on the creaky deck with the rain on my face.

Golden Gate Park, bigger than Central Park in New York City, fashioned literally from grains of sand. Designed by John McLaren, it’s got museums, a music concourse, about a dozen lakes, a buffalo paddock, flyfishing ponds, horse stables, a Japanese tea garden, an arboretum, a conservatory of flowers, tulip gardens, windmills, a polo field, an archery range, and a carousel.

The diverse people in 36 official, discrete neighborhoods within a 7-mile-square town.

25,000 other things.

And the fact that this city is a watercolor of culture and cultures, with so much to offer that any one marginalized person, lost and alone, can come here and find identity and meaning, acceptance and renewal.

***

It’s become fashionable these days to malign San Francisco. Often the dystopian critiques are political, thrown around by pundits who like to make the City – and, in fact, California in general – into an example of what happens when progressive politics are involved.

In reality, San Francisco is a peaceful place that doesn’t come even remotely close to making the list of the most dangerous U.S. metropolitan areas.

But it’s also true that property crimes – especially car break-ins – have been soaring here, and now we’ve gone and elected a district attorney who has never prosecuted a crime in his life! Sigh.

But that’s San Francisco for ya.

The city is also dealing with other urban problems, including increasing homelessness, drug use, and unclean streets. City Hall has not yet addressed these issues effectively, and permissive attitudes and selective enforcement of the law don’t help.

Many of our challenges, though, are related to the fact that we have a severe housing shortage and serious income inequality. The city cannot expand geographically, and construction regulations here are nearly impenetrable. We welcome innovation and we breed forward-thinkers, so we’re now taking on a host of tech companies (who’ve been handed generous tax breaks) and massive numbers of their employees who have rolled into town looking for a place to land.

The truth is that for all the residents who leave because they can’t afford the high housing costs, there are just too many people wanting to move here.

“Nobody goes there anymore,” as the gag goes, “because it’s too popular.”

***

Longtime San Franciscans often demonize the tech workers these days. After all, they make boatloads of money, and the price of housing here has skyrocketed. Most of my neighbors are formerly middle-class workers like electricians, postal carriers, hairdressers, public sector employees, office managers, and the like. But they’ve lived on this street forever. Were they starting over now in those careers, they’d never be able to afford to live here. The new people moving in are working mainly for companies like Google.

We’ve certainly demonized other groups in the past. Going back to the 19th century, we’ve maligned the Chinese, the beatniks, the hippies, the gays, and everyone else who seemed to be “taking over” the city. Is there a difference now?

Maybe. Today’s newcomers are not introducing new cultures or social movements. They’re introducing great wealth, and it has become a dominant presence in this once much more egalitarian town.

The teachers and police officers and others who make the city run cannot afford to get a place here. Because of the influx of money, the average rent for a San Francisco apartment is $4,500 a month.
Some of the newcomers are literally painting the town gray, as a recent Chronicle story reported. They gut the old Victorians to install modern conveniences, then have the audacity to replace the gorgeous old external house colors with an overall charcoal gray. One realtor called it “sophisticated,” while to some of us it’s about wiping out historical details and erasing character.
The skyline is morphing into something almost unrecognizable, at least to us old-timers. The aesthetics are not pleasing. The new Salesforce Tower looks like a giant nose-hair trimmer.
Traffic has ballooned, due primarily to Uber and Lyft, because God forbid the newcomers take public transportation.
Cafés that were once comfortable gathering spots for creative types are now industrial-cold workspaces.
Live music joints are closing.
Restaurants are bent on serving up “artisanal” food and drink now. I mean, we’re making vodka out of fog, for crying out loud.

But some of these types of changes are happening nearly everywhere. Let’s face it, the American way of life is transforming dramatically. So perhaps we old-timers are Neanderthals, curmudgeons. A guy named Will Irwin once told Herb Caen, “San Francisco isn’t what it used to be, but it never was!”

San Francisco is a town that hangs onto its past tenaciously, but it also allows room for change. “These newcomers are just going to stay for five years and then leave,” we kvetch. But maybe not. If they stay long enough, the new kids will have their own memories. In the meantime, the rest of us can choose to grumble about our inconstant town or we can watch, with interest, to see what unfolds.

***

I suppose it’s now the twilight of my life. I never could have imagined it when I strolled wide-eyed around San Francisco in my youth, but I own my own home now. I even have my own dining room. We walk our dog Buster Posey around Stow Lake, where I first learned to love San Francisco, and afterwards eat fish tacos for lunch out on the lawn behind the Beach Chalet, where we once toasted Herb Caen. And in the evenings at sunset I sit in our backyard with a glass of wine and a good book, occasionally looking up to stare at the beautifully lit dome of St. Cecilia’s church. I am always awed and comforted by the sight. The bells of St. Cecilia’s ring each evening at about 5:20. On clear days the sky turns slowly orange as the sun sets over the coast. On other days, the fog continues its gentle roll inward.

As my glass drains I get increasingly sentimental. I think about the wild history of this town, from the Gold Rush through the labor movement, the Beats, the hippies, the gays, and all the other social forces that have arisen here. I think about my own history as well, and the very real part that this city has played in it.

West Portal (old b and w) — West Portal, 1927

How lucky I am, I think, to live just a few walkable blocks from the West Portal neighborhood, a place that a local shopowner once described to us as “Mayberry.” Someone once wrote that West Portal is like the set of a 1950s movie. Our century-old theater, Post Office, drugstore, banks, produce market, and restaurants and drinking establishments offer everything we need.

How many people enjoy the sense of place that I do? How many people thank God every day, as I do, for the town in which they live?

We went to see Hamilton at the Orpheum theater this summer and sat next to someone who had flown in from Portland just for the experience. At Giants games we routinely sit beside people who have come from across the country – or across the world – to watch a game in the most beautiful park in the land. But I get to enjoy these things whenever I want. I live here.

It’s fall, now – the best time of year by the Bay. A jet flies directly overhead, bound across the Pacific. Two doors down, kids are playing outside as new young families are moving into the ’hood. I’m reading Herb Caen’s Baghdad by the Bay, and a chilled glass of white wine is warming me up. The blood flows; the mind wanders. Seagulls are cawing. I smell eucalyptus. I will never, ever fall out of love for this place. Forty years on, I wish it would never end. I want to live my last day here.

This, you see, is where I always belonged.

Here’s to a life that’s been one long, drunken, and glorious night. A toast to you, my city, my heart.

***

I’m always drunk in San Francisco
I always stay out of my mind
But if you’ve been to San Francisco
They say that things like this
Go on all the time

It never happens nowhere else
Maybe it’s the air
Can’t ever seem to help myself
And what’s more I don’t care

I’m always drunk in San Francisco
I’m never feeling any pain
But tell me why does San Francisco
Like a lover’s kiss go straight to my brain

I guess it’s just the mood I’m in
That acts like alcohol

Because I’m drunk in San Francisco
You better believe I stay stoned in San Francisco
I’m always drunk in San Francisco
And I don’t drink at all

–Tommy Wolf
(sung live by Carmen McRae at the Great American Music Hall, SF, 1976)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXSS9tNL0N4&list=RDRXSS9tNL0N4&start_radio=1

A long, strange trip

Dear readers, my writing has been stuck lately. I know that my next blog needs to be – no, is going to be – about my great love for San Francisco. But I can’t seem to do the topic justice and I’ve been mentally flogging myself about it for weeks. Basically, I suck and I stink. So I’ve decided to put the grand opus away for a while and concentrate instead on a little ditty about the zaniest commute day I ever had.

***

It was the winter of 1979, in the waning days of the old green San Francisco streetcars. Fresh out of college, I’d just taken a job at Harper & Row Publishers down on the Embarcadero. Every evening after work I’d catch the 42 bus out near the railroad tracks across from Pier 23, get off at the former Transbay Terminal, and take the N-Judah streetcar outbound to my apartment in the Inner Sunset. The trip was never a short one, and it was rarely without incident. But on this December night in particular, what a long strange trip it was.

In those days, the 42-bus driver had a number of quirks. Most annoyingly, he whistled – continually – “As Time Goes By,” the lovely tune that Sam sings in Casablanca. The problem was that he whistled the first three lines and then stopped, without ever getting to the resolving line. Sans lyrics, what we heard was:

You must remember this:
A kiss is still a kiss.
A sigh is just a sigh . . . .

And then nothing. Crickets. A few seconds later he started over. It drove me absolutely mad.

“The fundamental things apply!” I wanted to scream at him. “As time goes by, you irksome twit! Stop persecuting me!”

This guy also had the well-deserved reputation for driving, well, a tad rapidly. But breakneck speed was really the lesser of his foibles. What was worse was his habit of trying to stop on a dime at every corner, throwing his passengers into a severe panic and into the aisles.

On that particular day I was wearing my platform shoes for the first time ever, no easy challenge for feet accustomed to years of sneakers. I twisted my ankle about 742 times that day. It was in a most crippled state, then, that I hobbled tentatively onto the bus and, unable to find a seat, grabbed the pole directly in front of the sideways seats up front. Big mistake. The driver took off like a madman. I clutched the pole in fear of my life at the first two corners but lost my balance at the third. In a dizzying display of clumsiness I spun 180 degrees around the pole and tumbled backwards across the laps of three teenage boys. They were polite (albeit stunned), but I was mortified – so mortified, in fact, that I became confused, lost my composure, and simply got off the bus then and there.

I made the long walk up Battery Street and across Market to the Transbay Terminal in about half an hour, record time considering that I fell off my shoes every 50 feet. The usual throngs of people were waiting at the streetcar turnaround, and I planted myself in the exact spot where I’d calculated that the doors would open when the N-Judah pulled up. That way, I’d be strategically positioned to shove my way through the front doors and do a swan dive into an empty seat.

But then came disaster. Rain. The old streetcars’ nemesis. For some reason – perhaps wet tracks? – the entire system would often become disabled by the mere suggestion of water. Those stubborn, breakdown-prone streetcars would simply refuse to move in inclement weather. They’d back up along Market Street, about 25 of ’em, and hundreds of pathetic commuters would be stranded. The Municipal Railway (Muni) would then send out its regular buses, after an interminable wait, and because the buses couldn’t go through the Duboce tunnel, they would discharge the hapless commuters at the Van Ness stop to wait again. I’m not sure what good that did at all.

Sure enough, the buses arrived about an hour later and deposited us at Van Ness. By then the system had gotten started again, though, so the next 12 streetcars that came by passed us without slowing down, crammed to the hilt with people they’d picked up all along Market.

After I finally made it onto an N-Judah streetcar with a few inches of available room, and as we were plodding our way through the tunnel, the alarm bells suddenly screamed and we slammed to a halt.

“All right, is someone stuck in the doors or are you just playing around?” our driver yelled, infuriated. “Someone better answer me” (then a pause) “or we’re not moving at all! Is someone stuck in the goddam doors?”

“No,” came the meek response from all of us standing jammed and exhausted in the car. I myself was immobilized with depression at the thought of “not moving at all.”

“You get paid enough!” came one passenger’s rather puzzling retort.

“I don’t get paid enough to take your abuse!”

“Well, turn the heat off then!” (Another frustration-induced non sequitur.)

“The heat’s not on!” yelled the driver. He tried to re-start the streetcar but it wouldn’t budge. “Thanks a lot, buddy!” he shouted at the argumentative passenger, whom he apparently blamed for his constant mechanical trials and never-ending series of breakdowns.

Someone standing behind me told everyone that it had happened to him once, getting stuck in the tunnel. “What a horrible feeling,” he droned, “watching the headlight from another streetcar rush up on you from behind and thinking, ‘We’re gonna be hit. . . . We’re gonna be hit . . . . We’re gonna be hit . . . .’ ”

In unison, everyone anxiously whipped around to size up the situation behind us.

Meanwhile, the driver got out and worked on the door, along with a bunch of Muni men from all the other streetcars who were now stopped as far as the eye could see in both directions.

At one point something fell on the tracks, maybe a huge piece of metal, and it clanged and echoed in the dark.

“What was that?” someone asked, and a droll commuter in the back cracked, “Maybe one of the driver’s eyelashes fell out.”

Once the door was finally fixed they still couldn’t get the car going, so another streetcar came up on the tracks behind us to push us in traditional Muni fashion – by slamming mercilessly into our rear. Wham! (we’d lurch a foot). Whack! (another foot).

Unbelievably enough, when we emerged from the tunnel and the streetcar gained power again and it seemed that we would all get home after all, the back doors suddenly started banging open and closed repeatedly, rapid-fire, as if possessed. The streetcar couldn’t move, of course. We all groaned.

I’d gotten off work three hours earlier and still hadn’t made the 5 miles home across town yet. People all over the city were getting ready for bed and I was still stuck on the N-Judah. I eased my way resignedly towards the front and got out into the chilly December night. And walked home.

***

4/23/72 [age 16]:

“God, give us peace here, not simply the superficial absence of war, but genuine unequivocable [sic] harmony and unity. Give Ireland back to the Irish and Vietnam back to the Vietnamese. Let Cubans and Russians and East Germans have their freedom, and, in turn, let Americans come to know and appreciate what freedom is (as yet they do not). Free us from environmental pollution and the curse of overpopulation. Is it possible that the starving can have food, and the naked can have clothes, and the homeless can have shelter? Deprive me – I am too well off for my own good.

“Let the unemployed find work, if they so deserve. Give strength to victims of mental disease and fatal illnesses, like cancer and leukemia, and physical handicaps, and to those who love them. Help the unfortunate victims of broken homes. Let the blind see and the deaf hear and the dumb speak and the lame walk and the ignorant be made wise. Comfort the broken-hearted; they, too, suffer. Enlighten students to the values of education (I know without it I would be totally lost). Let the young take care of the old, and the old appreciate the young. Restore to the populace a real sense of moral value. Keep good people as they are, and convert the bad to good. Let the innocent be safe from the guilty.

“Bless my relatives and friends. Give [my younger sister] Janine the ability to withstand my persecutions, release the clutches of hay fever from [my brother] Marc, help Mom stop smoking, and get that stupid job off Dad’s back. Ease Grampy’s asthma, let Nonna at least remember who she is, and help Auntie Jackie lose weight so she is not so fat.

“And for me – may the coming of college be a ‘finding’ and not a ‘losing,’ may I retain my mental and physical health, and perhaps (can I ask this?) may I gain a little bit of common sense and knowhow? Let me accomplish something while I am here.”

4/19/72 [age 16]: [Ed.’s note: Even after the girls were finally allowed to wear pants at our high school during our senior year, my parents didn’t allow me to wear them except, I think, during finals week. And maybe on Fridays – I can’t remember.]

“On our field trip to San Francisco today, Jeanne and I changed our clothes twice in the course of the day. I snuck a pair of Levi’s out of the house around [my brother] Marc’s waist. When we got to school we rushed to the restroom to change into our Levi’s and barely made it to the bus on time. We ran the 150 in 10 seconds. In SF we went to Golden Gate Park and just sat down on a grassy hill and ate our lunches. Soon we had only 20 minutes left and we still had to change into our dresses [for a play we were about to see]. We were looking for a restroom but they charge admission to get in the museum, we found out. Some guy said the restrooms were way over there behind the pillars. We had four minutes left before the bus took off so we sped over there, changed, in a flash, and sped back. Embarrassment. Everyone was on the bus already. Then we went to the play, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.’ It was well-done, but BORING. I almost fell asleep. Finally, the play ended at 4:35. Joe Turner and Mark Anhier had cut out of the play and weren’t there. Mr. Vierra went on a wild goose chase with the police all over Golden Gate Park but didn’t find them. They eventually got suspended. Anyway, eventually I came home in my dress with no idea how I was going to sneak my Levi’s back into the house. Jeanne said she’d hold them for me and I could smuggle them home with my gym clothes Friday. However, Thursday was Mom’s washing day, and noting the missing pants, she figured the whole thing out.”

4/24/72 [age 16]:

“Joe – as you know, he’s my lab partner in Physiology. (I can’t stand Physiology right now; we’re cutting up the stupid mink and I’ll never be able to memorize all those muscles.) He got suspended Thursday. He’s always talking to me in English. On the bus going to that memorable field trip Jeanne told me she thought he liked me. Would I go to the Senior Ball if he asked me? Ha, I’m sure Mom and Dad would never let me go with that ‘hood.’ ”

4/26/72 [age 16]:

“I MUST relate my bike-riding experiences! First I went to Jeanne’s at 10:15 (my chain slipped off once and my hands got all black; her mother sprayed some stuff on them to take the grease off). She had to take her little brother to Eastridge to pick up a friend, so I drove with her out there. (She’s a good driver – nice and smooth.) Then we came back and her mother wanted her to go water some garden at Noble School, so we bike rode over there and we played tetherball for awhile. Then we rode to the library and then down to the drugstore because I had to pick up some prints. I wanted to eat, but Jeanne wasn’t hungry, so since she wanted to go the Flea Market and had never been there, we went. I wanted to eat there, but she STILL was not hungry. Then we rode back to Jeanne’s to eat lunch; I called home, and Jeanne discovered she had lost her mom’s keys at Noble. So we drove back over there, looked, walked to the library, looked, drove to the drugstore and looked, but they were nowhere to be found. This was after we ate lunch of hot dogs and potato chips and cupcakes and Oreos. We rode back and she suggested we play tennis (I swear, she is a tennis fanatic) and I won, as usual. (It’s just my consistency; she is a better player.) Then she drove me and the bike home. Don’t we do thrilling things?”

5/1/72 [age 16]:

“Jeanne and I had pizza and chicken TV dinners for dinner. Afterwards I sat on the couch and she sat on the steps and played my guitar. (She’s darn good, too.) Then we established the fact that neither of us is arrogant.”

5/8/72 [age 16]:

“Today Nixon made a critical speech about how we were going to back off North Vietnam ports and then withdraw only when they release our American POWs, etc. I don’t know what will come of all this. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be atom-bombed.”

5/18/72 [age 16]:

“I went to the CSF Life Membership Ceremony tonight. They read our names and we had to walk up on stage (I was so afraid I was going to trip) and Mr. Bailey named our college and our major. That was embarrassing – everyone thinks Law Enforcement is so wierd [sic]. Then (I’m such a klutz) the people to the right of me would move down and I’d stand there oblivious, with a big space between us until the girl on my left nudged me. I did that THREE TIMES!! Good grief. How dumb.”

5/23/72 [age 16]:

“Last night I got a really cute blue bodyshirt. It’s not really too tight, but I like it. It makes me look more feminine. I’m changing. I always hated more feminine styles but I’m coming to like them more and more. A new image is what I need; I wish I had done it sooner. I can’t go on being a tomboy forever.”

5/26/72 [age 16]:

“Today was Senior Picnic. Well, Jeanne and Robin and I didn’t want to go. So we got this wild idea to stay in Mr. Healy’s room and we brought food like gobs and we played Risk and talked. Everyone thinks we’re wierd [sic]. We are. I had potato chips and onion dip and a tuna sandwich and an egg salad sandwich and a deviled egg and two chicken legs and about twenty cookies and a big piece of cake.”

If you’ll be my bodyguard

I was dreading the Outside Lands music festival this year. And no, not because we can hear the booming bass notes three miles away at my house, where I was almost blown out of my rattan patio chair by the sound check.

No, I was dreading it because, for the first time, I actually had tickets.

***

Every year, my friend Laurie and her daughter Hayley stay in our downstairs guest room while they attend Outside Lands. I use the term “guest room” loosely, and those of you who live in San Francisco’s Sunset District know exactly what I mean. In this western part of the city, the (usually two-bedroom) Marina-style homes are built above garages that run the length of the house, and many of the garages have been partially converted into spare rooms. Most of the time, these rooms are not built to code and are unpleasantly dark and dank, with low ceilings marred by the occasional stray water leak. Ours, however, was an original room built with our 1936 house, so although it’s still as chilly as a wine cellar, it was built to code, with a regular ceiling and sans water leaks as far as we know. But it has its quirks. In the old days it served as a “rumpus room,” so instead of a closet there is a wet bar area with a flip-up wooden “bar counter” and vintage sink. And around the corner there is a separate toilet room, smaller than a phone booth, with just, well, a toilet. The walls are concrete, so we’ve painted them wild colors just to avoid the potential bunker-like ambiance.

Laurie and Hayley started their charming mother-daughter Outside Lands tradition when Hayley was graduating from high school. I fondly call these two “The Churchmice,” because when they stay downstairs we hardly know they’re here, as they spend all three days at the festival and refuse to so much as drink an ounce of our water lest they inconvenience us. Occasionally one of them pops upstairs to take a shower, but otherwise they come and go with the utmost of stealth.

***

Outside Lands is a three-day music, arts, and food festival held in Golden Gate Park. It never rains in San Francisco in August, so – unlike the great 1969 sludge-fest at Woodstock – the weather is not a potential problem. Most of the time it’s foggy, but sometimes the sun makes a quick and casual appearance, like a reluctant party guest. Security is tight. The whole thing is organized down to the most minute of details. Five beautiful stages are set up so that the sound from one never bleeds into the other. It’s eco-friendly. More than 80 local restaurants and food trucks offer everything from bacon flights to pork belly burgers to acai bowls to liquid creme brûlées to apple and wildflower honey melts (I have no idea what those are). This year marked the introduction of Grass Lands, which featured cannabis products for sale and inhalation/consumption. The Wine Lands area allows ticketholders to try wines from 125 different wineries; Beer Lands offers a similarly varied selection of craft brews. Attendees can listen to rock, pop, Americana, country, hip hop, comedy, lectures, and just about anything else that entertains. It’s always peaceful, despite the huge crowds of up to 90,000 a day.

I’d optimistically bought my Outside Lands tickets, back in May, because I was interested in the Lumineers (fairly contemporary), the Counting Crows (middle-aged dinosaurs), and Paul Simon (at 77, definitely an old dinosaur). But considering my unrelenting back problems, I now knew I couldn’t spend full days at the festival, and there are no in-and-out privileges. Seating is on the lawn (unless you’re rich enough to spend $1,600 for a la-di-da VIP ticket). So even if I were to attend only the three shows, I had no idea how I was going to sit on the cold hard ground, out in the fog, being jostled and trampled upon by harmless, happy, but potentially inebriated young festivalgoers.

LL Bean seat cushion — L.L. Bean seat cushion

Nevertheless, I prepared myself. I bought a small, light, clear plastic backpack, to adhere to the new bag policy imposed for security reasons. Heeding the advice of my friend Julie R., I also purchased an extremely lightweight L.L.Bean self-inflating seat cushion that came in its own tiny sack. Other than a bottle of water and a good fleece jacket, not much else was needed.

***

As luck would have it, the Counting Crows and the Lumineers were both scheduled for Friday night, on the same stage back to back (albeit with an hour’s break in between). Paul Simon, the closer, was slated for Sunday night.

Laurie and Hayley arrived mid-day on Friday, as they usually do, and we offered them a ride to the festival. When we dropped them off, Laurie apparently sprang quickly into action.

“Ok. So here’s the story,” she texted me a few minutes later. I’m not sure we were even home yet. “There are [ADA] wristbands that you can get issued. Still can’t figure out how to get that. But I went to the guy who is staffing the Twin Peaks stage and his name is Lee. He said that I just need to go right up to him and tell him my name and bring you and you can stay in the ADA section as long as you want. He’s worked that spot for 7 years. He remembers faces.”

She also, of course, sent a photo of the ADA section.

Now, ADA stands for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which regulates public accommodations for people with disabilities. The very idea that I could be in an “ADA section” startled me.

“But I can’t be in there,” I thought. “Not me. I don’t have a disability.”

After all, up until last October I was a fine physical specimen. Okay, I wasn’t a stud like my friends who run marathons, climb Mt. Everest, and hike Machu Picchu, but I was working out on the elliptical for half an hour every day and had even started walking to the beautiful Moraga steps – a 3-mile trip, plus 163 steps – to help strengthen my brittle bones. Yes, maybe now I have a painful and unbalanced sacroiliac that my doctor says looks like I had been through some sort of “trauma.” And yes, maybe now I can’t walk 50 steps without my back seizing up. But ADA accommodations are for old people and people in wheelchairs. Definitely not for me. Oh, no. I am far too young and strapping for that.

2015_01-01_Moraga stairs_Paula — With Buster at the Moraga steps

***

The Counting Crows were scheduled to play at about 7:00 on Friday night, and Julie drove me to the Outside Lands gate at the appointed time. Laurie, bless her heart, had told me that she’d meet me inside and escort me to the stage area. I don’t know whether it was because it was the opening night and the workers were all fresh as daisies, or whether it was because they were surprised to see an old lady all by herself, but every gate attendant looked at me with a huge smile and told me to have an absolutely wonderful time at Outside Lands. This was starting out well!

By this time, Laurie had already calculated that there were 3,200 steps from the gate to the Twin Peaks stage. She was ON it!

But she was also worried, I think, about how I’d make it that far over what I now call “rough terrain.”

“Can I ask you something?” she said. Whoa, I thought, she is immediately getting into a heavy discussion with me about something. Politics? Religion? Our personal lives?

“Of course,” I answered, expectantly.

“Is there a way we could get a ride on this if we get an ADA wristband?” Oops, she wasn’t talking to me at all. She had spotted some kind of transport vehicle and was finagling a seat for me with the driver.

“Sure,” the driver said, “I’m going up to the Twin Peaks stage anyway.”

I started to protest. “Oh, but I don’t have a wristband yet, and I don’t want you to have to wait for me.”

“Don’t worry, you can just get one near the stage. Hop in.”

Well, I didn’t exactly hop, but we did climb in, and the driver took off like a bat out of hell, flying over these big plastic humps that were set up every few feet, so hard that I flew up out of my seat each time we hit one, despite my desperate attempts at bracing myself. I was saved the 3,200 steps, but my sacroiliac got a most unwelcome jarring.

At the end of that wild ride we were let off right at the ADA viewing section and, as promised, Lee let us in immediately, no questions asked. (Wristbands were not provided anywhere, so that mystery continued.) The ADA platform was large, totally flat, and surrounded by a barrier, with perfect sightlines. A couple of helpers immediately put out folding chairs for us with (hooray!) backrests. All I needed was my handy inflatable seat cushion. And here’s the best part: a row of bathrooms was set up right there! So, unlike all the poor schlubs who had to trek from their crowded lawn areas when they had to pee, we had immediate access to restrooms! I could get used to this!

I looked around me. There were a few people in wheelchairs or with walkers or canes. But there were also folks like me, with no visible infirmity. Most of us were older, but there were pregnant women as well, along with a smattering of young people. My resistance and guilt began to ebb very quickly.

I puzzled over why the ADA area was so sparsely populated. Then I realized that most young people wouldn’t be caught dead in it. In fact, 11 months ago I wouldn’t have been caught dead in it!

***

Adam Duritz_Huffington Post_ — Adam Duritz and his hair

This post isn’t about the music, but let me just say that I enjoyed both bands. I did think that Adam Duritz, the front man for the Counting Crows, took a few too many liberties with his own songs, not to mention that it took me a while to get over my shock at seeing Duritz and his hair looking like a middle-aged car mechanic wearing an oversized Siberian hat. But the Lumineers’ energetic performances of their pure and rustic folk tunes were sublime. Meanwhile, the mostly-young(ish) crowd was amicable and happy. Some of the attendees were a little loose in the gait, probably because they’d been drinking for the last 8 hours, but I saw no fights, nor did anyone appear to get sick. The only common faux pas seemed to be severely underdressed folks, partly because out-of-towners, in particular, don’t realize that a 75-degree day will quickly drop into a 50-degree sunset. I wore a shirt, fleece, and my heavy jacket.

Inexplicably, no ADA cart was available at the end of the Lumineers show, so I had to walk the 3,200 steps back to the exit, a portion of which was uphill on uneven “rough terrain,” which was a bit taxing. Parts of my sacroiliac that had been fine now started to join in the complaint chorus.

When I got home that night, I recounted to Julie all the things that Laurie had managed for me. “Well, she’s a mom,” Julie said. “Moms know how to take care of business.”

She was right. My mother, my sister, and all the other moms I’ve known – they’re resourceful and they get things done. They don’t fool around.

***

What is it that keeps me from being able to accept assistance gracefully? Part of it is pride. Even when I was most unlucky and impoverished in my younger years, it never occurred to me to ever file for unemployment or seek financial aid, although I certainly would have qualified. And now – a blue disabled placard? No. ADA support? Never.

But part of it is also denial. We get older incrementally; it doesn’t happen overnight. So it’s easy to cling to notions of what we used to be, even though the realities of time quite clearly refute those notions, if only we would take a hard look. It seems like just yesterday that I was floating gracefully above a defender’s outstretched hands, catching a spiral in the endzone as the first female wide receiver in NFL history. Oh, wait – that was just my fantasy for the first 40 years of my life.

Sigh. Every day I seem to drink the same pride-and-denial cocktail, with a liberal dash of stubbornness.

***

On Sunday night, Paul Simon closed out the festival on the main Lands End stage. It was located on the Polo Field, right at the entrance gate, so (thankfully) there were no 3,200 steps to walk. Laurie met me at the gate again, and this time I felt no shame sauntering into the ADA area. I was one of “them,” and I accepted it.

It was a clear night. Purple, blue, orange, yellow, and magenta lights flooded the trees. Paul Simon’s earnest, breezy voice lent a mellow tone to the closing hours of the festival.

Towards the end of the two-hour set he brought local boy Bob Weir up on stage with him. Weir, a former member of the Grateful Dead, played guitar and sang gamely along, although it was clear he wasn’t entirely prepared. The crowd sang, too. The song was “The Boxer,” one of my favorites.

I thought of the last time I saw Paul Simon, in May of 1973 at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. After the show my friend Jeanne and I hung out at the stage door, hoping to spot Paul as he walked out. We were the only fans out there. That could never happen today, with increased security and every experience so “shared” that nothing is spontaneous and no scheme is ever kept under wraps. But it worked. When he came out, he walked right by me, inches away. By the way, his head came up to my shoulders – that’s how short the man is.

That night, Paul had added a new, beautiful verse to the end of “The Boxer”:

Now the years are rolling by me
The are rocking easily
I am older than I once was
And younger than I’ll be
But that’s not unusual
No, it isn’t strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are
More or less the same

He’s sung that verse only a handful of times since that tour, and he didn’t do it at Outside Lands, but I’ve never forgotten it. My mind wandered and I thought about how I am most definitely older than I once was.

***

Decline is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you, and if you’re like me, when you ultimately realize it’s happening, you flail and rail against it. You do not go gently into your waning years.

But I’ve learned a great lesson. From now on, I will accept my limitations and work with them. And I will also accept that, by God, I’ve earned the right to allow others to help me when I deserve it. Besides, apparently age and physical impairments can get you into places. (Sometimes they can even get you a seat on the bus!)

I am also now extremely appreciative of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and of institutions like Outside Lands that provide boundless assistance to people with every kind of challenge.

Thank you, Laurie, for the many efforts you made on my behalf. And here’s a special shout-out to all the parents among us, of all ages, who just never stop takin’ care of business.

***

2/13/72 [age 16]:

“It’s a good thing Mom is a good finder, because I’m a good loser. Last year I had an attack because I lost my retainer downstairs and simply COULD NOT find it. Mom, knowing me, went down and looked in all the ridiculous places and found it sitting in the candy jar.”

4/7/72 [age 16]:

[NOTE: good grief, another list of things I loved!]

“It’s funny, but our capacity to love is not like a bucket or a bathtub, that eventually runs out and gets empty. It just keeps on coming. You can love so many people and so many things at once it gets confusing.

Water chestnuts

Scented candles

The orchard

Intelligent conversations

Bread [the band]

Gary Puckett

The absence of braces

Jeanne’s Australian tennis hat

Love

Eyes

Trying to think up another ingenius [sic] way to get out of class. (It’s getting difficult)

Hot chocolate

Cracker Jacks prizes

Being able to breathe correctly once in a while when hay fever chooses to leave me alone

Knowing that I won’t have to go through getting my tonsils out again

School (the people)

Fires

Occasional chances to drive

Clint Eastwood

“The Fool on the Hill”

Spencer Tracy

Ted

The beach, the beach, the beach . . . such a mystery

Baskin’s & Robbin’s

Tents

Looking at the stars (really)

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner

Johnny Rivers

Surprises

Knowing something worthwhile

“MacMillan and Wife”

The day when I’ll get down to 120 [pounds]

Balconies

Sleeping

Going to movies with someone other than my family, but I never have the opportunity to

“And it did, and it does, and you’re cute!”

Mr. Bernert

“Hey, Jude”

Sincere little boys

Babies (like the Dossa twins)

Anything cooked in egg and flour

Being young and immortal

Getting a ride home

Knowing that if I run away, someone will take me in

The word “yes” (I rarely hear it)

Everything chocolate

My cousins Carla and Lisa

Snow

Father Hayes

Hot days

Swings

Riding 9 million miles an hour [on a bike] down Suncrest

Movie cameras

Knowing that I’m not the way I am because “everybody else is” (heh, heh, that’s for sure!)

That guy at Clear Lake who was always saying, “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard”

Fisherman’s Wharf

Mine and Jeanne’s dangling conversations

GOP

My holey tennis shoes

When I was feeling way down and Denise asked me to go with them to Stanford to get out of my rut – that was nice. (Guess what, I didn’t get to go!)

“Satisfaction” – Stones’ stuff

Ice cream

“Leaves of Grass”

Sunflower seeds

Frogs

Sean

Stereos

Freddie

Cool ’n Creamy

Matt Monroe

Christmas

Drummers and more drummers

Chewing on thermoses

And of course RICHARD HARRIS!

4/9/72 [age 16]:

“I don’t why, but I suddenly got the urge to read Walt Whitman’s [book of poetry] ‘Leaves of Grass’ in its entirety. What a project!”

4/17/72 [age 16]:

“I was sitting in Civic class [on] Friday reading the poems [in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass] when Mr. Bernert, who is without a doubt the most brilliant man I know, asked me what book I was reading and if it had been cleared with the social studies department, kiddingly. I showed it to him and he asked, “Why are you reading it?” and I said, “To be educated,” and he replied, “Better not, you’ll be all alone in the world.” That was serious. True, too. I love the way he combines humor with sincerity. Then he started talking to me about the [school] paper, and how he bet I got in trouble over [my editorial] on finals. I said yes, I did sure enough, and he laughed and said I was a “fuzzy-thinking, left-winged Communist extremist.” That cracked me up. He smiled that darling smile of his and I thought, with all the laughter and good nature he can be so wonderfully understanding. And then all of a sudden I just felt this warm love for him swell up, and I left feeling contented. Such great people you have made, God, thank you, and now I know just what you meant, Walt.”

4/18/72 [age 16]:

“In Physiology class today, [my lab partner] Robin and I moved to the table where Joe Turner and Dave Hale were. Joe suggested that we mix partners so the guys could do the dissecting, and I agreed with that, for sure! Now Robin is a little mad because she thinks that with guys as partners we aren’t going to learn anything!”

Devil with the blue dress

This, my friends, is just a quick little tale about the one and only time I rented an “adult movie” – an effort that, as per my usual bumbling ways, ended disastrously.

I’d had only a couple of encounters with off-color films, and they’d been innocent enough. When we were teenagers, my brother and I and a couple of our friends snuck into a drive-in to see a movie called Please Don’t Eat My Mother. I know what you’re thinking, but it turned out to be a tame little flick that didn’t even live up to its salacious name. As I recall, it was a comedy about a strangely sexy carnivorous houseplant. And although there was some nudity, I don’t remember any hanky-panky involved. Or maybe I just didn’t understand what I was seeing. Unfortunately, we were busted when my mother found the ticket stub in my brother’s pants pocket. Dang! We should have done our own laundry!

Later, when I was a resident at San Francisco State and chair of the dorm film program, a couple of good-looking, charming fellow movie buffs coaxed me into giving them a private showing of one of the 16mm prints I’d rented for the film program from a major Los Angeles distributor. (It was an Italian neorealist movie called The Bicycle Thief.) The guys noted that the movie was preceded by trailers (previews), including one for Fellini’s Amarcord. I locked up the print when we were done, but using some subterfuge that I never figured out, they later snuck into the A/V room, took the film to their room, cut out their favorite trailers, inserted some choice pornography, and returned the altered print to its shelf. I innocently sent the film back to the distribution house, at which point all hell broke loose and eventually the FBI got involved. A couple of federal agents came to the dorm to interview our dorm advisor and me. By then I’d told the advisor about my suspicions (this means you, Kevin Henry!), and he believed me from the get-go. The FBI guys seemed to believe me, too, because the nervous young dupe girl sitting in the hot seat did not appear to be an Amarcord-slicing, porn-inserting swindler. I was off the hook, and I don’t know what became of the investigation. (Are you still out there free as a bird, Kevin Henry?)

The incident at hand, however, happened in the early 1990s when I decided to rent a steamy little video that I will call, for the purposes of this tale, Lex Baldwin and His Peccadilloes. Lex Baldwin was the real-life leading man, and his co-stars were an assortment of men and women, all involved in a variety of scenarios in every conceivable configuration. The film had been recommended to me by my hairdresser. (I have no idea how on earth we came to have that conversation.)

In those days, of course, there was no streaming video and there were no DVDs. We had to rent videotapes from the Blockbuster chain or a local video store, watch the tapes on a videocassette recorder (VCR), and bring the tapes back like library books to avoid incurring overdue charges. I had never been assessed a late fee on anything in my entire life so I knew that that wasn’t going to happen.

Except that the tape got stuck in my VCR.

***

“Oh, no, nonononono!” I screeched, partly out of terror of the tape’s late fees (or, even worse, the total replacement fee) but also because of what I knew would be my impending humiliation and disgrace. I clawed frantically at the machine. But not only was the video jammed, the VCR would not even power on. I pushed every button 26 times. I tried sticking a screwdriver through the flimsy little tape door, to absolutely no avail. Then I decided to pry off the whole casing, but the “Do not attempt to remove the back of the VCR because of the possibility of electrocution” sticker dissuaded me. Finally I gave up, letting the machine sit overnight in hopes that the components would cool down. Sigh. No luck.

stuck videotape_abc news 2 — My biggest fear

Today, someone in a similar predicament might very well simply throw away the entire kit and caboodle. Buy a new VCR, pay for the tape replacement. But that was not remotely an option for me in those days. I had no money whatsoever – certainly not enough to buy a new VCR, which would have cost me $400 or so (almost $800 in today’s dollars). I mean, around that time I was actually trying to figure out whether, to save money, I should stop my Chronicle delivery, which was costing me all of 10 cents a day.

I couldn’t very well discuss my plight with my mother, my usual go-to person who always knew what to do about everything from appliance repair to wardrobe malfunctions to food spoilage questions. No, this was far too delicate a matter.

So I called my friend Kay.

“OhmyGod, Kay,” I blurted as soon as she picked up, “I-got-an-X-rated-movie-stuck-in-my-VCR-and-I-don’t-know-what-to-do!” I was in a wheezing panic.

“Paula, calm down and let’s brainstorm,” she said. “Isn’t there a repair shop somewhere that could get the tape out without ruining it?”

“Well, there’s that electronics place out in the avenues, but I just know it must be run by a nice little old Irishman. How will I be able to show my face, Kay??”

“Paula, your worst fear is not going to be realized. There will be no little old Irishman. It’s going to be okay, and they won’t care! This probably happens all the time!”

I wasn’t listening. “I know, I’ll invent a story to make the situation more respectable. I’ll say I was watching it with my husband. I’ll say it was HIS fault! HE wanted to rent the movie!”

“Oh, brother,” she said. “I’m not sure why that is more respectable, but OK, I’m with ya.”

“And listen,” I continued. “I think I should look sophisticated and proper. Kay, you have a ring that looks like a wedding ring, don’t you? Can I borrow that? I’ll wear a simple blue dress and pumps.”

Kay did an eyeroll over the phone but nonetheless humored me as she hung up to go find her gold band. After rushing to her place to borrow it, dashing down to Macy’s to buy some pumps with high heels (my heels were way too low and clunky to be considered sophisticated), and calling Kay another 52 times for reassurance, I knew that it was finally time to pay a visit to the electronics shop.

Blue dress photo with copyright — The “My Husband Did It” ensemble, except that I didn’t wear the hat

When I pushed open the glass doors to the shop, carrying my disabled VCR – the proof of my sins – under my arm, I didn’t see anyone behind the counter at first. I clomped unsteadily towards the back of the store in my new high heels. It felt like it took me three hours to get there. I was relieved, at least, not to see a little old Irishman. However, much to my horror, as I approached the counter up popped a petite young Asian woman! Or a girl, even! She didn’t look to be much older than 16. I was awash in shame and mortification. “Oh, no,” I thought, “I’m going to ruin this poor young woman if she finds out what kind of tape is in that VCR!”

But there was no getting around it. When she asked what she could do for me, I launched into my long story about how my-husband-rented-the-tape-and-somehow-it-got-stuck-and-I-don’t-really-know-what-the-tape-is-so-please-just-fix-it,” etcetera. And then she said, “Well, let me get the owner,” and out came a little old Irish man.

Of course.

Then I commenced to relate the whole story about my husband again.

Unfazed, the Irishman told me that the VCR would be fixed in three days. I could practically hear the late fees adding up. Ka-chink! But I had no choice. I whirled around on my heels to leave and did a face plant onto the showroom floor.

For crying out loud, how many indignities would I have to suffer for my wickedness???!!!

Three days later I went back to pick up the machine. Once again I donned my outfit – dress, ring, heels, the entire ensemble. It was a different young woman at the counter, and I breathed a momentary sigh of relief that she wouldn’t recognize me as the raging degenerate with the X-rated movie. She went into the back room to retrieve the VCR and when she brought it out, Lex Baldwin and His Peccadilloes, with its title in gargantuan letters, was taped to the top of the VCR. Oh, I am a wretched disgrace.

It cost me about $100 to fix the VCR. A veritable fortune for me in those days.

The next day I clomped into the video rental place in my now-wrinkly dress to return Lex Baldwin and I launched once again into my well-worn husband story.

The manager waived the fees.

***

2/7/72 [age 16]:

“When she was young and went to school
Some asked her what they’d taught her.
‘I just recall one thing,’ she said,
‘That I was principal’s daughter.’ ”

2/2/72 [age 16]:

THINGS I LOVE:

12-STRING GUITARS
HAIR (blond)
AMERICA [the band]
MR. BARISICH
SKIING
HAIR (Robert Redford’s)
Hearing the net go “swoosh” when somebody makes a basket
MY 10-SPEED
FRIENDS (they’re wonderful)
MUSIC
PAT SEARS
DOGS (all but ours)
LINUS
BLUE
Having a perfectly clear face (I don’t remember when I last had it but maybe sometime in the near future . . . ?)
NEIL DIAMOND
LEVI’S
GOD
DAYDREAMING
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT
PIZZA & LICORICE & HAMBURGERS & OREOS & EATING IN GENERAL
Staying home and turning up the record player so loud they can hear it in Alviso and my eardrums become so immune I can hardly hear the rest of the day
MICROPHONES
ARGUING
READING WALT WHITMAN
ROOT BEER
Jumping off the high dive into the deep pool and feeling really wierd [sic] on the way down
MR. ADAMS
AIRPLANES
BODY SHIRTS
GOATS
THE SANTA CLARA COUNTY FAIR
Riding the waves at Santa Cruz on an innertube and getting wiped out
WATERBEDS
CAMAROS
TULIPS
SAN FRANCISCO
“ALL IN THE FAMILY”
THE WORD “SENSUOUS”
All those wonderful times we have where the great kids on our block all get together and have one huge gigantic waterfight and we all sit around and drink lemonade and play pinochle afterwards
HELIUM BALLOONS
BEING SIXTEEN
CUTTING CLASS
LIFE

2/3/72 [age 16]:

“Once in the eighth grade we had this graduation swim party and once again I demonstrated my complete lack of sense. The water at Rock Canyon was freezing cold and something happened to my jaw. It kind of locked. I guess the nerves tightened up because of the cold. I could open my mouth, but only up to a certain point. Then if I opened it farther it popped and hurt like crazy. I guess I’m a physical freak. Anyway, it was pretty miserable and I got one of the kids who wasn’t swimming to call my teacher over. Sister Anne Maureen. She knew a lot about science so I assumed she knew about diseases. So I ask her, ‘Do you think I have lockjaw?’ I don’t know how she kept from bursting out in hysterics, but she said, ‘I really doubt it.’ And I said, ‘Well, I stepped on a nail about a year ago.’ Pure stupidity, I swear.”

2/8/72 [age 16]:

“My idea of heaven – I run away to a place on the beach. I adore the beach, but my parents hate it so I never get to go. There wouldn’t be any parents there. The temperature would always be a comfortable 82 degrees. I would have an AM-FM radio with a really loud volume. I’d have a stereo with ten speakers all over the house. I’d also have my bike and a lifetime supply of root beer, hamburgers, and onion rings. Add a couple people I like and – presto – Utopia.”

A patriot’s dream

The woman who wrote “America the Beautiful” was not exactly a 19th century wallflower. She was a feminist. She was an activist. She was most likely a lesbian. And she was involved in a “Boston marriage” – a concept certainly new to me when I began to research this piece. Little did she know when she boarded a train in Chicago one summer that it would lead her to set down some of the most stirring words ever written about this country and its ideals.

***

Katharine Lee Bates 3 — Katharine Lee Bates

As the spring semester drew to a close in 1893, a 34-year-old Wellesley professor named Katharine Lee Bates was offered the opportunity to teach a summer class on Chaucer at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. (Wellesley was, and is, a private school for women in Massachusetts.) Bates jumped at the chance. Earlier that year she had dealt with a severe bout of depression, and the travel, she thought, would do her good. A published writer and poet, as well as an experienced international traveler, she nevertheless was unlikely to have seen much of the country west of the Mississippi. So she was eager to get started on the roughly 2,000-mile train trip.

O beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears

The first leg of the journey by rail ended in Chicago, where Bates would pick up Katharine Coman, a fellow Wellesley professor of economics and history who would likewise teach a summer class in Colorado Springs. They’d known each other for six years. Coman’s family home was in Chicago, and the two spent a few days there, visiting the World’s Fair and a recently-built monument to women in the arts and sciences. At the World’s Fair, Bates took note of an area called “The White City” that featured buildings illuminated not only by their painted-white exteriors but also by the multitude of streetlights lining the boulevards. It was the beginning of modern city planning.

“Thine alabaster cities gleam,” Bates would later write.

From there, “the two Katharines,” as they were often called, boarded a train on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe rail line. It was July 3, 1893.

***

Bates was an ardent member of a group of progressive Boston female academics and activists who were pioneers of social reform and concerned with immigration, labor union rights, women’s suffrage, and urban poverty. She was the author and editor of more than 40 works of poetry and literary criticism.

Katharine_Coman_(Yellow_Clover)_Wikipedia — Katharine Coman

Katharine Coman, two years younger than Bates, taught at Wellesley for 35 years and was the first female professor of statistics in the United States. Like Bates, she was interested in social reform, especially through political economics; she would take her students on field trips to tenements, factories, and sweatshops in Boston to teach about applying economic theory to social problems. In 1910, Coman would help unionize striking women in the garment industry during the massive Chicago garment workers’ strike. She was the author of The Industrial History of the United States, among other works.

Together, the Katharines – who were dedicated to helping the poor – had in 1887 founded the College Settlements Association, which assigned female students to help poor European immigrants who had recently come to America. The two women volunteered at the association’s Denison House, which was a Boston settlement house that distributed necessities like milk and coal, offered classes, conducted housing investigations, and served generally as a neighborhood center. Bates and Coman were totally committed to ensuring that immigrants and women could have the basic support they needed to get a foothold in society.

***

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain

With the land opening up in front of her as she rode the rails to Colorado, Bates saw vast open spaces for the very first time. The raw, sweeping West was so much grander in scale than the populous East Coast. Out the window of the train, in what was likely Kansas, she could see endless fields replete with “amber waves of grain.” Above it all were the “spacious skies” of the Great Plains. Overwhelmed, she scrawled some notes. It was the Fourth of July.

***

For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain

Bates had a lot of free time that summer, in between her Chaucer classes. She and Coman and other professors took group trips around the area, and on Saturday, July 22, they headed for Pikes Peak, which, at 14,115 feet, is higher than any point in the country to its east. (The area is named for explorer Zebulon Pike, so it baffles me that there is no apostrophe; it somehow got discarded along the way.) The little Cog Peak railroad that had been built two years earlier to convey sightseers up the mountain was broken down that day, so they ended up having to take a horse-drawn wagon halfway there, and then mules the rest of the way. A sign on the wagon read “Pikes Peak or Bust.” At that altitude, by the way, oxygen levels are dangerously low.

View from Pikes Peak_Shutterstock-2 — Pikes Peak

The 360-degree panorama from that summit took Bates’ breath away. She was awestruck by the grand appearance of the Rockies, the “purple mountain majesties.”

“I was very tired,” she said. “But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there. . . . [We] gazed in wordless rapture over the far expanse of mountain ranges and sea like sweep of plain. Then and there the opening lines of ‘America the Beautiful’ sprang into being. . . . I wrote the entire song on my return that evening to Colorado Springs.”

***

Antlers_Hotel_built_in_1883_in_downtown_Colorado_Springs — The Antlers Hotel

Bates was staying at the Antlers Hotel, a rather grand lodge built in 1883 by William Jackson Palmer, who also happened to be the founder of Colorado Springs. The 75-room hotel was named for the collection of elk and deer racks that he installed there. Bates undoubtedly enjoyed her summer residence at the Antlers, especially because it was a fancy place for the time. No two rooms were alike. The guests enjoyed steam heat and hot and cold water. There was a music room, a Turkish bath, a barber shop, and a hydraulic elevator. It was all downright luxurious.

I don’t know whether Bates and Coman stayed together. But it was in her hotel room, when she returned from Pikes Peak that night, that Bates sat down to pen the original words to “America the Beautiful.”

***

In the late 1800s in New England, female pairings were so plentiful that they came to be called “Boston marriages” or “Wellesley marriages,” in which two women lived together without – gasp! – any financial support from a man. These couples were not necessarily romantic, although my guess is that more of them were than were publicly acknowledged. Typically the women were well educated and had solid careers, often in social justice areas. If nothing else they were intellectual companions, and they provided each other with moral support in the unrelentingly sexist environs of the time. At Wellesley, specifically, female professors were usually forced to resign if they married, so if women wanted to keep their careers they often paired up for financial reasons at the very least. In the late 1800s, according to Lillian Faderman, “of the 53 women faculty at Wellesley, only one woman was conventionally married to a man; most of the others lived with a female companion.”

The Katharines lived together for more than 25 years. When they were apart, they wrote each other letters every day and pressed yellow flowers between the pages.

***

“America the Beautiful” took a crazily convoluted path. Bates’ poem, titled “Pikes Peak,” was first published as “America” in The Congregationalist newspaper on July 4, 1895. People loved it so much that at least 75 melodies were written for it (even “Auld Lang Syne” was matched to it for a while because the song’s meter fit the lyrics). Finally, in 1910, a publisher added a melody that had been written in 1882 by New Jersey organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward. The combination was now retitled “America the Beautiful,” and Bates amended her lyrics shortly thereafter, in 1911, to the version we know today. Sadly, Bates never met Ward. He had died in 1903 and was never aware of his music’s legacy.

***

Katharine Coman was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1912 and died on January 11, 1915, at the age of 57. Bates, who had lovingly tended to her throughout her painful ordeal, was so grief-stricken that she said, “So much of me died with Coman that I’m sometimes not quite sure whether I’m alive or not.”

Seven years later, Bates published a book of poetry about Coman called Yellow Clover: A Book of Remembrance.

At least one scholar has disputed the now-accepted notion that Bates and Coman were lovers. I don’t think it really matters. Romantic or not, love is love.

Katharine Bates never left Wellesley. She continued her work there until 1925 and after she passed away in 1929, the flag at Wellesley’s Tower Court was flown at half-staff.

***

O beautiful for Pilgrim feet, whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat, across the wilderness
America, America, God mend thine ev’ry flaw
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law

O beautiful for heroes proved, in liberating strife
Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life
America, America, May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness, and ev’ry gain divine

Because of its first verse, “America the Beautiful” is often seen as a lovely but innocuous song about the breadth and beauty of this country – the spacious skies, the amber waves of grain, the purple mountains, the fruited plain, all stretching from sea to shining sea. But really, the song is just as much about principles, and about the rich history of people who courageously fought here. It’s about wayfarers who managed to settle a wild, sometimes coarse landscape. It’s about the heroes who loved their country more than themselves. It asks for God to mend our flaws (and heaven knows there have been many). It reminds the citizenry to reign in their newfound freedoms through self-control and the exercise of law, and to ensure that the pursuit and use of the country’s riches remain noble. And in the end, it expresses the hope that, years hence, our shining cities will be undimmed by the tears of the unfortunate.

It was a prayer, it was a caution, it was a patriot’s dream.

I doubt that the dream will be fully realized in my lifetime. But I do believe that both our idealists and our pragmatists continue to try to bring it to pass. Maybe that constant effort is actually what makes Americans who they are.

Happy Fourth, everyone.

***

Coda:

The 1976 Ray Charles version of “America the Beautiful” stands alone. There is no other version, as far as I’m concerned. It’s sung with sincerity, love, longing, and guts. Even if you’ve heard it before, please give it a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CILIBlQ2D0Q

“America the Beautiful”

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea

O beautiful for Pilgrim feet, whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat, across the wilderness
America, America, God mend thine ev’ry flaw
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law

O beautiful for heroes proved, in liberating strife
Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life
America, America, May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness, and ev’ry gain divine

O beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears
America, America, God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea

***

4/2/72 [age 16]:

“We all went to [my aunt] Zia’s for Easter dinner today, and when we got back an unusual thing happened. We all smelled something funny [in our house] and we searched for a long time trying to see what was burning. Finally, [my brother] Marc discovered that I’d left my lamp on and my pet plastic monkey from Barrel of Monkees had fallen off the lampshade and had welded itself to the lightbulb in a glob.”

4/7/72 [age 16]:

“I don’t know why, but I got this sudden urge to read Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. I found out we [my parents] have it. One poem, “Tears,” is really good. I like good old Walt baby.”

I’ve been everywhere, man

Author bio: Buster Posey Scearce was born in Dixon, CA, on New Year’s Eve 2011. Although he has no formal education, Mr. Scearce is known for his street smarts. He enjoys dining on fine charcuterie and taking long walks on the beach. This is his first published piece.

Right off the bat, I need to clue you in on something. Paula Bocciardi is not the “Morning Morning Rail” author today. She says she is just too exhausted from being on the road for the last month. I, on the other hand, am not a whit tired, and while I was begging her to play with me this morning she snapped, “If you’re so energetic, why don’t you write the damned thing?” And so I will.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. As my bio notes, I was born on New Year’s Eve 2011 in Dixon, California — a hot part of the Central Valley not far from Sacramento. I don’t remember much about my immediate relatives but I do know that I come from a very proud lineage. We, you see, are the Lhasa Apsos.

Lhasas are fairly recent immigrants to this country, having first arrived here in the 1930s. For centuries before that, we made our home in the mountains of Tibet, where we zealously guarded the Buddhist monasteries from approaching marauders. We are not warriors and we do not fight; we are much too refined for that. But our job is to protect against potential invaders by basically barking our lungs out. So, like my fathers before me, I am a sentinel through and through. At home, 24/7, I warn my moms about developing threats like wind-blown trash bags or sketchy people in hoodies. My bark is so shrill it could trigger a coronary.

The history books say that Lhasas are lionhearted, which also apparently translates to “maddeningly stubborn.” We’re quite smart, but we refuse to do anything that makes no sense to us. For example, when I was a few months old, my moms decided that I should get used to wearing a collar in the house. This, to me, was folly. There is no reason on earth for me to be inconvenienced in my own home. So, after they put that thing on me, I sat down and refused to move. For six hours. I do not exaggerate. I was a bouncy puppy, and yet I did not move for six hours. Eventually, they caved.

I am also reserved. Paula says that she gets jealous when she meets dogs in the outside world who constantly wag their tails and give kisses to passers-by. Whatever. That’s just gauche. I am wary of strangers and children and I have absolutely no reason to be friendly to them. I am above all that. I may be related to the Shih-Tzu, but I admit that I’m not nearly as nice. I’m like a Shih-Tzu with attitude.

But I’m fiercely loyal, playful, and funny (more than once it’s been suggested that I try stand-up comedy). Unlike Paula’s first dog Peanuts – a beagle who apparently relentlessly ate everything from Paula’s dental retainer to her father’s cowboy hat – I’m a self-feeder; I merely graze in my bowl whenever I feel like it because I resent authoritarian schedules and want to eat on my own time, thank you very much. I can go 14 hours without “doing my business,” I sleep all morning long without waking my moms, and I don’t shed, which means that I never cause Julie any wheezing fits.

Best of all, however, I am the World’s Greatest Traveler.

That’s why I’m eminently qualified to write this blog post. Some of you readers may be weighing the possibility of taking a long road trip with your dogs. Worry no longer. I, the World’s Greatest Traveler, am about to generously share my wisdom, tips, and experience with you so that you will be fully prepared for the extravaganza. If you don’t care one iota about this subject, please stop reading now and wait for Paula’s next blog, which, with July 4 coming up, will undoubtedly be about something patriotic. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.

***

Route:

One note: I prefer to use the term ’cross-country trip for our escapades, even though technically we do not drive all the way from coast to coast. (Please don’t blast me on Twitter for this slight irregularity of language!) Our trips are generally from San Francisco to Louisville, Kentucky — a distance of about 2,500 miles.

Before we leave home, my moms spend a lot of time discussing which way we’re going — the northern route along Interstate 80 (through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Nebraska) or the southern route along I-40, much of which parallels Route 66 (through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma). Although Louisville is a bit north of San Francisco (bet you didn’t know that!), both routes involve about the same number of driving hours (around 36), and both end up taking us into Missouri, through St. Louis, and on to Louisville.

Northern pros:

Gorgeous high-mountain scenery
Higher speed limits
Really nice rest stops with grass where I can do my business

Northern cons:

Between Reno and Salt Lake City, there just ain’t much going on
Tortuous interstate driving through the Rockies, often with gale-force winds
Hundreds of miles between towns
Colder

Southern pros:

Follows Route 66 (this is huuuuuge for Paula)
More In-N-Out Burgers (a big plus for me – more on this later)
More towns
Oklahoma – so clean and friendly!
Warmer

Southern cons:

Many closed and/or undesirable rest areas through Arizona and New Mexico, with “pet areas” that are just patches of thorns and brittle weeds
Only one rest stop in Texas
More sketchy hotels

Julie likes the northern route because of the rest areas and because she feels safer. Paula likes the southern route because of Route 66 and because she feels safer. These gals just do not make sense.

The ideal situation is that we follow one route coming and the other going. But the reality is that we take most of our trips in the fall and winter when the weather across the mountains is typically dicey. So Paula usually wins.

***

Packing:

Paula, of course, has compiled packing checklists for every kind of trip and every city, and apparently there is a “Buster” checklist as well. Although they pretend to adhere to these lists religiously, the bottom line is that my moms are not exactly fashion mavens and they really don’t need to bring much.

Eddie Bauer Infinity Travex shirt_c Eddie Bauer — Eddie Bauer Infinity Travex shirt

Paula has a dozen Eddie Bauer Infinity shirts, in different colors, that never wear out; she wears them every day she travels. They absolutely never wrinkle even if you wad them up in a tiny ball, which is how she packs.

Julie is widely known for wearing shorts and a t-shirt without fail, no matter what the weather, even in a blizzard.

I, however, am high-maintenance and require a multitude of items.

First and foremost I have a little red travel bag that carries my toys, collapsible food and water bowls, ear infection medicine (just in case), hypoallergenic shampoo, comb and scissors, toothbrush, my medical and licensing paperwork (you should always carry those with you on a trip!), a bell to hang on people’s doors so I can ring it when I need to go out (yeah, you read that right!), food and treats, poop bags, and a belly band with Maxi Pads.

That last item is a bit embarrassing for me to talk about. You see, when I was young I used to occasionally pee in people’s houses (but only if they had let their own dogs pee there, which made me think the whole house was a bathroom). It made sense to me but my moms were always mortified, so their dogwalker friend Al suggested that they put a belly band around me with a lady’s Maxi Pad in it to cover my you-know-what and soak up any leaks. They’ve done this for years even though I have outgrown that habit, and the whole scenario has been an insult to my masculinity and a source of many triggers for me.

Behind the front seat my moms keep my leash and harness, bottled H₂O, and a little water dish. Sometimes I am just too bull-headed to drink outside the car so Julie actually fills the bowl and holds it while I lap from the convenience of my prone position in the back seat. I’ve heard some people comment that that’s the height of entitlement but I consider it to be a luxury well deserved.

Oh, and Julie bought me a portable sunshade that suction-cups onto the side window. Nice!

We have a mid-sized SUV, and I ride in the back, on a fuzzy bolstered car seat for my ultimate comfort and so I don’t slip around. My dog bed – covered with my 49ers blanket (to show off my San Francisco cred) – is back there, and on the road I spend most of my time in that bed.

005_Buster staring from back seat_December 16, 2017 — I just want to hop into the front seat SO bad!

Now, before you all start a Twitter campaign against my moms: yes, it’s true that they do not restrain me in the back seat. But here’s the thing: I don’t accept any form of restraint. I simply will not stand for it. Many seats and leashes and crash-safe harnesses have been tried on me, and I’ve refused them all. They’re just a royal pain in the culo. (Remember my aforementioned six-hour sit-in when my moms tried to force me to wear a collar in our house.) But because I am the World’s Greatest Traveler, I do not stick my head out the window. I do not pace. I do not pant. I do not cry. I do not bark. I do not stand up on the seat. That behavior is for boors. I just lie quietly in my bed, for hours and hours on end. So my moms figure that since I am always lying down, the chances of my being thrown through the windshield are negligible. And we do have side air bags. They did, though, buy a mesh thing to stretch across the gap between the front seats. Otherwise I will spring onto their laps mid-ride whenever I am scared out of my wits by road grooves, passing motorcycles, or that true horror of horrors, moving windshield wipers.

Mac Sports Collapsible Utility Wagon_c Amazon — Mac Sports Collapsible Utility Wagon

Because of Paula’s bad sacroiliac and poor packing abilities, Julie is in charge of loading and unloading the car. She strategically fits all of our suitcases into the back of the car, along with an ice chest, pillows, case of water, and finally her amazing collapsible red wagon. She bought this thing because standard hotel luggage carts are too wobbly and hard to steer, not to mention that they’re not always available. Paula originally had many a laugh about this wagon but now has come to eat her words and admire its utility.

When we arrive at the hotel each night, we load all this stuff – plus my dog bed – into the room. It’s a lot. At least, for expediency, my moms put all their road clothes and sundries into one little yellow duffle bag so that they never have to root through multiple suitcases. Very smart. Oh, and here’s another tip: be sure to put your lotion and other sundries bottles in plastic bags because, Honey, otherwise they will explode all over your clothes when you get up at altitudes above sea level!

***

Food:

You know, every time we’re about to leave on a ’cross-country road trip, I hear one or both of my moms utter these exact words: “This time for sure, we cannot have fast food for lunch every day we’re on the road. We need to bring healthy food from home, eat low-cal Subway sandwiches, or stop at cute little places along the way. So this time will be different, right?” Then we proceed to have fast-food burgers every single day for lunch.

Our favorite joint is In-N-Out Burger. Unfortunately, along our routes they’re found only in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Utah. Because we love them so, when we’re in those states we try to schedule our daily drives around their locations, especially because I am an ardent fan of their “puppy patty.” It’s just the right size, unseasoned, with a fairly low level of grease, unlike that gigantic greasy patty I recently ate at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company that made me retch. That’s the last time we’ll do THAT!

If In-N-Outs aren’t available, we’ll grudgingly get a Subway sandwich or go to McDonald’s, which is the Switzerland of fast food for my moms because they simply cannot agree on any other chain. It’s so odd, though: they go in to McDonald’s really excited and after they’re done eating they’re consumed with guilt and shame. Honestly, I don’t understand people at all.

Meanwhile, we do eat well at dinner. In our hotel room, my moms always put out a delicious spread of what they call their “Tuscan meal”: rosemary crackers, cheese, almonds, prosciutto, salame, wine, and maybe a bit of chocolate. Unfortunately, they force me to eat dog food.

***

101_Buster_Beetle Bailey statue, University of Missouri_Columbia, MO_Road Trip, Spring 2019 — Hoisting a brewskie with Beetle Bailey, University of Missouri, Columbia

Lodging:

Although I consider it to be blatant discrimination, many hotels do not allow pets to grace their premises. So it’s good to have some kind of idea which hotel chains allow dogs. Paula – OF COURSE – keeps a database of all our road trip lodging. The database not only includes comprehensive notes on every aspect of the hotels, but it also assigns a star rating to each establishment.

La Quinta Inns & Suites, until earlier this year, allowed pets to stay for free. But they were acquired by Wyndham a few months ago, and now each location is allowed to determine what, if anything, to charge. They’re still a great value and are our go-to hotels.
Best Western pet policies vary, but fees usually don’t top $20.
Drury Inn & Suites, recommended by our friend Val, charge $35 per pet and have weight restrictions. (For pets, not people!) Paula loves them because they offer free cookies, free popcorn, and a free “dinner” (of questionable quality, but heck, it’s free and it’s food) including two glasses apiece of wine, beer, or liquor!
We really love Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites, with pet fees that range from $25 up. Three days a week, they even offer free dinner and drinks (except in Wyoming, where for some reason they legally can’t serve booze).
At many hotel chains, like Holiday Inn Express or Embassy Suites, pet fees (if they allow pets at all) vary by location. In Tulsa, the Embassy Suites charges $50. Paula says that’s the most she’d consider paying for me because I don’t shed, I don’t do my business in the room, and I cause zero damage. Again, I am the World’s Greatest Traveler.
Some places, like Homewood Suites and most or all of the Marriott hotels, charge fees like $150 per pet, and that’s just plain old highway robbery, as my hero Rin Tin Tin used to say.

Please note that most of these hotel chains include “Suites” in their names. This, my friends, is the number-one key to a good hotel experience with your dog. As soon as we discovered that La Quinta suites are only $10 more per night than the regular rooms, we vowed never to get a regular room again. My moms like having a table – or at least a coffee table – where they eat their dinner. More importantly, I really appreciate having a lot of space in which to run around, and the closed door between the bedroom and living room is a great buffer from any hallway noise, leaving me less of an incentive to bark at night and guaranteeing my moms some peaceful sleep.

(But one bit of warning: make sure it’s a “one-bedroom suite” or “two-room suite.” A “king suite” or “king studio suite” usually just means there’s a low partition between the bedroom and couch areas. What good is that??)

003_La Quinta, north Bakersfield_Buster — I was sad to leave this hotel because I loved that other dog who was in the room. Goodbye, little friend!

Each night, my moms typically reserve a room for the next night. They usually book the room online and then call the hotel to make sure everything went through. They also make this call because – and this is a word of warning – some sites and apps allow you to reserve a room at a pet-friendly place, but when you get there you find out that the specific room or suite you booked is not pet-friendly. So insulting.

Oh, and by the way, some hotels on our latest trip, even though they had pet fees, didn’t charge for me. Although my moms puzzled over the lack of these charges on their credit card bill, I’m convinced it was because I’m so charming.

036_Tucumcari, NM_tractor_Buster 1 — My moms were running low on money, so they offered up my labor to a shady character in Tucumcari who did not meet my approval.

***

On the road:

When our vacation time was limited because Julie was still working, and before Paula’s back got so bad, we would drive about 9 hours a day and eat a drive-through lunch in the car, which meant we were on the road for probably about 11 hours a day when you add in all the gasoline and rest stops. Ugh. Now it’s more leisurely, and we make sure to drive no more than 6 hours a day, changing drivers every hour or so.

And remember that driving east we jump ahead an hour as we cross into each time zone, so on those days we have less time to drive if we want to pull into the hotel by dinnertime. Driving westbound allows us more flexibility.

If it’s a weekday, we have to base our departure and arrival times on rush hour, at least in the major cities. So in the mornings we often wait out the rush and leave at 9:30 a.m. Julie watches the news while Paula, who heaves and gags whenever she watches cable news, sips a cup of decaf and reads a book. Then Paula takes me on a long walk around the hotel, allowing me the daily satisfaction of peeing on every vertical object in sight. Julie, meanwhile, packs up the SUV.

086_Bluebird Cafe, Nashville_Buster 2 — I laid down a killer solo gig at the Bluebird Café in Nashville.

I’m always really eager to get in the car every morning. I love the drive. I love the gas stations. I love the rest stops. Periodically, we get off the highway to track down some bit of Americana or another that Paula has read about somewhere. If we’re going the southern route, most of the attractions are on Route 66. In the north, Paula uses her “Roadside America” app, which she claims is the most useful app she owns. (I guess she’s not counting her beloved “Rest Stops Plus” app.) Anyway, my moms typically pose me in these historic places, and because I am the World’s Greatest Traveler, I resignedly humor them.

And when we pull into each new hotel every night, I am nearly overcome with anticipation. I love trotting through the lobby. I love getting on the elevator. I love sniffing under the door of each room down the hallway, trying to figure out which one is ours. Then, when we throw open the door to our own luxurious suite, I love rubbing my face on every square inch of the place, to establish my dominance. O, the rapture!

***

044_Williams, AZ_Buster 3_December 31, 2017 — On Route 66 in Williams, AZ, I found myself in an authoritative position. The town lawman was suddenly called away and for some reason I was quickly appointed sheriff! So I had to guard these characters until everything got sorted out. At least they showed their appreciation by giving me the key to the city before we left.

I love the open road, and I love smelling every new town all across America. I’ve stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. Seen cowboys in New Mexico. Visited the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Admired the Mickey Mantle statue in Commerce, Oklahoma. Sat under the world’s biggest rocking chair in Cuba, Missouri. Stumbled upon a neighborhood tribute to Negro League ballplayer Buck O’Neil in Kansas City. Eaten barbecue in Nashville. Tromped through a pumpkin patch in Indiana. Paid veterans my respects on the Purple Heart Trail. Posed next to the Lincoln Highway monument in Wyoming. Walked along the shore of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Sat on an antique trail wagon in Elko, Nevada.

I’ve ridden past the colorful deserts, ranging farmland, rugged mountains, sweet-smelling forests, and meandering trains covering this great land.

I’ve been everywhere, man.

008_Poseyville, IN_Buster 2_December 17, 2017

018_Buster_La Quinta, Gallup, NM_Road Trip, Spring 2019

023_Buster_Twisted Tulip pig, Vega, TX_Road Trip, Spring 2019

043_Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo, Texas_Buster 1

122_Buster_Elko, NV_Road Trip, Spring 2019

022_Buster_route 66 shield, Vega, TX_Road Trip, Spring 2019

036_Heartland Pet Food, Joplin, MO_Buster_December 29, 2017

037_Grants, NM_Buster 1_December 30, 2017

116_Buster_Bonneville Salt Flats, UT_Road Trip, Spring 2019

197_October 31_Winslow, Arizona_Julie, Buster, Paula

3/12/72 [age 16]:

“I’m ashamed now that I had to be such a quitter [at skiing] yesterday. And I had to be so clumsy when Colleen and Tony were doing so well. Anyway, this morning [at Bear Valley] we went to the recreation area and had snowball fights. And oh, yes, we rode on a snowmobile out to the lodge and watched Clint (what a doll!) Eastwood and Ron (what a bod!) Ely play tennis.”

2/11/72 [age 16]:

“My First Date by PRB. Okay, so now I’ll tell you about Thursday night. It was our last night game [of my high school football team]. SOB, SOB. Anyway, Jerry asked if he could take me and for some inexplicable reason they [my parents] actually let me. . . . Afterwards, we went to Shakeys in Milpitas. A whole mess of PH [my high school] kids go there after night games, I found out. You should have seen their reactions [because I was the principal’s daughter]. The whole place just stared at us. I heard some comments. And Jerry said everybody always says “hi” to him but only one person did. They were the swingers – cheerleaders, songgirls, hard guys. They think I’m a goody-goody. ‘You have to prove you’re not,’ Jerry said. Well, I am A-1 confused. I am torn, because what do I do? Act contrary to my nature so I can be ‘accepted’? Or stay goody-goody and never fit and still go without dates? Sure, Jerry’s available, but I don’t like him that much, and the guys I do like, well, they don’t have the nerve to ask out PRINCIPAL’S DAUGHTER.”

2/14/72 [age 16]:

“Now that my first date is over with and the novelty is worn off, I’ve been kind of depressed. I wish Pat Sears would come back. He’s the only guy I’ve ever really liked. Maybe this summer. Jerry asked me to eat [lunch] with him again today and I said okay but I’m not going to tomorrow because he is bound to get the wrong impression. He is all right but I wouldn’t want him for steady company. Gosh, I’m sleepy. Zzzzzzz….”

2/18/72 [age 16]:

“Well, I had my second date tonight. All we did was go to the [basketball] game and then to Straw Hat Pizza again. Somehow I didn’t think it would ever be like this. Jerry is okay, but is really a baby. If only Pat Sears would come back. There is a rule in adolescent love: those you like like you not, and those who like you you like not.”

2/22/72 [age 16]:

“Today I have finally advanced from the rank of super goodie-goodie to beginning bad guy. I actually cut class. Jeanne and I went to the [school] library and sat down and looked at ‘The Chronicle.’ ”

2/23/72 [age 16]:

“I keep thinking about our basketball game. I only got to play the second half. But I didn’t make ANY points. I missed two shots and two free throws. In practice I am really super-fantastic, but in a game I get really nervous. My hands get all sweaty and everything. I just can’t hit. And I’m always so worried about what people are going to think of me. I get really embarrassed when I make a mistake. We lost 57-7. What a cream!”

2/25/72 [age 16]:

“I can’t explain why, but a big wave of depression has come over me lately. This time it is so deep it is threatening to drown me completely. I can’t get out. I’ve been actually considering running away. I am really surprised at myself. I don’t know where to yet, and it can’t be right away because of school, but I don’t want to go to college! I have my doubts. I don’t really need it. I’ll be so young [16]. Maybe I should wait a year. I just am too young. I realize now how sheltered I have been. I really don’t know what the world is like, and I’ve had no experience with it. I was talking to Mr. Barisich [my dad’s associate principal and a family friend] and he said he didn’t think people should go to college until age 24. He said if he were me he’d be “scared as hell,” not because of the academic competition but because of social adjustment. He told me I have a lot of thinking to do. I LOVE Mr. Barisich. This old college fear is weighing on me so heavily. I need SOME ANSWERS!!! And wow, I’m already 16 and never been kissed.”

3/9/72 [age 16]:

“Dad [also the principal of my high school] found out about Senior Cut Day, which was supposed to be tomorrow, and really threatened us over the P.A. today, saying they would make house calls and maybe take away the Senior Ball and Senior Picnic, etc. But what got me is Marc and Colleen both told me that everybody thinks I was the one who finked!”

A whole new ballgame

There’s a moment, as you’re heading to a Giants game from the west side of town, when your Muni train rises out of the darkness of the Market Street tunnel and rumbles into the sunlight.

It’s a moment I always anticipate, but this time it was particularly meaningful.

Until recently I didn’t know whether I’d be able to get to the ballpark this year. Typically I attend all the Giants weekday afternoon games, but for the last six months I’ve been suffering from savage nerve pain. For those long months I felt as though my eyes had been burned raw from the inside out, preventing me from seeing one ounce of beauty in the world around me.

But as fall became winter and turned again into spring, slowly and almost imperceptibly I started to get better. The murky tunnel in which I’d been existing started to recede behind me. I could finally start to clutch the world around me and feel the sensations of each moment clearly. It was time to take in a ballgame.

***

When the T-Third Street train climbs out of the tunnel and onto the city’s surface streets, the sun emerges like a gift, and the vivid appearance of San Francisco’s people and textures makes you feel like you’re passing through the opening curtain of a sumptuous play.

It was a cloudless April afternoon. As our train poked its head out onto the Embarcadero, my very first sight was the magnificent, colorful “Cupid’s Span” sculpture sitting romantically on the shore, its red arrow partially drawn. Tourist boats and cargo ships went about their business. Scores of people strolled along the promenade towards the stadium, past the piers, past the palm trees, past the choppy waters of the bay. Most of them were dressed in orange and black, all of them hopeful and happy.

We got off near the main entrance to the ballpark. Our animated crossing guard was earnestly attentive to the elderly, and to parents with children. We all felt protected. Everyone was chatting. Our friend Mona remarked that just being there lifted her spirits. I said that it felt like we were about to enter the enchanting gates of Disneyland.

***

Once we got inside, Mona mentioned that it was our mutual friend Holly’s birthday. Holly was a fervent Giants fan who passed away from cancer 11 years ago at a much too young age. She was also a tequila lover, so we immediately determined that our very first order of business was to have some shots in her honor. Bellied up to the bar, we clinked a toast and Mona downed a shot of fancy tequila while Julie and I each slammed back a jigger of Maker’s Mark. Moments later, as we weaved our way along, Mona blurted out that man, she was really feeling that tequila. I suddenly realized that I was almost blind with liquor. “I can’t see! I can’t see!” I kept yelling, laughing.

It had been a long time since I had quaffed a shot of booze. I felt like a swaggering buckaroo in a Nevada saloon. The day got warmer.

***

People who claim that the best seats are right behind home plate are not necessarily true baseball fans, especially at the Giants ballpark. I recently heard Mike Krukow, one of the team’s announcers, say that if he could sit anywhere he wanted, outside of the announcer’s booth, he would sit in the upper deck, first base side.

I agree, and that’s my chosen spot. It gives me a bird’s-eye view of the entire stadium, the huge fiberglass glove and Coke bottle behind the left field bleachers, the retired numbers of the greatest Giants ballplayers, and the World Series flags whipping in the wind. Beyond lies the bay, dabbed with sailboats. The dramatic white span of the Bay Bridge is visible east of Yerba Buena Island. And standing far in the distance are the gently rolling hills of the East Bay.

***

I always insist on grabbing my Sierra Nevada beer and my Crazy Crab Sandwich early so that I can be at my seat when the National Anthem is played. And yes, I know that my favorite sports meal usually involves a hot dog. But there’s nothing in San Francisco quite like crab and sourdough.

The bread, I believe, might be the best thing about the crab sandwiches at the ballpark. The Boudin sourdough is cut thinly and spread with a mixture of garlic, parsley, and butter. Inside lies the sweet, tender Dungeness crab, mixed with a hint of lemon juice and a light bit of mayo to keep it together. Ripe red tomato slices rest on top of the crab. The whole thing is then toasted to a golden brown and served hot. God help me!

***

We were at our seats on time. A school band from Healdsburg began playing the Anthem. Hand on heart, I looked to the right of the scoreboard, out in deep center field just behind Triples Alley. Yes, our flag was still there.

I thought about the past six months and the unrelenting nerve pain that had sizzled through my body. I thought about all of the times I had considered giving up completely. Who would care, I actually wondered at one point. But working against that desperation was a reserve of patience, strength, and will that I never knew I had. And when I was at my very lowest, the phone would often ring. That does it. A surprise phone call. A suggestion. A kind word. My beautiful friends and family. “I believe in you,” one of them said. “I believe in your ability to cope.” Thank you, thank you, thank you.

***

Our seats were in full sun. I felt safe. I’d left almost all of my pain behind me in the tunnel.

Our long-postponed road trip to Kentucky would be happening soon. The thought made me smile.

A cool breeze came in softly off the bay. A lone seagull flew white against the blue sky.

The players had taken the field.

I settled back and slowly brought my cup of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale to my lips. Its hue was a vivid amber, its fragrance clean like the clear crisp water of the Cascades. I took my first baseball sip. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

***

3/11/72 [age 16]:

“My cold is still fairly bad but I am up here at Azama’s and Moore’s cabin anyway. . . . Skiing [at Bear Valley] wasn’t really that fun. Until lunch we were mainly trying to stay on our feet. It takes really long to get up if you fall. I was really a klutz, and Mrs. Espinosa was a chicken, so we stayed on the beginner’s slope. Mrs. Moore kept on repeating, “Why did you fall?” It made me mad. Then I got so hungry I could eat a bear. Luckily, lunch was fantastic. They had made us delicious sandwiches and I ate five of them. Miss Azama told me that skiing uses a lot of energy and that’s why I ate five sandwiches. After lunch we watched the Celebrity Ski Race, and I snuck under the tape and got pictures of Clint Eastwood and Peter Graves up close! Unbelievable! In the morning they made us something called sourdough pancakes and I had 13 of them. They were fantastic.”

2/7/72 [age 16]:

“Last year I saw a skiing movie in English called ‘Ski the Outer Limits’ and it was so beautiful I was hooked right then and there. Well, Miss Azama and Mrs. Moore asked Colleen, me, and Marie Ehrling, our Swedish foreign exchange student, to go up to their cabin for a weekend in March. I can’t wait. They’re going to teach us to ski. It’s going to cost us $15. They said the first day is the worst. I may, with my great coordination, find myself wrapped around a tree.”

2/6/72 [age 16]:

“This guy named Jerry in my English class has this crush on me. But I’m not going to spread it around like I did with Jeff last year. Jerry is kind of a baby but he’s nice. He’s played basketball with me a lot after school. And he sits in English and throws paper wads at me. Romantic, huh?”

2/5/72 [age 16]:

“You see, I don’t believe in finals. All they do is test a bunch of facts.”

2/4/72 [age 16]:

“We went to see ‘Dirty Harry.’ It was [my brother] Marc’s and mine first ‘R’ movie and [my sister] Janine saw it. Can you believe that? When I was eleven I got to see really good movies, like ‘The Love Bug.’ ”

I don’t want a pickle

I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to borrow my brother’s truck and head down to Los Angeles on Highway 5 when I didn’t know how to drive a stick shift.

It was August of 1986. I was living out in the avenues in San Francisco, working as a freelance editor and proofreader for a variety of publishing houses but mostly for an advertising agency called West End Studios. It was a giddy time. Work was easy, I was dating like a drunken sailor, I managed a softball team, and it was not uncommon for us to close down a bar after polishing off endless pitchers of cheap beer, only to get up four hours later to go to work.

One of my West End cohorts – a diminutive Irish woman from the Sunset District named Lori – drove a motorcycle all over town and had given me a few rides, often on our lunch hour. Something about carrying a helmet around made me feel like a tough chick. So I decided that, in my wildest dreams, I’d like to own a motorcycle. But of course I didn’t have the dough.

Then our receptionist Maria told me that her sister wanted to sell a 1982 red Honda Passport C70. Those little three-speed bikes were the cutest things ever. The engines were only 70cc, so I knew I could pick the bike up with one hand. The 44 mph top speed, too, would be great for tooling around the City. I had to have that Honda.

***

The only snag was that Maria’s sister lived in Los Angeles. I would need to pick up the bike and somehow transport it back to San Francisco – a task that my Toyota Corolla obviously could not handle. So my brother Marc agreed to lend me his truck.

Oh, wait, there was a second snag. His truck had a manual transmission.

Now, I’d driven a standard transmission once before – six years earlier, when I’d tooled around the country with a girlfriend in an old ’67 VW bus. But its skinny, on-the-floor gear shift was about three feet long, and we really didn’t even have to engage the clutch when we shifted. Honestly, that thing just drove no matter what. So I had not acquired the delicate skill of engaging a clutch in its normal tiny window of kinetic mystery, especially when starting out from neutral into first gear.

But, whatever. I breezily decided that I would somehow wrangle that truck down to L.A., stopping only once at a gas station. That seemed like a great plan, although I’d forgotten that when I got into Los Angeles I would be forced to brake at red lights.

Amazingly, my “frighteningly inept drive down to L.A.,” as my diary reports, yielded no dramatics except for my embarrassing, multiple attempts to clumsily get the vehicle in gear after the gas station stop. Once off the freeway I somehow managed never to come to a halt again until I reached my grandparents’ house in La Crescenta. I accomplished this by a) making dozens of unnecessary rolling right turns when I came to red lights, or b) approaching the red lights at an anemic 15 mph crawl so that I never had to come to a complete stop.

Long story short, I brought my grandfather and my uncle, in my uncle’s truck, to buy the bike. Once there, Maria’s airhead sister had the audacity to suddenly declare that she didn’t think she really wanted to sell the Honda after all. In my ensuing rage I let her know that that change of heart was simply not an option. She took one look at my muscular uncle and burly grandfather and decided to back down.

I don’t remember the trip back to San Francisco at all, and my diary makes no mention of it. But my experience with the truck wasn’t over. Before returning it to my brother, I parked in the UCSF indoor lot when I went to get one of my endless series of allergy shots. Afterwards, when I began to back the truck out of its space, an explosive “BOOM” shook me, the truck, and even the concrete walls of the parking lot. I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to engage the clutch when I put the truck in Reverse. Oops. Oh, well. I was unconcerned. I didn’t think it was any big deal.

The truck seemed perfectly fine after that, and it ran like a trooper. A day or so after it was back in my brother’s hands, though, he called me. “Say, did anything happen while you had the truck?” he asked me. “It won’t go into Reverse.”

I had ruined the transmission. It cost my brother $1,000. And for reasons I will never fathom, he didn’t ask me to pay him back.

***

Everyone called my little bike a scooter or, even worse, a moped, but it was technically a motorcycle. A “hog,” as I preferred to call it. Unlike scooters, the Honda C70s were straddled like a motorcycle, had a manual gear shift, and ran on motorcycle-sized tires. I was required, in fact, to get an M1 motorcycle license, which in those days was not required of scooter riders.

Man, I loved getting on that bike and taking off flying through the streets of San Francisco. I felt light as a feather, and with those large-size tires I could lean into every curve with ease and speed. The open air was bracing. My leather jacket had a sensual, earthy rasp. On any random street I could catch whiffs of fried rice, pizza, sizzling steak, baking sourdough. I loved passing by laundromats and smelling the warm, comforting fragrance of running dryers. The Haight was a wash of patchouli. In Golden Gate Park the temperature dropped 10 degrees immediately, and the Monterey pines and minty eucalyptus would clear your lungs like Vapo-Rub. Out by the beach, the air was salty, the fog thick and fresh.

***

I’ve always been a good driver, but I became a much better one on that bike. I knew that the majority of motorcycle accidents occur when automobiles turn left directly into the path of the cycle, so I was always acutely aware of that possibility. But I also became extraordinarily defensive and anticipatory. I learned, for example, to watch drivers’ eyes in their rearview mirrors. Their eyes told me what they were considering, so when drivers were about to change lanes right on top of me, I could slow down preemptively. At the same time, I constantly had to scour the road ahead of me for potholes, puddles, and other hazards. It all required fine-tuned coordination.

Nevertheless, I was involved in three accidents on that bike. One day I’d just started home from a work party near Levi’s Plaza after drinking a glass of wine. Three sets of unused railroad tracks, part of the defunct State Belt Railroad that once served San Francisco’s waterfront, converged in an angular pattern outside in the mist, and the bike and I tipped over as I tried to cross them. Slippery and oddly angled tracks are a cyclist’s nightmare no matter what, but I vowed never again to consume any alcohol before getting on the bike. Luckily I was probably going only about 5 mph, and I wasn’t hurt.

untitled — A perfect example of what not to cross on a bike

Another time I was downtown making a turn from the left lane when a driver in the middle lane decided to turn left illegally, right on top of me. He hit me at a very slow speed and dragged me a bit before I fell over, at which point a homeless man came running over, helped me up, picked up the bike, and vehemently cursed the driver, who had pulled over about half a block away but never got out of his car. I thanked the homeless man profusely. Since that day, I’ve always felt differently about street people.

The last incident involved Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was stopped at a light on my way home from work in the middle of the day because I felt ill. Looking up, I noticed a KFC, and despite my flu-like symptoms I started reminiscing about the delicious sliders they used to make called Chicken Littles. “I wish I could have a Chicken Little right now,” I was thinking. “My friends could never believe that I’d order five of those things and . . . ” WHAM! I was flat on my back on the asphalt. A car had hit me from behind so directly that the bike just lurched straight ahead and I flew right over the handlebars. The driver, who’d been daydreaming, was extremely distraught, told me he rode a motorcycle himself, and insisted on giving me his business card even though I insisted I was okay. An ambulance happened to be parked right there, and the EMTs rushed over and checked me out right in the middle of the street because apparently they were bound to by law. Eventually I drove home just fine, albeit shaken up, and all I had to show for it were a bruised ankle, sore legs, and torn pants. The Honda, as always, was fine. That little thing had nine lives.

***

My bike and I went through a lot together. For 25 years it was my standard transportation to work – to Levi’s Plaza, to downtown, to south of Market, and to the Civic Center. I was riding home from the State Building when the big earthquake of ’89 hit. The tremor threw the Honda and me into the next lane but I stayed on like a cowboy and we were both unscathed. (See, however, my previous blog post, Shakin’ All Over, about an embarrassing situation involving the quake, my bike, and my standing in my apartment doorway with nothing on but my helmet.)

Together we rode in more than one Pride Parade, and at times my bike was the only tiny entrant among a massive horde of roaring motorcycles. The happy crowd loved us.

I rode it to play flag football in Golden Gate Park. It brought me and my drumsticks to my early days of band practice. I could park it anywhere, so I often took it to North Beach, where I could pick up some focaccia at Liguria bakery and a book of beat poetry at City Lights bookstore and never once have to circle a block.

I’ve never felt more connected to San Francisco than I did then. I miss those days.

Paula and Kelly in Parade-1 — With Kelly Tipton, Pride parade, June 1995

***

Taking my bike to and from work every day provided me with more than just the joy of the ride. It was a way for me to actually look forward to the daily grind, as well as to wind down afterwards. It got me outdoors. It got me in tune with the city I loved so much.

When I left the house in the morning it was about 6:30 a.m., dark, and often biting cold. (And that was in the summer!) I wore a leather jacket and gloves, of course, as well as my full-face helmet, but they weren’t always adequate protection. My gloves, in particular, didn’t keep my hands completely warm because I have a benign but annoying condition called Raynaud’s disease. My hands don’t get enough blood circulation in cold weather and my fingers lose their color and feel like they’re growing numb with frostbite. It can be quite painful, so I developed a chant that I repeated loudly into my helmet to take my mind off the piercing pain in my fingers:

“I can’t wait to get to work
’Cause it’s so f—ing cold.
It’s so f—ing,
It’s so f—ing,
It’s so f—ing cold.”

It’s not very imaginative, and I don’t know why I decided to use the “f” word considering I typically don’t use it in my everyday life, but it definitely helped.

I also had another trick up my sleeve. When it was really cold, I stayed right behind a big truck, and its exhaust would warm me. No matter how slowly a truck chugged up the hills, I refused to pass, hugging closely to its maternal warmth.

***

A few years ago, the engine on my little bike finally gave out, and when I tried to get it repaired, the mechanic told me that so many tiny pieces were involved that “it wouldn’t be worth it” for me to get it fixed. I begged to differ, thinking that it might well be worth it to me if he would only give me a price, but he refused. I think he just didn’t want to bother doing the work.

Then I heard about a place south of Market, owned by a guy who worked only on old Hondas. He suggested that he install an aftermarket engine for me. I excitedly agreed, but the bike was never the same after that. The kickstarter was so stiff that I didn’t have the strength to engage it. To make matters worse, the new engine had four gears rather than three, with the gears in a reverse position from my old bike. I just couldn’t get used to it. My muscle memory was too ingrained. I’d shift down into first gear when I thought I was shifting up into third, and my bike would smoke and skid for yards down the street. It made me terrified to ride it. Meanwhile I had aged, and I knew that a fall off my bike would no longer mean that I’d pick it up and head on home. It would mean multiple injuries and maybe a hospital stay.

So I knew I had to sell it. It broke my heart.

***

When you weigh the pros and cons of owning a motorcycle, the pros are spiritual but the cons are practical. These days, I don’t see as many motorcycles or scooters on the streets of San Francisco. It makes perfect practical sense. “You know,” I say to Julie every month or so, “you’d almost have to be a fool to ride a motorcycle here these days. The City has become much more dangerous for bikes. The number of cars on the street has nearly doubled, thanks to the influx of tech company employees and the rise in Lyft and Uber drivers, who generally live out of town and have no idea where they’re going as they clog up our streets. Not to mention all the drivers distracted by their phones. No amount of good defensive driving can predict what the heck a distracted driver will do next.”

But the spiritual part . . . the smells, the freedom, the road, the rush of air, the adrenaline, the joy . . . . how do you let that go?

Sym Wolf Classic 150 — SYM Wolf Classic 150

A couple of weeks ago, on my way home from a PT appointment, I saw a truly beautiful motorcycle cruise by our car. “Hurry up,” I demanded of Julie, “and drive alongside that bike so I can see what it is.” It turned out to be the SYM Wolf Classic 150. Gorgeous. Diminutive. Just the right size for a feeble dame like me. Enough to get up the hills, but not enough to take on the freeway. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Hmm. I’ve kept up my requirements and still have a license to drive a motorcycle.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

***

I want to thank all the people who sent me such kind suggestions and good wishes after I posted January’s blog. My short update is that I am finally feeling at least 50 percent better, and I no longer have times of despair, which is absolutely wonderful. I’m seeing two physical therapists and hoping that they can get me back to feeling 100 percent really soon. I’ll keep everyone posted.

***

1/31/72 [age 16]: [Note: I was the editor of our school newspaper and this was back in the dark ages when our copy went off to a typesetter and came back to us to manually lay out]

“On Wednesday we get the copy back and have to paste it all up to get everything to fit properly, cut things down, make sure it’s all straight. Then we have to correct the mistakes our rotten printer makes, and we have to cut out each teeny letter and paste on the right one. That’s murder with my tremendous coordination.”

1/19/72 [age 16]:

“I got my Learner’s Permit today, 100% on the written test, passed eye test (miracle). When I came home I couldn’t find it and I thought I left it in A-3, called school, Mr. B looked, said no deal. I was in a panic. Decided to check my purse once more. It was there? Sho’ ’nuff.”

1/15/72 [age 16]:

“I think I must be very lucky. I am physically healthy. My mind is efficient. I’m athletic. I have good parents and brother and sister. I like my friends and my school. I have almost everything I want – a bike, good music, and good grades. I go a lot of places. And I’m at least average-looking.”

1/13/72 [age 16]:

“Gosh, tomorrow is my Driver’s Training test. LET US PRAY. But I made two major mistakes in driving today. I was quite clutzy on the ‘Y’ turn. Also I sort of moved toward the left down one road and didn’t look toward the side. This car was there. I would have hit him if Mr. Locicero hadn’t stopped me. Oh, wow, bad deal.”

1/11/72 [age 16]:

“[In Driver’s Training] We went on the freeway today. At one point I got up to 72 m.p.h. When I looked at that speedometer, believe me, I slowed down in a hurry! Look in your mirror every 5 seconds, stay on the road, watch for lane changers . . . when you’re doing 60 or 65 it’s hard to watch all that at the same time. I’m alive, but it doesn’t seem like I’m too satisfied with myself. I’m going to be so nervous on test day I may die.”

1/10/72 [age 16]:

“I guess I was a little rusty at Driver’s Training today. First I forgot to take the parking brake off. And he had to tell me where one red light was; my visor was in the way and I couldn’t see the signals. Gosh, darn. And downtown [San Jose] – my God, it was murder. All those horrible, unannounced one-way streets!”

1/9/72 [age 16]:

“We had pheasant for dinner tonight. I don’t believe we should shoot them. I remember when [my brother] Marc first got his BB gun. I used to love shooting army men off the retaining wall out back. Then I kept hoping for a bird to come down. Day after day I waited. Finally a little sparrow landed on the lawn. Marc was saying, ‘Now! Now’s your chance!’ So I looked through the sight and could not shoot. When I looked at that poor helpless creature I vowed NEVER to shoot anything.”

100 days of hard road

Warning: This blog is not written in my usual cheerful tone. It’s bleak. It’s about physical and emotional pain. If you’re in the midst of a hard time yourself, please don’t subject yourself to it. It’s guaranteed to bring you right down.

***

For the last three months, my everyday world has been colored by a feverish red wash of hot, searing pain – nerve pain that has brought me literally to my knees.

It started on October 26, 2018 – the day the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox played in a grueling World Series game that went 18 innings and lasted 7 hours and 20 minutes. I watched every minute of the game from our hotel room in Maui, propped up in bed. Those 7+ hours were my absolute undoing, and they would begin my nightmare.

We’d gone to Maui – a place we normally think of as Paradise – to celebrate Julie’s retirement. But now we wish we’d never made that trip. Paradise turned into hell.

***

I doubt that anyone I know would dispute that throughout my life I’ve suffered from a plethora of embarrassing medical conditions. If this were going to be a funny blog, I would probably list some of them, although perhaps it wouldn’t be prudent and ladylike to do so.

But I’ve decided to open up about my current situation, precisely because it’s not something people ever talk about.

What I suffer from is called pudendal neuralgia, and if you know what “pudendal” means I really don’t have to explain it further. It’s an indescribably severe and terrifying nerve pain – a relentless, crackling burn. And it’s in your pelvic area. Your personal, sensitive “zone.”

The condition is made all the more horrifying by the fact that people who live with it, like me, are too mortified to tell others what the heck is going on. So it’s as lonely as it is devastating.

If you have pudendal neuralgia, people around you see no injury. No cast, no sling, no bandage. Everything looks normal. But you feel like a match is being held to your tissues. And there is no making it go away. You cannot rest. You cannot salve the pain. You want to plunge yourself into ice. Your body crackles; your brain sizzles.

Pudendal neuralgia can afflict both men and women, so it’s not a “lady thing” by any means. Men often get it from riding bicycles for too long a period of time. Typically it happens when the nerve – which runs through your lower back – gets somehow damaged.

The condition is baffling, and there is no guarantee that it will lessen or go away. I constantly ask myself, “Will I have this the rest of my life?”

***

My nerve was damaged 8 years ago, and I live with a very low level of pain every day that I can easily manage. But I’ve had a couple of flareups in the last few years, and while the first one lasted only a couple of weeks, this one has gone on for many months. Foolishly I caused the flareups by lying in bed too long reading or, in the case of last October, watching television – a position that puts too much pressure on my lower back and, as a result, on my surrounding nerves. Since then, I’ve been walking endless excruciating miles of bad road.

[Those damned Dodgers! As if I needed another reason to hate them!]

As I’ve dealt with this latest bout, I’ve discovered that the only position remotely comfortable for me is standing. Imagine not being able to sit down. Julie, always so resourceful, set up a standing desk for me so that I could work at my computer, and she’s bought special cushioned mats for me to stand on. She also found me a “kneeling chair” to help take the pressure off my feet. So I spend my days upright at my desk, reading in the kneeling chair, and walking in loops around the house just to get some exercise. I had been given a Fitbit for my birthday and one day it started buzzing at me, “fireworks” lighting up its screen. I had walked 10,000 steps in my own home, trying to walk the pain away.

The nerve pain gradually gets worse as the day goes by, so there is no way I can see anyone or do anything in the afternoons or evenings. No movies, no plays, no shows, no dinners out, no nothing.

Unfortunately, standing all day has taken its own toll. My knees have started to seize up. My feet are raw. And my back pain has spread. Everything aches, so it’s hard to sleep in a comfortable position. And now, because of nerve “cross-talk,” the bottoms of my feet prickle and burn. My teeth and fists are often clenched from pain. I am simply exhausted.

More than once I’ve gotten down on my knees to pray.

“How am I supposed to live like this?” I asked Julie once.

My friend Char wondered the same thing. “How do you keep your sanity?” she wanted to know.

***

It can be nearly impossible to tell concerned friends and neighbors about my condition. I mean, when my neighbor asks me how I’m doing, I can’t really answer, “Well, Roger, right now my crotch is on fire.”

Some folks believe I should “reach out” to others more when I’m in distress. But that is not my nature. I don’t like bothering people. As my friend Julie R. says, “The drowning person doesn’t reach out! The folks onshore do!” I really love that metaphor, although I’m still trying to figure out whether it completely makes sense.

When close friends and family do check in with me, though, I don’t hide my situation, and I’ve been fortunate that many of them have tried to help with visits, rides, suggestions, information sharing, and – I know it’s practically an anachronism – phone calls. Oh, and a trip to a dispensary.

My friend Ganja (ok, yes, that’s not her real name!), despite my reluctance, dragged me to met me at a dispensary south of Market Street in San Francisco. I smoked dope (as we use to call it) a few times in my youth, but it was much weaker then. Once I got into my thirties I stopped wanting to ingest any drugs whatsoever, including prescription medication if I could help it.

So last month I entered the new world of state-legal cannabis grudgingly. But Ganja showed me the ropes and the products. A most supercool young bro helped us out and I came home with some CBD (the nonhallucinogenic compound derived from the cannabis plant). I’ve used it a few times, and I can’t really tell whether it helps with the nerve pain, but there appear to be no side effects, so I’ll continue to try it when needed.

My pusher Ganja, though, thinks that we can be stoner buddies, so she’s been nudging me into trying TCH (the psychoactive component that can get you high). One night we shared some tasty THC-infused granola, waited the requisite hour before the effects would kick in, and then proceeded to not get stoned. We couldn’t figure it out. But I’m not ruling out another shot at getting carmelyzed in the future.

***

I once asked my mother what it was like to give birth. She was 22 years old when she had me, and it was no walk in the park. In those days, of course, there were no Lamaze classes. During labor women typically were given some form of anesthetic, but when I decided to enter this world, there was a snafu at the hospital and the machine wasn’t available. My father, meanwhile, was at home with a ruptured disc. So Mom went through her long, painful labor with no preparation, no anesthesia, and no husband nearby.

Anyway, when I asked her about the pain, she said, in her typical dauntless way, “Well, it hurts, but it’s not like someone sawing your leg off or anything.”

This harrowing scenario of someone sawing my leg off has always been my benchmark for “Level 10” pain. But most of us won’t ever experience being wounded on a Civil War battlefield, so these days when we’re asked to assign a number to our pain, we’re told that a Level 10 is “the worst pain you’ve ever experienced.”

Neuralgia is definitely, for me, a Level 10.

Lest anyone think that I am exaggerating, I have a high pain tolerance. In December 2015 I missed a step in our house and thought I had sprained an ankle. We took off a couple of days later on our 2,300-mile road trip to Kentucky, and I walked around on my tomato-red, swollen foot like it was nothing. By the time we got to Louisville, however, it started to seem like the pain was maybe a liiiitle too much for a sprain. An urgent care visit and a few X-rays later, it turned out that I had a torn ligament and had broken my foot in two places, including the heel.

A few years earlier I had a kidney stone. When the doctor said I needed to have surgery because the stone was too big, I tried to talk him out of it. I thought I should just go home from the hospital and deal with the pain like any other tough soldier. He thought that was absurd and admitted me for surgery, against my protestations.

But I would rather have 10 kidney stones than this condition.

***

This year, Julie, Buster, and I postponed our Thanksgiving road trip to Kentucky in hopes that I’d be better by Christmastime, but we had to cancel that trip as well. I just couldn’t sit in a car comfortably for 5 days, let alone deal with all the nerve pain. It was devastating, but I encouraged Julie to fly back herself. Why should she stay home and be as miserable as I was?

It was a lonely holiday for me, to say the least. I missed Julie and the rest of my Louisville family dearly. But on Christmas Day I got a call from my friend Mary, whom I’d first met in 6th grade and who, coincidentally, lives in Kentucky now. She called to wish me a Merry Christmas and we had a wonderful chat. She also recounted a story that has given me hope ever since. She said that a few years ago she had bone spurs along with pain and spasms in her neck, and to top that off, every time she looked up towards the sky she got dizzy. She was told by a specialist that she would need surgery, and it would involve . . . well, there’s no sense in reciting the gruesome details, other than to say that while she’d be on the operating table her head would not be attached to her neck in any usual way. And her personal physician told her that she would be in a wheelchair the rest of her life!

When she heard all of these prognoses, Mary said, “That scared me so much that I actually recovered!!”

She’s had no neck problems since then.

This story has made me laugh many times. But it also gives me hope. Mary says that the power of prayer helped her, too. I keep trying that. Maybe fear and prayer are the answer.

***

It’s amazing how long it takes to wend one’s way through the health care system these days. Three months have passed since I hurt myself. But there are weeks of waiting between each appointment. So far I’ve seen my primary care doctor and two spine specialists. The first specialist, a well-respected neurosurgeon, was so cavalier about seeing me that he asked me twice why I thought he could help me. I was coming to him because my doctor had referred me, that’s why! But I didn’t say that. I just stammered. He blew me off and sent me on my way with nothing.

I then went to see my primary care guy again to ask for a second referral. Now I am under the care of another renowned surgeon (he worked on Joe Montana’s back!), who thankfully took me more seriously and ordered X-rays and MRIs. I’ll get my latest results from him in February. Keep in mind that I started seeing him in December. It’s an eternity just waiting for appointments anywhere.

Meanwhile, there are the frustrating days on end that I have spent on the phone, dealing with my primary care office’s wrong referral codes, incorrectly written prescriptions, and office staff who never answer the telephone.

***

I recently read an article in which six doctors and pain researchers were asked what they considered the worst pain to be. They all said it was nerve pain and/or pain that you feel you cannot control, or that will never end. Chronic pain makes you feel unsafe, one of them said. “Acute pain is unpleasant (even extremely so),” said another, “but chronic pain is about suffering.”

I realize that there are people out there who are far worse off than I am. There are people battling cancer, for crying out loud. I remember that when my mother was at her absolute wit’s end caring for my demented father, or when she herself was battling cancer, she would always say the same thing: “There are people worse off than I am, so I shouldn’t complain.”

But I would always answer, “Mom, that makes no sense. If the only people who are eligible to complain are the people who have it worse than anyone else, then the only person allowed to complain is the ONE person who is the most worse off in the entire world! And he is probably the one getting his leg sawn off!”

***

My physical therapy friends have been terrific listeners. One of them, Jill, even FaceTimed me last week so she could use a spine model as a visual aid while she explained what she thinks is going on with me. And I believe she’s right. I have a tailbone that is angled differently from most people’s. (I think I broke it twice, although I never went to see a doctor.) She thinks my lying on it puts pressure on the middle of my tailbone, which stretches the ligaments, causes inflammation, and presses on the nerve. I know she’s right, dammit! Someone just needs to LISTEN to me!

This is a complex condition that won’t be magically solved by any one approach. I do think it’s possible that, if the MRI results are unhelpful, my best hope may now in fact be physical therapy. It took me 6 weeks to get PT appointments but they are coming up this week. One is for my back and the other is for pelvic pain. Amazingly, there are actually specialized clinics now that deal only with pelvic pain and offer hope. The forms for the clinic, though, terrified me; I had to sign one indicating that the treatment might cause me “physical and emotional distress.” A friend of mine told me that she had once been prescribed pelvic PT and never went, out of embarrassment.

I, too, am scared. But I’m hoping that good therapists will be able to help figure this all out. I just need the pain to stop, please, stop.

***

So how are things these days? Well, I’m taking Gabapentin – an anti-seizure medication that’s been shown to work with nerve pain. (Opioids don’t work on nerve pain, and they make me violently ill anyway.) And I’m worn out from standing all day.

Every once in a while I have a good day. That’s an improvement, and maybe my nerves are settling down just a little. My mood has brightened a bit. Occasionally I find myself able to laugh.

But most days I feel like I’m walking barefoot across an endless expanse of blistering desert, broiling on the inside, facing a searing sun.

***

So what’s my point? Why did I write this difficult personal post, against my nature?

Well, partly it’s to explain my absence. I’ve been a hermit since last October. And when I have seen people, I’ve been withdrawn, cranky, ready to jump out of my skin.

But the larger reason is this:

There are many private sufferers out there, like me. Maybe you know someone in a similar situation. Or maybe some of you are struggling with issues you don’t want to talk about. If so, I hope you know that you are not alone.

The one modern cliché I’ve fully embraced is that the person standing next to you might be hiding pain and troubles. We should all go through life remembering this.

I have a generally healthy psyche, a glass-half-full outlook on life. I don’t think that’s changed. But it has certainly taken a long hiatus.

My poor Julie, who has suffered along with me, says, “As soon as you are better, we’re going to take on the world in a different way.”

My friend Kati, who just weathered a tough year, has a beautiful outlook on things. As 2019 arrived she said, “Instead of ‘Happy New Year’ I’d like to say Peace through your days, see God in the worst of it, and when you are desperate, despondent, grieving, or struggling may you find one shred of life to hang on to until you can once again feel its worth.”

I am hanging on. And when I get better and can feel life’s worth, I swear to take on the world in a different way.

1/6/72 [age 16]:

“You know, I brought a pair of black shoes to school yesterday (no, Tuesday) for Mary Pasek to wear to the PAL meeting. She couldn’t come and I LOST the $20 shoes of Mom’s. She was upset. I found them yesterday in my locker. And last night I lost my Physiology oral report and had to do it today. I found it in my locker but I didn’t have much time to practice. I LOSE EVERYTHING! 💧- teardrop”

1/1/72 [age 16]:

“This year is going to be a biggie. I tied my radio to my new bike today and took off. Miles and miles. I went south to Crown Super and north a little past Piedmont Hills. I rode around a lot in between. When I reluctantly crawled exhausted back in the door, Mom said from now on I have to tell her beforehand exactly where I’m going. But I can’t do that; no, I have to be FREE!”

12/1/71 [age 16]:

“I think there are two desires I have at this stage of life: friendship and music. I do not like to be in a crowd. But I do like companionship – say, one friend who can really understand me. That would be very difficult. Also, I love my records, and I simply could not exist without my radio. Am I 33, reading this now? Do I still listen to rock?”

11/29/71 [age 16]:

“Once I dreamed I made love to Daniel Boone. (He looked like Fess Parker.) That was the start of my physical desires. Strange, but up until then I really had no knowledge of bedroom procedure.”

11/5/71 [age 15]:

“I’ve sort of been down lately. I guess I’ve been thinking too much – arguing things out with myself, trying to figure people out. I’ve been drifting over towards the liberal faction because my so-called “conservative” friends have gone bananas.”

9/26/71 [age 15]:

“I read Death Be Not Proud by John Gunther, about his 17-year-old son who died of a brain tumor. One day John Jr. wrote in his diary some words which I feel describe me, coincidentally, perfectly: ‘About 1/2 time my conscious mind is either asleep or wandering off in space. . . . I am greatly over-introvert – caused by over-consciousness of what others think of me.’ If there is a more accurate description of myself in the world, let it be found.”

9/21/71 [age 15]:

“PANTS! Mom said today I could wear pants once every 2 weeks to school. I guess she was in a good mood or something and I have been especially good lately. But what great maneuvering power you have, Paula!”

9/11/71 [age 15]:

“It wasn’t a great vacation [in Clear Lake]. Mom is trying to quit smoking and she was a bear. Worse, I think. She won’t eat, won’t talk, won’t anything. And to top it off, the fishing was lousy. Dad has promised Mom this trip to Clear Lake, 2 dinners, a shotgun, a new rod and reel, and a stereo if she quits. I sure wish she would, but I don’t think she’ll make it. I was so nervous that I ate three Nutty Buddies.”

9/4/71 [age 15] [Ed.’s note: my brother and I, who are medical miracles because we always develop identical maladies simultaneously, had both gotten plantar warts on the bottoms of our feet]:

“Last night Marc’s wart fell off and I was replenished with hope and got this brilliant idea to lift up the edges [of my wart] and put Wart Remover right on the quick. I ran around the room screaming for 15 minutes. Ever had acid eat away at you?”

8/4/71 [age 15]: [My parents had gone to Tahoe for the weekend and left us with our Italian aunt and uncle in San Leandro]

“Mom and Dad went to Tahoe and dropped us off at Zio and Zia’s house. Meals are TERRIFIC! And we got to watch COLOR TV!”

7/14/71 [age 15]:

“We went to the doctor today. I’m 5’6-1/4” and weigh 126. According to his chart I’m 13 pounds underweight. But FORGET THAT! I’ll stay where I am.”

7/11/71 [age 15]:

“I went to the dentist with [my brother] Marc and [my sister] Jan and Mom today. We were there from 12:45 until 3:45. I was the only one with no cavities. Jan had one and Marc had two. Ha ha for Marc.”

7/4/71 [age 15]:

“This week was fun. The police never bothered us, even though firecrackers were part of our basic everyday diet.”

6/29/71 [age 15] [Part One of Two]:

“O H, W O W! The thrill of my entire life has happened. Last night Carolyn Edmonds asked me to come over along with about 4 other girls because Mary Blasi is here. She had been 2 years in Hawaii and had come to visit. I was glad it was all girls – I don’t dance. [But then] Kevin Daly came over. Uh, oh. It seemed Carolyn had asked some guys from our class that afternoon. [Ed.’s note: all the invitees were fellow graduates of St. Victor’s Elementary School.] Soon Pat Pisturino, Jose Salcido, Mike Necas, and Art Pasquinelli were there. Uh, oh. I just sat on the couch and sweated, hoping they wouldn’t dance. Then all of a sudden P A T S E A R S came in. I almost died. His hair was pretty long, and I like him. He was like the old Pat, but his voice was a little deeper. Then came the inevitable – dancing. Fast. It was horrible. Mary and Jean Greiner and I sat on the couch nervously eating pretzels. I think we ate about a million – it was a huge salad bowl and we reduced it to crumbs.”

6/29/71 [age 15]: [Part Two. I asked my young self for permission to reprint this.]

“Then ‘Hey, Jude’ came on, and they dance slow to it. But I haven’t ever done that either. Pat came over, took both my hands, pulled me up and said ‘Come on, don’t say you don’t know how.’ I said, ‘Teach me, Pat.’ And he did. Kids today, I noticed, just put their arms around each other and sway. He said (I’ve got to capture the conversation) ‘It’s easy.’ Me: ‘Not when you’re as uncoordinated as I am.’ Pat: ‘But you’re not. You’ve got to have some grace to be in athletics.’ Me: ‘Yeah, but I am a complete idiot at home.’ Pat: ‘We’re all a little clumsy. I am. All the Sears are.’ Then he told me about something he had just done, but I wasn’t listening. I was trying to keep off his feet. The music was almost over. It seemed like people were watching me. But I felt so good. I had never been so absolutely close to a guy before. I loved his back and the feel of his hands on mine. Don’t make the song be over, God. It’s a long song, believe me, but it went so fast. I was the biggest clutz in the world. At least everyone else was dancing, so they wouldn’t notice. He was so nice. As soon as the music stopped, Mom came. Aarggh. I’m always the first to leave. I wanted to stay. I begged her to stay. But no.”

[Ed.’s note: I was working in the stacks at the SFSU library seven years later when I was suddenly overwhelmed with rushing memories of Pat. I had to sit down. That night my mother called to give me the news. Patrick Conley Sears had died on September 1, 1978, in a plane crash near Anchorage, Alaska. “I loved him,” my diary entry says. He was 24 years old.]

I’ll stand by you

One of my former colleagues needs a new liver.

The problem is, in order to be eligible for an immediate liver transplant a patient must be very high up on the waiting list and practically at death’s door. She is not there yet, although she has suffered terribly with this condition for many years. More than 17,500 people are on the waiting list in the United States.

There is, however, a way for “living donors” to give someone a portion of their healthy liver. The donor’s liver regenerates; we can actually lose up to 75 percent of that organ and it will grow right back. The recipient, in turn, grows a virtually new liver from the piece he or she was given.

My friend’s hepatologist works out of the University of California, San Francisco, and I decided to research the procedure on the UCSF website. It turns out that it is no walk in the park for the donor. The potential complications are severe and could even be life-threatening. The postsurgical pain is brutal – worse for the donor, in fact, than for the recipient. Recovery takes a week in the hospital and many months afterwards, and some donors suffer from pain and complications for life.

Strongly shaken, I closed my eyes and tried to assess the degree of courage I had. To what length would I go to save a life? What amount of pain and potentially life-changing discomfort could I imagine going through? And for whom?

***

I was thinking about friendship on my recent ’cross-country train trip. I’d met an older woman in the observation car, a mentally and physically strong widow who went to the gym every day and kept up with politics and had a plethora of art-related hobbies and was taking the trip by herself to visit her daughter in Florida. “I’ve gotten along just fine living alone,” she said, “and I’ve kept myself healthy, but this year I lost my best friend, and that’s what kicked me hard in the gut.”

It was the third time I’d gone back East, by rail, to the beautiful state of Maryland. Three of my friends happen to live in the Baltimore area, which is both fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate for me that they happen to live within 60 miles of each other. Unfortunate that they’re not in San Francisco any longer. They weren’t West Coast people in the first place, but they’d all ventured out to the Bay Area for a time, shortly after college. Eventually, and for varied reasons, they made their way back and settled in Maryland. All of their departures broke my heart.

So, on the first day I ride the train back from Baltimore, I cry. It’s become a tradition.

***

There is little in the world that I value more highly than friendship. It probably even irritates a few people who may, in fact, consider my persistent loyalty and sentimentality to be an unwanted annoyance.

I’ve always longed to enjoy the “Cheers” or “Sex and the City” dynamic with a few really close friends – that is, a group of people who get together on a regular basis, rain or shine, at a preordained spot, over coffee or wine or a meal. But that is not to be. Almost everyone I know has moved out of San Francisco, or left the Bay Area or the state entirely. So I jealously take note of the small group of retired bearded gents who take up the same table at my neighborhood Peet’s Coffee every day. Or my high school teachers who meet once a month for a sandwich, half a century after they worked together. Or my father-in-law’s high school and college buddies from Shelbyville and Georgetown (KY) who get together like clockwork. In fact, he told me that he has eight different groups, from different parts of his life, that he sees on a regular basis for lunch. They’re all in their eighties, by the way. “And normally I don’t even eat lunch,” he recently told me. “I have to take care not to spoil my boyish figure.”

***

So, what qualities do I look for, instinctively, in a friend? The ability to laugh. Shared values. Kindness. Intellectual curiosity. A complete lack of arrogance or pretense. A strong respect for older people and institutions. And most importantly, the willingness to listen. I have to admit, I’ve jettisoned a few “friends” over the last few years because I suddenly realized, after many decades, that they’d never listened to a word I’d said!

And to further escalate my demands, I prefer that people not only listen but also respond.

Lest I start getting too serious, let me give you an example of someone who listens to my tedious minutiae and follows up, which is the critical thing. One day this summer I was at the ballpark with my attorney friend Char. Char has been a bandmate of mine off and on for many years now. And I don’t think she would mind my saying that she has virtually zero interest in baseball, so when we go to a game I have to occasionally (and discreetly) shift one eye to the field if I have any hope of keeping track of the game at all. Char is an example of one of the world’s greatest conversationalists. The topics range from the ridiculous (“Paula, would you kiss so-and-so if you were the last two people on the planet and stuck on a desert island?”) to the less so (“Char, for the love of God, please explain emoluments to me”).

(By the way, if there were only two people left on the planet, why would they have to be stuck on a desert island?)

At our game this summer, Char mentioned that when she saw Springsteen with me two years ago, it was a life-changing concert for her. I think she actually said “life-changing.” Swoon! I started yammering on about how I was in the middle of a years-long process of listening to, cataloguing, notating, and rating all of my Springsteen bootlegs. My end goal, I told her, is to come up with “The Definitive Bruce Show,” with the best live version of each song I feel worthy of inclusion.

What I didn’t mention, because who on earth would care, is that I’ve been obsessing all these years about what format to use for the final output. CDs? (but there would be multiple CDs, and who but me listens to them anymore?) MP3 disks? (but would they play in precisely the order I decree?) Anyway, I didn’t mention my obsession because who cares. No one.

“By the way,” Char responded immediately, “what format are you going to use for this project?”

This is why Char is a gem.

***

When I arrive on the East Coast, I’m typically met at the train station by my friend Ellen, whom I met when we worked together at a nonprofit political think tank in San Francisco. Ellen came from a huge East Coast family, went to college in Oberlin, shared my undying love for Springsteen when we were young, introduced me to a host of terrific Oberlin and Jersey guys, drank profusely with me throughout the 80s, lost her husband at a way-too-young age, works in book publishing in Washington, D.C., lives in a lovely home in the country, and still amuses me with her opinionated, broad-based, funny takes on all of life’s variables, from the profound to the mundane. We like to rave about how cool we are. Springsteen’s gorgeous ode to friendship – “Bobby Jean” – always reminds me of her:

We liked the same music, we liked the same bands
We liked the same clothes.
We told each other that we were the wildest,
The wildest things we’d ever seen.

We have so many laughs. I’ll never forget the day I finally came out to her, in 1984, after years of friendship. I was absolutely terrified that that would be the end of our carefree years of running around town together. This is how she reacted:

“Well, if I’d known that all along, I could have become your plaything and you could have been my sugar momma!”

Ellen Loerke and granddaughter Allie — Ellen and her granddaughter Allie

***

After a couple of days with Ellen, I check in for a week at a hotel in downtown Baltimore, just a few blocks from my friend Julie R.’s apartment.

I’ve known Julie for more than 25 years. When we first met in San Francisco, she claimed – at the time, at least – to be an anarchist. And she’d been “warned” by a mutual friend that I was – at the time, at least – a Republican. I’m sure we both did an inner eyeroll. All these years hence, I think I can accurately assume that we’ve both been pulled a few degrees towards the middle.

Riffle Mohawk — Julie R. and her scary mohawk

Julie had more contradictions than anyone I’d ever met. I knew that she had formerly rocked a mohawk and had been arrested in a variety of political demonstrations, yet she was earnestly, by degree and trade, an accountant. An aficionado of the punk scene and devotee of Iggy Pop, she had painted obscene epithets on her bedroom walls back home, yet her inner core was sweet and sensitive. She wore black. She was a serious introvert. She refused to eat any green foods or anything crunchy. She laughed easily. And she played the guitar like Keith Richards.

Julie and I had a band called Three Hour Tour for many years, but eventually she headed back to Maryland where, among other things, the cost of living was a lot lower. A few years ago, to my unending admiration, Julie courageously decided to completely raze her career path and go into physical therapy. It required getting into a school with very specific requirements, following a point system I never understood, and the first time she applied she was rejected. Most of her friends and family responded in the same way: that she just needed to be patient and try again the following year. My response, by contrast, was abject anger. “What?! What kind of so-called school is that – that would reject someone clearly smarter and more qualified than any other possible applicant? Are they blind??!” I was aghast, outraged. She later told me that my response was the one she liked best. (And she got into that idiotic school the next year.)

We typically keep in touch via phone conversations that can last for hours. She also frequently sends me envelopes full of newspaper clippings about topics ranging from baseball (she’s an avid sports fan) to music to Maryland history and lore. (Using the U.S. Mail! Who does that anymore?)

A few years ago, for Christmas, I bought Julie a book called The Doctors’ Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis. Yes, it sounds odd. But I had seen it on her Amazon wish list and, knowing her broad range of interests, I didn’t think too much of it. It turns out, though, that she’d put the book on her list so she could remember to buy it for her sister, who does medical research. After she opened my “gift,” she was too polite to tell me that I had made an idiotic mistake until I forced the issue when I asked her how she was enjoying her wonderful new book on childbed fever.

***

During our week in Baltimore this time we toured the Bromo Seltzer Tower (much more interesting than it sounds!), visited the Peabody Institute Library, frequented any number of charming Baltimore taverns (although one drink puts Julie under the table), walked 40 miles (at Julie’s insistence, of course – she’s a long-distance runner) to find the 49ers game at one such tavern, saw an Orioles game at Camden Yards, went through Baltimore’s fantastic African American History Museum, watched a Lynyrd Skynyrd documentary, embarked on a self-guided literary walking tour (to which Julie had made her own personal additions), sought out all the best Maryland crabcakes around, and played music nearly every day.

Julie Riffle Bike 2011 — Julie on one of her innumerable athletic endeavors

One day, Julie and I drove out to her parents’ house, in her home town of Thurmont, to work out with her mother and other ladies of, shall we say, an advanced age. More advanced than mine, to put it one way. Julie has been a certified personal trainer, and she really loves older people, so she enjoys torturing putting the screws to the ladies and forcing them to keep up with their exercises. She’s coerced them into getting together regularly at her mom’s house for strength training and conditioning, and on her rare days off Julie drives out there and makes sure they’re not shirking their commitment. Then, after their workout, they all tell stories and scarf a bunch of doughnuts.

Julie has always loved older people. She arrived at work one day recently to find one of her elderly hospital patients crying hard. Julie asked what was wrong, and the woman (let’s call her “Dottie”) said that she couldn’t find her beloved stuffed animal. It had gotten misplaced somehow and Dottie couldn’t bear the thought of going on without it.

“Honey,” she sniffled, “I didn’t sleep one minute last night because all I did was cry and pray to God that He would bring my teddy back.”

Her plight was not taken seriously at all by the nursing assistants. But Julie would have none of that nonsense.

Over the years, Julie’s tendencies toward steely introspection have softened into a gentle, universal, empathic kindness. Most of us mellow with age, I suppose. In any case, the stuffed animal situation sent her into action. During one of her spare moments (God forbid she do this on company time), she whisked herself down to the hospital laundry in hopes that somehow the animal had been caught up in her patient’s bedding. Sure enough, there it was, perched on a shelf. Julie brought it back to the ecstatic woman, who then proceeded to tell everyone within earshot about “that white woman who was so kind to me.”

“You would have thought I was some kind of saint,” Julie told me, unassumingly mystified.

***

It’s become a tradition that, when I visit Baltimore, Julie and my friend Lauren and I play a gig in a small café called The Village Square. I’m a drummer, and obviously I don’t lug a drumset across the country with me on a train, nor would the café tolerate the noise, nor would it fit well with the folk-acoustic style music we play. So I accompany my bandmates on the cajon (box drum).

(For those of you not on Facebook, a link to one of our songs is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoxZDnREiCQ. Notice that I had no idea when the song was supposed to end.)

185_Baltimore_Paula, Lauren, Diana — Paula, Lauren, Diana

Lauren worked for a short time with Ellen and me at the think tank in San Francisco. A native of Chicago, she is a wickedly brilliant writer (and editor) on a variety of topics, mostly related to politics and the arts (oh, and did I mention that she was the speechwriter for the U.S. Secretary of Defense for three years?). Anyhoo, she has a beautiful voice and plays a deft guitar and those qualities, accompanied by her encyclopedic knowledge of American folk music and singer-songwriters in general, are what she brings to our little trio, Transcontinental Railroad.

***

I like it when friends champion each other’s passions. Julie has always known how important my blog is to me and continues to mention it in conversation. She says she appreciates that my writing “covers a lot of ground.” Well, that’s a nice way of putting it. Someone else once said that my blogs are “too long and have too many facts.”

Friends can also help nudge us in better directions. Julie, of course, is always touting the value of exercise and checking in to make sure I don’t spend all my hours sitting on the couch eating clam dip. She’s also recently been chastising me for not seeing enough live music. So I’ve got a couple of shows lined up in the near future. Lately she’s started nagging encouraging me to take piano lessons, which I haven’t done since I was seven. “For God’s sake, do things out of your comfort zone,” she keeps telling me. Hmmm. Staying firmly in my comfort zone is actually one of my life’s goals. But deep down I know she’s right.

Finish line_May 15, 2011 — Julie and Paula, Bay to Breakers, May 15, 2011

***

As the years go by, I’m realizing that the nature of my friendships has become wildly varied. Some friends are good for a laugh, but nothing deeper. Some are extroverts who can make any moment fun, and they serve a special role for me because often I live too closely bottled up in my own tiny anxieties and can’t always see the forest for the trees. Some were friends from long ago but are now Facebook acquaintances, and we keep abreast of each other’s lives but never talk; still, I enjoy knowing they’re doing well. Some share the unbreakable bonds we formed at a particular moment in our lives, like high school classmates or bandmates or teammates. Some are former lovers, and I’ve kept in touch with almost all of them (okay, there aren’t very many, but still).

Each kind of friend represents a lovely trinket in a box of treasures. We have to appreciate them for whatever role they play in our lives.

But the gold nuggets are hard to come by. They endure. “We carry each other’s history,” as songwriter Carole Bayer Sager says. We see each other through all of our relationships, moves, job and career changes, perceived slights, setbacks, right turns and wrong turns, hangovers, regrets, embarrassments, illnesses, failures, triumphs, moments of beauty and creativity, and moments of sheer vulnerability.

True friendship is a very, very rare connection. Sometimes it develops very slowly over the years, sometimes in fits and starts, and sometimes in an instant. However it begins, its nurturing takes care and commitment. If you take it for granted, it can slowly and imperceptibly trickle like sand through your fingers until one day you realize it’s gone. But if you make an effort to sustain it, you will have a lifelong gift. Hang on tightly.

109_Lauren's house_Lauren, Riffle 3 - Copy — Julie and Lauren

***

The day before I left Baltimore, we played music together, this time without the pressure of preparing for our gig (which had been, of course, a triumphant success). I like the language of musicians. It’s unspoken, based on a shared affinity. It’s like a secret code.

After we finished playing, we were talking about something health-related and I told her my story about living liver donations. She, of course, was very attentive.

I thought about the people most important to me. I thought about the history we carry. I thought about how life without Julie R. would kick me hard in the gut.

I looked up at her. “Julie,” I said sincerely, “if you needed it, I would gladly give you a piece of my liver.”

THIS BLOG POST IS DEDICATED TO JULIE’S MOTHER,

NANCY JAYNE CARBACK RIFFLE,

5/12/37 – 10/30/18

***

6/29/71:

“[This summer] has been rather boring. Besides getting my one suntan hour every day, I am making a cassette of my favorite songs. Most of the time I am outside. We are in the middle of a Frisbee fad. We play tag with them, war with them, or else we line up along the curbs and throw them at a poor kid who runs the gauntlet down the middle of the street.”

6/11/71:

“We went to a surprise party for Judy Czarnecki today. It was supposed to be mixed, but only one of the 15 guys showed up. But it was fun. Mom bought me some good plaid western pants and a gold blouse to wear. We sat around and talked, and even had a séance and levitated and stuff.”

6/9/71:

“All we did today was sign yearbooks. I always write really good things in other people’s books. Most of them are funny. But everybody always writes really clutzy stuff in mine, like how smart I am or ‘you’re a nice girl. Stay that way.’ Aauggh! I could just scream!”

5/31/71 [Memorial Day weekend]:

“Saturday we worked all day, and Sunday we went to a late mass, which wrecks the WHOLE DAY. So I thought Monday we could do something I like, maybe get some kids together and go down to play ball at Noble [School] or Piedmont Hills. But I guess I expected too much. We went fishing and (you guessed it) caught nothing. And they force me to go, which makes no sense at all. Why, why, why? I can see it all now – if I forced them to go to rock concerts on their free days. No way, man, no way.”

5/24/71:

“We lost in A-league softball today and Andrew Hill [High School] got the championship. We both were undefeated. Now, being objective, I can sure criticize the plate and base umps. They were boys from their school!”

5/11/71:

“What a dream I had last night! First I had a wierd [sic] short one about Bruce Tambling trying to teach me how to play the drums on a set that must have cost 25 cents. But then I dreamed that we were going to go fishing up this mountain that looked like granite and had roads like glass. There was water all over the roads. Reports came in that 52 people had died already, because their cars had slipped off the roads and plunged to their deaths. So I begged and pleaded that we wouldn’t go and everyone was all mad at me and I kept saying, ‘But don’t you see? People are DYING!’ When I woke up I was in agony, and my heart was on the verge of exploding. Why do I always have such terrible dreams?”

An iron road runnin’

For they looked in the future and what did they see
They saw an iron road runnin’ from the sea to the sea
Bringin’ the goods to a young growin’ land
All up through the seaports and into their hands

– Gordon Lightfoot

A remarkable American event occurred nearly 150 years ago on April 28, 1869 – something that was considered to be an unimaginable feat at the time.

On that day, during the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in the world, a group of men laid down 10 miles and 56 feet of rail in the high ground of Utah in less than 12 hours.

We may not be able to appreciate it fully today, when automation and technology have reduced most tasks to the push of a button. But in those days it was a feat of human perseverance, brute strength, endurance, planning, ingenuity, guts, cooperation, and commitment. It was a record that would never be broken.

***

Construction of an expansive rail system spanning the continent was one of President Abraham Lincoln’s most pressing goals. By the 1860s railroads were up and running in the east, but they came to an end near Omaha, Nebraska. From that point, it would take four months for anyone to make the trip west to California by stagecoach or wagon train.

The overall plan was that the Union Pacific Railroad would construct tracks heading east out of Omaha (well, technically, Council Bluffs, Iowa). Its counterpart would build a railroad from the west that would meet the Union Pacific in northern Utah.

Transcontinental-Railroad-map-wiki — The Union Pacific (in blue) and Central Pacific (in red) segments of the Transcontinental Railroad

The logistics of building the western segment over the Sierra Nevada mountains were considered to be prohibitive, however, both physically and financially. General William Tecumseh Sherman, in fact, had visited northern California and declared that laying down tracks over the Sierras would require the work of none other than “giants.”

But the collective hubris of California’s “Big Four” rail tycoons – Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Collis Potter Huntington, and Charles Crocker – led them to pool their amassed fortunes and take on an enormous gamble: financing a railroad that would face the challenge of traversing some of the most challenging geography in the country as it headed towards its terminus at Promontory Point, Utah Territory. And so the Central Pacific Railroad was born.

1997.58.150 — Central Pacific Railroad at Cape Horn, Colfax, CA

Work on the Transcontinental Railroad by the two powerful railway companies went on for six years, and the Central Pacific had a much tougher time of it. Crossing the Sierras was backbreaking, and the weather and topography proved to be formidable adversaries. The snow was deep, the gorges steep, and the mountain rock nearly impenetrable. Imagine tunneling through the Sierras by hand. To create each tunnel, two men would work an entire day to pound holes 5 feet into the rock using only hammers and chisels. Then other workers were hung from the rock faces and suspended in baskets while they stuck black dynamite into the holes, lit the fuses, and were frantically yanked to safety before the explosives erupted. More than a dozen tunnels were blasted through the mountains. And of course grades needed to be carved and bridges constructed.

The Big Four neared bankruptcy. But the work continued, and eventually the exhausted Central Pacific crew broke through and descended into the Nevada desert.

At this point, I’d like to note that both of the companies involved in the building of the Transcontinental Railroad hired immigrants for the hard labor. About 8,000 of the railroad workers were employed by the Union Pacific and were primarily of Irish, German, and Italian descent. The majority of the laborers (13,000), however, were Chinese immigrants working for the Central Pacific. These guys were, reportedly, extremely hardy and committed workers. They built Buddhist shrines to tend to their spiritual well-being. For their physical health, they wisely arranged for deliveries of rice, dried vegetables, dried oysters and abalone, pork, and poultry, so their food was healthier than the meat-and-potato staples of the other workers. And because they drank boiled tea rather than untreated water, they tended not to fall prey to the dysentery and other infectious diseases that roared through the camps. Of course, they were paid far, far less than the white workers. And to make matters worse, although meals were included in the white workers’ salaries, the Chinese men had the cost of their food deducted from their wages.

Still, they persisted.

As the Central Pacific guys were moving across the Nevada flatlands, the workers of the Union Pacific were slapping down track at breakneck speed as they headed west out of Omaha towards the Great Salt Lake. And at this point the effort became a race, of sorts – a rivalry to determine which group of workers could lay the longest amount of track in the fastest amount of time. That is when Charles Crocker of the Central Pacific Railroad made the claim that everyone thought was foolish: that his men could put down 10 miles of track in a single day.

At 7 a.m. on April 28, the sprint began. The plan, as executed, involved bringing in 16-car trains loaded with rails, bolts, spikes, and other materials needed for two miles of track. All 16 cars were then miraculously unloaded in eight minutes, “cleared with a noise like the bombardment of an army,” according to Erle Heath, associate editor of the Southern Pacific Bulletin. The emptied train would be hauled immediately out of the way and a new loaded train pulled into the appropriate position.

the-general-buster-keaton-1927-handcar_a-G-14712719-4985769 — Buster Keaton on a handcar

Enter those little iron handcars we’ve all seen in Buster Keaton movies. A keg of bolts, a keg of nails, a bundle of fish plates, and 16 iron rails would be loaded onto a handcar, each of which was manned by six Chinese laborers and their white boss. On flatlands and uphill grades, the handcars were pulled by two horses in tandem. On the downhills, they went sailing along at full tilt, with one man serving as brakeman, the horses galloping alongside until they reached level ground. Keep in mind that while all of this was happening, the empty handcars returning from their position were on the same track. So as the fully loaded cars came whizzing toward them, the guys on the empty handcar had to leap off, hoist the car off the rails, and then put it back on again after the full car had zoomed by without slackening its speed.

Then came the Irish rail handlers – an elite crew of only eight men who actually laid down all the track. And on the tough grades and curves, the rails had to be bent through the sheer force of heavy hammers. Each rail was 30 feet long and weighed – get this – more than half a ton. By the end of the day, each of these guys had lifted 125 tons of iron.

After the rail handlers came the spikers, the bolters, the guys who “surfaced” the tracks by shoveling ballast under them, and finally the tampers – at least 400 of them – with shovels and tamping bars. Foremen on horseback raced back and forth along the tracks.

“It could only be compared to the advance of an army,” said Heath.

But it all went down smoothly, at the rate of about a mile of track laid down every hour. All in all, in that one day the workers placed 25,800 ties, 3,520 rails, 55,000 spikes, 14,080 bolts, and other material for a total of 4,462,000 pounds. Ten miles and 56 feet of rail in one workday.

It brought the Central Pacific railhead within four miles of the eventual connection, a month later, with the Union Pacific railroad at Promontory Summit.

***

800px-The-Golden-Spike-7Oct2012 — The original Golden Spike

On May 10, 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad opened up for through traffic after Leland Stanford, using a silver hammer, drove in the historic Golden Spike connecting the two railroads at Promontory Summit. (Side note: the spike was actually gold-plated, because real gold is too soft.) Both the hammer and the spike were connected by wire to the telegraph line, which would enable the hammer strokes to be heard as clicks at telegraph stations throughout the land. The entire country was listening in. But there were technical difficulties, as the story goes, so the clicks were actually “sent” by the telegraph operator. Uh, oh. FAKE NEWS!!

***

In the end, about 1,900 miles of rail were laid for the Transcontinental Railroad, with tracks reaching as high as 8,242 feet (at Sherman Pass, Wyoming). Estimates are that fully a quarter of the American labor force worked, in some capacity, to build that railroad.

And it would now take only a week for goods and people to travel from coast to coast.

1920px-1869-Golden_Spike — Golden Spike ceremony, May 10, 1869, Promontory Summit, Utah Territory

As with all “progress,” the emergence of the national rail system was not without its drawbacks. It permanently disrupted the way of life of many Native Americans, for one thing. And the railroad barons, driven by greed, exploited their workers.

But intercontinental train travel allowed the restless and growing American populace to find their place in whatever part of the American landscape captured their hearts. It provided a way for poor Southern blacks to migrate northward and westward. It offered employment to thousands. It allowed farmers to transport their goods anywhere quickly. It was the face of the Industrial Revolution.

Labor Day was not yet a holiday when the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. But we celebrate it today to honor the labor movements of the late 19th century that were borne out of the suffering of workers who toiled under truly harrowing conditions, with 12-hour workdays, unsafe labor conditions, and paltry wages. Some of those workers were children as young as 5 years old.

Let us be reminded, on this first Monday in September, of the sweat of our ancestors who made possible for us the comforts with which we are living today. Let us be grateful for the miners, the lamplighters, and the stevedores. And let’s think about those railroad workers grinding their way, under the most difficult of conditions, to give us the gift of mobility and freedom.

***

This week I’ll be boarding the California Zephyr, as I do every couple of years, and traveling across the country by train. To this day, the Zephyr – which goes from Emeryville to Chicago – runs on a part of the original Transcontinental Railroad, from Sacramento to Winnemucca, Nevada.

When I get to the eastern shore, four days later, I’ll be spending time with my Maryland friends and playing music with two of them in a Baltimore coffeehouse.

The name of our band?

“Transcontinental Railroad.”

***

5/7/71:

“Boy, hardly any days left of school. This year went by so fast it’s hard to believe. And thinking we only have one year left at this great school just tears me apart. Skipping [a grade] has taken away one year of my youth. I have been thinking about waiting a year before college. Heck, I’ll only be 16 and just a baby. I’ll be sucking my thumb while everyone else is walking already.”

4/25/71:

“I sure love music. I used to listen to KLOK, but I don’t too much anymore because they play too many oldies, which I hate. But KYA has the good rock and roll. The current songs I like are ‘Sweet and Innocent’ by Donny Osmond and ‘Timothy’ by the Buoys (which is about cannibalism).”

4/3/71:

“The Blanchettes came over for a pheasant dinner tonight [with their two sons, Butch and Carl]. A couple of weeks ago when we were at the beach, Butch and I went out pretty deep in the water and when he said ‘Better hold my hand’ I thought he was getting fresh or something, but he wasn’t. Now he’s in the ‘in’ crowd. [My sister] Janine was telling jokes like a book called ‘Music Theory’ by Clara Net. Ho ho. But here’s a good one offered by Carl: ‘Hole in the Mattress’ by (ready?) Mister Completely!”

3/30/71:

“I don’t feel too bad today. I made it through OK. Only threw up 4 times. My temperature was up to 102 degrees and climbing, but I took an aspirin and it zooped down to 100.6. But my stomach was in agony & I thought I was in a furnace. It’s funny how under these conditions your mind kind of leaves your body and wanders around on its own, while the mortal body will only lay and suffer, and hope for an end to the torment.”

2/25/71: “I had a murderous Chem test today and I’m beginning to get very worried. So far I have about a B-, and if I don’t bring it up I may wreck my 4.0 average. And I just CAN’T do that! It’s practically my life!”

Next day, 2/26/71: “I got the highest at our table on the Chem test [yesterday]. But it was only 41 out of 50. I hope he gives us some extra credit this semester or I’ll really just BOMB OUT!”

2/24/71:

“Mr. Curtis came up to me today and said that he was shocked that I wasn’t taking Algebra II. However, baby, NO AMOUNT of coercing from him will prompt me to take it. I cannot stand math (except Geometry, which I love) and do not wish to burden my schedule with a course I do not like!”

2/18/71:

“Today was rather unusual. I got to school at about 8:40 as usual, but inside it was dark. When the bell rang the power was still out and they wouldn’t let us in. We knew that if the power was off for about an hour, they’d let us go. So we stood outside and prayed until, at 9:30, the glorious words came: SCHOOL IS DISMISSED!”

Into that good night

Julie and I have celebrated a couple of milestones over the past few weeks. I’ll save the more monumental one for later and begin by noting that June 23 was our 10th official wedding anniversary. We’ve really been together more than 20 years, but it was June 23, 2008, when we scrambled to get married in the brief window of opportunity afforded us before California’s (short-lived, thankfully) Proposition 8 yanked that privilege away. The ceremony took place at City Hall on a Monday, which I know is an odd day but it all happened in a rush and people all around us were hastening to tie the knot. There was no time, really, to plan anything large and elaborate, so we gathered at a suite at the Fairmont Hotel for our small reception. I chose that establishment because to me it embodied old San Francisco, and I was grateful to the City in so many ways for the rich, fascinating, and happy life it had provided to me.

So my plan, 10 years later, was to surprise Julie with a return to the Fairmont.

***

It didn’t go exactly as planned, and I blame our dog Buster. Of course, he has no idea about his part in this. I had thought through all the details meticulously, calling the hotel directly instead of making online reservations just in case Julie were to see something on my computer, and arranging months in advance (by text) for our trusted dogwalker to board Buster. My chosen restaurant didn’t take reservations (ensuring that Julie couldn’t see any confirmations on our OpenTable account) but was open steadily from 11 a.m. on, so we could waltz in for a meal in the late afternoon and likely have no problem being seated. Tutto a posto, as they say in Italy. Everything was in place.

But not so fast.

Just a few days before June 23 arrived, our dogwalker’s husband informed her that they had a wedding to attend in southern California. And when she called to tell me the news, I idiotically answered the phone as Julie sat in the same room watching television. “Hi, Louise!” I said brightly before noticing Julie’s puzzled look. I then proceeded to splutter all kinds of nonsense into the phone as I tried to figure out a way to be covert. It soon became obvious to all concerned that the jig was up, and ultimately I had to confess my plan.

Of course, we then had to scramble to figure out where to leave our dog for the night. We don’t do kennels because Buster considers himself far too regal for cages. I thought of asking a neighbor but didn’t want to impose Buster’s quirky, barky little personality on anyone.

Finally, in desperation, I texted our former dogwalker – who now lives in New Orleans! – and bless her heart she did some long-distance liaison work and found us a substitute. All was well again.

***

For those of us who have lived in San Francisco for most or all of our lives, the City these days can be a difficult place to navigate, both physically and emotionally. Its changes have been monumental. I’m going to save my thoughts on that for another day, though, because for our anniversary I wanted us to honor, cherish, and celebrate some of the very oldest, and most respectable, places in town. Checking into the Fairmont would begin our tribute.

The Fairmont is not the oldest hotel in San Francisco – the Palace Hotel holds that distinction – but it is one of the few grand pre-Earthquake survivors. When the Big One hit in April of 1906, the building’s structure was complete, the rooms were about to get their finishing touches, and the hotel was about to open its doors to customers for the first time. The Fairmont was one of the “Big Four” hotels on Nob Hill that were named after three of the era’s Big Four railroad tycoons who built the Central Pacific Railroad: Leland Stanford (the Stanford Court), Mark Hopkins (the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins), Collis Potter Huntington (the Scarlet Huntington), and Charles Crocker (Crocker didn’t get a hotel named after him, although what is now the Westin St. Francis was supposed to be called the Crocker Hotel). The Fairmont had no ties with the railroad business but was named for sisters Jessie and Virginia Fair, the original owners who wanted to build a monument to their father. Nob Hill, around which all four hotels were built, was so named because the Big Four railroad men had been given the moniker “The Nobs.” (A nob is a nabob, or “a person of great wealth or prominence,” according to Merriam-Webster. Remember when former Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew referred to the “nattering nabobs of negativism”?)

After_earthquake_and_fire_(1906)_(14576452280) — The Fairmont stands tall amidst the rubble, 1906

Anyway, although everything around it was reduced to rubble after the Great Earthquake and Fire, the Fairmont Hotel stood like a heroic, indestructible symbol of the resilience of San Francisco. As the writer Gertrude Atherton said at the time, “I forgot the doomed city as I gazed at The Fairmont, a tremendous volume of white smoke pouring from the roof, every window a shimmering sheet of gold; not a flame, nor a spark shot forth. The Fairmont will never be as demonic in its beauty again.”

Before I leave the Fairmont’s story, I must note how San Francisco’s colorful history was exemplified in the refurbishing of the damaged hotel. The first choice for an architect to repair and redecorate the Fairmont was one Stanford White, a New Yorker with a ridiculous moustache who nevertheless was well respected for his use of Beaux Arts design principles. The moustache did not, apparently, prevent his being a bit of a tomcat because he was dining pleasantly during a show at Madison Square Garden on the evening of June 25, 1906, when he was shot dead by millionaire Harry Thaw over White’s relationship with Thaw’s wife. Ironically, the murder occurred during the show’s finale, “I Could Love a Million Girls.”

With Mr. White permanently out of commission, the hotel’s owners – quite progressively – then brought on Julie Morgan, who in 1904 had become the first woman licensed to practice architecture in California. Another aficionado of the Beaux-Arts style, she was later to become the principal designer for Hearst Castle. Morgan was apparently chosen because of her knowledge of earthquake-resistant, reinforced concrete construction, and after supervising every aspect of the job for 12 months with very little sleep, she was able to preside over the reopening of the Fairmont exactly a year after the earthquake.

The place is spectacular. The Charter of the United Nations was drafted and signed at the Fairmont in 1945, so the flags of the signatory countries still fly to this day at the front entrance. The grand and flamboyant lobby welcomes guests with ornate Corinthian pillars, marble floors, and gilded ceilings. The hotel’s Venetian Room is the lush showroom in which Tony Bennett first sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” The Laurel Court restaurant sits under three domes and is a dashing remnant of the past. The tiki-themed Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, a charming blend of kitsch and sophistication, is just a barrel of fun, with coconut-sized tropical drinks, an indoor lagoon and floating stage, occasional “rainstorms” complete with thunder and lightning, and a dance floor that was originally the deck of the S.S. Forrester, one of the last of the tall ships that sailed the south seas. And the city views from the Tower rooms are, in a word, stunning. Outside lie the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, the vast cityscape of San Francisco and, right below your bedroom window, little cable cars climbing halfway to the stars.

051_2018_06-23_10th anniversary_Night view from Fairmont room 18 — View from our room

***

Dinner that afternoon would be at the Tadich Grill, and we could get there easily by cable car. Because both of us are generally ravenous by 3:30 p.m., I knew that the restaurant’s no-reservations policy would not be a problem, even in the middle of tourist season.

Tadich Grill, founded in 1849, is the oldest restaurant in California. It also happens to be two doors down from 260 California Street, where I worked for much of the 1980s. My very first job out of college had been as a production assistant at Harper & Row Publishers, but when the parent company moved its textbook division back to New York, I was suddenly out of a regular job. Thus began my seven-year stint as a freelance copy editor, during which time I worked periodically at the Institute for Contemporary Studies (ICS), a nonprofit think tank and publishing house. This was during the halcyon days of working in downtown San Francisco. We’re talking short hours, midday martinis, spirited political discussions, expensive vendor lunches, and lots of drama among us young employees. Every day at 11:30 a.m., like clockwork, the thick, smoky aroma of Tadich’s grilled steak made its way through the open windows. It was exquisite and torturous and a sensory memory I’ll never forget.

Tadich is primarily a seafood restaurant, though, and Julie and I both ordered fish in one form or another. Julie chose the seafood sauté and I was reminded of the first time we had dinner together 23 years ago, at McCormick & Kuleto’s in Ghirardelli Square. Although she is from Kentucky and had never eaten a mollusk in her life, she ordered the seafood cioppino, threw on a bib, and dug with gusto into a messy bowl of Dungeness crab, mussels, clams, squid, shrimp, and who knows what all. It was most impressive.

I love the old, rich look of the Tadich Grill. Dark wood fills the interior. A mahogany bar extends almost the length of the restaurant. The booths are set back into individual dark alcoves that must have seen many a clandestine meeting of one sort or another. The lamps are antique brass. Everything is polished. And on each white-clothed table, waiting for diners, sit a bowl of lemon quarters and a basket piled high with authentic, chewy sourdough – not the namby-pamby stuff that supposedly passes for bread these days.

I pondered ordering one of the local specialties, like the Crab Louie or perhaps the Hangtown Fry (an omelet made with bacon and oysters), which has been on the menu for almost 170 years. Legend has it that the dish was created when a successful Placerville gold prospector asked his hotel proprietor to serve him the most expensive meal possible. The three priciest foods at the time were eggs, bacon, and oysters, which had to be brought to Placerville on ice from San Francisco, more than a hundred miles away.

Ultimately, though, I settled on my perennial favorite, petrale sole.

“Would you recommend the mesquite-grilled or the pan-fried?” I asked our white-coated, black-tied waiter.

He gave me a smirk. “Do you want healthy,” he asked, “or do you want tasty?”

***

To cap off the evening it seemed appropriate that we hop a cable car back up California street to the Top of the Mark, the glass-walled penthouse lounge on the 19th floor of the Mark Hopkins hotel. San Francisco’s cable cars are part of the last manually operated cable car system in the world. Only three lines remain, and the California Street line, established in 1878, is the oldest. We clanged our way towards Nob Hill, rumbling and lurching along the track. It’s a hard job to manually operate the levers controlling the car’s movement along the cables. It was an uncommonly balmy evening, and the gripman pulled and sweated and cursed.

Since 1939, the Top of the Mark with its 360-degree view of the city has been a destination for tourists, entertainers, sailors, soldiers, and natives. Some say that during World War II, soldiers would buy a bottle of liquor and leave it with the bartender so that the next guy from that squadron to visit the establishment could enjoy a drink – a practice that remained ongoing as long as whoever had the last sip bought the next bottle.

A man and woman with thick Georgia accents sat behind us. He was dressed rakishly, and she wore a hat. “We had no idea we’d be here in San Francisco on such a special weekend,” the woman said, warmly. It was Gay Pride weekend, but Julie and I had stayed away from all the events this year. We go to the parade every once in a while, but it takes fortitude to stand on Market Street for 8 hours. I’m not kidding about the time frame. Sometimes half an hour goes by between floats. I don’t know what it is but gay people can be extremely disorganized.

Julie ordered a tropical cocktail called the “Bay Bridge” and my choice was the “Indonesia Nu Fashioned,” a mixture of Woodford Reserve Distillers Select Bourbon (my nod to Kentucky), dark crème de cacao, and Angostura bitters served on the rocks. I gave it a stir and gazed outside at the breathtaking view.

“I wish I were wild and elegant like that Georgia lady,” I said, a little regretfully.

The sky was clear over Nob Hill as we headed across the street and back to the Fairmont, but fog was drifting in slowly from out past the Golden Gate. Julie said that to her the fog in San Francisco is like a blanket, always there to tuck us in at night.

***

Three weeks have passed, and today marks the other milestone for us.

Today is the first day of Julie’s retirement.

Last Friday – her final workday ever – we went downtown, dropped off her work computer, turned in her badge, and drove out to the beach to have lunch at the Cliff House, another venerable SF institution. It’s a place where we’ve celebrated significant events in our lives. We’d gone there after we applied for our marriage license, on the day the CA Supreme Court granted us that privilege. We’d eaten there on the day I retired, nearly 5 years ago. And now this. A comfortable fog hung over the surfers. Julie said it was perfect.

There is, of course, no telling what the future has in store, and whether this new freedom of ours will last for one day or 20 years. With the liberation of age comes the restriction of physical changes. The body is often sore for no reason. Despite all efforts and all manner of exercise and healthy eating, the bones grow tired and the muscles get weaker.

There are times when I rue the fact that I now glide through my days unnoticed. Darn it, I want to be appreciated, respected, and even heralded, like the Fairmont, Tadich Grill, the Top of the Mark, the Cliff House, and the cable cars that manage to keep on rumbling up the hills.

Maybe I am like the San Francisco of old. Some of me is weathered, some of me is gone completely, but other parts still stand resolutely. And there are promising days ahead. There will be more causes for celebration. There will be good food and wine and laughter. There will be beauty and unexpected discoveries. There are trains to be taken and there is music to be played.

A new chapter starts now. I want healthy, but I also want tasty. I will not go gently into that good night.

2018_07-13_Julie's retirement day_Julie at Cliff House window 2 — At the Cliff House, Julie ponders what on earth she’ll do in retirement

***

2/21/71:

“I went to see LOVE STORY today and was a bit disappointed, mainly because of the buildup I had been getting from other people. When the girl died, I cried one tear and that’s all. It wasn’t that good. Then I went to Colleen’s and they took me out to eat at MacDonald’s. Now, I am sitting here sniffling as the after-effect of the hay fever attack I got over there. Know why? Well, because they have lots of hay, of course.”

2/1/71:

“What has been occupying my thoughts partly lately has been a sorry feeling for my teachers – three in particular. Mrs. Dossa is one. We make fun of her because of her unwashed, uncombed hair and her unkempt clothes, especially her lack of a sense of humor. Well, it is really not her fault. And she really tries to teach us everything and let us enjoy it. But we just complain and don’t respond. She seems really interested in our American Lit projects but all we do is . . . well, nothing. Same with Mr. Ferguson. To make history less boring he even lets us try simulation games. But we just say we hate them. He took it personally and said, ‘Well, I thought it was kind of interesting.’ I felt sorry for him and hoped we could continue our game. And nobody listened to our poor devoted P.E. substitute.”

1/29/71:

“We got report cards [today]. . . . I wrote ‘excellent student’ next to my A+ P.E. grade and [my P.E. teacher] Azama got kind of mad.”

1/23/71:

“Since I am in such a sorry state of affairs [I had a cold] I doubt that I will go to church tomorrow. But we haven’t gone in such a long time. I keep begging them to take me to Confession but we never seem to get around to it. We didn’t even go on CHRISTMAS! I am ashamed to go to Confession and say that I haven’t been to Mass the past 106 times.”

A thank-you lives forever

My father hand-picked my high school teachers. That’s right. He was the principal, so he had special powers, and this was one of them. I didn’t have a particular opinion about it at first, but I grew to realize that although he generally chose the toughest, strictest instructors, he knew exactly what he was doing. Most of my teachers were on the “excellent” end of the scale.

It’s been many decades since I graduated from high school, but since then I’ve thought often about one teacher in particular: Ellen Giannini, who taught Spanish. And I was reminded of her again over the Christmas holidays when I was in Kentucky. It’s become somewhat of a tradition that Julie and I get together every year with my old grade-school classmate Mary and her sister Patty, who now live in Georgetown, KY. Both of them attended my high school, Piedmont Hills (in San Jose). While we were slamming down our hearty diner food, Patty (who graduated a few years before I did) pulled out a few photos of her 50th reunion and I immediately recognized my beloved Mrs. Giannini, who might have aged a little (she’s now nearly 80), but overall she looked much the same as I remembered her.

At that moment, I fell into the vise of yet another Paula Bocciardi obsession: I had to contact her. All these years, I hadn’t even known whether she was alive. Now here she was in the photo, the same woman who’d embodied what I most respect and admire about teachers. And I needed to tell her how much she had meant to me.

With Patty’s help and encouragement, and with some investigative twists and turns, I finally got Mrs. Giannini’s address. Then I sent her a letter in February, telling her what she meant to me and citing examples of her efficacy and her kindness. I told her that she didn’t need to respond, although I was fervently hoping that she would.

But I heard nothing back.

A couple of weeks later, I got this chilling e-mail from the person who’d passed her address on to me:

“At our monthly PHHS luncheon today, I found out that Ellen has had a stroke.”

“Oh, no!” I thought. “She never got my letter.”

***

Ellen Delucchi (her maiden name; she was single then) was the very first teacher I saw when I walked onto the Piedmont Hills grounds in September of 1968. Spanish I was my first class of the day. She was a tiny spitfire with a beehive hairdo, and I liked her immediately because her unwavering no-nonsense demeanor was always accompanied by a persistent twinkle in her eye. The twinkle suggested not only a keen sense of humor but a kind and flexible heart. She was so human, with a rare and perfect combination of toughness and sensitivity.

It didn’t take long – perhaps mere minutes – for her empathy to reveal itself in a way I wouldn’t have expected. That first day, the principal of the school – aka “Dad” – stopped by to just “check in on things.” When he strolled to the open doorway of the classroom and leaned oh so casually against the jamb, I was an instant wreck. With a fire-red face I tried to squirm as low into my desk as possible. Dad was probably there less than a minute, but during that time I died a thousand deaths. I was, after all, only 12 years old. And what did Miss Delucchi do? Nothing overt, of course. But then she called the roll. Her routine was to refer to everyone by last name. “Señorita Atkinson?” she would call out. “Señor Azevedo?” Oh, God, I thought, she’s going to say “Señorita Bocciardi” next and they’re all going to turn and stare at me with disdain.

Except she didn’t. “Paula?” she called out, nonchalantly.

You know, even today, as I write this, I get tears in my eyes. She broke her own previously inviolable classroom rule for one reason only: to save me the embarrassment of having the same name as the principal. She couldn’t have been more than 29 years old at the time, but she had the discerning heart of a woman with vast perspective.

Yet she was also a disciplinary stickler to the core. We all knew that she would allow no señor or señorita to stray even one micrometer over the line. And she had the uncanny scofflaw-detecting abilities of a bloodhound. In those days, for instance, the school did not abide gum-chewing by any student. It was an intolerable crime (probably in no small part thanks to Dad). Yet on one particular occasion, Carolyn Edmonds – who sat in the very back row – decided to flout the rules. Miss Delucchi was up at the board, with her back turned to the classroom, writing out some conjugation or another. “Señorita Edmonds?” she called out, without turning even one degree towards us. Uh oh. “Spit out that gum!”

We all gasped. How on earth . . . ? Obviously she had sonor capabilities that could detect a gum-chewer a mile away.

Carolyn slunk up to the garbage can and tossed the offending Chiclets.

The same Carolyn, who was mature beyond her years – after all, she wore a bra in grade school! – was of course also the first to spot the ring on Miss Delucchi’s finger one day. “Miss Delucchi, don’t you have something you need to tell us?” she demanded. Miss Delucchi smiled sheepishly but broadly, telling us that yes, she was soon to be married to a certain Mr. Peter Giannini. We were all delighted for her.

***

Five decades later, I still remember much of the three years of Spanish that I took with Mrs. Giannini, because her passion made it all so enthralling. Learning a foreign language truly enriches our world. It also teaches us about elements of grammar that we may not even have known existed. I learned, for example, about the subjunctive mood, which is used in situations expressing doubt, possibility, desire, or circumstances contrary to fact. It’s complicated, and I was annoyed by it initially, but it’s actually quite beautiful. We don’t use it much in English, but it has its place nonetheless (“If only I were there with you”). A former work colleague in the process of getting his master’s in English once told me that his college professor believed the subjunctive to be useless and therefore not worth teaching. I almost lost consciousness. And I fantasized about siccing Mrs. Giannini on that guy.

***

A few weeks ago, while I was sitting at the Giants game enjoying a sunny day at the park, my cell phone started ringing. Of course, I would never answer the phone at a ballgame, but I did glance at the caller I.D., which merely said “Unknown.” Another robocall, I thought, no doubt about my being an IRS outlaw on the brink of arrest. But the caller left a message (odd!), and my curiosity got to me, so I immediately checked the transcription (this is a much abbreviated version):

“Hi, Paula, this is Ellen Giannini. You probably thought I fell off the face of the earth! What happened was I had a cerebral hemorrhage and I was at the hospital for four days. I go to the ‘Y’ every day to work out, though, and that really saved my goose! But anyway, I wanted to get back to you with regard to that beautiful letter you sent me. You actually took my breath away when I read it. I just couldn’t believe it.”

***

“Oh, my gosh, I thought maybe my letter had killed you!” I joked to Mrs. Giannini when we connected on the phone later that day. “Call me Ellen,” she insisted, although it was hard for me. Lucky for all of us, Ellen’s stroke had left absolutely no residual effects. When I heard her voice, I could tell that she was exactly the same person who’d made such a mark on me 50 years ago. Funny, loquacious, spirited, kind.

“All three of you Bocciardi kids were different,” she said. “You hit the nail right on the head when you said that I didn’t use your last name for a reason. I knew how sensitive you were, and I could tell you were shrinking in embarrassment when your dad showed up. But your sister was the real character. When your dad would come on over the loudspeaker with an announcement, she’d just yell out, ‘Now what do you want?!’ ”

We both cracked up.

I asked her about how times have changed, especially in regard to students with attitude who think there’s no need to listen to their elders. “It’s actually the parents who have changed,” she told me. “A lot of them are now telling teachers what to do. You never saw that back when I started in my career. As for any problem kids, my philosophy was always this: First, talk directly to the student. Don’t immediately resort to taking action by sending the kid to the administrative office. If that doesn’t work, phone the parents. Then, only if all else fails, write a disciplinary referral. The bottom line is that I never took any guff. ‘If you don’t want to stay in this class,’ I’d tell them, ‘go see a counselor and transfer out.’ ”

Before we got off the phone, Mrs. Giannini told me that a group of retired teachers from my school got together regularly, and she thought it would be nice if I could come to her house, chat with her awhile, and then go to the luncheon. It would be held at Harry’s Hofbrau – a deli from my childhood that was a personal favorite because of its enormous portions of freshly carved meat heaped on huge sourdough sandwich rolls. I agreed immediately.

I suppose the lunch was a bit anticlimactic. I have to admit that many of the teachers who were there from my era hardly remembered me. All of them, though, seemed to recall my character of a sister!

The overriding sentiment I sensed at that lunch was that these people were genuinely happy. They had a camaraderie that reflected not only their shared experiences but also their shared commitment to education. I would think – or at least hope – that they’re content with, and proud of, their careers in public service.

Teachers have to deal with a lot. They’re instructors, parents, psychologists, and disciplinarians. They have to deal with demanding and critical parents. They work long days, spending many an evening at home correcting papers and preparing lesson plans. In inflation-adjusted terms, teacher pay has fallen nationally over the past decade, yet 94 percent of teachers, according to the stats I’ve read, spend their own money to buy school supplies. And in this country, at least, they now have the added worry about feeling secure in their classrooms. But their dedication persists. They deserve our deepest respect and our greatest gratitude.

***

All of us can look back and appreciate the scores of people who, along the way, have made a positive impact on our lives. And it could have been just a gesture, a word, the slightest whisper of an influence that blew us gently in one direction or another.

Maybe somebody suggested you have an artistic talent you were unsure about. Maybe they said a kind word when you nervously told them a secret. Maybe they held you while you cried. Maybe someone hired you just when you were getting desperate. Maybe someone called just when you thought you were going to fly apart over a broken heart. Maybe they gave you a book to read that steered you away from self-destruction. Maybe they told you that you were beautiful, in one way or another.

I suggest thanking them. Write them a letter, call them, send them a text – just let them know. Show appreciation for someone who is least expecting it. Don’t let a life end before you show your gratitude. It will make both of you happy. A thank-you will live forever in both of your hearts.

Before I left her house, Mrs. Giannini mentioned to me that she had re-read my letter many times. I had a twinkle in my eye all the way home.

***

1/11/71:

“I have made up my mind a long time ago not to ever smoke weed. But now that I’ve listened to the other side I’m not so sure. I mean, I’m not really going to, I don’t think. But it doesn’t sound that bad. I’m getting [the info] straight from someone who does it and really knows. Oh, shoooooooooot!!!”

12/26/70:

“Today and Sunday were average days. We got up around 9:30. After breakfast we watched football. The SAN FRANCISCO 49ers are division champions! And today they beat Minnesota and I hope they go all the way to the SUPER BOWL. I practiced shooting with Grampy’s pellet gun and can now do 13 jumps on the pogo stick. I got blisters on my hand from the pogo stick. In the afternoon we went over to the cousins [house] and looked at dirty books until [my sister] Janine squealed and we got in trouble.”

12/11/70:

“You know, for some strange, wierd [sic], unexplainable, mystical reason I began to think about Nonna’s [my grandparents’ house]. It began Sunday when I saw some old pictures. Now, I feel, I don’t know, crushed, it feels hard to breathe. I know I will never again see those days. I remember we used to watch Shirley Temple. I remember the chicken store, Nonno’s love, fresh fugaccia [dialect for focaccia], the old house, the garage with the scales, the “treasures” we used to find in the chairs, the old ball park, the zucchini and the flowers, how we used to play on the porch, soccer on the cracked patio, naps in the cold bedroom, the pantry, the basement with the old games, and bottles, and the dirt where I thought money was buried. I can’t get over that ache in my heart.”

The lonely neurotic

This past week, Julie had to fly off to Denver on business. She doesn’t love traveling by air or staying alone in hotels, so she was dreading the entire trip. I, however, was eagerly looking on the bright side. For one thing, I was going to have multiple days free of political jabber and, in fact, free of any news whatsoever except for my morning Chronicle read. Julie, you see – the woman who moved to California 22 years ago with not a scintilla of interest in politics – has now become a journalistic junkie, whereas I am so roiled by national and world events that even the slightest passing glimpse of the news gives me agita. One evening I fell asleep while she was listening to cable news on headphones, and the next morning I awoke to a 1,000-word e-mail message from her – a series of bullet points, no less! – summarizing the previous day’s political revelations, accompanied by a succinct legal analysis of each incident. My heartburn erupted.

More importantly, Julie’s absence for a prolonged period of time also means that I can clean out all of our expired food. Oh, the rapture! Our cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer are always filled with food that we’ve forgotten we have, or that we bought for one exotic recipe years ago, or that we purchased after one too many wine-tastings, if you know what I mean. Julie never wants to get rid of it but I can’t stand to have solidified fig preserves cluttering up my space! So when she is gone I gleefully throw open the cupboards, take out our stepstool, and start TOSSING, baby!

My time of uninterrupted organizational bliss was about to begin.

MONDAY

After dropping Julie off at the airport, I stop at the UPS Store to pick up a couple of parcels. The guy behind the counter says I have seven packages. I’m rather surprised. By my calculations, all I am expecting are printer ink and some orange shoelaces. Maybe Julie has bought me a raft of presents! He hands me the packages and I start hefting them out to the car. I can’t wait to tear into them. When I glance down, though, I see that they’re all for someone else. Dejectedly I trudge back into the store. The guy apologizes and says he thought I was another woman. I’m kind of excited to think that I have a doppelganger in West Portal.

I then race home, eager to get started on the kitchen. My rule is that the expiration dates on the bottles, jars, and packages must have come and gone. I spot about 11 expired bottles of assorted vinegar varieties. Can vinegar even go bad? It’s already so bad. Then again, we bought these bottles when we lived in a different house. It’s been more than 12 years! Surely they must be riddled with sediment at the very least. Can sediment kill us? It’s certainly possible. I throw out the vinegar.

I throw away half-used bars of Ghirardelli Cooking Chocolate from 2009. Out goes the stoneground mustard that is so desiccated it has become colored pebbles. With an athletic hook shot, I toss the foil-wrapped beige-colored thing from the freezer that cannot be identified. I take the rubbery Triscuits and sink a fade-away jumper into the trash.

I empty dozens of jars and haul many bags of recycling down to the garage. I’m so lucky that tonight is garbage night.

My rotator cuff starts to burn from all the “kitchen basketball” heroics. I down a bunch of Advil.

Buster sleeps for part of the night in the foyer, right by the front door, waiting for Julie to come home. I don’t think he usually does that when I’m gone. He obviously likes her better. Why am I so unlikable?

TUESDAY

As per my usual morning routine, I go downstairs and exercise on the elliptical. Thankfully I’m on a roll and I’ve been able to work out for a full 30 minutes regularly for about a year without tearing any muscles or snapping any bones. As usual, I listen to one of my CDs and fantasize that I am asked to play drums for the performer when the regular drummer has a sudden but nonfatal bowel emergency. Today I am listening to Hitsville USA, which is a box set of the Motown singles. I notice that the main Motown drummers (Benny Benjamin and Uriel Jones, members of the Funk Brothers) would often start a song (like “My Girl” and the sublime “This Old Heart of Mine”) with the same fill: one hit on the high tom, some 16th notes on the snare, and then one bass drum BOOM before the song starts. But they never finish the fill with a crash. Why? Everyone crashes at the end of a fill! When I get back upstairs I obsessively comb the Internet looking for an answer. This takes hours. Finally, I watch a video and find out that in those days the singers and musicians all recorded together in one room and the drummers were afraid that if they crashed, especially going into the start of a song, the sound would bleed into the other mics. Ah. Now I can relax.

I go in to take a shower and start worrying about what could happen if someone broke in. Buster is a prize-winning barker but I don’t think he would deter a marauder. I start hearing voices. It sounds like someone is begging for his life! Why would a criminal be begging for his life? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Or does Buster have him cornered? I shut off the water to listen. Nothing.

In the kitchen I see some purple bloodstains on the counter. Is someone in the house? Aren’t bloodstains red? Wait a minute, that’s where I inadvertently smashed a blueberry with my elbow.

In the afternoons I like to lie out in our backyard and read for a while. I’m beginning to have an unsightly farmer’s tan. Right now I’m continuing to make my way through A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I really enjoy it and I think Dave Eggers is brilliant. Many people reviled this work as an overblown exercise in self-indulgence. They are clearly misguided. I, for one, love stream-of-consciousness. Give me the hearty Thomas Wolfe or William Faulkner any day rather than, say, that insufferable Henry James. Gad. When you read that guy’s prose it’s as if you can actually hear the delicate tinkling of teacups.

It’s about 43 degrees outside with a blustery northwest wind (welcome, summer!), so I last only a few minutes. After I come inside I realize that Julie’s dad has called but the downstairs phone was malfunctioning and I could not hear the ringer. It is a beige 1970s wall model that I cherish. I decide to look at it and the entire phone clatters off the wall and falls on the floor with a bunch of electrical things hanging out of it. I’m horrified. I leave it on the dining room table for Julie to fix.

I decide to spend the latter part of the day watching all the documentaries that are piled up on my DVR. I can’t believe Julie has no interest in watching docuseries about the Kennedys or the Patty Hearst kidnapping. Tonight I choose HBO’s The Searcher, about Elvis Presley. Gosh, I never knew how much his manager Colonel Tom Parker screwed him by insisting he take time off from music to take on movie roles in Hollywood. And wasn’t he a handsome guy? Those lips!

Buster spends another couple of hours in the foyer at bedtime, waiting for Julie. He finally saunters back to the bedroom, where he sees our cute little stuffed Giants mascot Lou Seal. He eyes it warily and smashes up against me, far away from that terrifying seal.

WEDNESDAY

In the middle of the night I am startled awake by a robocaller. I cuss heartily. I decide that I should change our answering machine greeting to simply state that I already know I owe the IRS and have debilitating credit card debt and could use a vigorous carpet cleaning.

In the morning I wake up with lower back pain because I have had to sleep curled around Buster like a paper clip. The bed is 76 inches wide. Buster has somehow taken up 70 inches.

I down more Advil.

The Chronicle points out that Southwest Airlines keeps having to make emergency landings. Julie is flying Southwest. What if she gets sucked out of an airplane?

This morning while exercising I worry that I could have a heart attack like Sheryl Sandberg’s husband did while he was working out in a hotel gym. What if I keel over and die right here in the garage? I’m not wearing pants!

I am going to the Giants day game today against the Reds. And I have a huge decision to make. Do I leave the door to the backyard open for Buster? I am afraid that he might encounter a coyote or start eating landscape bark. After an agonizing three hours I finally settle on leaving the door closed. After all, finding a small pile of poop in the house is much preferable to Buster’s being devoured by wild animals or choking to death on mulch.

For this ballgame I am bravely attempting something new: I’ve resolved to find the crab sandwiches! I am filled with excitement and anxiety. Normally I sit in the same general area: sections 310-314, between home plate and first base, on the top level because that’s where the cheapest seats are. I keep a spreadsheet on the specific seats I’ve gotten over the last 5 years. The spreadsheet rates the seats according to the following criteria, among others:

How long am I in the sun? (I prefer that it be half the game.)
Do I have to look through that infernal Plexiglas wall?
Are the season-ticket holders around me obnoxious or friendly?
How close are the bathrooms?

The problem is, some of my favorite food items near those sections have, over the last few years, disappeared. So I am left primarily with my old standby: the “Sports Meal,” which consists of a hot dog, popcorn, and a beer. However, I really really really love AT&T Park’s crab sandwiches. They’re on buttered, crisp toasted sourdough with some kind of herb sprinkled on them. Heavenly! But, unless you are sitting in the luxurious Club-level seats, you can get them only on the opposite side of the stadium, near the bleachers.

Julie has told me not to worry. She says that I should try to find the Marina Gate, which will likely be the nearest entrance to the precious sandwiches. Then I can “just trot upstairs and find the crab.” I obsess about the whole procedure all the way to the game on Muni. Sure enough, I can’t find the Marina Gate. But I adopt a new tactic: ask for help. Ask repeatedly. I get there early enough that all of the Giants personnel are still eager to assist. So I ask about the gate, I ask how to get upstairs, I ask where the crab is (that gentleman is so happy to help me out that he escorts me directly to the sandwiches!), and I ask how on earth I can then get back around the entire stadium to section 311. It all goes off somewhat without a hitch. I carry my sandwich delicately all the way around the ballpark, more than once narrowly avoiding having it knocked out of my hand by clueless frat boys, and make my way to my tried-and-true vendor where I buy my Sierra Nevada beer. My stress levels ease as I get to my seat. I then sit there and smugly scorn all the people who have a hard time figuring out on which side of the section to enter while trying to find their seats. Dolts.

Buster is still alive when I get home.

I decide to watch more documentaries, but they are starting to get tedious.

At some point in the evening our landline rings and the phone identifies the caller as my nephew Alec. What?? No one under 40 uses the telephone anymore! Someone must have died!!

(No, thank goodness.)

THURSDAY

The Chronicle runs a long article detailing how scores of people are dying from carbon monoxide poisoning because they don’t realize that they’ve left the engines of their keyless cars running in the garage. I immediately become convinced that I will easily make the same mistake and that I have very little time to live before I die of carbon monoxide poisoning myself.

While exercising I tell myself for the 50th time that I really should let my hair go grey. But I don’t have a young face. I have furrows in my brow the size of the Marianas Trench. If I go grey, that guy at the UPS Store might start mistaking me for Mel Brooks.

I go to Safeway to replenish our stock of expired food. I buy 11 replacement bottles of vinegar. Julie will never know what I’ve done. I have successfully covered all my tracks.

I spend some time continuing to work on my long-running project to finish scanning and naming (using a very strict naming protocol, of course) my parents’ and grandparents’ old photos. I’m also continuing to get my Super 8 films digitized, including my two-hour movie (with soundtrack and narration!) of my three-month 1980 round-the-country trip with a girlfriend in a VW van. It’s an epic and Oscar-worthy film. The thing is, who is going to care about any of this when I’m gone, which will be soon because I will imminently be murdered in the shower, suffer a massive heart attack while exercising, or asphyxiate myself with our keyless car? No one will care about your silly digitized photos and movies, Paula. They will just be summarily deleted.

Like me!

Thank goodness Julie is coming home today. Being alone, even with freshly organized cupboards and brand-new vinegar, isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

Meanwhile, I’ve still got my next blog hanging over my head. I’m letting down my legions of fans. Maybe I should write about the time I got an X-rated videotape stuck in my VCR. No, that would sully my pristine reputation.

Buster has developed a sudden fear of uncarpeted stairs. Good grief, where is he getting all of his strange neuroses?

Julie’s plane is late but she finally lands around dinnertime. Hallelujah! Buster and I pick her up. The “Human Anti-Anxiety Pill” has arrived!

***

As soon as we walk in the door, she heads to the kitchen for a snack. “Hey, you rearranged the cupboards!” she announces. “And have you heard about today’s chaos in Washington?”

Strangely, I feel a wash of serenity.

***

11/19/70 [Ed.’s note: I was a couple of years younger than others in my class]:

“Today was a great day! They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me in Spanish and we went through the whole age routine. At lunch, everyone got me ‘Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour’ album. During Geometry, someone wrote ‘Happy Birthday’ on the board and I went through the whole age bit again. Tonight I got a Glen Campbell song book from Mom & Dad, 5 dollars from Zia, Grammy, and Auntie Jackie, a belt from Marc, a guitar strap from Jan, ‘Oh, Happy Day’ record from Colleen, and personalized stickers from Barb. It was all very happy, except now I realize I’ll never be 14 again. Never!”

11/6/70:

“Tonight, [my sister] Jan discovered that [our tiny pet frog] Toby wasn’t in his cage. I love that frog. We’ve had him for a year and a half. I feel like crying. We looked all over for him and finally found the poor little guy all dried and shriveled up under the T.V.”

10/19/70:

“Tonight at 6:00 we went to the Blanchettes for dinner. We had barbecued bonito. It doesn’t sound too good, but by that time I was so starving I would have eaten anything. We had a little game of football and Butch and I were the best. Then Butch and I went into his mom’s room to watch T.V. Once he called me “honey.” How romantic! I wish I was clever or humorous or something. But I’m such a complete dud, I swear. We watched interesting things like bullfights.”

10/7/70: [Ed.’s note: I think Eddie Ryan was just a guy who went to our school]

“[My brother] Marc and I have a thing going when we walk to school every day. We have to see ten landmarks: 1) “Whistle-’em-up” the crossing lady (she told us to whistle when we want to cross), 2) A pet, 3) “Hawkins” written on sidewalk, 4) “Rhonda Kelly was here” on sidewalk, 5) Piedmont Hills bus, 6) little bus, 7) Boys’ P.E. bus, 8) Girls’ P.E. bus, 9) A motorcycle, and 10) Eddie Ryan. That’s the hardest one.”

10/4/70:
“You know, I really want a bike for Christmas. But Dad thinks it’s too dangerous. To him, everything is too dangerous. But Mom said she’d rather wait and give us a Honda. So now I want a Honda. You don’t need a license except for the streets. Like Bronson –the feel of the wind on your face. Groovy!”

La bella vita

Well before dawn this coming Wednesday, city officials and a parade of fire trucks will convene downtown for the annual commemoration, at Lotta’s Fountain, of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which killed up to 3,000 people, destroyed 28,000 buildings, and rendered 225,000 people homeless. Lotta’s Fountain was a gift to the City from Lotta Crabtree, a local actress, and it was used as a meeting place for residents after the quake. The last two survivors of the devastation died a couple of years ago, but the annual ceremony continues, beginning at 4:30 a.m. and counting down to a moment of silence at 5:12 a.m., which is the moment the earthquake struck.

My grandmother, 18-year-old Ambrogia Fontana, was one of the survivors. Newly arrived from Italy through Ellis Island, she had been in San Francisco less than a week. She spoke no English. She and her younger brother David were aiming to get a foothold in the new land, trying to figure out the people, the food, the language, the urban hustle. The culture shock was immeasurable. The two of them were asleep on Wednesday morning, April 18, 1906, when the most devastating natural trauma ever to hit San Francisco shook and burned the city. David was smashed in the head by a falling ceiling beam and was injured so badly that he was knocked unconscious and lapsed into a coma. The two of them were carted off to a tent city for quake refugees. Ambrogia had no idea where she was, where to go, or what to do, and no one could understand her. All around her, the city was in ruins.

***

Ambrogia, who was born in 1887, had grown up cutting quite a rebellious figure in the tiny northern Italian town of Staffoli, near Lucca in the Tuscan region. The oldest of 8 children, she worked in her father’s bottega (shop) where, at the age of 9, she spent her days making panini (sandwiches) while pouring a bit of grappa for herself every time she served a glass to a customer. Stern, robust, and always resentful of authority, as a teenager she would deliberately walk the streets of Staffoli wearing – gasp! – pants and smoking a Toscano cigar, just because it wasn’t done in those days.

(As an aside, Staffoli was originally in the province of Florence, but when Mussolini tinkered with the divisions in 1920 [gerrymandering!], he made Staffoli part of the province of Pisa. This would enrage my grandmother, who considered all Pisans to be thieves. The sentiment seems to endure somewhat today, and it may have stemmed from a time in history when many Pisans were tax collectors. One of my grandmother’s favorite [albeit skeevy] sayings was “Meglio che mangiare la tigna dalla testa di un cane che avere un Pisano alla porta!” [“Better to eat the mange off the head of a dog than to have a Pisan at the door!”])

Ambrogia’s father Pietro was a fairly successful businessman. In addition to owning the bottega, he was a cattle dealer, buying the animals in Milan or Venice and selling them in Florence. He also traveled extensively to Sao Pao, Brazil, where he had a coffee plantation, and to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he owned a brewery. Rumor has it that he kept a woman in every port, and the fact that two of his children were named Brasila and America certainly nurtured the speculation.

Although he was one of Staffoli’s few wealthy residents, Pietro was, for some reason, a socialist. In fact, he periodically hosted neighborhood socialist meetings with about 15 other men – a risky proposition, given that at that time the Italian government was cracking down hard on political activists, especially anarchists and socialists. The women, of course, were not allowed to participate in the meetings. Ambrogia was required to serve the males, and she grew increasingly resentful of her father’s rigorous authoritarianism. (Little did he know that when he went off on his trips, she would gather up her younger siblings, haul a bounty of salame, bread, and a bottle of chianti up to their room, and host a food-and-wine fest on their beds!)

At one particular political meeting, at which the now-18-year-old Ambrogia was, as usual, serving, Pietro’s rigid child-rearing practices were questioned by one of his more lenient buddies. “My children,” he responded angrily, “can do whatever they want in life.” This was the moment my quick-witted grandmother seized like a snake. “Oh, yeah?” she piped up in front of everyone. “Then I want to go to America.” Shocked by her audacity, the rest of the men challenged him. “You heard her, Pietro. So you will really send your daughter to America, then,” they said, mockingly. Pietro was stuck. He had made a proclamation and he couldn’t backtrack. His ego overruled his common sense. “Sure,” he answered. His wife immediately began to cry. But it was done.

That’s how my grandmother came to find herself boarding the steamship Prinzess Irene in Genoa, Italy, on March 22, 1906. It was unheard-of in those days for a young woman to travel alone; typically, in fact, it was a household’s father or eldest son who made the voyage and then sent for the rest of the family when life was settled. In this case, though, Ambrogia’s dim-witted 16-year-old brother Davide (David) was sent with her as a “chaperone.”

The Prinzess Irene was a German-built ocean liner that ran on the Genoa-to-New York line beginning in 1903. She was 540 feet long and 60 feet wide, weighed almost 11,000 tons, and traveled at about 15 knots (18 mph). The ship carried more than 2,000 passengers – most of them, including my grandmother, in 3rd class or “steerage.”

Before boarding, passengers were asked to answer a number of questions, the oddest of which included whether they were polygamists or anarchists. I’m fairly sure my grandmother was not the former, but she may well have been the latter. In any case, both she and David answered “no” appropriately. They also were subject to medical examinations and to “disinfection.”

There is no way to sugarcoat the experience of the passengers in steerage. In fact, up to 10 percent of them died on the way. They sat crowded together, in the dark, under the most unsanitary of conditions. The air was chokingly foul. Five years after my grandmother’s trip, the U.S. Immigrant Service reported that “[t]he open deck space reserved for steerage passengers is usually very limited, and situated in the worst part of the ship, subject to the most violent motion, to the dirt from the stacks and the odors from the hold and galleys. . . . The ventilation is almost always inadequate, and the air soon becomes foul. The unattended vomit of the seasick, the odors of not too clean bodies, the reek of food and the awful stench of the nearby toilet rooms make the atmosphere of the steerage such that it is a marvel that human flesh can endure it . . . . Most immigrants lie in their berths for most of the voyage, in a stupor caused by the foul air. The food often repels them. . . . It is almost impossible to keep personally clean. All of these conditions are naturally aggravated by the crowding.”

In my grandmother’s case, this went on for 15 days. She and David arrived in New York on April 6. She had $25 in her pocket.

***

Three million Italians came to the United States between 1900 and 1915 during the “New Immigration” of Slavs, Jews, and Italians. Most of them were farm workers and unskilled laborers fleeing not only a politically chaotic country but also the crush of abject poverty. That was not the case with my grandmother, but it did apply to my grandfather.

Gustavo Bocciardi, a Tuscan like my grandmother, grew up extremely poor and with very little education. In April 1904, Gustavo came to America (also on the Prinzess Irene) by himself, as a teenager, in search of work. A couple of aunts in California had wired him the money to find his way out west. While on the train from Ellis Island to San Francisco, he was nearly taken advantage of when the guy at the café counter tried to charge him something like $30 for a 52-cent sandwich. As the story goes, my grandfather – short in stature, but strong as a bull – grabbed the guy by the collar and throttled him until he got his money back.

1956_07_Gustavo Bocciardi, Paula(b) — Gustavo Bocciardi (Nonno) and me, 1956

My grandfather was an interesting dichotomy. He was an emotional pushover who, in his later years, liked to push me around the neighborhood in a stroller to show me off. But apparently he had a temper – one I never, ever saw. Maybe his attitude was hardened by the bigotry that Italians regularly endured in this country. My dad told me that one day a passerby called Gustavo a “dago” to his face. “So he dropped the son of a bitch,” my father said, rather dryly. The man hit his head on the sidewalk, and Gustavo thought he’d killed him. While he was trying to explain the situation to his aunts afterwards, a police officer arrived at the door – a fellow who knew the aunts and liked them. “That guy is a jerk,” said the officer. “He’s just fine, he didn’t die, and you just tell your nephew Gustavo not to worry about it.”

***

In the few days between the time they arrived in San Francisco and the time the Great Earthquake hit, Ambrogia and her brother David had been staying in SF with their relatives the Mancinis. On April 18, the Mancinis had already gone to work by 5:12 am. – the moment the house was destroyed, and David was critically hurt – and they had no idea where their young charges were. The American Red Cross and local charities were providing food and medical care to everyone in the tent cities, which is where Ambrogia found herself, along with David, who was unconscious for days. One day, as Ambrogia was still trying to make sense out of what had happened to her, she heard Italian being spoken outside their tent. She ran out and discovered that a representative from the Italian consulate was walking around offering assistance, and she was able to tell him that she had been separated from the Mancinis, who, she knew, had relatives in Redwood City. Somehow the Consulate ended up finding the relatives and providing Ambrogia and David with transportation to their home. David would recover from his injuries.

***

By 1907, after working for a short time as a nanny, Ambrogia packed up and moved to San Leandro, a small city across the Bay from San Francisco to which many people displaced by the quake had relocated. She began working at the King-Morse cannery off of San Leandro Boulevard (now the site of the San Leandro BART station). Meanwhile, Gustavo Bocciardi – who’d been working as a logger in Boulder Creek – had also moved to San Leandro and was working at the same place.

Del Monte Cannery-[edited for blog] — The cannery

San Leandro has perhaps the greatest weather in California, and in the late 1800s and early 1900s there were plenty of farmers growing stone fruits, asparagus, and other produce in the area. The farmers made a lot of noise about getting a local cannery built to help ensure that their produce didn’t rot, and the first San Leandro cannery was established in 1898. In 1916 it became part of the California Packing Corporation (CPC), which eventually merged with the Del Monte conglomerate and became the largest fruit and vegetable canning company in the world. (Del Monte moved the San Leandro operation to the Central Valley in 1967.) The cannery employed a lot of Italians, and it was one of the few businesses in the area that provided employment to women. It was even so progressive as to offer free on-site day care. It also supplied little living shacks, for minimal rent, to some of the workers.

Gustavo and Ambrogia saw each other for the first time at that cannery. And here’s the craziest thing: they discovered that they were from the same tiny town in Italy! And they hadn’t known each other! I don’t know the population of Staffoli back then, but even now it has only a few thousand people. I can’t imagine how they could not have run into each other, especially because they were only two years apart in age. But my grandfather was poor and uneducated, and my grandmother traveled in a different universe.

Not surprisingly, Gustavo and Ambrogia ended up getting married, in Oakland, on December 30, 1907. A year later they had their first child, my aunt Nini, whose real name was actually Maria. [Ed’s note: every Italian family has a Maria!] My grandfather apparently won the naming rights and chose to name my aunt after his grandmother Maria, even though my grandmother – who was very anti-clerical (but not anti-religious) at the time – emphatically insisted that the Biblical Maria (Mary) was “the world’s first whore”!

1916_(L to R)_Giannina Corti, Gino Corti, Rizzieri Matteucci, Gustavo Bocciardi, Marie Bocciardi, Ambrogia Bocciardi-[edited for blog] — Gustavo (sitting) and Ambrogia Bocciardi, with daughter Maria (Nini), 1916

My aunt Nini – who was loud and very funny, often unwittingly – used to tell us that she was “born dead.” That declaration always amused and puzzled us kids, but my mother explained that although the doctors did initially pronounce her dead because she wasn’t breathing, she suddenly took a gasping breath and that was that. Nini slept, as an infant, in a dresser drawer, and when she was a month old my grandmother took her to work with her in a shoebox. They were all still living, at the time, in a cannery shack.

What continues to amaze me to this day is that my indefatigable grandmother found an additional way to make money. At night she would cook up an abundance of food that she could feed at lunch the following day to the many single young men who worked alongside her at the cannery: stews, chicken in sauce, etc. In the morning she would set the table, and at noon she’d race home to heat up the food. Then the cannery workers would come over and buy lunch from her to eat while they rested! How she did all this and cared for a baby, I do not know. She was strong, smart, and determined. It didn’t matter that she had been brought up in a family of means. She was on her own now, and she had no expectations of being handed anything anymore. She could stand on her own two feet. And hold everybody else up as well.

***

At some point my grandmother quit the Cannery and they rented a house in San Leandro. Gustavo then worked at a variety of jobs – lumberyard, sawmill, munitions factory during World War I, etc. – for a few years each until his hot temper got him kicked out. Finally, nearly 20 years later, they could afford to have their first home built in 1926, right across the street from the San Leandro Ballpark (adjacent to the cannery) where my father says he saw Billy Martin play before he made it into the majors. Tickets to the Sunday afternoon baseball games cost 15 cents for gentlemen and 10 cents for ladies. What a steal! (That field, which I remember well, is now long gone, demolished when the BART station was built.)

By then my grandfather had gotten into the poultry business, and eventually he established his own market with two other guys – one of whom was his new son-in-law Ray. My grandparents weren’t keen on Ray because he was, irony of ironies, a Pisan! And true to stereotype, Ray’s father was a crook – a bootlegger who somehow cheated my grandfather out of a lot of money, although no one quite remembers how.

1925_San Leandro_Gustavo Bocciardi in Dodge truck-[edited for blog] — 1925

***

Nearly nineteen years after Maria was born (yes, you read that right), along came my father in 1927. He was almost named “Sbaglio” (“Mistake”) because my grandparents had been convinced that they were too old to have children. In fact, once she started to show, my grandmother went to the local pharmacist to ask him what to do for her “tumor.” His reply? “That’s no tumor, lady. That’s a baby!”

Dad once said that they should have named him “Tumor.”

1937_12_Dad, Gustavo and Ambrogia Bocciardi-[edited for blog] — Gerald (my dad), Gustavo, and Ambrogia Bocciardi, 1937

My father had a wonderful childhood in San Leandro, in what he calls “the Italian ghetto.” He was adored and spoiled and many of the neighbors spoke Italian (or Spanish or Portuguese) and everyone watched out for each other. When he ran home from his first day of school because he couldn’t speak English, my grandmother ushered him right back. Her children were going to make something of themselves, and they would have an easier life.

***

1956_11-19_Gustavo Bocciardi, Paula(b) — Nonno and me, 1956

I’m only half Italian, but nearly all of my historical and cultural understanding of my heritage came from that side of the family. The German relatives on my mother’s side were almost guarded about their ancestry. But the Italians were proud and joyful.

My first language was actually Italian. I didn’t know how to speak English until I was about three years old and my maternal grandmother was babysitting me one day, couldn’t understand my repeated requests for acqua (water), and implored my parents to for God’s sake teach me some English.

1956_07_Mom, Paula, Ambrogia Bocciardi(b)-[edited for blog] — Beverly Bocciardi (Mom), me, and Nonna, 1956

When I was a child, I had the great fortune of spending at least every other weekend at my grandparents’ house in San Leandro. Nonna (my grandmother) wore aprons all the time and was constantly at the stove. Nonno (my grandfather), as I mentioned before, pushed me around in my stroller and visited all the neighborhood ladies. He let me help him pick vegetables from their perfect garden and dig for treasures in their basement. The Southern Pacific Railroad ran two lines near the house because the cannery depended on trains to bring in produce and ship out the canned goods. In the middle of the night the house would shake and rumble and the train whistle would practically wake the dead as the “choo-choo” thundered by. I loved the comfort of it.

1957_09_Marc's Baptism_Paula, Gustavo Bocciardi, Marc 1(b) — Nonno with me and my brother Marc, 1957

***

What great resilience and fortitude the immigrants had. How did those people from quiet little towns – some of them teenagers, like my relatives – find the courage to leave their homes and families and travel in horrid conditions across an ocean without knowing whether they would even survive the journey or, if they did, what they would do when they arrived? Most of the time they would end up sacrificing everything for their own new families in America. And yet, despite the prejudice and the barriers, they did it without complaint. Without defeat. They were heroes without monuments.

One of my very favorite movies, Mi Familia, ends with a scene in which the mother and father of an immigrant family from Mexico sit at a table and reflect back on their lives. The mother had suffered terribly getting to this country as a young woman. Their oldest son had been murdered. Their daughter-in-law had died soon after giving birth. But ultimately their remaining children and their grandchildren had found their way in life. As the parents savor their coffee and reflect on their marriage and family, José says, “Maria, we’ve had a good life. We’ve been very lucky.”

She nods but then pauses. “It would have been even better if . . . .”

But José won’t hear of it. “No, Maria, don’t say it,” he says. “Don’t even say it. It is wrong to wish for too much in this life. God has been good to us.”

“You’re right,” Maria says. “We have had a very good life.” And they kiss.

Sometimes I wonder what my grandparents would say if they knew what the world was like today. How could they comprehend people pulling out guns and shooting up schools and workplaces because they’re frustrated that things aren’t going quite perfectly for them?

And what would they think about those of us who show off pictures of our own food? How self-important have we become?

And how high are our expectations about the happiness we think life owes us?

Ambrogia and Gustavo lived in their little white San Leandro house for the rest of their lives. It was a simple existence, but they provided their two children with everything they needed: love, support, and education. My grandparents worked hard and had no time to be self-important. Life wasn’t easy. But they were self-reliant and they were happy. They talked, they laughed, they loved, they ate, and they drank with gusto.

And even when they were practically penniless, they were rich with courage, culture, and ideals.

It was the good life. It was la bella vita.

Salute, Nonno and Nonna. Vi voglio bene. I will love you forever.

***

9/24/71:

“6th period I have Geometry with Miss McCulloh. I always get done before everyone else in there. She said kiddingly, “I’ll have to give you extra work.” Well, brother, I have had enough of THAT before!”

10/26/71:

“I had to stay home from school today because I was sick. What a bummer! I’ll have to miss tennis tomorrow. Shoot! Not much else to say. I watched Graham Kerr [“The Galloping Gourmet” on TV] make poached eggs in wine sauce. Then I got hungry so I went up and had lunch. I had green-pea soup, a salami-ham-cheese sandwich, potato chips, an apple, a Ding-Dong, and a Coke.”

Christmas, 1967:

“Today we went to Church in our red plaid Scottish skirts and blouses and berets. The blouses were wool blue and so were our sweaters. Janine and I were scared with our berets.”

Tibby is king!

I have been lazy of late, dear readers, for no particular reason, and I know that it’s high time I got back on the blogging horse. I’m working on a more dignified piece right now, but in the meantime, just to sate your appetite for my literary pearls, I’ve decided to present to you the official minutes of the Tibby Club of America. And I will reward you with more substantive content in the days to come.

The Bocciardi kids founded two groundbreaking organizations in the 1960s. One of those – The Fishing Club – has already been covered here on Monday Morning Rail. The other was dedicated to my grandmother’s dog. Luckily, in both cases I appointed myself the recorder of the meeting minutes, and the historic proposals and decisions we made as members of these clubs are now saved for posterity.

As a bit of background, my mother’s parents lived in La Crescenta, California, which is in the southern part of the state near Los Angeles. At some point when we were kids, my grandmother acquired a cute little Lhasa Apso puppy whom she named Tibby, presumably because that breed of dog originated in Tibet (and was in fact not introduced to the United States until the 1930s).

Tibby was an adorable but completely spoiled little white bundle of hair. Now that Julie and I have a Lhasa Apso of our own, we’re quite familiar with the breed’s extreme stubbornness, tendency to bark maniacally at perceived dangers (their name in Tibetan means “Bark Lion Sentinel”), mischievous ability to outsmart their owners, and marked distrust of strangers and children, with whom they can be quite snippy.

Luckily, Tibby was a fairly chill little dude. His worst trait came about only because my grandparents fed him “people food,” a practice that was frequently evidenced by Tibby’s walking around with an orange beard after slurping Ragu-drenched spaghetti out of his bowl. (These grandparents weren’t the Italian side, hence the dubious sauce.) However, when the family sat down to dinner, Tibby would expect additional tidbits and would beg and yap ceaselessly in a voice so shrill that it could cause serious tinnitus. He would then be banished to the backyard, where he would continue to yip, all the while pawing and scratching incessantly at the sliding glass door until we went nearly insane.

Otherwise, though, he was very good with children, and he put up with our constant mauling in a manner that was both aloof and patient. We absolutely worshipped him.

1965_05_Janine, Marc, Agnes (Hansen) and Frank Steger, Jackie Gross, Dad, Mom, Carla Gross, Kathie Gross, Ron Gross, Tibby — Adults in back: My grandmother Agnes (holding Tibby), grandfather Frank, aunt Jackie, Dad, and mom. Standing kids: My sister Janine, brother Marc, and cousins Kathy and Carla. Kneeling teenager is my cousin Ronnie, whom we’d just as soon forget.

When the first meeting of the ambitiously named “Tibby Club of America” was convened at our house in San Jose, I had just turned 12, my brother Marc (obviously the money guy) was 10, and my sister Janine was 7. Occasionally our grandparents drove up to visit from SoCal, bringing Tibby and sometimes the two other people present for the club meetings: our first cousins Carla (12) and Kathy (10), the two daughters of our beloved hippie aunt Jackie who lived just a few blocks from my grandparents.

This is an abridged version of the complete minutes of the Tibby Club. If I were to include the full documents, you’d all be snoring. My comments are bracketed in italics.

***

TIBBY CLUB OF AMERICA

Minutes

The meeting came to order at 8:25 p.m., Friday, November 24, 1967. Kathy Gross, Janine, Marc, and Paula Bocciardi attended.

The President, Marc Bocciardi, said that the four slips of paper in front of us may be wrote on about a suggestion [sic] after you call time out.

We all called time out and wrote our suggestions. Then we all called time in after putting our suggestions in the bandage box located behind Paula, the Great.

Marc then proceeded to write down the Tibby motto.

Paula voted that we read the suggestions. Marc took them out and the first one was Janine’s. It said, “My thing is this – we should feed Tibby every day except once in a while.” Everyone voted on it.

The next suggestion was Janine’s. It said, “Do the Tibby sulut [sic] every day.” Everyone almost voted it in. Then Janine got a demerit for talking about how Marc once said, “Dear Grammy and Grumpy.”

Next was Paula’s. It said, “We should have an itiation [sic; initiation] for Kathy and other new members.” Everyone voted for it.

Kathy got a demerit of salivaing [drooling on] her knee. Paula said Kathy should say to Grampy, “Grampy, damn it.” The inititon [sic again!; initiation] was decided to be a tickle torture.

Paula said, “Wall – damn it” after Jan fell and Paula made a loud poop [fart].

Next was Janine’s. It said, “I love Tibby . . . I love Tibby.”

Next was Kathy’s. It said, “I don’t love Tibby.” Kathy almost got a demerit for it.

Next was Marc’s. It said, “I think we should all five of us (Kathy and Carla, Marc, Jan, and Paula) should contribute 10¢ for Tibby’s birthday present and 10¢ for his Christmas present.” We all voted for it.

Then Janine said, “I think that we should play with Tibby more often.” We all voted for it.

Then I read this, and the meeting was adjourned at 9:04 p.m.

Signed,
Paula Bocciardi
Minute Man

***

Minutes

The meeting started Saturday, November 25, 1967 at 8:10 a.m. Marc, Paula, Jan Bocciardi and Kathy Gross were present.

Marc, the President, passed out suggestion slips. Everyone called time out and wrote down their suggestions. We all called time in.

Then we decided to collect the 20¢ for Tibby’s presents. Everyone contributed 20¢ except Kathy and Marc. Marc had done it the previous night.

1965_05_Felicia Morrow, Agnes (Hansen) Steger, Tibby, Janine, Marc-2 — Neighborhood friend Felicia, my grandmother Agnes (with Tibby), Janine, and Marc

Then Marc read the first suggestions. It was Paula’s and Marc’s and Kathy’s. They said, “We should give Tibby a final salute and have a salute every meeting and a final playing with.” Everyone voted for the first and third, everyone except Paula for the second.

Next was NOBODY. It said NOTHING. [It appears that I had left blank spaces where someone later filled in the “nobody” and “nothing.” The handwriting was clearly my brother’s.]

The meeting adjourned at 8:26 a.m.

***

Minutes

The meeting came to order at 7:31 p.m. on Saturday, November 25, 1967. Kathy Gross, Paula, Jan, and Marc attended.

Kathy suggested that we read the promotion. Then Paula said to Kathy, “You stink.” Then it was decided that Kathy and Janine were to be promoted. Kathy was promoted to first class and swore (an oath, that is). Janine was promoted to first class and swore.

We discussed swearing.

Marc suggested we read the suggestions. The first one – Jan read. It was Marc’s. He said that we should have a crown [for Tibby]. Suggestion was overruled.

Then Kathy read Jan’s. It said that we should comb, brush, feed, and give water to Tibby everyday.

Then Marc read Kathy’s. It said that Carla should send up her membership and that we should care for Tibby better. The first part was voted for by everyone.

Paula moved that we should adjourn the meeting and give the Tibby salute. We all voted on it.

The meeting adjourned at 7:55.

Signed,
Paula Bocciardi
Co-Chairman
(Minute Man)

***

Minutes [these are written by my brother]

I had to write the minutes because Paula got mad and threw the orig. ones in the wastebasket.

President, Marc

The meeting came to order at 3:57 p.m. on Thursday, December 21, 1967. Kathy and Carla Gross and Marc, Paula, and Janine Bocciardi were present.

We wrote our suggestions.

The first one read, “Let’s give Carla her Initiation Tickle Torture.” Everyone but Carla voted for it.

The next one said, “let’s have a party.” Everyone voted for it. The next said, “We should give Marc demerits when he needs them.” Everyone voted for it.

The next said, “let’s make a Tibby song.” It was overruled.

The next one said, “we should have interest on dues.” [Guess whose suggestion THAT was?] It was overrruled. The meeting was adjourned at 4:31 p.m.

President,
Marc

1969_06 Marc, Tibby, Paula, Janine-2 — Marc, Paula (with Tibby), Janine

***

Minutes

P.R. – Marc (President)
M.M. – Paula (Minute Man)
1st class Jan – Janine

The meeting came to order at 10:05 a.m. PAT (Paula’s alarm clock time) on Sunday, June 30, 1968. Then Paula read the minutes of the last meeting. After Marc passed out the suggestion slips, we wrote them down and put them in a jacks bag.

The first Marc read’s [sic] was 1st class Jan’s. It said, “We should take turns reading these.” That was voted in. Then Jan read her own, which said that we should sell Tibby badges for 5¢ apiece [and] that she could make some – Marc’s idea. Then she read Marc’s which said the same, but also 5¢ for folders, money to Tibby fund. We voted that in.

Marc read Paula’s, which said we should have a Tibby scroll. Jan read Paula’s, which said she’ll make a Pig crown for Uncle Dave.

Then Paula read Jan’s, which said, “I think every day we should give Tibby rewards because he’s KING. First-class Jan.”

Then Marc read Paula’s, which said not to go too far or Mom or Dad will get mad.

Janine then left to go to the bathroom.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:35 a.m. PAT.

***

12/13 and 12/14, 1971 [the hard life of a teenager]:

“Mrs. Moore gave me a tutoring assignment today. I was really happy about it until she told me it was in Algebra. Yecch! My worst, most hated, dumbest subject! Yecch! First period P.E. has (glory of all glories) BASKETBALL IN THE GYM. And do you know what I got stuck with? Huh? FENCING!! That’s right! I’m so sore I can’t move.”

12/5/71:

“I was very busy today and did not go to church. Dad had a cold, Mom had a stomach pain; yet I could have walked. I should have. Somehow I know that I am a good person, and perhaps those religious standards made me that way. Yet there are all these new voices proclaiming that we do not have to go to Mass. I hate to think that they are right, and that all my Masses and all my Confessions were for nothing!”

12/7/71:

“Tonight, I went with Mary Pasek to my first P.A.L. [at the time, sort of like little junior police officers] meeting. We got a thing for our parents to sign saying that if we are killed or seriously injured, the Police Department is not liable. We are binded to risk our lives for policemen. The rigidness of conduct and the very strict inspection scared us into a panic. However, it scared me INTO P.A.L. because I have found that I have a certain desire for very authoritative procedures. We MUST have black shoes and a pen.”

11/26/71:

“I watched the Baltimore Bullitts [sic] beat the Atlanta Hawks today, 105-118. Pete Maravich is the only reason I watched. I used to like ‘Pistol Pete’ a couple years ago when he played college ball. I can’t say he’s too much of a shooter, but he sure can handle that ball. I used to think he was cute. YICK!”

11/30/71:
“Boy, did we see a tear-jerking movie tonight. The movie was “Brian’s Song” about Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears. Brian died of cancer. I cried the last half hour and 15 minutes AFTER that movie!”

11/23/71:

“Today I was notified that I am going to be Editor-in-Chief for the next issue of our [school] paper. SWELL. I had to fork out an editorial today. I also got my senior pictures taken. At first I was really scared, but it didn’t take too long, thank goodness. One thing I am afraid of is Driver’s Training. I’m getting it sometime this quarter. Boy, I am so scared. Thank goodness tomorrow is the last day of this week. Yay, Thanksgiving! Food!”

11/21/71:

“What did I do today? I went to Church, finished selling my box of candy bars, vacuumed my room (there were 26,962 pieces of confetti on the rug), wrote thank-you notes, got Mom to let me wear pants once a week, made up a schedule for wearing my clothes, and took a BBGO (Big Bath and General Overhaul).”

Please! No results!

February 21, 1992, was going to be a problem for me. The Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France, were in full swing, and I was finding myself riveted by the competition in women’s figure skating. Americans Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were rivals then (this was two years before one of Harding’s goons would whack Kerrigan on the knee in a failed attempt to end her career). Nancy was the more elegant, graceful skater, in the old tradition, and Tonya was stronger and more athletic, able to land a triple axel. Nancy’s mother, sitting in the stands, was legally blind and the cameras kept cutting to her face, full of love and anticipation, an inch away from a monitor to better see her daughter. So I felt an emotional attachment to the Kerrigans. But Kristi Yamaguchi was also in the mix, as was a sturdy Japanese woman named Midori Ito who, like Harding, could pull off the triple axel.

Anyway, my problem was that I wanted to be able to put in my full workday without hearing anything about the Olympics and then rush home to watch the results of the skating final on television. Because of the time difference between the U.S. and France, the actual event was held in the middle of our day, but the networks, of course, ran their programming in prime time. Remember that in 1992 people did not own cellphones, so there was no chance I’d accidentally see any kind of sports news alert. But in the workplace there was bound to be a colleague who would listen to the results on the radio and then spill the beans. The restroom alone was a veritable hotbed of skating gossip.

1991_AOC_Lisa Crystal, Paula — Lisa and Paula, 1991

I was an editor at the time, and I shared a huge cubicle with my fellow editor Lisa. Lisa and I had asked that the wall separating our adjoining cubicles be taken down so that we could cohabit a much larger area. The person in charge of office space, Carmen, told me that it was the most refreshing request she’d ever had. “Most people ask me to put up as many barriers as possible between them and their co-workers,” she said. “I’ve never had a request like this!” But Lisa and I were great friends. When we petitioned for the cubicle modification we claimed that we needed to be able to discuss the finer points of grammar on a regular basis (“Hey, did you know that the subjunctive is not a tense but a mood?”), but in reality we just wanted to gab freely all the livelong day.

Lisa was as obsessed with the skating competition as I was, and we were fixated on ways in which we could keep our colleagues from spilling the beans. It wasn’t too difficult if I happened to cross paths with someone talking about it in the restroom: I would simply shriek “NO OLYMPICS!” and blaze out the door. But dozens of people visited our “editing zone” every day, whether to drop off a manuscript, throw us a grammar question, or just shoot the breeze.

We sweated and fussed about this issue so much that the people in our typesetting department finally came to us with a solution in hand. They had printed out – and strung together so as to resemble crime scene tape – yellow pieces of paper imprinted with the words “Please! No skating results beyond this point.” And they strung the yellow “tape” across the entrance to our cubicle.

The caution tape became a conversation piece and, of course, drew even more gawkers to our space. But it did the trick. No one dared speak a word about the Olympics. And we didn’t care that we had to limbo under it to leave our cubicle.

Having made it through the day without hearing any results, my last task was merely to get home and ensure that no one called me. I figured I would unplug the phone, turn off the answering machine, and just read a book until the CBS coverage started. It was do-able! So I took off on my beloved red Honda C70 scooter and set out for home. The weather was foggy and in the 50s that day, and it was a cool, grey ride heading west down Geary, through Golden Gate Park, and up 19th Avenue toward my house on 21st Avenue. I remember sitting at the last stoplight on 19th, two blocks from home, dreaming of the sports meal I would soon be eating, when I absently glanced to my right and saw the evening’s San Francisco Examiner, in a newsrack right by the curb, with its bold headline blaring straight at me:

“YAMAGUCHI WINS GOLD!”

Oh, bloody hell!

***

I hadn’t cared about figure skating for very long. Truth be told, I’d never considered figure skating to be a sport, especially on the women’s side. Until women started adding triple jumps into the mix, I thought figure skating was more like dancing on ice. Contributing to my disdain was the fact that until 1990 the skating competition included an event called the “compulsories,” in which participants were forced to skate various patterns in the ice that generally all looked like figure eights. It was slow, tedious, and – to my mind – ridiculous.

I remember that one day at softball practice my teammate Elena M. and I were standing around on the field, waiting for someone to hit grounders to us. The “what constitutes a sport?” topic came up, and Elena and I riffed on it so long that at some point we fell on the grass choking with laughter. I was, however, mostly serious. I declared that there had to be some element of danger in a sport. The act of figure skating seemed like it barely qualified, although we both acknowledged that flying around on the ice and then falling on your bones could possibly result in injury. But then I brought up the compulsories. I spouted that there was absolutely no risk involved and thus it was not a sport in any way. Elena and I decided that a perilous element would need to be added and that if we were in charge we would modify the competition: sharp spikes would be placed all around the ice so if someone were to waver and trip while doing the compulsories, he or she would be instantly impaled. This solution satisfied us both.

***

The potential for injury has not been my only criterion, over the years, for defining a sport. I feel that there needs to be strenuous movement and exertion involved. My friend Julie Riffle agrees and adds that if you can drink and/or smoke while playing something at the competitive level, it is not a sport. Long ago I ruled out golf as a sport (and decreed it to be a game instead) because generally one does not break a sweat while playing – unless it’s nervous perspiration triggered by the knowledge that your bungled chip shot just cost you a $3 million prize.

So consider the luge – one of the mainstays of the Winter Olympics. I must admit that up until this writing I’d assumed that the worst that could happen during a luge event was a bruised tailbone. However, my research today revealed that two lugers have actually died in practice runs leading up to the Olympics. Okay, so there is an element of danger involved. Still, the gist of the sport is that you lie down on a sled and go careening down a slope. On many occasions I have suggested to Julie R. that she become a luger because, as I still insist, anyone can do it. She’s in good shape, she’s smart, and she’s not a scaredy-cat, so in my view she has the DNA to be a champion luger. And except for the few seconds at the beginning of the run, when the luger flaps his or her hands four times on the ice to get going, the event requires no physical exertion whatsoever. I maintain, therefore, that luging is a skill, not a sport.

Even more absurd is the four-man bobsled. It’s almost the same idea as the luge, but it’s slower, and in this event two members of the team do nothing except push the bobsled for a few feet and then jump into it, put their heads down, and pray! I COULD DO THAT!

If we deemed any skill – however difficult – to be a sport, then knitting, parallel parking, and pulling out splinters would be considered sports. Case closed. Mic drop.

***

Coincidentally, the other day I was digging through my online “memorabilia” when I found this letter that Julie R. and I had penned to the San Francisco Chronicle editors. Neither she nor I remembers the letter now, but I will publish it here in its entirety:

August 2, 1996

Sporting Green Editor:

We were greatly amused to see the story in Friday’s Chronicle about the poor guy who accidentally had explosives lodge in his nose and who underwent delicate underwater surgery to have them removed.

But it occurred to us that this story ties in with our current disgust over the many non-sports in the Olympic Games: among others, synchronized swimming, skeet shooting, and the laughable rhythmic gymnastics. Since we believe that a “sport” should at least involve sweating and/or risk-taking, we think that rhythmic gymnasts should be required to compete with explosives up their nose.

Sincerely,

Paula Bocciardi Julie Riffle

The letter was not selected for publication. Quelle surprise!

***

Of course, even if we were to agree about what constitutes a sport, there is still the matter of whether a particular event belongs in the Olympics. Basketball and baseball are sports, in my view, but I don’t think they should be Olympic events. In general I’m not keen about any team sports in the Olympics, except for relay events, which depend on each runner or swimmer to maximize his or her time. With baseball and basketball, one team member could do absolutely nothing and still come home with a medal. When teams merely play against each other, the win or loss is dependent as much upon the other team as it is upon one’s own, so a medal doesn’t necessarily reflect an individual’s ability at all.

And then there are the events I find just plain ludicrous, like rhythmic gymnastics, curling, ping-pong, and anything involving horses, in which case the horses should get the medals, not the riders.

For a long time I was such a purist about the Olympics that I thought only individual sports involving the body exclusively – without any accoutrement, tool, or accessory – should be allowed. I figured the Olympics should be about pure athletic ability (running, jumping, swimming, throwing), and I didn’t think any event should be dependent upon the manufacturer of a ski, a sled, or a skate. But I came to realize that if you eliminated accoutrements from the Winter Games, you would be left with no events at all. After all, it’s not as if you can run or swim on ice. “That’s fine,” I thought, “then we should do away with the Winter Olympics altogether, because there was no such thing when the Olympics were invented.” Well, true, but the original, oh-so-sacred Olympics that took place in Greece hundreds of years B.C. involved naked men running, jumping, and throwing (aha! I knew it!) but also wrestling (the contestants were covered in oil) and chariot racing. Oops. I have to concede that a chariot is an accoutrement.

And I suppose it might be fun if all the contestants today had to be naked – especially the greased-up wrestlers – but then again, if that were the case the sumo wrestling competition might not entice many spectators.

***

As the years have gone by, and I’m finding myself less and less opinionated, I’ve softened my beliefs about sports and about the Olympics. Life is so much more enjoyable when one is open-minded, and I can now enjoy events like short-track speedskating and the gloriously exciting snowboard cross.

But do you know what I most anticipate watching? It happens only once every four years, people!

The biathlon.

Oh, yes!

I am pleased to point out that the biathlon does fit the Paula Bocciardi definition of “sport” – at least in part. Although it includes a skill (shooting a gun), it also includes a sport (skiing). And although it does involve an accoutrement (a gun), it also involves sweating.

The essence of the biathlon (there are many permutations) is that the athletes are required to perform grueling cross-country ski sprints intermixed with swooshing to a dead stop, grabbing seven-pound rifles off their backs, somehow tamping down their racing hearts, and shooting at precision targets 160 feet away, from both prone and standing positions. And the killer is that if they don’t hit five targets, they are penalized by having extra time added to their total or having to ski a penalty loop for each target they miss! I mean, it’s both physical and mental torture! Nirvana to watch!

***

This week marks the time of year when my sports-related depression starts to hit. The football season just ended (in a glorious fashion, I might add), and baseball players haven’t yet set foot on the grass. I call the next couple of months the “sports drought.” But every four years the pain is nullified by the Winter Games, and to my delight the Opening Ceremonies for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea will take place this Friday, February 9.

I can give myself permission to sit on the couch and eat sports meals (hot dogs, popcorn, and beer) for more than two weeks straight. I will shed my usual buckets of tears for each poignant story about the athletes’ heartbreaks and triumphs. And I will enjoy every single event and every single individual accomplishment – whether in victory or in defeat – as I remind myself that these athletes from all over the world have dedicated their lives to being the best that they can be, and they have all conjured up heroic levels of hard work, persistence, and mental toughness that I could never imagine in myself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

***

11/10/71:

“Mr. Healy was very sad today because of our class’s remarks about how boring it all was. Why does he listen to them? Anyway, he asked us to put down our goals. Mine were 1) To uphold justice 2) To become coordinated 3) To be sensible and not be so absent-minded, and 4) To not be alone.”

10/30/71:

“I’ve been pretty dumb this past week. All week long I worried about the Faculty-GAA tennis tournament. I figured that since Mr. B is so good, I’d make every single one of our mistakes. Well, Mary Pasek and Jeanne came down to watch and I was really scared because I thought I’d show them how lousy I was. But they must have given me [divine] guidance because I hardly flubbed at all. We then went out to the Circle Star [Theater] to see Glen Campbell. Wow, what a thrill! It was neat when I saw him run down the aisle right by us. Seeing such a god in person is too much. I’ll never forget it!”

10/21/71:

“Boy, so far I have a “B” in English. On our last test, EVERY SINGLE person around me cheated. [The teacher] gave it orally, and they all just discussed. If I heard them say the right answer, but I hadn’t known the answer before, I didn’t put it down. THAT is will power. So as it was, I got an 80 and they got 90. I’m beginning to wonder — should I cheat, too?”

9/19/71:

“Last night [our family] went to a movie ‘Billy Jack,’ rated R. But we had called up and they had told us it was rated GP. So we decided to try it. It wasn’t too bad, no nudity or anything, but it sort of condoned unwed pregnancy for [my 10-year-old sister] Jan. So we came out and Dad said he’d call ‘Action Line’ and all. [My brother] Marc and I were figuring how embarrassing it would be.”

9/9/71:

“Dad suggested tonight that I drive to Payless part-way. I never expected to go that far and I was nervous, but really nervous with Dad making sarcastic comments. I almost hit the Penitencia bridge. Perhaps I had better wait until Driver’s Training. Mom just sat there and died a thousand deaths.”

8/7/71:

“Another boring day. I even offered to scrub off the popcorn popper and Mom refused. And that’s hard work! We were going to go to Confession, but then we decided to go to a movie instead.”

Spirits in the night

Every few months, San Franciscans seem to pounce upon some new kind of culinary fad that much of the rest of the world has known about for years. In this city, though, we like to market the “new” food or drink to an upscale crowd and imply that it is appreciated only by the discriminating connoisseur.

For awhile we had a polenta craze. Polenta is basically cornmeal that, over the last few centuries, has been eaten as a staple by poor and working-class Italians because it was cheap and filling. We ate it all the time as kids, boiled one day and fried as leftovers the next. However, restaurants over here can throw some truffles on it to fancy it up and then charge an arm and a leg for a dollop of the stuff because it’s “artisanal.” Right now it seems that cauliflower and pork bellies also are beginning to dominate the more lavish menus.

Along these dubious lines, a couple of weeks ago the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article highlighting the recent popularity of bitter liqueurs called amari. (Amaro, the singular, means “bitter” in Italian.) The article said that 70 percent of the amari in the United States are consumed in San Francisco. Entire bars are now devoted to amari, some of them even offering “amaro flights.”

The cool, glamorous amaro liqueur that everyone in the “bitters cult” orders is called Fernet. I tried it a few years ago, and I would say that you, too, will love it if you enjoy the memorable taste of chewed-up aspirin.

Needless to say, I hate Fernet. And for the most part I have not been able to figure out what all the fuss is about. I have had no amore for amaro.

However, not long ago Julie and I were dining at Poesia (pronounced “Poh-eh-ZEE-ah,” Italian for “poetry”), our favorite Italian restaurant in San Francisco. Mistrustful of most recommendations, a number of years ago I had asked an off-the-boat Italian teacher from Bergamo to tell me which SF Italian restaurant she found to be the most delicious and authentic. She suggested Poesia and I’ve found her advice to be right-on. It’s not in North Beach – the ever-changing once-Italian neighborhood – but it sits on 18^th Street, in an old Victorian home in the Castro. Classic black-and-white Italian movies are projected silently on one of the walls. The food is consistently delicious, and the owner and some of the servers are bona fide Italians.

Anyway, the cocktail menu that day included a drink called Vecchio Amaro del Capo, which means Old Amaro from Capo, a town in the Italian region of Calabria. I had never heard of it, but the ever-adventurous Julie ordered it as her dessert.

We each had a sip, and our lives changed instantly.

***

Vecchio Amaro del Capo is an aromatic, amber-hued mix of 29 herbs, spices, fruits, and flowers in a secret blend that tastes like orange, cinnamon, cloves, caramel, ginger, sarsaparilla, and a hint of licorice. It is both bitter and sweet. It is spicy, piquant, peppery, and complex. It smells like cedar. It jazzes up your taste buds. Essentially, it’s Christmas in a Glass.

At 70 proof, the drink is strong, so like all luxurious beverages, it’s best sipped in small amounts. Because it carries a moderate measure of bitterness, the people of Calabria (according to the waitress) like to cut its potency with a few squeezes of fresh orange and serve it on the rocks with a slice of orange dropped in for a celebratory garnish. That’s how it came to our table that fateful night. But it can also be savored straight. The important thing is that it must be poured frosty cold, right out of the freezer.

Take time with it. Cherish it.

A few years ago, I was talking to a cherubic nursing home resident who told me that he envisioned heaven as being a place where he would float in the air above a beautiful meadow, holding a cocktail in each hand. I smiled at that image. My cocktail of choice would be Vecchio Amaro del Capo.

***

I believe in heaven. My Catholic school stint undoubtedly cemented that belief, but my convictions had settled firmly into place in my heart years before I first set foot at St. Victor’s Elementary.

It wasn’t until my parents passed away that I earnestly petitioned for some kind of confirmation of the afterlife. My father went first, in 2009. He had suffered with Alzheimer’s disease for about 15 years – an eternity. Mom cared for him at home for 14 of those years, as he slowly lost his mind. For a good while he knew it, too; I remember clearly the time he asked me, pleadingly, “Will I ever get better?” I lied to him, as you have to do with Alzheimer’s patients. “Oh, you’ll definitely get better soon, Dad,” I reassured him. Then I ran into another room and bawled. In his last year, when he moved into the anger stage, he had to be placed in a dementia facility. Neutered by anti-psychotic drugs, he lived there until his organs shut down many months later. He didn’t know me at the end, and Mom didn’t think he knew her, either, but I swear that the last thing he did before he died was stare piercingly at her face, as if he wanted to silently declare to her his love and recognition.

I drove Mom back to her house in the hours after Dad died, and when we got there we agreed that we needed to have a glass of wine. I took a bottle of sauvignon blanc out of the refrigerator and set it on the kitchen counter. Then I went out in the garage and, out loud, asked Dad if there were any possibility that he could show me a sign that he was finally free and happy. (With the firm caveat that the sign NOT be scary!) Hand to God, just as I came inside and walked back into the kitchen, the cork loudly popped off the bottle – all by itself.

***

Two years ago my mother died. It was very different. She and I e-mailed each other nearly every day, although we’d skip a day every once in a while when she had a doctor’s appointment or when she was otherwise occupied at the local casino. She had completely beaten bladder cancer a couple of years earlier, so there were no immediate health issues to alarm me. It didn’t concern me, then, when a day or two went by and she didn’t return my e-mail or answer my phone call. But on the morning of the third day an unexpected chill went through me, and I called her friend and neighbor Linda, who said that Mom hadn’t shown up for a planned outing with her that morning. Certain of the outcome, I asked Linda to go check on Mom, whom she found lifeless on the dining room floor. Mom had smoked heavily since the age of 19, and although we don’t know for sure, we believe that she died suddenly of either a heart attack or a stroke. It was how she would have wanted to go, and she had prepared all of us in every way possible, both logistically and emotionally. She had let all of her wishes be known and had purchased a plot next to my father. And she had shown me great faith and strength by example. I will always be grateful for the life I had with her and the tools she left me with.

A few days later, a slightly freakish natural event occurred outside my bedroom window. A huge bird – I have no idea what it could have been – whizzed so low and loudly past the window that I was dumbstruck. It was like a shooting star in bird form. Even though nothing like that had ever happened before (or since), I didn’t ascribe any special meaning to it. But that afternoon my sister called from Washington and mentioned that a huge bird had whizzed low and loudly past her window, startling her. I asked her when that had happened, and it turned out that both birds had hurtled past our windows at the same time.

Hmmm.

Still not completely convinced that there was anything more to that potential coincidence, I decided to ask Mom to show me a “sign” as I had asked Dad to do so. I was about to start ironing at the time (yes, I still iron!), and I turned on the television as I always do. And there was Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers. No particular significance there, I thought. But then he started singing to her: “Heaven, I’m in heaven . . . .”

***

Now, I’m no fool. All of these events easily could be explained by science or sheer coincidence or the mathematics of odds or my wishful thinking. The bottle of white wine had a plastic cork that probably – because of expansion, contraction, condensation, or some other physical principle I don’t understand – was destined to loosen itself from that bottle anyway. The astoundingly dramatic low-flying birds were happenstance. Fred Astaire crooning those “Cheek to Cheek” lyrics about heaven? Sheer coincidence.

And I also know that many of us need to believe in the afterlife because the idea of it comforts us and allows us to make some sense out of mortality. The notion of our nonexistence is just too difficult to bear.

But it’s the timing of the cork, the birds, and the song that has stayed with me.

When I asked Dad for a sign, he did the very thing that Gerald Bocciardi, if alive, would have done. It was clever. It was passionately Italian. It was brilliantly symbolic. I believe he was saying to me, “I am finally free. Don’t grieve for me, my daughter. Raise a toast to my liberation!”

Mom loved Dad, fiercely, until the day she died. He was her absolute one and only. I believe that, during the last couple of years of her life, she secretly hoped to be with him sooner rather than later. Perhaps she sent the two birds as symbols that their love had once again taken wing.

As for the Fred Astaire moment, well, the lyrics are obvious. Mom was telling me to stop my doubting.

***

I have friends and family members with all manner of religious affiliations, or lack thereof. I carry absolutely no judgment of other religions, or of atheism or agnosticism. I consider spirituality to be a private matter. (Until, that is, I decide to discuss mine in a public blog, for reasons I frankly can’t explain.)

More importantly, though, I strongly maintain that our values and beliefs, whether religious or secular, have to be accompanied by humility.

On the one hand, I don’t want to be bludgeoned by fanatics of any stripe. Do not wield your religion as a cudgel. Your God might not resemble my God; your scriptural interpretations might not resemble mine; your imagined heaven might not resemble my own. Please don’t tell me that you know what does or doesn’t happen after our time on earth because you don’t know. No one does. It is arrogant of you to fancy yourself to be in possession of the secrets to the universe.

On the other hand, please don’t dismiss me as ignorant, or as a naïve, polyannish idiot, because I subscribe to Christianity. I’m strongly disappointed by the arrogance of judgmental nonbelievers who seem to feel that science disproves the existence of God and have no problem telling me so. In my view, science and religion can easily co-exist because science is about knowledge based on proof while religion is about faith in something that by its nature cannot be proved. Faith requires humility because it involves a belief in something that we, as coarse and limited human beings, cannot even begin to imagine.

I’ve had people explain to me that it is the amount of cruelty and suffering in the world that prevents them from embracing the idea of a loving God. But for me, it is the very unfairness and inequity governing our lives that supports my belief in something beyond our mortal coil. In my mind there has to be the prospect of an ultimately level playing field and universal happiness for everyone. Otherwise, our disparate life experiences would be so unfair as to be beyond all reason and purpose. Why should I have been as privileged as I have been?

And by the way, science actually bolsters my belief in God. As my family members can groaningly attest, I have been yapping for decades about how my college Entomology class not only was absolutely scintillating but also provided me with proof about a much higher power. I won’t go into details about the physiology of every kind of bug, but there are up to 30 million species of insects in the world. Not individual insects, but species! And each type of insect has complex and flawless physiological, nutritional, and reproductive patterns and systems that would blow you away. Did all those millions of species just spontaneously emerge from the primordial muck, or did they all, as I believe, evolve in a beautiful piece of divinely guided choreography?

***

Whatever your own beliefs may be, I am thinking about you, my friends and family, this holiday season. I am inhaling deeply the frosty air, the mulled spices, the food, the drink, the music, the love and friendship. I am reflecting on the choreography of our lives, and I am grateful for our differences.

You know, Dad loved to dance, but Mom was shy and would typically demur. I choose to believe that somewhere they are dancing together now, gliding effortlessly along a meadow – each holding a golden goblet of Vecchio Amaro del Capo.

It is, after all, Paradise in a Glass.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.

***

7/28/71:

“Today we went up to Mrs. Moore’s and Miss Azama’s cabin in the Sierras. They have a lot of records, including one by the Four Tops which has ‘Reach Out – I’ll Be There’ on it, a fantastic song which I almost never hear. Mom said maybe I could take it home and record it. [They also have] a color T.V. and a stereo set with radio, record player, and 8-track tape player. Also it has headphones. Wow, what class!”

6/26/71:

“Mrs. Dossa [our neighbor] asked Jan [my sister] and me to go to S.F. with her and her sister. What a day! I got up at 7:00 so I could go to San Francisco at 9:00. The bath alone took an hour. It was tiring. I don’t have the money to shop around, and I don’t really like it. We went to Union Street. Big deal! She made us pay for our own lunch and made her sister pay, too. Jan and I had a sandwich and a Coke, $1.67 and .50 apiece respectively. I would much rather have gone to the Wharf. There they have shops, plus you can take a Bay Cruise, walk along the dock and smell crab and stuff and eat Fish ‘n’ Chips.”

7/22/71:
(Ed.’s note: this was a full 18 years before I first picked up a drumstick)

“Sue Lajon came by at about 2:00 today to talk. It’s good to talk to her because she laughs at just about anything. Rudy has arranged for Bruce Tambling to give me free drum lessons. I think it might be neat to have the beat.”

5/13/71:

“Today (Sunday) the rest of the family went fishing. Until 1:00 I watched T.V., took Baron [our dog] out, read, and listened to the radio. Before the Gallos came I had an entire package of graham crackers, root beer, and two buttered corn tortillas. They picked me up and took me to a little carnival they had and I ate an entire package of licorice, a hot dog, and a Coke. We stopped back at Gallos for a few minutes, and I called Mrs. Rosales [our neighbor] to ask her to PLEASE lock our downstairs door and close the garage because they’d kill me if they came home to find I’d forgotten. Then we went back to the carnival and we played basketball with these guys. Then I ate an ice cream bar and a mess of sunflower seeds. At 7:00 the Gallos took me home, and on the way we stopped at MacDonald’s and I had a Big Mac, Root Beer, and some candy. Nourishing, huh? Oh, by the way, I won a goldfish.”

7/13/71:

“I used to like to believe that the first time somebody asked me to go steady would be very romantic, and I would be very shy. But it wasn’t like that. Rudy asked me tonight while we were playing ‘capture the flag’ in the orchard. I guess it didn’t really count.”

The high cost of Slurpees

In 1971, when I was 15, the allowance allotted to me by my parents was a meager $5 – PER MONTH! Under that kind of economic pressure I finally came to the conclusion that I should pitch a $3 increase, and I wrote them a letter in my best teenage legalese and accounting-speak. On a light note this week, I am reproducing the letter here, verbatim. Maybe Congress can use it as a model in the forthcoming budget negotiations.

From the desk of Miss Paula Rae Bocciardi on this day, July 1, in the year A.D. 1971 to Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Raymond Bocciardi:

A request for a raise in allowance to increase my previous income of $5 monthly. The underlying are reasons why $5 is too small a sum.

Presents – counting up all gifts, we have Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Marc’s birthday, Janine’s birthday, Beverly’s birthday, Gerald’s birthday, Colleen’s birthday, Beverly’s Christmas present, Gerald’s Christmas present, Marc’s Christmas present, Jan’s Christmas present, Carla’s Christmas present, Kathy’s Christmas present (this year), Colleen’s Christmas present, Mary Blasi’s Christmas present, and let’s assume 1 assorted birthday party, even though there were 2 last year. These total 18. Assuming $3 are spent on each on an average, a sum of $48 is spent per annum, or $4 per month. This leaves only $1 per month.

Food – rather than spend $.10 a day for hot bread, I suffer at “B” period [break]. But a $.10 root beer at lunch is absolutely necessary, since its absence will cause withdrawal symptoms known only to root beer addicts, such as falling asleep 5th period, a certain listlessness in 6th period, and a tendency to get hit in the eye with the ball in P.E. Also I develop kleptomaniac symptoms in G.A.A. [Girls Athletic Association]. Now, assuming that I get a root beer only 120 school days, the total is $12.00, or $1 per month, leaving me totally broke. Bankrupt. Caput.

Slurpees – after hot hours of tennis I can take one of two alternatives: a) buy a Slurpee, or b) watch everyone else gurgle and slurp theirs and die of 1) jealousy, and 2) extreme thirst and dehydration. Obviously, step a) is the only possible choice. Considering 24 days of tennis, Slurpee cost would be $4.80, or $.40 monthly, leaving me $.40 in the hole.

Other costs – necessities such as $.50 for G.A.A., money for gifts, and G.A.A. parties in which I seem to be the only one to chip. School presents many new and fascination [sic] expenses every week. So far, $2.00 in the hole.

“Luxuries” – things which I don’t have to get, but should. Film and developing are quite costly. Occasionally I get invited somewhere and must buy something to keep myself from starving. $3.00 in the hole.

Entertainment – since I have the unique ability to attract only little boys and wierdos [sic], and lack for dates and/or good* (*clean) fun with the opposite sex, and don’t enjoy or believe in turning on, and don’t drive, I turn to music. Once a half-year I might like a record. A far-fetched thought, I know. I haven’t gotten one in months and months, unless counted is the $1.97 1932 Glen Campbell record I got where he sounds 12 at the most and howls as he sings “Those Lonesome Lonely Jailhouse Bluuuues.” YECCH!

Other income – none. The Gallos have no work to offer. Since I am only 15 I cannot get a decent job. I can’t babysit. I’d destroy the babies.

Bank – I should think ahead. The $130 I have saved for 10 years won’t go too far in college. Birthday money should go to the bank, but is always needed to put me out of the hole.

All in all, we can conclude that a raise is desperately needed. I have been proven to be very resourceful in times of crisis and butt operations. [Ed.’s note: I believe this referred to a procedure my father had done at the hospital. We’ll leave it at that.] I was uncomplaining. I have helped more and thoroughly destroyed the house, but that is unimportant. I have a $1 raise already, but now that the causes are understood, perhaps sometime in the near future the remaining $2 in the hole monthly will be considered.

Thank you and sincerely yours,
Miss Paula Rae Bocciardi

My parents caved. I got the full $3 raise.

***

5/10/71:

“Softball was wierd [sic] today. Mom and Dad came for the first time and watched the other team get 10 runs in the first inning. We made about 15 errors (me not included). But after that we held them scoreless. I got a home run. Soon we had only 10 minutes left and we were up. The score was 10-8. All we needed was 3 runs. All of a sudden it was 13-10. What a comeback, man! Right on!”

April-May 1971:

“We went to Coyote [Reservoir] to fish and have a little picnic. We caught about 76 crappie – the best we’ve ever done, not counting Clear Lake. They are small, but plentiful. It would have been perfect except as usual my hay fever started acting up around lunchtime. Hay fever is one thing I simply cannot stand. I don’t mind all the work I’ve had done on my teeth, or my operations, or even having to wear glasses. But hay fever is terrible. I sure wish we could have shots for it. But for some reason good ole Doc Williams won’t give us the shots. Let me tell you, I’d suffer any amount of pain. And I had taken a [Ornade prescription antihistamine] pill in the morning! Those babies are strong, too, boy.”

5/27/71:

“Marc [my brother], Ted, and I have a dirty book storehouse in Rudy’s poolroom. We’ve only got two books, but they’ve got loads of Playboys to read. I’ve read one of the books so far. It was called ‘Retribution.’ Some name, huh?”

Parlour lessons

A number of years ago, both of my ears spontaneously plugged up at the same time, and all I could hear was an internal roaring wind. This lasted for days. I wasn’t prone to seeing doctors then, but I had no problem complaining about my plight to everyone around me, and someone suggested that I follow the instructions of an old wives’ tale. To wit: I should heat an onion in a 400-degree oven, slice the onion in half, cover each piece in a towel so as not to inflict any burns on myself, and hold each piece to an ear, thereby allegedly drawing out whatever it was that was clogging up my hearing. Although I’m not normally one to experiment with alternative remedies, out of desperation I gave this a shot.

It didn’t work.

I was just about at the end of my rope when my old friend M.L. happened to call. M.L. (her name is Mary Lynne, but some of us just use her initials) is a now-retired career military officer and nurse practitioner, and she was stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs at the time. I didn’t miss the opportunity to whine to her about my ear problem and recount my failures with all the suggested remedies, including the onion that I was still holding in my hand.

“Paula, first of all, put down the onion,” she ordered.

“Oh. Okay.”

“Now, I want you to go to the drugstore and buy some Sudafed. The box will tell you to take one or two, but you should take four.”

That scared me. “But drugs always have super-adverse effects on me,” I argued. “Are you sure?”

“Yep. Just be quiet and listen. Take four Sudafeds. You’ll feel like shit. But your ears will open right up.”

Nurse practitioners always know what they’re talking about, and she was positive and convincing. So I went to the drugstore, bought some Sudafed, took four, felt like shit, and my ears opened right up.

Such are the curative powers of Lieutenant Colonel Mary Lynne Bement.

***

I like to take a train trip every year, and a few weeks ago I embarked on my excursion for 2017. I had decided to ask M.L. to accompany me because she was visiting her legions of friends on the West Coast anyway, and we’d always talked about doing a train trip together. I thought we should start out small – i.e., not a full ’cross-country run – because neither of us was certain it would work. This would be new territory for M.L., and she didn’t know whether she could be cooped up for a long period of time, unable to participate in her usual hikes, climbs, triathlons, and heaven knows what other super-athletic events in which she’s typically involved on any given day. I was unsure, too; I’d always ridden alone, and M.L. is a loquacious extrovert, full of restless energy, who could be easily bored by my cautious reserve.

So I suggested the Coast Starlight, which runs from Seattle to Los Angeles. The entire length of the route spans two days of travel, but we would board in Oakland in the morning, disembark 12 hours later in Los Angeles, stay in a hotel that night, and come back the following day.

Beginning in Seattle, the Coast Starlight winds south through Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, and Klamath Falls and then into California through Mt. Shasta, down to Sacramento, and into Oakland, where we would board. After that, it churns through the Santa Clara and Salinas Valleys, kicking up dust in agricultural land before it hits the coast at San Luis Obispo. After a few hours hugging the gorgeous California coastline, it heads inward after Santa Barbara, continuing through Ventura and Van Nuys before terminating in L.A.

Although this route is touted for its views of the California coast, my love for the Starlight is all about the Parlour Car, a luxurious passenger railcar from the mid-19th century that was considered to be the gold standard at the time and that remains in existence today only on the Coast Starlight.

The Parlour Car is elegantly beautiful, rich with wood and brass and burgundy velour. It has its own little bar at the end of the car, padded swiveling chairs for observation, six dining tables with white tablecloths, decorative gold sconces and etched glass logos, a lounge area, and a tiny “library” with books and games. And it has a multitude of uses. At any time of day you can just lounge in its cushioned seats and watch the scenery roll by. At lunch and dinner, it offers a special menu for passengers who might not want the dining car offerings or who might not want to sit with strangers (in that car, there is no mandate to fill the tables with four people). Downstairs, amazingly, passengers will find a movie theater, where I once saw McFarland USA, starring Kevin Costner as a real-life high school track coach in the central California valley. And then there is my favorite Parlour Car activity: the afternoon wine-tasting.

Generally, only the sleeper-car passengers are allowed access to the Parlour Car, which initially appeared to be an obstacle for me because our trip would run (if on schedule) from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and we would have no practical need for the extra cost of a sleeper. But here’s where my sterling train smarts came into play. Amtrak – whether wittingly or unwittingly – provides an incentive for passengers on non-overnight trips to purchase a sleeper. The cost is only an extra $50 for two people. But all meals are free for sleeper-car ticketholders, so M.L. and I together would get 6 free meals, plus access to the Parlour Car, for that amount. Sleeper-car passengers get free water, juice, and coffee, too. It makes financial sense, doesn’t it?

We plunked down the dough.

***

M.L. grew up in a large family in Avon, New York. She was a mischievous but extremely likeable kid who kept everybody laughing while she ran around smoking a pipe and regularly getting sent to the office for too much yakking and horsing around. When she was about 13 she ditched class so that she could spell out, in the snow, “Class of ’82” in the school courtyard. The school was built in an L shape around the courtyard, so the antic had its intended effect of luring every single student to the classroom windows. Another time in high school she decided to grab onto her friend’s car door handle and “ski” alongside the car while the friend spun doughnuts in the schoolyard snow. “Mary Lynne!” she heard over the school loudspeaker. “Report to the principal’s office right away!” She and the principal were well acquainted.

The local constables periodically showed up at the Bement family’s front door, but those were simpler times, and M.L.’s antics were those of a lively and playful kid, not a delinquent. When her family couldn’t afford a live Christmas tree, she illegally whacked one down on public property behind the schoolyard and had it all decorated by the time her mother got home from work. When she and her friends concocted some homemade bows and arrows – built with saplings, twine, and some stiff weeds – to shoot at cars, one of the drivers didn’t take a shine to the notion and got the police involved. Officer Pete Piampiano (or “Pipi-anno,” as the kids called him) was the one who nailed her for painting graffiti on a local bridge. And then there was the time, before she had a driver’s license, that M.L. noticed a student’s car parked in the school lot with the keys left in the ignition. The car – which belonged to a girl named, of all things, Pinkie Dodge – was calling M.L.’s name, of course, and she “borrowed” it, drove it around the lot, and left it in a different parking spot. But she got caught and Pinkie pressed charges. M.L. made a formal apology, though, and Pinkie’s family backed off.

M.L. says that despite all of her shenanigans, she never got into any real trouble. The reason, she claims, is that she was “so good at making formal apologies and then lying low for a while.”

As she grew older, M.L.’s mischievousness would evolve into an endearing playfulness and a fervor for life that would imbue every experience with meaning and a sense of adventure. There was a certain hardiness in her family. In his early days, her uncle Frank lost his job for protesting against the Vietnam War when he was a teacher in New York; he fought to get his job back, won, worked one day, and then resigned – all out of principle. After that, he worked for the Transportation Communication Union and, coincidentally, retired from the railroads. Her aunt Katie was a nurse and served as M.L.’s muse and inspiration. And her mother Mary raised five energetic children by herself from the time her husband left when M.L. was 12. It was not easy in those days. Among other things, Mary owned a fabric shop, worked as a bookkeeper, did wallpapering and child care, and served as a deputy town clerk – all the while keeping tabs on her young ones and making sure they grew up with the right values.

When M.L. graduated from Plattsburg State with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, she enlisted in the U.S. Army on something called a “Direct Commission,” which enabled her to “walk in” as an officer. She wanted to serve the country, and she looked forward to the promised retirement that would be in store at a relatively young age, but mostly she did it for the adventure, she says – to explore the world. And to have a “double career” as a nurse and an officer. One of her friends begs to differ, however; she claims that M.L. announced at the time that she was going into the military simply to avoid the prospect of interviewing for a job!

We met when she was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco from 1987 to 1993 (a plum assignment!), but she also spent a great deal of time elsewhere in the country, along with stints in South Korea and Honduras and time spent getting her nurse practitioner degree in New York. Her most challenging year in the military, though, was 2009, when she was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington. She was handed a taxing assignment as the Officer in Charge of the medical component of Warrior Forge, an ROTC leadership course for about 1,000 cadets from around the country. At the same time, she was also dealing with a horrendous personal tragedy, and in the middle of it all she was asked to prepare to deploy to Iraq. “But I didn’t hesitate,” she told me.

Shortly after completing her deployment in the Iraq War, M.L. retired as a Lt. Colonel with 23 years of service.

One last thing: Organization and planning are not M.L.’s strong suits, because they take a distant back seat to her practice of living intensely in the moment. When M.L. retired in 2010, she and her two dogs left Fort Lewis behind in September, pulling a little orange teardrop travel trailer behind them as they headed east for home in upstate New York. She was expected home within a couple of weeks. Along the way, as she was passing through South Dakota, she was so delighted and distracted by the wildlife, the rugged environment, and the salt-of-the-earth people in that state that she ended up staying awhile. And by awhile I mean weeks. This happened so frequently that eventually she found herself barreling along a dark highway in upstate New York as she tried to make it home in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

***

We caught the Amtrak bus at the Temporary Transbay Terminal early on Tuesday morning, and it took us to the Oakland train station. As always there was confusion about where to catch the bus, on what platform we should stand to wait for the train, when the train would actually arrive, etc. Communication is not Amtrak’s strongest asset. But as if she were still responsible for her troops, M.L. ran around sniffing out the accurate information and reporting it back to the assembled group. She would always address people by calling them “my dear,” which I realized was a respectful way to show humanity for someone. She uses that term of endearment for anyone, young or old, male or female. It makes everyone feel good. I’m sure it was cultivated from her years in the medical profession, but I know that M.L. was born with the qualities that she says are critical to successful nursing: empathy, patience, and compassion. Her mother passed on those qualities by example, but M.L. also just has natural warmth and sensitivity.

When we boarded the train, we stowed our bags in the roomette and waited for our room attendant to come by. One attendant is assigned to every sleeper car, to help passengers with turning the bed down at night (which we wouldn’t need) but also to answer questions, help with luggage if necessary, and keep the room stocked with things like bottled water. When our guy Michael came around and shot the breeze with us, M.L. pulled out one of her Ben’s Bells handmade ceramic “Kindness Coins” and handed it to him with a flourish. “Here you are, my dear,” she said. “For your kindness.”

***

We had breakfast almost as soon as we boarded, and we had no tablemates because the train was late getting in and there were no other passengers still eating. In the dining car, passengers are seated so that the entire four-person table is filled up, so most of the time – when I’m alone – I’m sitting with three strangers. While we were gobbling up our “free” meals, M.L. told me that around Watsonville we would probably have the privilege of seeing Elkhorn Slough Reserve, a natural sanctuary that most people don’t have the chance to see casually because no roads run past it. I did not know this. Elkhorn Slough is a tidal salt marsh 7 miles long that is home to more than 300 kinds of birds as well as sea otters, harbor seals, and sea lions. Amtrak runs right through it. It’s a privilege to be able to see it from the window of a passing vehicle, so we headed to the Observation Car to spend the afternoon taking in the sights.

As I’ve mentioned, the best part of the afternoon on the Coast Starlight is the 3:00 wine-tasting in the Parlour Car, open to sleeper-car and Business Class passengers. For a mere $7.50, you can participate in an attendant-led tasting of three wines. You can also buy a cracker-and-cheese plate, which I never pass up. Typically, so few people participate that it’s like a personal event during which, in addition to learning about wines, you can ask all kinds of train-related questions if you want to. The wines themselves can be red or white, mediocre or delicious. It’s a gamble, like much of the Amtrak experience.

Michael was our server, and he served a chardonnay, a cabernet, and a Malbec, talking nonstop about wine-making as he poured. He seemed to know his stuff, and when M.L. mentioned the “ice wines” of the Finger Lakes region in New York (where she currently lives) he seemed to know all about them. Ice wine, I learned, is frozen on the vine itself. After the usual fall harvest, some of the grapes are left on the vine to continue maturing throughout the winter, which raises their sugar content. In turn, the soil content contributes the right amount of acidity. Each grape, by the way, produces only one drop of the sweet wine. The Finger Lakes region is perfectly suited to the very delicate creation of ice wine because of the combination of rich soil and sub-freezing climate. I munched on my crackers, sipped my wine, listened to these two give me a viticulture lesson, and eyed the farmland out my window a bit blurrily.

At some point during the day, it became clear that we had been stopped for a long time. Two hours, in fact. A shopping cart on the tracks had gotten lodged under the train. Thank goodness the owner of the cart was not in the vicinity. But the incident did mean that our arrival time in L.A. would be pushed back considerably.

It didn’t really matter. We had a nice dinner with a couple of young honeymooners from Alaska. The young woman had a lovely name (Sarai), sported myriad tattoos and piercings (but none of those earlobe-disc thingies, thank goodness), and told us she manages a social program for kids with disabilities. She and her new husband used to work together but now he’s a landscaper. Both of them were engaging, attentive, and fine-tuned to life’s details. How delightful that they had decided to spend their honeymoon on a train. They’re going to have a long life together.

***

On Wednesday, M.L. and I boarded the train heading back northbound at about 10:00 a.m. after having spent the night at the Miyako Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The air conditioning in my room was functioning at only about what must have been 10 percent of its capacity, because I absolutely boiled and hardly got a wink of sleep all night. I couldn’t help but muse on the fact that had I slept on a train, I would have had a peaceful night’s slumber. The train whistles, the squeaks and hisses and rumbles, the jostling of the car never seem to keep me awake. But that night in the hotel was a killer.

046_Coast Starlight train trip, September 2017_Jim, Bonnie Blue, ML, Paula — Jim and Bonnie Blue

I was raging with hunger as soon as we boarded the train and M.L. agreeably assented to my fervid wish that we grab the earliest lunch reservations. Our tablemates were Jim and Bonnie Blue. That’s right – Bonnie Blue is her first name. I vaguely remembered a song with “Bonnie Blue” in the lyrics, and it turns out that “Bonnie Blue Flag” is an 1861 Confederate marching song. Our Bonnie Blue, however, was born and raised in Orange County, which put to rest my internal contention that I had detected a faint southern accent in her voice. The two of them have two children. One son has cerebral palsy, and Jim and Bonnie Blue have devoted their lives to caring for him while keeping him at arm’s length as much as possible to nurture his independence. Mathematically brilliant, but hamstrung by his physical limitations, he actually has become a successful professional gambler. The other son – in the sad process of divorcing his wife, who left him for another man – was just diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Jim and Bonnie Blue, however, have retained sunny dispositions and love train travel so much that they deliberately racked up thousands and thousands of miles on their Amtrak credit card when they had their business. Now they ride the rails for free everywhere, and they keep trying out different routes to help them keep their minds off the challenges their sons are facing.

***

We looked forward to our wine-tasting in the afternoon, but for some reason the rules had changed. When we arrived at the designated hour, we were told by the bartender that we had to have reservations – even though there had been no such restriction the day before. Amtrak’s rules and procedures are extremely fluid. And this bartender was dead-set on not serving us because, she said, she feared that there would not be “enough glasses.” Of course, my eyes kept resting on one of the tables that was set with glasses but never used. This kind of inconsistency and illogic is the kind of thing that sets my blood boiling. I was an instant, seething grouch. M.L., on the other hand, chatted up the woman (although I noticed she did not bestow a Kindness coin on her!). The woman didn’t budge, but the tenor of the conversation was calm and friendly. Perhaps that is why M.L. has been a leader and I have not. When I sense an injustice, I want to hit someone upside the head with a mallet. M.L. set a beautiful example of how to be patient and respectful and keep one’s cool.

And also how to turn lemons into lemonade.

“You know, instead of spending our money on the wine-tasting, let’s go get some ice from the café car,” she suggested. “I brought a teeny bit of bourbon in my suitcase, and we can have a cocktail back in the roomette.”

The café car is downstairs below the observation car. It serves snacks, sandwiches, microwaveable meals like hamburgers and hot dogs, and all kinds of beverages, ranging from Coke to juice to beer to hard liquor. We got ourselves some ice in plastic glasses and repaired to the roomette.

(By the way, only sleeper-car passengers are allowed to bring alcohol onto the train, although there’s no question that M.L. would have flouted that rule had we been in Coach.)

I poured myself a full glass of water over the ice, then gingerly dropped in a smidgen of bourbon.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, incredulous. “That’s not enough bourbon! Your proportions are all wrong!”

“You mean, this won’t work?” I asked.

“Paula, that’s like putting an eye dropper of bourbon in a pond of water! It couldn’t give a buzz to an ant!”

***

We whiled away the afternoon talking about everything from sports to families to our medical conditions. (Gotta get that in!) The fertile valley earth, the laborers in the field, the pristine coastline, the languid sunbathers – all of them rolled by our windows.

We got pensive. M.L. told me that she was starting to realize that she is more nostalgic for the Army than she thought.

“I can well imagine,” I said. “It was all about youth, adventure, travel . . .”

“And all the camaraderie,” she added wistfully. “The camaraderie is what I miss the most.”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Is that a cigar? Some things never change.

We delved a little bit into politics. One of my unending lamentations is the lack of rational discourse about political policy today. And when I say policy, I don’t mean frivolous, half-baked ideas. I mean well-thought-out solutions to our national – and global – issues. Instead, all we do is micro-scrutinize and insult each other.

I’m sure my brow was furrowed.

She clinked my glass. “Don’t worry, my dear,” she said. “With a touch of alcohol, we will all be okay.”

***

Our last meal on the train was our dinner with Michael and Kay on Wednesday evening.

Michael, a young tech industry worker from Irvine who had just gotten a job with Hyundai, was taking his mother on a trip to San Francisco. His mom – a very beautiful, primly dressed older Asian woman – wasn’t speaking at all. When the waiter came, in fact, Michael ordered for her while she just nodded. I assumed that she didn’t speak English, and, although I addressed the two of them when I spoke, I didn’t pursue anything with her because I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. M.L., however, finally couldn’t take it anymore and decided that our internal conclusions might be wrong. So she looked directly at Kay.

“My dear,” she asked, “tell me this – have you been to San Francisco before?”

Kay smiled broadly and answered the question perfectly. From that point on, we had a full and lovely conversation about everything from movies to the economy. The sun set and we were all throwing our heads back, laughing.

***

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but Congress is still going back and forth about cutting funding for Amtrak and effectively dismantling the country’s passenger rail system. The current budget proposal seeks to maintain funding for intercity commuter service in the Northeast corridor and a few other high-passenger runs while eliminating the service for others. Estimates are that 144 million people in 220 communities would lose local access to trains. Incredibly, 23 states would lose all access to Amtrak passenger rail service, and another 12 would retain only partial access. Funding for long-distance trains would be eliminated altogether. The upshot: passenger rail service would be preserved for only the wealthiest communities.

I’ve learned so much on trains. They’ve provided me with rich instruction on the vast geography of our country as well as the wide-ranging humanity of our fellow Americans. I feel like cutting access to Amtrak would be akin to cutting funding for institutions of higher learning.

On this trip I learned how to properly mix bourbon and water. I learned about ice wine and Elkhorn Slough. I learned about people with disabilities. I learned from M.L. how to look people in the eye and treat them kindly and without judgment.

And I learned to just chill out.

Thank you for being my friend, M.L. Thank you for your service. And thank you for teaching me that, with a touch of alcohol, we will all be okay.

***

4/17/71:
They told me I have to go fishing tomorrow. But I hate to go! Why? 1) Hay fever, 2) Getting up early, and 3) They never get any fish! Why don’t they let me stay home? Then we all could have a good time.
4/18/71:
Since they decided to go to Lexington [Reservoir], I got to stay home. I played basketball with Ted and Bruce Tambling, and Frisbee, too. Then the whole family came home. Naturally they only got 1 fish. I played catch with Marc, and played basketball and hide-and-seek at Ted’s. It was fun having two lunches today. At 10:30 I had a ham sandwich, potato chips, and root beer, and at 2:00 I had a salami sandwich, potato chips, Coke, and licorice.

3/15/71:

“Now, about Mrs. Dossa [my English teacher, who was on maternity leave] — what she tried to teach us was okay, but I did not like how she did it. She is almost completely humorless. Now we have a substitute. It’s always hard to get used to a substitute anyway, but this one is really wierd [sic]. She is about 23 years old and 5’2 or 5’0 inches tall. But remember when I said Mrs. Dossa was almost completely humorless? Well, this one is COMPLETELY HUMORLESS!”

3/7/71:

“Mom is very great. Today she turned in my library books while I was at G.A.A. [Girls Athletic Association]. I appreciate everything she does. Anyway, she is making me a skirt that I’ll be able to wear with my G.A.A. sweater. I was trying it on today when I suddenly remembered how LONG the last skirt she made me was. Now, I am not the kind who likes to wear mini-skirts to school or even come close. I really am very reasonable when it comes to that. But I hate wearing skirts down to my knees. All my dresses are a good length but for some reason Mom FLUBS UP on the skirts. They look like I’m a grandmother!”

3/5/71:

“Mrs. Dossa [my English teacher] came back today and we gave her a WARM welcome (you’ll get the pun). Mary Pasek and I turned the heat up to 90 degrees and she didn’t even notice it when it got really hot later on, we heard. A kid turned it down. Mrs. Dossa was still rather sick and it probably felt good. We’ll have to do it again sometime. It was reminiscent of the time when Mary Blasi and I turned the heat up so high during an art show in the St. Victor’s library that the tape on the pictures melted and they all fell off the wall.”

August 15-20, 1971 [from my week spent at the Santa Clara County Fair with my friend Colleen, who was in 4-H]:

“There weren’t too many hippies there. Wednesday I got to try out a waterbed. Wow, are they cool. You move constantly, but I guess you could get seasick. I also watched a milking contest with DJ’s and a milking machine. I played free Bingo for two hours and Sharon won a $7.50 carving set but I only won a can of Stridex [acne pads] and a can of hairspray. The only clumsy thing I did was to spill Kool Aid all over an exhibit in Fiesta Hall.”

Paula’s poetry pastiche

It came to mind recently that although I’ve filled many drawers and shelves with diaries, journals, notes, correspondence, and more than a few published articles, I never seemed to be very prolific as a poet. In fact, after much searching for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to unearth only the following six works, all written in my childhood. And now I know why no one encouraged me to pursue the poetic arts any further.

***

This first gem is actually one of three songs I wrote as a youngster, all of which have specific melodies. Because I’m unable to reproduce the tunes here, I thought I’d figure out their closest approximation. After all, they must have sounded like some nursery rhyme or popular children’s song at the time, correct? But I gave up after spending a couple of hours online, listening to at least 50 classic children’s songs. None sounded familiar.

Believe it or not, I then tried singing the songs (sans lyrics) into the Shazam app, hoping that somehow the melodies would be recognizable. Uh, no.

Finally I did what I often do in these situations – I called my sister Janine. But she could not pinpoint my musical influences, either. These must have been original melodies I came up with! I was obviously a genius!

1957_xx_Paula 042 — *As you can see, if you look closely at the newsprint, I was reading Shakespeare at an early age.*

As for this first song and its lyrics, neither Janine nor I could imagine how I came up with the idea of three men in a bottle. Our best guess is that I was influenced by the literature I was reading at the time: “Run-a-Dub Dub, Three Men in a Tub.” Which makes a lot more sense than three men squeezing into a bottle – full of whisky, no less. My father used to drink whisky “highballs,” a classic cocktail, so maybe that’s what was on my mind.

Anyway, here’s the song, any mistakes included.

THE THREE MEN (age 8)

[a nursery rhyme with a lilting melody]

Three men went out in a bottle to sea
And it was full of the drink wiskey,
But when they got there they all drowned
I think the bottle has not been found
So please, unless you’re less than 1 pound
Don’t try to sail, unless what you’re in is round.

***

I tried songwriting again the following year, and I’ve wrestled with whether I should publish it, because it deals with my brother Marc accidentally walking in on my sister when she was taking a shower. It seems a little odd that I would write about this incident, but I did.

JANINE TOOK A SHOWER THIS MORNING (age 9)

[belt this one out with gusto]

Janine took a shower this morning.
She got water all over the floor,
She got soap all over the soapdish,
And she forgot to close the door!

Marc walked into the shower
And he saw her standing there.
He looked at her in amazement
’Cause he’d never seen her bare!

***

My final tune is a bit of a cross between a folk song and a wartime march.

We had just moved into our new house in East San Jose, and at the end of our street stood an orchard followed by rolling hills. I couldn’t stop wondering what lay beyond those hills (answer: more hills). This became an obsession, so I composed a song about it.

My sister nailed my style and influences when she reminded me that when I wrote the song I was squarely in the middle of my “New Christy Minstrels period.” I was quite enamored with large groups of folk singers.

And I will add that my appending the “boys” to the end of each line is reminiscent of those World War I and II songs about soldiers leaving for, or coming back from, battle.

Obviously I liked mixing my styles, so I will call this song a “pastiche.”

WHAT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL, BOYS? (age 10)

[sing this song in a rousing manner]

What’s on the other side of the hill, boys?
What’s on the other side of the hill?
What’s on the other side of the hill, boys?
What’s on the other side of the hill?

Do you know?
We will go,
And we’ll see,
You and me.
Yes, we will
Climb that hill
And we’ll look dowwwwwwn.

Will it be a town, will it be the sea, will it be the woods, what will it be, what will it be?

What’s on the other side of the hill, boys?
What’s on the other side of the hill?
What’s on the other side of the hill, boys?
What’s on the other side of the hill?

1969_04-06_Paula, Mom, Janine 1(b) — *What IS on the other side of that hill in the background?*

***

Although I was done writing songs, I did continue to churn out a few poems. This one was a Catholic school assignment. I was already in the seventh grade, so the real travesty was that I still had to go to bed at 9:00!!

UNTITLED (age 11)

Over and over my dad has said,
“Paula, it is time for bed!”
How I dread the hour of nine
When I begin to beg and whine,

“But Dad, please, just a little more?”
And that’s when he gets really sore.
So I, not making one more peep,
Go up to bed, and fall asleep.

***

I wrote this poem on the eve of my starting “Driver’s Training,” which in those days was a short high school course that involved hands-on experience behind the wheel. My course was taught by football coach Ron “No Neck” Locicero. He took us up in the East San Jose foothills and was actually very kind, even though he was forced to use his extra set of brakes liberally when I was behind the wheel.

The poem was published in the January 14, 1972, edition of our high school newspaper The Legend. Of course, it wasn’t difficult to get my own works into print, since I was the editor of said paper.

FUTURE DRIVER’S LAMENT (age 16)

O Horror of Horrors! I grieve in sorrow;
I wish I never could see tomorrow,
For when 3:30 comes I start Driver’s Training.
What if it’s windy? What if it’s raining?
What if I make a jillion mistakes
And he always has to slam on the brakes?
Everyone knows I’m the world’s biggest clutz –
The whole Driver’s Training Department is nuts!
They decided to risk it and hand me the wheel.
It seems they don’t value their automobile.
What if I step on the pedal too hard
And we end up in somebody else’s backyard?
I’m so absent-minded I just may forget
That I’m driving a car, and I’ll daydream, I bet!
I’m no big speed demon, the world will soon see.
Ten miles an hour is the limit for me.
Oh, no, I don’t panic, just go in a coma.
They may have to revive me with some strong aroma.
I don’t want to look like a stupid old fool
Nor be laughing-stock every day I’m at school.
They said, “Don’t be scared, Paula, you’ll do all right.”
But I have to drive at 5:30 at night!
The world will be dark. Is it like being blind?
What if I hit some poor guy from behind?
“It’s only 9 days – they go pretty fast.”
Oh sure, but I do hope my teacher can last.
My friends have no mercy. This whole bit they’ve seen.
Don’t they know what it’s like to be only sixteen?
“What about college? You won’t want to hike!”
You’re right, but I’d rather stick with my bike.
I guess I’ll live through it. I just hope I don’t kill
Some innocent soul. I keep thinking I will.
Yikes! Here comes the teacher! My heart beats no more.
Oh, what did I ever get into this for?
There’s just one thing to do. I look at the sky
And plead with Him, “God, oh, I’m too young to die!”

***

I didn’t even remember the following poem until my sister – who actually recalled most of the first stanza! – pointed out that she had once tried to set it to music. An accomplished banjo and guitar player by the time she was 12, she apparently wrote a melody for this poem “using a lot of minor chords.” Unfortunately she doesn’t remember the tune, but she claims that it was truly terrible, which I strongly doubt.

As for my influences at the time, I would have to say that they were a mixture of William Shakespeare, John Dunne, and whoever wrote “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”

UNTITLED (age 17)

This cool, tranquil, weightless night
A star begins to die
In quiet, pulsing, choking gasps.
And I must say goodbye.

In young, confused and awkward grief
I watch the lonely light
The sky gives up its ghost; the star
Plunges out of sight.

If time would just dissolve this knot
I’ve never overcome –
But I, in muted silence, stand
Embarrassed, frightened, dumb.

O God! If man is so supreme
Then why am I so weak
That those whom I adore the most
Have yet to hear me speak?

I cannot catch my tortured breath
Or cool my heated head;
I cannot purge my heavy heart
Of all I’ve left unsaid.

I love you, friend, though through it all
I gave you not a sign.
If all you saw were pleading eyes
’Twas not your fault, but mine.

Could this be any more overwrought?? Then again, I guess that’s what being 17 is all about, isn’t it? ℘

1964_11-19_Paula, Janine(b) — *The two collaborators. My little sister Janine played a mean guitar!*

***

7/18/71:

“Monday night I had my first driving lesson [with my parents]. I don’t want to make a complete fool of myself, with my uncoordination and absentmindedness and stuff. I get so nervous. So we took the truck. I was scared to death. I jerked on the brakes a little. It’s hard to know how far down to push them or the accelerator. And sometimes I forgot to change the gear shift. I think I got up to about 9 M.P.H. but was scared. I thought about 4 M.P.H. was a safe speed.”

***

Finally, as a reminder, our band, “Hotter Than Helga,” will be playing in Fairfax at 19 Broadway on Thursday night, September 14. (I play drums.) If you like alt/country/rock/Americana music, come out and have a listen!!

Busted!

I’m calling this my “By Popular Demand” post because I’ve gotten repeated requests for a few specific items. First, people who read my last blog are wondering about the brushes with the law that I mentioned briefly. Second, friends who are not on Facebook are asking me to repeat my weekly diary entries so that they can see them as well. Finally, the non-Facebook people also continually ask me when my band will be playing. So I’ll cover all three requests in this week’s post.

***

PART ONE

My first scrape involving law enforcement involved, as usual, my friend Jeanne who had wire-rimmed glasses and the intense disapproval of my parents. (I’m beginning to see why!) I was visiting Jeanne in August 1975 and we’d just come back to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, after a trip up to Maine to meet her new husband Steve’s family (see “Return to Triangle Acres”).

For whatever idiotic notion, we decided to head over to a nearby private beach on Steve’s decrepit motorcycle. And this was, according to my diary, after I’d already donned my nightgown and “put on my curlers and retainers.” So I threw off the curlers and retainers, we grabbed a bottle of rum (never a good idea) and packed a knapsack, and we took off. Along the way we purchased some Cokes and napkins, and my diary says that “we had to use the napkins to sop up some of the gas which kept spilling out of the tank.” Again, never a good thing.

Leaving the motorcycle up off the road, we walked down to the beach in the balmy moonlight. The white sandy dunes were, of course, beautiful, and we proceeded to alternately drink rum and Cokes and then take plunges into the warm Atlantic waters (we had bathing suits on under our regular clothes). Once again, not a good idea. Luckily, neither of us drowned, and we spent hours making ill-informed forays into philosophy, all the while slamming down liquor as if there were no tomorrow.

Eventually we passed out on the beach, and a few hours later we awoke, shivering, both of us heavily encrusted with wet sand. It was time to go home, we thought, and off we trundled towards the poor excuse of a motorcycle that was waiting for us. A hideous idea. Anyway, as we approached we saw, squinting through drunken eyelids, that the bike was surrounded by police cars and a group of clean-cut men, many of whom were in uniform. Someone asked Jeanne for her license and registration, which she cheerfully handed over, but we knew that the bike itself was an illegal mess. It had no brake light, no license plate, and lots of duct tape everywhere. Oy. One of the local police officers said that the infractions amounted to a $66 ticket and he began to write it up.

Another of the officers – with a rather rough bedside manner – asked me for my license, but I wasn’t carrying one and explained to him that, since I wasn’t driving, I didn’t have it with me. “Well, show it to me anyway!” he barked nonsensically.

Then for some reason the police cars both drove off and we were never issued the ticket.

Still, a group of men remained, and one of them – not in any kind of uniform – sort of took us under his wing as we stood there perplexed, still reeking, I’m sure, of spirits. He explained that the local officers could not ticket or arrest us because we and the motorcycle were on private property. But he pointed out that they were parked just across the beach line on the public road and would surely nab us, if we dared to start the bike and venture home, for not only the vehicle infractions but also for trespassing, sleeping on a beach, and of course driving while intoxicated.

Then he asked us if we were “holding.” I had no idea what that meant. But Jeanne said yes, she had a lid (an ounce of marijuana, for any of you under 55). This was news to me.

Then the man pulled out his badge and flashlight and identified himself as a state SLED (South Carolina Law Enforcement Division) officer.

I just about died.

As luck would have it, though, he had much, much bigger fish to fry. He explained that we had actually stumbled into the middle of an enormous statewide drug stakeout whose mission was to break up a network of heroin dealers. To prove it, he shined his flashlight up into the hills surrounding the beach, and about 50 flashlights blinked back.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, sympathetically. “Let me take you up into the trailer park across the road, and you can sleep off your intoxication in the lounge chairs by the side of the pool. By the time you sober up, those cops will be gone. They’re not going to sit there all night waiting to nab you.” I could tell that there was some tension between the city and state officers, and he was happy to thwart the efforts of what he thought were clumsy local goons. I myself was happy to take advantage of that, so I thanked him until the cows came home.

Jeanne and I climbed into his Volkswagen – really, another stupid move because he could have been an axe murderer – and sure enough he took us to the trailer park and helped us find lounge chairs. And he watched over us all night.

At sunrise he woke us up and told us we had to get moving because the residents were starting to rise. So we dragged our sand-encrusted carcasses to the bike, started it up, and got home safely.

Then, of course, we went out to breakfast and, according to my diary, “had a beer to settle our stomachs.”

Youth: Reckless, dumb, and lucky.

***

On Friday, November 22, 1985, I had just turned 30 a few days earlier and was driving over to my friend Ellen’s house on 21st Avenue in San Francisco’s Richmond District, ostensibly to pick her up to go to dinner at Speckmann’s, a German restaurant that I’d heard served great spaetzle. Sampling that spaetzle was my one and only fervent birthday wish. When I got to Ellen’s, though, I found myself ushered into a surprise party. All of us had a great time, and I remember that at one point we all donned streamers to mimic Bruce Springsteen’s then-ubiquitous headband as we danced much of the night away to Springsteen tapes. After most of the guests said their goodnights, the few of us remaining were still full of residual energy. So at 3:00 in the morning we came up with the brilliant idea of playing “knee football” on the hardwood floors (ouch!), using a birthday balloon as the football. Three guys and three gals. As we were scuffling around on our knees, laughing loudly and hysterically, we looked up and saw flashlight beams coming through the slatted doors that we had closed to shut off the living room. Two police officers were out in the hallway; we’d never heard their robust knocking at the front door. Uh oh. They admonished us to be quiet, and after they left, still wanting to play, we came up with the idea of “silent knee football.” The idea was that we would no utter no sounds at all, so as not to disturb any neighbors. As my diary says, that “made the whole game even more fun. I must say that I was the star of the game, making most of our touchdowns. Boy did we all have bruised knees the next day.”

By the time she was 30, my mother had three kids. I, on the other hand, was single and playing Silent Knee Football.

** *

I’ve been pulled over three times while driving. The first two instances happened with Julie behind the wheel. In 2001 we were in my new T-Bird on Route 66 – or should I say, accidentally well off of Route 66 – going a tad over the limit as we sped past an Oklahoma police officer who just happened to be sitting by the side of the highway with a radar gun. When he asked us where we were headed, we told him the truth, that we were dreadfully lost going north trying to go west, and we admitted that we had absolutely no excuse for flying along as fast as we were (except gosh, in that car it really feels like you’re just CRAWLING if you’re going 80). We were so polite and deferential and confused that he pointed us in the right direction and let us go.

Much more recently, we had just left Safeway and were driving TWO BLOCKS to our local meat market, Guerra’s. I reminded Julie, who was driving, that she needed to put on her seatbelt, but she insisted that there was no need for that as we were going to be in the car only 90 seconds, and I retorted back that people had been known to die in low-speed collisions not far from home. Of course she refused, and of course we then saw the flashing lights. I was almost smug about it. The female officer told Julie that she was in violation of the seatbelt law and that “people have been known to die in low-speed collisions not far from home,” at which point I smacked Julie on the shoulder and said, “See?! What did I just say?” and thanked the officer. She let us off.

The only time in my life I’ve been personally pulled over was in the late 1980s when some of my workmates and I piled into my Corolla to attend a wedding in Chinatown. I was driving all of us down Oak Street, and it was one of those situations in which I had to keep flying through yellow lights in order to beat the red. As a side note, for reasons I cannot recall, my girlfriend Adair’s wisdom teeth, which she had just had removed, were in one of the front seat cupholders. I swear to this day that I was already in the intersections when the lights turned yellow, but we were driving at a fast enough clip that my friend Leon Acord – possibly the funniest human being who ever lived – began screaming dramatically and then grabbed the teeth and hurled them into the air as though all the passengers were losing their teeth from the ultrasonic speed.

Of course, then came the flashing light.

The officer pulled me over and asked me for my license and registration. The license was in my purse, which was in the trunk of the Toyota, so I got out and wobbled to the back of the car in my dress and high heels (yes, I know that I’m not normally associated with purses, dresses, and heels, but I was going to a wedding, for crying out loud). I cannot possibly replicate in words how my hands were shaking, but let’s just say that it took me about four hours to get my license out of its little plastic holder. I think the officer was starting to feel sorry for me. I pleaded with him that the lights had all been yellow, and he said he wasn’t so sure about that. “Besides,” he continued, “what on earth were those things flying through the air?” “Teeth,” I answered.

By the time I got through explaining why the wisdom teeth were in the car in the first place, he was probably weary. So he let me go.

***

One experience with the law, though, caused me great mortification twice – 10 years apart. Yes, the same offense.

In 1975 I was living in the dorms at San Jose State and working towards my (first) degree in law enforcement. One Saturday night in December, a friend of my brother’s called me up and wanted to know if I wanted to go see a movie. I don’t think either of us thought it was a date, but we were both feeling kind of gloomy and thought it would be nice to get together. I will call him “Rusty,” after my childhood crush Rusty Hamer from the “Make Room for Daddy” TV show. (Truth be told, there was some resemblance between the two lads.)

Warning: This anecdote carries a PG rating, so please tear your small children away from this blog immediately.

Anyway, after the movie Rusty and I decided to drive to Santa Cruz. This was what young people always did in those days if we were feeling shiftless and wanted to seek out some form of adventure. No matter what we were doing, or what time of day, “Hey, let’s go over the hill!” was always cause for excitement.

Long story short, the two us ended up on a deserted dirt road in Scotts Valley and let’s just say that Rusty ended up on one of the bases. I don’t know all of the distinctions between the bases, but I can say with certainty that he did not get a home run or even a triple. I think he ended up only on second base, and nothing below the waist was involved. So it was fairly innocent. But we had a lovely time, and he was just cute as a button. A lovable, freckle-faced cad.

As luck would have it, though, just as we were about to leave the scene of the crime we saw the telltale flashing red light in the rearview mirror. I frantically threw my shirt on backwards.

It was a patrol officer, and he admonished us for parking on private property. We were trespassing, technically. After sitting in his police car and taking what seemed like forever to make sure we weren’t wanted anywhere, he jotted down our names and addresses and employer’s addresses and said that we were now going to be put on the Scotts Valley “list” of offenders, that we’d now be “on file,” and that if we were ever caught again we’d be in a heap of trouble.

I was mortified.

Now, at the time I was working part-time as a teacher’s aide in San Jose at James Lick High School, which is part of the same school district for which my father was working as principal of Piedmont Hills High School.

On Monday, I was at work when I was summoned to the office of Lick’s vice-principal, Russ Phillips, who was a giant of a man, an ex-football coach with a huge square head and heavy, oversized rings on his fingers. I was absolutely sure that the Scotts Valley Police Department had called Mr. Phillips to tell him that he had an immoral employee working for him. I was also sure that he was going to fire me and then call Dad. I was about to bring shame down on my entire extended Italian family and on all devotees of the Catholic faith.

“Principal’s Daughter Caught Canoodling in Scotts Valley,” the San Jose Mercury-News headline would read the next day. Or so I imagined.

I panicked and started to sniffle as I headed to Mr. Phillips’ office.

Luckily, he wanted only to ask me something about my payroll form.

And my father, bless his soul, never knew about Rusty and me. On top of everything, he never really liked Rusty much, either.

***

A decade or so later, this incident actually was a factor in influencing the course of my career. I was a freelance editor at the time, after having gotten a second degree in English. I’d all but given up on a career in law enforcement because police departments were requiring perfect vision among their recruits and I wore contacts, but times started changing and two local departments had no such requirement: Fairfax in Marin County and Fremont in Alameda County. So I applied to both and began working to build up my legendary herculean strength.

Fairfax, like most departments, had a physical skills requirement, and the one possible impediment to my getting past that test was The Wall. We had to perform other tasks like dragging a heavy mannequin or stepping rapidly through tires while wearing a heavy weight belt, and I was able to do those easily. The Wall, though, was a different story. It was taller than we were and we had to leap up, grab the top of the wall, and hoist ourselves over it using sheer upper-body strength. In general, men are taller and their upper-body strength is much greater than women’s. All of the other women at the test site failed; they just weren’t able to pull themselves over that thing. I was the last hope for my gender. I went flying towards that wall, leaped up with every ounce of momentum I had, grabbed the wall, and flung myself over. It was all adrenaline, I think.

I was secretly happy, I have to admit, because all of the other women had been effectively eliminated, which greatly increased my chances of getting the one open position. Or so I thought. Then they allowed the women to all try again, with some help, and a couple of them made it. I was furious. Damned liberal Fairfax!!

I didn’t get the job, but it’s interesting that a couple of years after that, my parents in Clearlake met their new police chief, who just happened to have arrived there from Fairfax. Upon hearing their last name, he remembered me and apologized to them for my not having been picked. He said the department brass had been impressed with me (it must have been my domination of the wall!), but they already had had someone picked out before testing had even started – a guy who was a police cadet serving in that department. I guess that made me feel a little better.

Then came Fremont. It was a much larger and seemingly more professional department. There was no physical agility test, for some reason, but there was a written test and a grueling oral exam. After both of those, I was #1 on the recruitment list. All that was left was the lie detector test.

So I found myself sitting in a little room, wired up to the polygraph, with a kindly young officer. It was the last question, and it was an odd one: “Have you ever committed rape, child molestation, or indecent exposure?”

I said no, and the polygraph needle started jumping all over the place.

“That’s odd,” he said. “Let me try again.”

Same result. That needle was flying.

He turned off the machine. “Okay,” he said, “I’m quite sure that you have not committed rape or child molestation. Tell me what’s going on with the indecent exposure thing.”

I was – of course! – mortified. I knew I was thinking about Rusty and that night in Scotts Valley with my shirt off! But I didn’t want to tell the officer. My heart started hammering and I completely lost focus, to the extent that I neglected to mention that Rusty and I had been out in public, which was of course what triggered the “indecent exposure” fear in my head.

Instead, all I said to the officer was, “Well, one time I was with a guy and we had our shirts off.”

There was a pause. He looked at me with a puzzled expression.

Then very gently he said, “Really, dear, that’s okaaaaaaay.”

***

I didn’t get the Fremont job. My status as #1 on their list must have plummeted after that polygraph test. They probably thought I was just too weird for words.

Of course, in retrospect it was good not only for me but for the safety of all the citizens of the Bay Area that I did not become a police officer. Things, as they say, happen for a reason.

There are countless people in our lives who say or do something, however insignificant it seems at the time, that we will remember all of our lives. I wish I could thank all of them. When I think back on that sweet little evening in Scotts Valley, I can’t help but smile. It really did me a world of good, in so many ways. Thanks, Rusty.

***

PART TWO

Due to popular demand, for those of you who are NOT on Facebook, I am including for you, here, the random diary entries that I’ve been posting on Facebook for “Throwback Thursday.” These are all taken absolutely verbatim from the lengthy diaries I kept between 1971 and 1987, and they’re all inadvertently hilarious. From now on, my most recent entries will be at the top.

3/26/71:

“We went to Clear Lake today. Big deal. It was miserably cold, miserably rainy, and miserable. Dad took us out to dinner and I became ill. There’s a lot of flu going around. It’s weird — you get very depressed and feel very blecchy. And another weird thing is you feel like crying. So I ate only 2 pieces of chicken, 1 helping of beans, 1/2 baked potato, 2 pieces of bread, and a chocolate sundae. Since I hardly ate anything, they KNEW I was sick.”

2/27/71:

“I wanted to see what sport I’ll be in in P.E. It’ll probably be tennis, basketball, or flag football. All of those choices are good, but I like basketball best. I just adore the feel of that big orange ball.”

1/3/71:

“Today I took my ‘big bath.’ There I 1) wash face with special soap, 2) pluck eyebrows, 3) clean ears, 4) blow nose, 5) brush teeth, 6) shave, 7) take the bath, and 8) clean my nostrils, etc.”

12/22/70, one of many displaying my teenage eating prowess:

“While there I ate an egg sandwich, macaroni salad, toast, popcorn, and Tab. Then I came home and ate dinner.”

12/21/70:

“Today [my cousin] and I stayed at [my aunt’s] house while they all went shopping. We played with [the baby] a lot, and we looked at all their dirty books. One that was really a crackup was A Guide to Sex in Marriage, and man, it told the whole procedure!”

11/11/70 (and it MUST be the winner of the “Unclear on the Concept” award):

“We went to the Veterans Day parade on 1st Street today. We were going to march in the ‘Silent Majority’ section but there wasn’t one.”

11/1/70:

“[My brother] Marc beat me 17 games to 0 in Hex today. It’s a game like Twix but on paper. It was the first time I played, and quite possibly the last. How humiliating!”

9/17/70:

“Mark, the president of our class, is in my History class with Mr. Ferguson and he is the most good-looking boy I’ve ever seen. He says hello all the time and WOW!”

4/24/71:

“Barb and Denise came up later and we just talked in my room for hours. I showed them my big Glen Campbell poster and we tied all our shoes together and other such mature stuff.”

1970:

“On another one of our numerous high school surveys, I had to put down 3 careers I want to enter. I was tempted to put down prostitution but I’m sure Dad would find out.”

***

PART THREE:

Again, this is just for people NOT on Facebook:

Our band, “Hotter Than Helga,” will be playing in Fairfax at 19 Broadway on Thursday night, September 14. (I play drums.) If you like alt/country/rock/Americana music, come out and have a listen!!

Return to Triangle Acres

It was really right out of a movie script, and a saccharine one at that. A couple of years ago I drove all the way to a small town in Maine in search of a farm, a house, and a family that I had loved and lost four decades earlier. Against all reason, I wondered if I could find the glorious place where, on the verge of adulthood, I had once spent three idyllic summers. But when I finally arrived, I saw that all of it had vanished. And then I turned . . . .

***

The people in Maine say that there are only two seasons in the state: August, and winter.

I saw Maine for the first time in August of 1975. My high school friend Jeanne – she of the wire-rimmed glasses whom my parents mistrusted – had married a man named Steve Harrington (I’m changing his last name, out of respect for his family’s privacy). How Jeanne – a paragon of narcissism – had landed Steve is something I’ll probably never understand, because he was the gentlest, sweetest man I’ve ever met. The two of them lived in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, but he was a native Maine-iac and was up visiting his family at the time. The plan was that I would fly out to meet Jeanne in South Carolina and the two of us would drive up the East Coast together to Maine, where she would reunite with Steve and meet her new in-laws for the first time.

It was a crazy vacation because we were young (19) and somewhat reckless, and our adventures were abundant. We spent some time in New York City, seeing off-color shows at the Village Gate and closing down the bars. (It was a Village bartender who first introduced me to the wonders of Sambuca Romana, the clear licorice-flavored liqueur that’s as strong as whisky and absolutely must be drunk with three coffee beans floating in the glass. The drink is called “Sambuca con la Mosca,” which in Italian means “Sambuca with a Fly.” And there must be three beans, representing health, prosperity, and happiness. But, as usual, I digress.)

We also got stuck in the middle of a statewide drug bust in South Carolina – a bizarre story that will be told at some later date when I discuss my brushes with the law. 😉

Anyway, eventually Jeanne and I made it, pulling up at the Harringtons’ farmhouse at 5:00 one morning after an 18-hour drive through some dangerously misty backroads in New Hampshire. I remember the instrumental “Tubular Bells” coming eerily through the radio, white birches glowing like spectres in the blackness, and wisps of fog skulking low along the road. We’d been through so much that day. We’d driven 60 miles out of our way to the town of Woodstock so that we could stand on the farm where half a million kids had spent three days of love and rock ‘n’ roll, and it turned out to be the wrong site. We’d gotten stuck with a flat tire and no tools on the New York Thruway, and had had to sit miserable and shivering in a downpour until relief came. And after I accidentally loosened my grip on our trusty map and let it fly out through the open sunroof, we’d meandered lost down every side route, dirt road, and ghostly trail along the way.

Anyway, long after our edge of exhaustion, the mountains became level and the darkness became dawn. Jeanne and I pulled up to the farmhouse and were instantly met with the strongest, longest hugs imaginable from an extended family that had come in from far and wide to meet Steve’s new wife. And that was my warm orientation to rural Maine – a stone’s throw from the capital, Augusta, but a world away.

1976_Maine_Chris, Paula, Steve Purington — Steve

“Triangle Acres” read the sign on the roadside that marked the entrance to the farm. I don’t know how many acres the family had, but the land was enough to provide lodging for horses, cattle, a rooster, hens, sheep, a ram, and four dogs, all running around neighing, mooing, crowing, clucking, bleating, and barking at once. The land also provided sustenance for the Harrington garden, a veritable Eden of beans, squash, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, and oh-so-sweet butter-and-cream Maine corn. Off to the left stood a huge weatherbeaten barn, complete with cats and barn swallows and a hayloft. Behind the barn were woods and fields. And down by the road stood the family’s vegetable stand, which was never manned; a sign merely instructed customers to “Pick out your vegetables and put money in the jug,” which they did, on the honor system, with nary a hint of thievery.

The Harringtons lived in a century-old, two-story white clapboard farmhouse. I don’t remember much about the house except that it was well-worn but tidy, and it had many of the “appointments” common to old farmhouses, like pantries and built-in corner cupboards and a wood-burning stove. At night it was a little crazy – people on couches, cots, or on the floor, or outside in tents, trailers, or the hayloft in the barn. I suppose out of deference to my being a guest and a girl, though, I got to sleep upstairs in a tiny bedroom full of Charlie’s dusty Zane Gray paperbacks about the American frontier.

Charlie – to this day one of my favorite human beings of all time – was the patriarch of the family, a beanpole of a man, with a bald, sunburned head, a smattering of whiskers, a cigarette or pipe constantly hanging out of his mouth, and pants rolled up about six inches on the bottom (“darn these things,” he’d say, “they’re too blasted stiff”). He was born around 1909, which would have made him about 66 when we met. After the eighth grade he’d left school and gone to work on the railroads and then on construction sites.

1980_07_Gardiner, Maine_Charlie Purington, Paula — Charlie

I loved his stories and recorded some of them. “I been up to the top of Maine and back down again with this construction company, used to work seven days a week, holidays, 12-14 hours a day; we’d be so weary we’d walk along and trip over a little pebble in the road,” he told me. “Once it rained and stormed and we all decided to go home. The boss got mad but we said hell, we been workin’ every day since spring, we got a right to come home, but my little daughter Cherie, she was but 8 or 9 months at the time, if I saw her and came to pick her up in my arms, why, she’d scream ’cause she didn’t know me, her own fatha. Three years I lived in a tent. It had a hahdwood floor and a gas stove and heata and a sink, a bed . . . why, it’d be 20 degrees outside but so warm and comftable in my tent, maybe 70, 75 degrees, you know, yes, it was comftable. I took a bulldozah and plowed a hole in the woods so the wind’d go right over the top, see, and took a tarpaulin and put it over a pole, makin’ whatcha call a ‘fly,’ and covered everything with snow and leaves. I tell you it was comftable. But lonely, oh, it was so lonely.”

Charlie was sinewy but strong, hard-working but playful, and he had a keen sense of honor. The only time I ever saw him mad was when we all sat around the table one night and drank up all his whisky. For this I could be forgiven, because I was simply following his children’s lead. But that whisky was precious to him, and he laid into his kids the next morning when he discovered the empty bottle. We all sat there sheepishly and full of shame and of course replaced the booze the next day. Other than that, he was a jokester and a prankster and perennially of good cheer. I’ll never forget his favorite line about his philosophy of life and death: “I’ll know when I get t’heaven, because I’ll get t’live my dream of walkin’ barefoot across a field of naked women’s breasts.” He always said it with a twinkly grin and would leave us all laughing as he strolled off to the barn.

“Not everyone can get as much out of their land as you do, Papa Charlie. You must be awfully proud of this farm,” I once told him as he took some tobacco and rolled a cigarette. (I’d gotten that line from Easy Rider, but I meant it nonetheless. I thought he was everything a great man ought to be.)

“Dahlin’,” he said, “I’ve got everything heah with me. I’m retired now, but I do desehve t’be after so many yehs of wehk, and I’ve got my gahden and my woodchoppin.’ It’s so good, so good for a man t’be able to make a little money from his own hands, and I love my house so much that whenevah I leave, even just for a minute, I look back and akchally cry.”

In front of the house sat an ancient truck (the “Tonka Toy,” as it was affectionately named), an old beat-up ’52 pickup with wires and rusty bolts and levers hanging out, windows blistered or broken, seats torn out to reveal just bare springs. But it did its job, however haltingly. When Charlie finished talking to me about his house, he went screaming off with it into the woods, over the stumps and the rocks and the trees, choking to a stop every couple of minutes.

1976_Maine_Gert Purington, Chris — Gert and cousin Chris, my flyfishing teacher

Gert, his wife, was four years younger. She was shaped like a barrel and had a raspy voice and wiry gray curls, and her teeth were either missing or askew. But she was loud and jolly, and she loved every second of managing this insane houseful of Maine-iacs. She’d been a looker in her younger years; I saw a photo of her once and nearly gasped with the recognition of what the aging process does to us. “Why do you insist on looking at those old scrapbooks?” she asked me. “I hate lookin’ at myself.” I remember that she said it with sadness, and it was the first time I realized the melancholy that can catch us when we’re not looking, when we are reminded what the years have wrought.

Jeanne’s husband Steve, with his soft southern drawl and his kind eyes, was one of five kids in the Harrington family. One sister, Judy, lived in California but was out visiting with her two young children. Brother George, who lived in Connecticut, sported an impeccable haircut and seemed a bit more upscale than the rest of the family. Cheryl, the youngest, was a good-humored young woman who always seemed to be rubbing cake in someone’s face. I didn’t know it then, but the next year she would catch leukemia and it would take her very quickly. After Cheryl died, they told me that Charlie would cry almost every night, thinking that no one heard him.

1976_Maine_Paula, Ronnie Purington — Ron, always the scamp

Then there was brother Ron, the oldest, who reminded me of Jack Kerouac – my favorite author at the time. Ron had been all over the country from east coast to west, bumming and fighting and riding the rails and doing odd jobs, and he was still a perennial vagabond. He was coarse and had an annoying giggle, but because he was a rambler and even physically resembled Kerouac, I romanticized him for a long time until I learned what a scalawag he was. He had a darling son we all called “Little Ronnie” who was only about 6 years old and whose mom hung around a lot but was no longer in any kind of relationship with his father. There was simply an understanding.

1980_07_Gardiner, Maine_Ronnie Purington, Jr, Paula — Little Ronnie

***

I was a child of the suburbs, and although I ran free in the San Jose orchards and knew my way around a fishing pole or a county fair, this was the first time I was introduced to rural living. And to say it was heavenly would be an understatement. The family and all of its cousins and extensions loved each other fiercely, and I was now a part of it.

I got to swim in the ice-cold, crystal-clear, cobalt blue waters of the local quarry.

I spent $4.50 on tickets to the drag races.

I dug my own worms, caught a few bass, and took flyfishing lessons from one of the cousins.

Out in the barn, I spent hours talking about life in the earthy-smelling hayloft. Sometimes a joint may have been involved.

We chased escaped piglets up and down the road until we were exhausted from laughing and running, and, by the way, we never caught the pigs.

I once accidentally left a gate open and a steer got loose, resulting in lots of hollering until he was recaptured.

1976_Maine_Jeanne Andrishok and Bucky — “Bucky”

I was also violently slammed in the butt by “Bucky” the ram. I’d been standing around in the pasture, minding my own business, when without warning I found myself hurtling through the air and landing squarely on my back. Luckily I was young and no body parts were damaged. And true to their code of integrity around woman and guests, the boys who witnessed it did not laugh. Not even a smirk.

We took the coon dogs out into the misty Maine woods at 1:00 in the morning, seeing no raccoons but inhaling deeply the fresh odor of loamy soil.

I went bareback horse riding down empty streets at midnight.

I shot high-caliber pistols at targets up near the waterfall.

I picked my own vegetables and shelled my own peas.

I saw Tom Petty in concert in Augusta, with a crowd about 1,000 times rowdier than any I’d ever experienced in the Bay Area. Beer, brawls, and beards in abundance.

In the evening, we sat outside and had huge family feasts. Once or twice we picked out lobsters and clams from a nearby distributor and cooked them up, but they were luxuries. So usually dinner was something like venison, thick homemade potato bread with fresh raspberry jam, abundant ears of garden corn, mustard pickles, fiddleheads, fresh peas, new potatoes, and strawberries. I mean, delicious.

At night we played spoons and drank whisky and made up stories and laughed until long past midnight.

Never once did we want for anything to do or anyone to hug.

***

So it was that shortly after Memorial Day in 2014, I pulled into that small town in Maine in search of a memory. All I wanted was to see that white clapboard house again, if it was still standing.

I couldn’t remember the address, so I’d done an Internet search, finding only the business address of a roofing company operated by a Harrington I didn’t know. Still, as soon as I saw the street name I knew it was the one. I thought that maybe one of the descendants was operating a business out of the old house.

When Julie and I pulled up, however, we saw that there was no more open land on the old spot – just some small, nondescript homes. I hadn’t had high expectations about seeing the old place again, so I just sat in the car and sighed and submitted wistfully to the inevitable shifts of time.

As we started to pull away, though, I glanced towards the opposite side of the street and thought for a moment that I saw a flash of white hanging from the bottom of a tree. It was a familiar-shaped sign with worn black lettering, and since it was hanging perpendicular to the street I had to get out and walk up to it to make out the words.

“Triangle Acres,” it read.

***

I looked up and saw the old house. The front of the bottom story was stripped down to bare wood. Wires and antennae and satellite dishes were now attached to the roof. But it was the same place, all right. A couple of boats were in the backyard, looking as if they had been marooned there for quite some time. There were a few sheds and a woodpile and a rusted-out garbage can.

I decided to take a picture of the sign, for old times’ sake, and I was standing in the road adjusting the focus when a woman strolled purposefully out of the house and directly towards me. “Can I help you?” she asked, in a way that was neither friendly nor antagonistic, just direct. She wanted to know who the hell I was, this stranger with a camera and a rental car with New York license plates.

“Well, I know this is kind of weird, but I’m from California and I came all the way up here just to see if I could find the house where I spent many summers – maybe before you were even born – with a wonderful family called the Harringtons,” I explained, taking out my old photo album so I could show her that I wasn’t a loon.

“Well, you’ve found it,” she said. “I live here with Ronnie Harrington and his father. I’m Ronnie’s girlfriend.”

***

Her name was Jamie, and she texted Little Ronnie (as he was apparently still called!), who was away as he often was, for weeks at a time, working seasonal construction jobs and trying to make ends meet. I figured he’d have forgotten me, but I was wrong. “Damn,” he texted back to her. “Paula was supposed to wait for me so I could marry her.”

His dad, Ron, had driven into town, and Jamie called him and asked him to come back right away, saying he had an old friend waiting for him.

There was no garden anymore, no barn, no animals. Jamie invited us in for a drink of water, and when I looked around I saw that the house was in some disrepair. I remember thinking that someone could easily fall through the floorboards. I doubt that Little Ronnie’s hard but sporadic work in construction was able to provide enough for upkeep and repairs on an old, creaky home. I started to feel embarrassed to be breezing in with my fancy camera and my L.L. Bean sweater.

250_Gardiner, Maine_Purington residence_Ronnie, Paula — Ron

Ron drove up about half an hour later. I figure he was about 80, still robust and not all that aged despite the 40 years, and he held my hand and was sweet as can be and wanted us to stay for dinner. We weren’t able to stay, but we spent a few hours talking about the family, especially old man Charlie, and much to their amusement I repeated Charlie’s notion of heaven and the naked breasts, and they laughed knowingly.

Gert had died of cancer in 1985, and Charlie had passed in 1990. Steve and Jeanne had long since divorced – such a shock! – and Steve was still living in the Carolinas, although he was struggling with health problems.

I don’t know exactly why Ron and his son hadn’t kept up the farm. I don’t know whether the younger Ronnie made a choice to work seasonally, or whether that was the only job he could find in an unsteady economy, or whether it was the only one for which he was suited. I don’t know how many strikes he may or may not have had against him, especially considering his father’s propensity for a nomadic, adventurous, but somewhat shiftless life.

But does the cause – which was probably a mix of many factors – really matter? I’m just plain lucky that I’ve been able to retire before the age of 60 and carry a fancy camera and hail from the land of artisanal toast and hand-massaged beef. So many of us live in a ridiculous bubble of comfort and security, and we take for granted how fortunate we are. Out here most of us think alike and vote the same way and share the same outrage at things we believe to be uncouth or boorish. We forget that many people live differently and suffer pain and hardships that we could never imagine having while we hunch over our computer screens or sit around with our glass of chardonnay and exclaim over mango foam.

***

This weekend I finished reading a little book called The Rangity Tango Kids by Lorraine Rominger. I would not recommend it to anyone looking for exceptional prose, nor would I recommend it to anyone under 50 who hails from an urban or suburban environment. It’s a folksy memoir written by a local woman from Winters, in northern California, about her childhood on a farm in Sonoma County, and what it was like growing up with a passel of brothers and sisters in a time whose traces are disappearing so fast that there are very few remnants left for us to savor. Although I didn’t spend my childhood on a farm, the memories and the values evoked in Ms. Rominger’s book brought me back to my youth.

“There were things I took for granted growing up that are gone now,” Rominger writes, “things my nieces and nephews will not have the opportunity to experience, like the simplicity of a farm family whose lives revolved around a place where we lived and worked, so our family and farm would prosper. Dad’s attachment to the land, and his father’s, is like none any of us will ever know. My grandparents have passed, but Dad and Grandpa Rominger have collectively been on the farm for nearly a century and have witnessed the wild, open country taken away over time. I prefer the world I grew up in, not the world I am growing old in.”

To our detriment, I believe, so many simple pleasures have vanished. If I could go back in time for a moment, I would. I would walk back onto that farm in Maine and remember the joys of physical exertion, the tastes of food right out of the earth, and the prolonged laughter that comes from family and friends actually interacting with each other, without judgment. I would let Bucky ram me from behind just so I could sail through the air again, free, without a care in the world. I would ride a horse bareback down an empty street at midnight.

So don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot

For one brief, shining moment . . . .

Oops!

And then there was the time I found myself downtown at rush hour with my nylons around my ankles.

My latest blog posts have been a bit on the serious side, so I decided that today’s would be simple and light – another in my endless series of embarrassing moments now set forth for all eternity.

I’ve had a number of clothing-related mortifications in my life. I once walked out the door and all the way to the bus stop before realizing that I was wearing only a slip. The uncommon chill is what finally tipped me off.

But a couple of other incidents stand out.

Early in my career in San Francisco, I would periodically wear dresses to work. I had landed a job as an “editorial assistant” at Harper & Row Publishers right out of college, and while most English majors would have swooned at that opportunity, I worked in the production side of things, which meant that I really functioned as an accountant. I dealt with lots of invoices and spreadsheets (all by hand, of course) as I developed a growing familiarity with the intricacies of offsheet presses and bookbinding.

Anyway, one evening I was walking down Sutter Street after a long day at work when quite suddenly both of my nylons rolled down around my ankles. I was wearing thigh-high hose at the time – individual nylons with a tight band at mid-thigh level that miraculously gripped one’s leg. They were supposed to stay there. I don’t know why I preferred them over your standard-issue panty hose, but that was my scene at the time. (By the way, I just Googled them and discovered that they still exist today, so perhaps I was not as far afield fashion-wise as you might be thinking.)

I have no idea why both nylons decided to defy all odds and slide to earth at the same time. In fact, I don’t understand why they slipped down at all. My best guess is that they were getting on in years and perhaps I’d stretched them out when I was heavier – when I had put on the “freshman 15” living in the dorms at SF State, scarfing down as many carbohydrates as I could stuff into my gaping maw. Well, that and the sodas.

Speaking of sodas, I must digress for a moment, because one day I was in line at the college cafeteria with my friend Kati. I had poured myself a Coca-Cola and she had gotten a Pepsi, both in gigantic paper cups, but I’m sure we were distracted by a million things and by the time we paid our “scrip” for them we couldn’t remember which was which. “Don’t worry; I can tell just by smelling them,” she assured me. So she proceeded to stick her nose down into one of the cups and draw in a huge, dramatic sniff. Well, in front of a long line of students, the soda shot way up her nostril, so far that it then streamed out the other nostril and back onto the counter. We both guffawed so hard that she practically choked to death. It caused quite a delay at the counter.

“Well, I can say with clarity that that was definitely not the Pepsi,” she deadpanned.

And that, my friends, was the only time I’ve been around someone snorting Coke.

Anyway, back to the nylons. So now I’m in a torrent of people heading home, my stockings are bunched loosely around my ankles, and I’m overcome with embarrassment. What the heck am I going to do? Undress right in the middle of Sutter Street?

So, I decided to ever-so-gradually back into a doorway so that I would go undiscovered by at least the majority of the people on the street. I eased myself slowly backwards until I could lean up against the solid wall behind me, at which point I took off my heels, rolled each piece of hosiery all the way down and off, stuffed the nylons in my backpack, and slipped my shoes back on. It took quite a bit of time because I was very deliberate and protracted in my actions so as not to draw attention.

Then I turned around to look at the building.

Oops.

The “wall” that I had backed into was really a window. A huge plate-glass window. And inside the lobby of that building was a large crowd of people, all of them staring. They had had quite a show. A long show at that. They could have consumed an entire tub of popcorn watching me undress!

***

I suppose the most mortifying of all my clothing situations, though, occurred the day I went to the water-slide park with my sister Janine, my former brother-in-law John, and their children. This time I planned carefully in advance and donned a one-piece bathing suit to avoid any mishaps.

I had a fantastic time that day. It was an hour of pure joy and laughing and screaming.

On my last trip down the largest slide, a 10-year-old boy had somehow gotten stuck partway down and along I came, barreling towards him. I flailed around and tried to stop myself, but to no avail, so I careened into him and ended up taking him down with me, the both of us shrieking and hopelessly entangled.

Now, at the bottom of the slide was a shallow pool. Just beyond that was a large, grassy hillside, on which all of the parents sat to watch their kids as they splash-landed after a wild ride.

I stood up out of the pool, cackling and grinning from the delight of not only the fast ride but also the craziness of being intertwined with the startled little boy.

John and the kids met me at the edge of the pool, and I began breathlessly recounting the details of the slide.

As I stood there jabbering, facing not only my family but the hordes of parents on the grass, I noticed that John was staring perplexedly at me. And not at my face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, still catching my breath.

He just pointed.

Somehow in all the chaos my bathing suit had slipped down on one side, and my entire lily-white left breast was out and pointing like a beacon at not only him but also the large crowd on the hill.

“For God’s sake, John, why didn’t you say anything?” I blurted at him while stuffing everything back into place. “A hundred people are staring at me!”

Hand to God, this was his response:

“I wasn’t sure what it was.”

**********

For SF Giants fans, my latest Giants blog posts (most of which are dullsville) are at http://sportsspotlight.com/blog/author/paulabocciardi/

Lovely to see you again, my friends

TO THE CLASS OF 2017:

It was 45 years ago this month that I graduated from high school, and every so often a few of my old friends get together for a weekend of wine, memories, laughs, and sentiment. This time we met up in Ventura. Even though our school – Piedmont Hills – was located on the east side of San Jose, a handful of us have relocated to southern California, and we thought we’d gather down there for a change.

Two days, many cocktails, countless stories, a plethora of hugs, and a few tears later, I drove back home, cranking up the tunes (a luxury best reserved for solo driving) and reflecting on where we’d all come from and where all these years had taken us.

***

I was utterly terrified on my first day of high school. I’d come from a Catholic school and had never known what it was like to have lockers, carry books, change classes, navigate from building to building, or walk hallways filled with students who were older, more mature, and almost adults. “I couldn’t believe that I was now surrounded by men,” one of us said this weekend. “Not boys, but men. With beards.” To some of us that was exhilarating. To me, it was just plain frightening. Raised by loving but extremely protective parents, I was naïve and unsophisticated.

Within minutes after I arrived at school that first day, a senior boy/man saw me and took off his class ring, slipping it on my finger and asking me how that felt. I didn’t know what to make of the entire thing. I was only 12 years old. Just a baby. I went home and told my father about the whole mystifying situation, and he made quick work of tracking down that senior and handing him a stern lecture. My father, you see, was the principal.

Obviously I had a few strikes against me.

Later that day, we were all asked to pair up and choose locker partners. Most of my St. Victor’s Elementary School classmates were off at Catholic high schools, and I didn’t know a soul. The time ticked down and I found myself standing alone, consumed, as always, with worry. But I mustered my courage, walked up to a total stranger, and asked her to be my partner. Her name was Barbara. I don’t know why I picked her. Maybe it was because she looked reserved, she wasn’t rocking a miniskirt, and she wasn’t sporting two tons of blue eye shadow. I hoped that my intuition was right and that she wouldn’t reject me. Saints be praised, she said yes immediately, which was a great act of gallantry because she had to have known that I was the principal’s daughter and that her association with me could prove to be an inconvenience at best. Almost half a century later, we’re still in touch. And by the way, she still looks exactly the same.

Barb didn’t have a single affectation. There wasn’t an elitist or supercilious bone in her body. Her parents worked on a farm, and she routinely presented me with gorgeous fresh produce as gifts. One time she gave me some sweet anise on my birthday and I was so thrilled that I gushed about it in my diary. I also remember driving out to the farm with my parents to pick squash blossoms, because there is nothing more delicious in this world than fried zucchini flowers. (Just dip them in egg and flour, fry briefly in oil, and be prepared to swoon.)

In those days, San Jose was not the technology mecca it is today. Much of it, in fact – especially on the east side, where we lived – was agricultural land. As my high school years went on, I would befriend lots of kids who had grown up on ranches and farms and knew their way around the county fair.

***

Barb had met Sue when they started kindergarten at Orchard Elementary School, one of the oldest educational institutions in the state (1856) and one that served residents of a part of the city that remained agrarian despite the burgeoning presence of housing tracts and malls. The two girls bonded at naptime that first day because Sue had an apparently-coveted Huckleberry Hound mat.

While Barb was more reticent, Sue was outgoing and full of spirit. She was optimistic and quick to laugh. I also thought she was very grown up – not in a “blue eye shadow” kind of way, but in a wise kind of way. She meant a lot to me because she always gave me good advice that came from a warm place deep in her heart.

In preparation for this reunion, I decided to drag out my diaries. For about 17 years, I diligently wrote in those little books every night, with the tiniest of Parker pen nibs. The diaries were delightfully unfiltered and un-self-censored, and when I think about it, I really have in my hands a remarkably honest chronicle of a young girl’s adolescence and young adulthood.

According to my diary, in March of 1972 I decided to run away from home. I loved my parents dearly, but holy cats they were strict with me! I wasn’t allowed to wear pants to school when girls were finally given that “privilege.” I wasn’t allowed to spend the night at a friend’s house ever, even if both sets of parents knew and thought highly of each other, because my father thought it was barbaric not to be at home at night. On my first date (I was a senior) with Jerry Miyakusu, my curfew was so early that Jerry had to shatter speed records racing home from Shakey’s Pizza Parlor in his sports car on dangerously curvy backroads. I’ve never wolfed down a pizza that fast since. And I think Jerry created a sonic boom as he hurtled me home. He wouldn’t have had time to kiss me even if he had wanted to.

(By the way, in 1972 when I was finally allowed to wear pants to school – but only on Fridays – I donned a super-cool ensemble that consisted of tight gold-plaid pants and long-sleeved gold Western blouses with lots of embroidered curlicues and snaps.)

Anyway, my frustrations with my folks had been piling up, and according to my diary, on March 21:

I called Sue because I thought she had an empty duplex, but it’s inhabited. She said, “Don’t leave, Paula, it won’t solve anything.” So I didn’t.

It was as simple as that. My plans were instantly jettisoned. Sue had spoken.

I guess it makes sense that Sue would go on to be a teacher and a motivational speaker.

***

I was an absent-minded little thing. It was legendary. My mother would ask me to “watch the rolls,” and I stood and stared at the oven glass and watched the rolls burn to a crisp. I routinely threw my socks away. I was playing the board game Risk once, with a Ritz cracker in my hand, and I popped the dice into my mouth and rolled the cracker!

Wednesday I looked in my purse for my glasses but they weren’t there. Obviously I almost had a heart attack! I decided to tell the parents at Clear Lake this weekend when they were in a good mood. But luckily I asked Miss Lasagna [yes, that was her real name] and she said she found them and my badminton racket on her desk. Whew! I don’t know how many times I have come so close to losing my glasses. And last Thursday I came home from badminton, changed, took off my blouse, and calmly went into the bathroom and deposited it in the toilet!

When I read back over those diaries, I am absolutely astounded at how worried I was about every little thing. I mean, I was a roiling cauldron of anxiety.

Boy, am I worried. Last semester I had a lot of points wrapped up by Final time, but not this year. In Chem I have a 90%, and I need an 86 on the Final to get an A. Shoot! His Finals are tough. I may shoot myself if I miss it. You won’t believe how worried I am. Every so often little pangs of fear go through me.

I am worried sick about the swim test tomorrow because of only one thing – diving. I can do everything else but that, and I get so embarrassed when I bellyflop.

Friday is the GAA/Faculty Mixed Doubles Tennis Tournament, and I am worried. I have to play some of the best players. It’ll be worse with Mr. Barisich as my partner because now he’ll know how really lousy I am.

Nearly every page is filled with one anxiety or another, sometimes accompanied by beseeching prayers to the Almighty. This one really takes the cake:

I, my friends, am really up-tight about something which most people would be happy about. “Our gang,” or, as we have come to call ourselves, “the out crowd,” has informed me that I may accidentally get a lot of nominations for Junior Prom Princess. Well, for one thing, I am not pretty. The only time I may be cute is when I smile, which helps decrease the length of my nose. Maybe I can persuade the kids to put up somebody else. Help me, God!

Finally, there’s this:

Today I went to the dentist. I had no cavities but I had fluoride. YICK! I hate it, and it always upsets me for a long time.

I honestly can’t figure out what on earth that last one means.

***

It was an interesting time to be young, back then. Just a few months before we started as freshmen, both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. The number of Vietnam War casualties would hit an all-time high of nearly 17,000 in 1968. New and wilder kinds of drugs were infiltrating the schools.

Over the next four years, the war engagement would start to wind down. Men’s hair would grow longer. Women would start to speak up. The voting age would be reduced from 21 to 18. Meanwhile, we were learning who we were and how we fit in with the changing times. Some of us (myself not included) wore black armbands to school to protest the war. Some of us struggled with figuring out our political identities and how to behave in a world in which gender roles were suddenly changing. We made mistakes and we were insecure and we were sometimes jealous in the most petty of ways, but we were all finding our way, bound together by the fears and joys and struggles of adolescence.

I remained – not altogether voluntarily – essentially a Puritan. My friends still remember the long skirts my mother sewed for me. And of course, as the principal’s daughter, I could get away with nothing. On Senior Cut Day I was one of the few hapless kids forced to come to school. The worst thing I ever did was steal some pre-signed get-out-of-class-free pink slips from one of the counselors and use them liberally during my senior year. I was finally caught by a sympathetic teacher who never ratted me out to my father, thank goodness.

Some of the friends I hung out with, though, were a little wilder. I loved them for what they were, but I think they deliberately withheld a lot of their activities from me – an arrangement that, in truth, was beneficial to all parties concerned. One of those friends was Jane, who had a gorgeous English accent and whom I always considered to be supremely exotic. She seemed so worldly. She flowed mysteriously through our group and I was never quite sure what she was up to, believing that one day she’d end up as some kind of insurgent – maybe one of those radicals who joined the Weather Underground and set off explosives.

Uh, no.

Jane became a nurse. A Critical Care nurse, in fact. I imagine she has helped save thousands of lives in her career. In Ventura we talked about what retirement would mean for her, and she said she feared that leaving her job would mean losing her purpose in life. So we all discussed options that would enable her to maintain her dedication to health care, such as volunteering in places like homeless shelters. As she wavered about eventual retirement, I could see, in her eyes, her devotion to her calling.

***

Jane wasn’t the only one of the group who went into public service. I suppose it was the specific time in which we graduated, but it’s interesting that no one in our group left high school with the goal of making money. That wasn’t even in our vernacular. I think it was because we graduated at the tail end of the peace-and-love days. We were many years removed from the Summer of Love, but we were also two years ahead of the invention of the microprocessor and the total domination of the world by Silicon Valley. Just a couple of years after we left high school, people’s values began to change. But we just wanted to study the arts and help people and have a lot of goofy fun along the way.

Our friend Terrie became a lifelong public servant, too. After high school I lost track of her until many years later when I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle and her name suddenly appeared. I don’t remember what the story was about, but I learned that Terrie was a police officer in Morgan Hill. Eventually she would become Commander. Remember that in the 1970s there were very few female police officers anywhere, and Terrie was the only woman on the Morgan Hill force for a long time. To this day she says she didn’t think about it much. If she faced any biases, she never let them get under her skin. And she truly loved her job. In Ventura she talked about how people she’d arrested had come back to thank her because she listened so openly to them and, if they were willing, she helped them find their way towards becoming productive members of society. “It’s how you handle yourself,” she once said. “That goes across the board. If you have the ability to talk to people, to respect them, you can accomplish a lot. You always aim for diffusing a situation, not using force.” Terrie is probably one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met, and when she retired after serving for 26 years, the whole community felt the loss. A 2006 Letter to the Editor in the Morgan Hill Times said, “We have never met a more kind, generous, hard-working and professional public servant in our lives. Morgan Hill has been blessed. The force will be without her, but we know that she will only redirect her many talents in other community aspects. The quality of our community is so much better because of Terrie. May the force continue to be with you Terrie.”

***

Our friend Mary is the one who keeps everyone laughing, and she increases the hilarity quotient of any gathering by 1,000 percent. I mean, spend 5 minutes with the woman and you need to take Advil to soothe your stretched-out-from-laughing jaw muscles. I love her stories of our high school days, like the time she found an entire unopened jug of Spañada wine in the orchard and considered it to be the greatest treasure find of her young life. From what I gather, she dipped into that thing any number of times during the school year. My favorite family anecdote of hers is that she “started a campaign around Christmas time one year to convince my two younger sisters that Santa was indeed watching them – even in the bathroom. I constructed little paper cameras and colored them black, then placed them on top of the light so they could just see enough to be nervous!”

Mary left her home in northern California a number of years ago so that she could care for her mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. She gave up a lot, but that’s who she is, and she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing things differently. She’s currently thinking about starting a humor blog, and we couldn’t be more encouraging about that. Start it now, Mary. It’s never too late.

***

When I really think about it, there weren’t all that many things that our group had in common. But we didn’t judge each other. We weren’t snarky. We were never arrogant. We never thought that we were the most interesting creatures on the planet.

Hmmm. Maybe that’s what we had in common.

Half of us turned out to be gay, proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my longtime contention that something sketchy was going on with the drinking water in the East San Jose foothills. Half of us ended up caring for parents with Alzheimer’s. Half of us had kids and grandchildren. And all of us have been successful. It really rankles me that the term “successful” means, to many people, earning a lot of money. You never hear people say that someone is “a successful preschool teacher” or “a successful police officer” or “a successful court clerk.” Well, in my book we’re successful if we pay our taxes and behave like responsible citizens. We’re successful if we raise our children with all the selflessness that that role demands. We’re successful if we keep our commitments to friends and family. Really, we’re successful if we manage to navigate our way gracefully through life’s challenges.

Being with these old classmates, despite the years and the miles, was easy. We don’t have to get to know each other all over again. It’s like the comfort of being bandmates or teammates or lovers. You may move on, but you can’t dismiss the times you spent together and the influences you had on each other’s lives.

As Sue summed it up later, “I just can’t put into words how precious every moment, every laugh, every tear is to my heart.”

***

A few days after I returned from Ventura, my family got together in San Jose to bestow our Gerald and Beverly Bocciardi scholarships on four remarkable seniors. All of them have specific goals and majors in mind, but the truth is, some of them will end up in places, and enjoying accomplishments, that they cannot even imagine now. We shook their hands and asked them about their college choices and their chosen fields, but if I’d had the time I would have said a lot more than that.

Don’t short-change yourself. Every so often, say hello to someone you don’t know. Be grateful for fresh produce. If someone you love wants to run away from home, or from life, talk them through it. Make others laugh. Consider public service. If you venture into the business world, keep your integrity; they’ll take your soul if you let them, ah, but don’t you let them. Take care of your parents, and learn about their lives; they are far more interesting than you think. Most importantly, hang on to your friends with character – the ones who count. If they call out your name, come running.

And for God’s sake, don’t be upset by fluoride.

Write your own life’s music. Learn the chords and the rudiments from the people who came before you, but then make the score your own. Play it loudly and then eventually teach it to others. That’s the reason you’re here.

That’s what we were doing, back in 1968. We were just trying to figure out our songs.

Their last full measure

My mother told me more than once, in her later years, that when she reflected on my upbringing she had only one major regret: that she did not buy me the thing I most wanted for Christmas. I begged for it every year. It was in the Sears Christmas catalog, on the costume page with the nurse’s outfits and the ballerina tutus. But I didn’t want those, of course. What I was dying to have was a U.S. Marine Corps dress uniform.

There is no more beautiful uniform in the world than the Marine Corps “dress blues.” The sky-blue pants had a dark red stripe running down the outside of the leg. And the jacket – oh, that dignified jacket! – was a deep midnight blue and sported red trim, gold buttons, a sergeant’s insignia on the sleeve, epaulettes on the shoulders, a mandarin collar, and – best of all – a beautiful, wide white belt to make it all look so crisp.

I never found my coveted dress blues under the Christmas tree, so I spent many hours marching in circles around the dining room table wearing my father’s old olive-colored army hat and listening to my most cherished LP, “American Patriotic and Marching Songs.” My favorites were the military anthems, and I would belt out “Anchors Aweigh,” “The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” “The Halls of Montezuma,” and “The Army Air Corps Song” until my parents wanted to rip that record right off the turntable.

Mom mentioned her regrets about the uniform so often that a few years ago I decided to find some dress blues and surprise her by strolling into her house wearing them. I checked ebay and costume shops and military surplus stores, but unfortunately I came up short. Even though I did find one or two authentic uniforms for sale, they wouldn’t nearly have fit me. I guess there aren’t too many 5’6”, 135-pound Marines. I did find some old Women’s Army Corps uniforms, but they were skirt outfits. Ew.

***

On this Memorial Day, I wanted to pay tribute to my great-uncle Reuben Steger – a genuine hero who lost his life in World War II. Uncle Ruby, like most of the relatives from my mother’s side of the family, grew up in Marshfield, Wisconsin. There were nine boys and two girls in the family and Ruby was the most loving of the boys, many of whom had dispositions coarsened by their hardscrabble lives. They wore shoes only to church on Sundays; otherwise, they roamed the farmlands barefooted. Their mother, despite having 11 children of her own, took in other people’s laundry to make ends meet. They grew their own potatoes and cabbage, raised their own cow for milk, and ate meat only when it was killed by one of the sons – squirrels, rabbits, deer, whatever they could find hunting the open lands.

When he was 19 years old, Ruby joined the Wisconsin National Guard, and he was a guardsman for four years until his unit was placed into active service in October 1940. He was almost immediately shipped to Australia, where he and his comrades spent more than a year in a tent city, waiting to be sent to New Guinea, into a war that President Franklin Roosevelt undoubtedly wanted us to join, despite his assertions to the contrary. Ruby and his fellow soldiers, in fact, may have been sitting in front of a crackly radio somewhere when the President gave his October 30 campaign address in Boston and brazenly stated to the American people, “Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

But everyone knew it was inevitable. The United States declared war on Japan one day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and three days after that Germany declared war on the U.S.

Japan invaded New Guinea in January of 1942, and the Allies sought to retake it later that year. Ruby was 25 years old and a first sergeant in the 128th Infantry, Company C, when he found himself suddenly in command of a group of men in Papua, at the Battle of Buna. It was a miserable battle, fought in jungles and swamps during the wettest season of the year. Up to 95 percent of the Allied forces were carrying malaria. There was a terrible shortage of food and ammunition. Allied losses were enormous; it was one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific Theater.

On November 20, all four of the officers in charge of the 128th Infantry were killed. The next day, sergeants Reuben Steger and Carl Cherney, both from the same small town in Wisconsin, assumed command. Reports were that the troops fought heroically, almost maniacally, but they made almost no progress. The carnage was overwhelming. In three days of combat, the 128th lost 63 men. But Ruby saved at least half a dozen. Time and again, under raging machine gun fire, he ran into the field to bring his wounded men to safety. Eventually, on the sixth or seventh foray, his luck ran out. He was picked off and drew his last breath on that field. His buddy Carl Cherney died a few hours later.

What courage and fearlessness and heart that young man displayed. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Service Cross, which is for “extraordinary heroism.”

It wasn’t until 1949, for some reason, that the army got its act together to present the long-overdue medals to Ruby’s parents, my great-grandparents John and Caroline. The Marshfield News-Herald’s article about the private presentation says that “the 83-year-old father’s shoulders were shaking and Mrs. Steger’s eyes were blinded by tears.”

1949_10-20_posthumous receipt of Reuben Steger medals_John and Caroline Steger 1 — John and Caroline Steger, receiving their son’s medals, 1949

My mother always had a special place in her heart for Ruby, who was not only her uncle but her godfather, and his death hit her hard. She never forgot him, and decades later she embarked on a four-year mission to get copies of his medals. She found the relevant photos and news articles with the help of the Marshfield Public Library, and ultimately she was able to get the medals through the efforts of Rep. Mike Thompson of California’s 5th Congressional District. Congressman Thompson himself was a Purple Heart recipient for wounds he suffered in the Vietnam War.

***

Although Memorial Day is meant to honor soldiers who lost their lives, I can’t help but think about another American soldier who survived his wounds but showed a kind of honor and commitment that went beyond what he endured on the battlefield. His name was Kunio Shimamoto.

Kunio was a member of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was primarily a Nisei unit. Most Japanese Americans who fought in World War II were Nisei, which means that they were “second generation” – born in the United States to immigrant parents. The 442nd was the most highly decorated military unit, for its size and its length of service, in the history of the American armed forces. The unit’s motto was “Go for Broke.”

What absolutely astonishes me about the Nisei soldiers, though, is that so many of them experienced fierce bigotry during the war, and many had families who had suffered forced relocation to internment camps. President Roosevelt ordered more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to be relocated and imprisoned in internment camps after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Anyone with an ounce of Japanese heritage was ordered out of California and certain regions of other West Coast states unless they were in government camps.

The relocations were ostensibly conducted because there were fears of security risks. But statements made by high-ranking officials at the time would indicate that there was no small amount of racism involved. Lieutenant General John L. Dewitt, head of the Western Command and administrator of the internment program, testified to Congress that “I don’t want any of them [Japanese Americans] here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty. . . . [W]e must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.” The Joint Immigration Committee of the California Legislature alleged that Japanese Americans were “totally unassimilable.”

The conditions at the camps were spartan at best. Some centers offered only cramped housing with no plumbing or cooking facilities. Beds were just saggy cots. Medical facilities were often unsanitary and overcrowded. Food poisoning was common, and diseases like dysentery and malaria made their way easily into the camps.

Kunio Shimamoto and his family were interned at the Rohwer War Relocation Center in southeastern Arkansas. “My grandparents came over from Japan and ended up in Los Angeles County as sharecroppers in strawberry farming,” Kunio’s daughter Joyce told me. “They lost their home and all belongings when they returned from camp. My dad was very much into photography before being interned and had to leave his darkroom and cameras behind. They were staged at the Santa Anita racetrack for a couple of months while waiting to be shipped to Arkansas. I remember my dad telling me that they lived in the horse stalls, which were not cleaned out, and they only had straw to sleep on. Writing this brings tears to my eyes.”

I don’t know all the details, but Kunio was eventually able to leave Rohwer on a work furlough, so he was employed for a while at auto plants in Detroit, helping to make parts for military tanks.

Then he decided to volunteer for the United States military. For the very government that had forcibly relocated his family to rural Arkansas.

“My dad was always very pro-American despite his internment,” Joyce says. “I was always amazed at how patriotic he was after all that he went through. It was even to the point of buying an American-made car. I once asked him why he just didn’t leave and go to Japan. He said that Japan wasn’t his home.”

I cannot begin to fathom the strength of character it took for a man to defend so honorably a country that had been so ignoble to him and everyone he loved. Kunio fought in Italy, France, and Germany and was awarded both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He was injured more than once, at one point hospitalized for three months because of devastating shrapnel wounds. Painful back problems that he endured throughout his life were a result of those injuries.

But he rarely talked to anyone about his experiences. “He didn’t want to discuss the hardships he went through,” Joyce remembers. “When he did tell me things, it was still very upsetting to him even after several decades. I didn’t even find out that he and his family were interned until I was in high school.”

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which apologized for the internment and admitted that U.S. government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.”

Kunio Shimamoto passed away exactly 7 years ago today. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

***

Like so many superlatives today, the word “hero” is tremendously overused. I’ve always said that heroes are people who actually do things like throw themselves on grenades. Reuben Steger ran repeatedly into a hail of bullets and knew that eventually one would kill him. Kunio Shimamoto put himself in harm’s way to protect a country that hurt him but that he loved deeply. These were noble men fighting for a noble cause.

Thank you, Uncle Ruby and Kunio, for your dedication, your courage, and your patriotism. Thank you for having a sense of purpose that transcended your individual selves. You were both true heroes. Thank you for giving us your last full measure of devotion.

**********

For SF Giants fans, my latest Giants blog posts (most of which are dullsville) are at http://sportsspotlight.com/blog/author/paulabocciardi/

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Fug’s final feature

My father had the world’s most bizarre middle name.

If you think yours can top it, think again. If your middle name is Phinneas or Clothilde, you still don’t get the blue ribbon. Even if your middle name is Adelgunde, step aside.

My dad’s middle name was . . .

Wait for it . . .

FUG.

Hand to God.

As the story goes, my father grew up believing that he did not have a middle name. No one told him otherwise, and because Italians really didn’t hand out middle names the way other cultures did, he was simply Gerald Bocciardi.

At some point, though, someone decided that he should adopt Raymond as his middle name. His paternal grandfather’s name was Raimondo, so that made as much sense as anything.

So he’d been going along in life as Gerald R. Bocciardi until the day he went to the Oakland Hall of Records to obtain his official birth certificate.

***

My father had been in the army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at UC Berkeley when he was an undergraduate. ROTC was a program that trained young college students to be commissioned officers in the armed services. When he got his draft notice in August of 1952, in the middle of the Korean War, Dad drove from San Leandro with my mother – his new wife of three months – directly to the Presidio in San Francisco to activate his commission so that he could go into the army as an officer rather than as a grunt private. After a full day of being sent from building and building, signing and transporting paperwork, he was given an official letter to present to the Oakland draft board declaring that he was a commissioned officer.

Now, my dad was a patriotic man and he wanted to fulfill his duty to his country, but Gerald Bocciardi’s boots on the ground would not have served America well. He was a smart guy, but he was also completely inept at practical matters. The man just could not master the most basic of everyday tasks. Boot camp would have kicked him to the curb.

When he got to Camp Cooke – a former army base near Lompoc, California – he was assigned to, of all things, “heavy mortar.” That obviously was not going to be a permanent spot for him. Later, at Fort Lewis in Washington, he was asked to oversee “reconnaissance patrols.” As my mother told me later, those were “the guys who go out in the middle of the night, and they have to read the maps in some foreign, strange jungle. He couldn’t find his way around San Leandro!”

That was a bust, too. It was then that my dad, who was nothing if not crafty, marched into the General’s office with a plan. “I think I’m probably misplaced here,” he announced. “I’d be much better utilized in Intelligence. I speak foreign languages. I’m fluent in Italian and Spanish, I can get by in French, and I also know a smattering of German.” It was all true, although because we were at war with North Korea, I’m not sure how any of those skills mattered. In any case, the General bought the pitch, and my father soon found himself with a top-secret clearance.

1952_11_Southern California_Mom and Dad — Bev and Fug, November 1952

During that time, Mom and Dad lived off base in a motel room because Dad was supposed to be deployed to Korea any minute. Every day they waited for his papers to arrive. Mom was isolated and had nothing to do all day, so she put her considerable energies into a lot of cleaning and knitting. At night they watched television. In those days you had to put a coin in the slot to watch a motel television, but when the coin box broke and my mom – in all of her honesty – told the proprietors about it, they felt so sorry for her being alone all day that they decided to “forget” to fix it. So Mom and Dad had free TV for all those months. As long as she lived, she was always grateful for that.

She and Dad would get out to the Officers’ Club every Saturday night, though. “For one buck,” she told me, “you picked out your huge T-bone. Thick, and choice meat. The army had the best meat in the world. And then they had all the other stuff on buffet tables and salad tables. And they cooked your steak right in front of you. For a dollar!”

Months passed, and more months, and the deployment papers never came. It was a classic army snafu.

***

In any case, at the beginning of this whole process, Mom and Dad stood at the counter at the Oakland Hall of Records waiting for a copy of his birth certificate to submit to the army. The woman helping them returned with a wry smile on her face. “Well, I see you have a very unusual middle name,” she said, mysteriously.

“What do you mean?” my dad replied. “Raymond?”

“Oh, no. Fug.”

Well, that certainly blew their minds!

My father made the mistake, when he first got into the service, of telling a fellow soldier about his newfound middle name. It was a grave error. From that point on, he couldn’t walk through the base without someone hollering “Hey, Fug!” at him.

And when his two years were up, his army buddies sent him off with a party, a poem, and a cartoon. The presentation was called “Fug’s Final Feature.”

***

I now have a certified copy (dated 1980) of Dad’s birth certificate, and it offers Option No. 3. It lists his name as Gerald Gus Bocciardi. Gustavo was his father’s name.

I don’t know what happened. Maybe the original original did show Fug as his middle name. Or maybe someone transcribed or typed something incorrectly along the way, and “Gus” became “Fug.”

You know, maybe the army never got Dad’s papers sorted out because they were looking for Gerald Raymond, who technically didn’t exist. Or maybe they were looking for someone named Fug. I don’t know. Things happen for a reason, though. Had Dad gone off to Korea, it’s possible that his ineptitude would have singlehandedly and inadvertently sabotaged the entire U.S. war effort. On a more serious note, it’s also possible that he never would have come back.

I’m glad you made it home, Fug.

Diamonds are forever

“Son of a BITCH!!!”

Well, how odd. That was the entire, precise Facebook message, including caps and exclamation points, that suddenly appeared on my new smartphone at 3:15 p.m. on October 3, 2014.

Now I just had to figure out why in the world my friend Mona, whom I hadn’t seen in a few years, had sent a message out of the blue shouting “son of a bitch!” at me without so much as a greeting or an explanation. How does one respond to such a thing? What did it mean?

Mona and I had gotten to know each other back in the 1980s, when she decided to sponsor my softball team. Other than my move to San Francisco in the 1970s, that team was the single most significant influence in my life. The lessons I learned, and the powerful friendships I made, informed my life’s course at a time when I most needed direction. And I have been blissfully bound in the mesh of those relationships, filament by filament, ever since.

Denver, August 1988 — Mona, bottom center

As time went by, after Mona married and had a couple of children, we’d just naturally lost touch for a few years. She and I are very different in a million ways. She owned the first female-run network telecommunications company in the country and has been a serial entrepreneur ever since. She’s energetic, gregarious, and progressive. I’m more reticent and conservative, and I prefer the back of the stage rather than the front. She has a warm voice and a beautiful crinkly smile and she wears her feelings on her sleeve, while mine are often deeply concealed. But at our essence we’re both passionate and emotional, culturally similar. And as with all old friends, the bonds between us have abided.

Anyway, that October afternoon I was glued to the television watching a baseball game. When the “son of a bitch” message popped up, I’d been digging around in a wooden bowl for old maids. You know what they are – those partially popped kernels of popcorn at the bottom of the bowl that are so crunchy and satisfying. I’d just finished eating a sports meal, or at least my definition of one. A Paula Bocciardi sports meal consists of three items: a hot dog, popcorn, and a beer. I prefer Hebrew Nationals, Pop Secret Homestyle, and Sam Adams Boston Lager.

As I sat on the couch, crunching on the last of those old maids, I racked my brain for some kind of meaning to Mona’s expletive. At first I figured it was a mistake. Maybe she hadn’t meant to send it at all. And why no explanation? Did she really expect me to understand what she meant, especially since we hadn’t spoken in so long? It must have been meant for someone else. Maybe she was sitting in a boardroom somewhere, seething about something, and she’d fired off the message to the wrong person.

But then I started laughing. I figured it out. It was right in front of my eyes. I was watching game 1 of baseball’s Division Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Washington Nationals. The Giants were ahead 3-0 going into the 7th inning when coach Bruce Bochy pulled out starting pitcher Jake Peavy – who had a shutout going – and brought in the ever-erratic reliever Hunter Strickland, who allowed back-to-back homers by Bryce Harper (whom I loathe anyway) and Asdrubal Cabrera.

It was after the homer by Cabrera, when the score was suddenly 3-2, that Mona flew into a baseball rage and messaged me.

Assuming that my clever deduction was indeed correct, I messaged her back. The exchange was exactly this:

M: Son of a BITCH!!!

P: No kidding!! Plus I hate Bryce Harper.

M: Then I hate him too!

P: He’s an a-hole. On the plus side, I love Joe Panik. i just gotta first iPhone. This is fun!

M: Panic is a fun player to watch. Strong infield, I love Brandons!

P: I agree! Now we need to suffer through 6 outs. I need some bourbon.

The beauty of the whole thing was the fact that someone knew me well enough to correctly assume what I was doing at a particular moment in time. And to assume that I would know exactly what she was talking about, despite the years since we’d last talked. Within seconds we had effortlessly relinked ourselves. That kind of friendship is a precious gift.

***

I probably have hundreds of ballpark memories, but my most cherished are those that were shared with friends whose hearts beat with the same love of sports. In the first season the new Giants ballpark was open, tickets were nearly impossible to get, but my good friend Julie R. and I developed an elaborate scheme to score some seats, part of which involved my cozying up to a workmate whose boyfriend had season tickets. Armed with a couple of his unwanted seats, Julie and I went to our first day game at what is now AT&T Park on June 14, 2000. What made that day almost unrivaled in San Francisco history is that the temperature was 103 degrees. For San Francisco, that means you have practically entered the gates of Hell. (The average temperature for that date, by the way, is 69 degrees.) I would send an e-mail to my sister-in-law Lori later that night, telling her that it was 91 degrees inside the house at 9:00 p.m. (no one has air conditioning here). I also reported that I’d been reading Rolling Stone magazine that evening, and that the inks on the cover had melted in the heat and run all over my legs.

In any case, Julie R. and I were not to be deterred from seeing that game. We were intrepid sports fans and we were not going to let the heat get to us, even if we boiled to death. Our seats were, of course, in the blazing sun; they were very close to the field, along the third base line. We endured the conditions as long as we could, but after an hour and a half, with sweat cascading off of us, we decided that our hearts were racing dangerously fast and we needed to seek shade. Only when we turned around did we realize that no one else in the stadium was sitting in the sun. And I mean no one. It was 111 degrees on the field, we had heard, and I believe that we were possibly close to death at that point. Plus we hadn’t had a thing to eat; as Julie later said, “My mouth was so dry I couldn’t swallow.”

The fans, it seemed – at least, those who were still there – had crowded into any empty spots they could find in the shade. There was very little shade left for us, but we eventually managed to spot four seats under an overhang, and we quickly grabbed two of them. Shortly afterwards, however, along came the season-ticket seat owner. He was with only one companion, so we asked him if we could use his other two seats. It was then that we realized that he was drunk as a loon. He was stumbling and slurring, his zipper was half-down(!), and he declared that we could use his seats only if Julie R. gave him a hug! (She ended up being the one next to him, thank God.) So the typically reticent Julie had to close her eyes and reluctantly hug him. It was hard for me to control my laughter, and at the same time I was utterly relieved that he wasn’t sitting next to me. Anyway, whenever the Giants did something good, he would sort of put his arm around Julie, but she was sweating so much that he would then draw it back in revulsion. He did this repeatedly because he kept forgetting that he’d tried it earlier! Luckily, he left before the game was over and we were able to enjoy the rest of the afternoon baking in peace.

Whenever either of us recalls that game, we burst out laughing. It’s just a funny, funny memory that can never be replicated.

***

Temperatures exceeding 100 degrees at AT&T Park are, as one might expect, rare. In my estimation, the ballpark had to have been designed by a meteorological genius, because no matter how chilly and windy the San Francisco days and nights might be, inside the park it’s usually fairly temperate, as if you’ve entered another town altogether. The team’s former stadium, of course, was Candlestick Park, which was not so temperate and had a worldwide reputation for its blustery, howling winds. Longtime rumors have it that Giants pitcher Stu Miller was blown clear off the mound there during the 1961 All-Star game. Witnesses agree. Miller, though, claimed that he merely “waved like a tree” in the sudden gust.

In any case, my favorite Candlestick wind story was not Miller’s. My friend Erlinda and I were there for one of the rescheduled 1989 World Series games, and she told me about an acquaintance who had brought a little boy to the park for his very first game. When it was over, the boy gushed about what a great time he’d had, and she asked him what his favorite part of the game was.

“The flying napkins,” he answered.

***

Another only-in-San Francisco moment of a totally different nature came during a game in August of 2002. Barry Bonds hit his 600th homer that night. Julie S. and I were sitting in a good seat down the third-base line. A yo-yo sitting in the row on front of us, and slightly to the right, was constantly standing up and blocking my view of home plate. I could have stood up, too, but then I would have been obstructing the people behind me. It was very frustrating, and these two young guys beside me asked me if I could see. “Not at all,” I said glumly. They were peeved on my behalf. They shouted to the guy a polite request to please sit down, but he belligerently told them that he was going to do what he damned well pleased.

Their furious San Francisco response? “Well, that’s not very mature!!”

The next day, I ran the situation by my friend Carl – a Yankee fan and consummate New Yorker. I asked him what would have happened had a similar situation occurred at Yankee Stadium. His answer was that the scenario would have progressed thusly:

Man stands up and blocks people’s view.

Someone: “Down in front!”

Man does nothing.

Someone else: “Hey! Sit the f— down!”

Man does nothing.

A fight ensues and the man gets beat up.

***

The year after the ’89 earthquake, when many of my workmates and I were displaced from our damaged building, I somehow finagled a work situation in which I was allowed to edit manuscripts from home. (Remember, this was before the concept of telecommuting existed.) No one ever checked up on me, and I would steal away to Giants day games by myself at Candlestick. I was never caught, and in fact this is my first public confession of those crimes. (Honest as I was, though, I would always make up the hours and work late into the night after I got home.) I would walk two blocks to 19th Avenue and catch the 28 bus for its very circuitous route to Candlestick Park. (The bus schedule was dubious; I remember that one time the driver made us wait 20 minutes while he parked and bought something at a garage sale!) I shared the bus with five-foot-tall little old ladies from the Sunset, all of them wearing baseball caps adorned with pins marking some Giants event or another. They were hale and hearty and always undeterred by the Candlestick chill.

***

These days, I still go by myself go to all the Giants weekday afternoon games. I’m a loner, so that’s just fine with me. But sharing the games with others is so much better.

Last year, Mona treated me to a seat at the ballpark on Opening Day against the Dodgers. When Hunter Pence hit his grand slam, I believe I actually crawled up Mona’s arm. She paid me no mind. She also participated in one of my fantasy leagues last year, drafting an all-Latino team as her “strategy.” It was not a particularly successful strategy, but I wished I’d thought of it nevertheless.

***

My mother became a hardcore Giants fan in her later years, and I took her to a handful of games at AT&T Park, where she always insisted on having a glass of (bad) red wine with her crab sandwich on sourdough. She thought Brandon Crawford was a hunk. Those are some of my most beautiful memories.

During the 2012 playoffs, Mom was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery, so we watched the Division Series together in her hospital room. When Buster Posey hit his grand slam against the Cincinnati Reds in game 5, we tried to maintain quiet and dignity so as not to disturb the other patients on the floor. Then we heard the whoops erupting from the other rooms and echoing along the hallways.

***

When the San Francisco Giants finally won the World Series in 2010, it was their first title since they’d arrived in the city in 1958. A lifelong fan, I wept for three days after that Series. My emotions partially sprang from the happiness I felt for the ragtag group of players who pulled off that improbable victory – especially for Andres Torres and Cody Ross, good-natured and grateful guys who had been put out to pasture until the Giants picked them up. But mostly I cried for the fulfillment of my 50 years of hope and longing.

Happy sailor kissing nurse in Times Square during impromptu VJ Day celebration following announcement of the Japanese surrender and the end of WWII. — August 14, 1945/Getty Images

That night Julie S. and I took the bus down to the Civic Center, where a celebration was brewing. All I could think of was the night the 49ers won their first Super Bowl in January of 1982. Cynthia and I had raced out of our 9th Avenue apartment into an exuberant crowd of celebrants. It was a spontaneous and delirious gathering. A young man – a stranger to both of us – suddenly swept Cynthia up in his arms and kissed her. We were all smiles; there was no harm or disrespect intended. The whole thing looked like that iconic World War II photo of the kissing strangers in Times Square – a sailor dipping a nurse and planting a joyful smooch on her when the news broke that Japan had surrendered and the war was over.

But the Civic Center in 2010 wasn’t like that. It was mostly a bunch of drunken college girls who may or may not have had any idea how the game of baseball is even played. We came home quickly, dejected. But the next day I was listening to Gary Radnich, one of my favorite Bay Area sports show hosts, on the radio. And he launched into a speech about how the lingering euphoria in the air was most decidedly not for the youngsters. It was not for the bandwagoners. It was not for the casual fan. It was, he said, for the battle-scarred veterans.

It was for the little old ladies with the pins in their caps. And frankly, it was for me, too.

***

People wax poetic about baseball all the time, and they often talk about the concept of renewal. Spring Training is a metaphor for that. It’s a way for the team to rebuild and refresh itself, and for the fans to revive their sense of optimism for the coming months. Everything starts all over again. I look at friendship that way. Sometimes it waxes and sometimes it wanes, but it can always be renewed. The ties, they bind.

The Giants take the field at AT&T Park in just a few hours for their 2017 home opener. The ticket prices were just ridiculous, so Mona and I decided to go to a sports bar instead and watch the game from there. It’ll be the two of us, then, throwing back some Boston Lagers and cheering our way through a 3-hour ballgame, tethered gently by 30 years of friendship and the beautiful, delicate filaments of memory.

**********

For SF Giants fans, my latest Giants blog posts (most of which are dullsville) are at http://sportsspotlight.com/blog/author/paulabocciardi/

Nobody knows you when you’re down and out

What are the chances? I recently finished researching and outlining this blog entry – about a jazz singer named Alberta Hunter – only to find that the very next day the Chronicle’s Datebook section would feature two stories about the same Ms. Hunter! I gasped, wallowed for a while in the disappointment of it all, and then finally decided to write the post anyway. But I’m still wondering who tipped off the Chronicle. Frankly, I blame the Kremlin.

What got me started researching the life of a jazz singer born more than 120 years ago is that a book I was reading about the music business mentioned that Frank Sinatra once said he learned more from Alberta Hunter than from any other singer he’d ever heard. To pique my interest further, this woman once recorded an album called Amtrak Blues, and you all know how I feel about trains. I decided that I needed to look her up, and her inspiring story then led me to a similar – but ill-fated – chronicle of another jazz entertainer of the era. Their talents were similarly abundant, and the women faced similar constraints, but difficult personal choices would lead them down tragically dissimilar paths.

***

Alberta Hunter was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1895. Her father – a Pullman porter – died very young, and her mother eked out a living as a servant in a brothel. Alberta, a relentlessly cheerful child, sang incessantly around the house, and when a friend in Chicago began sending letters back home about a Southside joint called Dago Frank’s where girls could make $10 a week singing, Alberta saw an opportunity to help out her mom. So in 1911, at the age of 16, she left home quickly and without a word. Clutching a kids’ railroad pass, she hopped on a train headed for Chicago, where she was given a job peeling potatoes in a boarding house for $6 a week.

Because she lied about her age, the scrappy teenager was able to land her first professional gig singing at night at Dago Frank’s, which was both a bordello and a gangster hangout. She felt safe there, though, and grateful to be living in a city in which black entertainers could get paid for their talents. Later in life, she would credit her time there for teaching her most of the life lessons she needed. “That’s a place where all the white prostitutes hung out,” she said, “and all their pimps, you know? And they knew I was nothin’ but a child, young, having run away from home. So they tried to teach me how to be a good girl. They said, ‘See what we’re up against? Don’t let fellas fool ya.’ And my mother always told me, ‘Have plenty sense. Use good judgment. Have a mind of your own.’ ”

When Dago Frank’s closed after someone was murdered there, Alberta moved on to other nightclubs, with both black and white audiences, earning enough to pay her mother’s way to Chicago so that the two could live together. They were sketchy places, but Alberta viewed every situation with good humor. “There was a pickpocket named Tack Annie,” she remembered. “Ugliest woman that God ever put breath in. She could walk up to a man and bite his diamond pin off. But she looked like a horse with a derby on!”

One night, though, Alberta’s piano player was actually shot and killed while they were on stage. So in 1921 she packed up and moved to New York, and that same year she recorded her first tune (“Bring Back the Joys”) with Black Swan, a black-owned blues and jazz record label operating out of New York that claimed it was “The only genuinely colored record – others are only passing.” Not much later she signed with Paramount. And she was no dummy. She recorded under a host of pseudonyms – including her half-sister’s – so that she could have “exclusive” contracts with a multitude of record companies!

ah-vaudeville-mobile — Alberta in Vaudeville, far right

It didn’t take long for Ms. Hunter to become internationally famous – not only for her singing, but for her composing and, occasionally, for her stage acting. In 1923, the great blues artist Bessie Smith sold 800,000 copies of her recording of Ms. Hunter’s composition “Downhearted Blues.” (Alberta, though, ended up with only $368 in royalties because her producer had clandestinely sold the rights and somehow ended up with all the proceeds. Such was the lot of black entertainers in those days, who had neither sufficient resources nor the sympathy of the law at their disposal.) In 1928 Alberta was cast in the role of “Queenie” in the London production of Showboat, and over the next couple of decades she spent time in the States and in Europe, recording, singing in nightclubs, appearing in repertory theater productions, and serving as a dedicated USO entertainer during both World War II and the Korean War.

Once the Korean War ended, though, Alberta’s life would take two major turns – one completely away from her music, and the next one all the way back in. As the war was winding down, her beloved mother was ailing, so she returned from Europe to care for her. Then, after her mother passed away in 1954, she stopped singing. Completely. As usual, though, she was able to cut through this roadblock with a bold and unusual plan. Consumed with the desire to find a different kind of meaning in her life, she gave away many of her possessions and became, of all things, a nurse. True to form, she lied about her age and her high school diploma (which she had never gotten) and enrolled in a practical nursing course, earning her license in 1957. For the next 20 years she worked at Harlem’s Goldwater Hospital. But she never sang a note during that time. Not even in the shower? she was asked. “No, I didn’t even hum, because all my interest was in my patients,” was her answer.

After she was laid off from nursing in 1977 because hospital administrators thought she was too old at age 70 (although she was in fact 82!), Ms. Hunter was invited to a party one night given by singer/pianist Bobby Short and she got to talking with the jazz impresario Charlie Bourgeoise, who – once he saw how spry and sharp she was – tried coaxing her back into show business. “Alberta,” she recalled him saying, “we need somebody, when there’s stories to be told, that can tell it. When you’re singing, people know what you’re saying.” She was intrigued but noncommittal. The next morning, though, she got a call from the owner of the Cookery nightclub in Greenwich Village, and he ultimately convinced her to jump back into the business and sing at his club for a two-week “limited engagement.” Well, that lasted for more than a year, and her career was thus resurrected at the age of 82.

For the next six years, Ms. Hunter continued to record and sing in the States, in Europe, in South America, on television, and at Carnegie Hall. She recorded the album Amtrak Blues in 1978. That year, she composed and sang the score of Robert Altman’s 1978 film Remember My Name, despite being unable to read music. She turned down a Sunday invitation from President Jimmy Carter once because – not one to be charmed by power, politics, or fame – she insisted that Sunday was her day of rest. But she relented in 1978 when he asked her to sing at the Kennedy Center in honor of her friend, the contralto Marian Anderson. “Bless his ole heart,” she said about the President before the show. “I’m gonna lay it on ’im!” It turns out that she was the only performer goaded into an encore that evening, and she later remarked that nothing in her career had ever thrilled her like that moment. After that performance, she was a frequent invitee of the Carter White House.

Alberta w_ Carters @ White House — Alberta with President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, 1978

At the age of 89, Alberta finally stopped singing in public because age had started to affect her physical and mental health. She died in October 1984, with most of the money she’d made throughout her life stashed under her mattress.

***

When I listen to the recordings that Alberta made after her comeback, it’s hard for me to believe that she was in her eighties. Her voice was deep and rich as loam. She looked glamorous and classy, but she was also fearlessly suggestive and sultry. “She doesn’t belt the blues, she insinuates them,” a reviewer once said. Yet the ironic twinkle in her eyes also revealed an appreciation of living that sometimes only the mounting years can bring. I’ve always said that as the years go by, singers’ ranges narrow but their textures broaden. That’s what I call style.

Off of Amtrak Blues, 1978:

“Darktown Strutters Ball” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-0geORbvM)

Live from the Smithsonian, 1981:

“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdaNlZhmHoM)

“Handy Man” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiG3adgU0BI)

If you watch those live Smithsonian clips, you can’t help but smile. I’ve sat back and savored them dozens of times.

***

Being a black artist in a white world presented an enormous set of challenges that, for the most part, Alberta Hunter was able to face head-on, with cleverness, temerity, and subterfuge as required. But most of the world didn’t know that she was also hiding a major part of herself.

Alberta Hunter, as we now know, was gay.

She was married briefly to a waiter once, when she was in her twenties, but rumor has it that the marriage was never consummated because she told her new husband that she couldn’t bring herself to have “relations” in the house where her mother (and she) lived. It comes as no surprise, then, that the young couple separated just a few months later. I watched a clip of Ms. Hunter’s appearance on “The Mike Douglas Show” decades later when she was in her eighties, and Mike asked her if she’d been married. She confirmed her brief nuptials and added, “He was a fine man – believe me when I tell ya. But I knew he needed a wife who was going to look after his clothes being cleaned and get his meals regular. And I wasn’t cut out for that.” Mike asked how she’d given her husband the news of her displeasure. “I didn’t tell him. I just ran away!” she answered. There was much shrieking laughter from the audience. But Ms. Hunter once admitted that the whole sham had been very unfair to her heartbroken husband.

The thing is, the great love of Alberta’s life was a beautiful woman named Lottie Tyler, who was the niece of Vaudeville entertainer Bert Williams. The pair reportedly met sometime between 1915 and 1917 at the Panama Café in Chicago, Lottie gave Alberta her uncle’s address in New York, and Alberta looked her up two years later. After that, they formed a bond that lasted for decades even as they lived apart. Alberta always kept her distance from men so as not to encourage them, and when she traveled back and forth between Europe and the United States, she always had Lottie to come back to.

Lottie Tyler died in Chicago in 1960, and I can’t help but wonder whether she had been ill for a time and whether Alberta’s disappearance from the public eye, along with her sudden inability (or refusal) to sing for a couple of decades, was related as much to Lottie’s passing as to her mother’s. I guess we’ll never know the answer to that.

***

One of Alberta’s contemporaries, unfortunately, had a career that began similarly but ended sadly, partly because she did not suppress certain parts of her life the way Alberta managed to do so deftly.

Her name was Gladys Bentley. Born in Philadelphia in 1907, Ms. Bentley was, like Alberta, a multitalented performer who left home at the age of 16 and found the beginnings of her career in New York in the 1920s. Unlike Alberta, though, she refused to hide away her natural self. She often eschewed dresses, sporting her trademark tuxedo and top hat instead. And she lived openly with a white woman, making no attempts to conceal her sexuality. “It seems I was born different,” she said, matter-of-factly.

This particular time in New York in the 1920s was called the “Harlem Renaissance.” Greenwich Village and Harlem were neighborhoods that attracted artists and intellectuals, in part because housing was cheap but also because there was a sense of cultural freedom from the restrictions of the Victorian Era. Gay people found an accepting home there, too, and gay entertainers like Gladys felt free to be themselves in cabarets and speakeasies.

Ms. Bentley did some recordings with Okeh Records but her live shows were what drew the crowds. She was a rhythmic, powerful pianist, and she parodied blues standards and show tunes, making up bawdy lyrics as she went. Her shows were funny and risqué. She had a sweetness about her, too, so when she laughingly flirted with women in the audience, no one seemed to mind. And oh, that powerful voice. Her range was such that her voice could sound like a brass section or a bird within a few measures of each other.

1928: “Worried Blues” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptIBk2PZK74)

Gladys made a lot of money in those early days, and she sported a fancy car and an apartment on Park Avenue. But as the 1930s wore on, the effects of the Great Depression were taking their toll on American society. People began to mistrust each other as they scratched out their own livings. Black migration to large northern cities heightened racial tensions. And as Victorian values started to resurrect themselves, the public slowly grew intolerant of gay people. The police began making arrests.

In 1933, Gladys moved her act from Harlem to Broadway for a short time, but “morals complaints” from the more uptight Broadway crowd ended up shutting down her club, so she was forced to move back to Harlem. By then the blues were passing out of favor, and her venue the Ubangi Club shut its doors, too, in 1937. So at the age of 30, Gladys left Harlem for good and moved to Los Angeles to live in a tiny house with her mother, and little by little her confidence, independence, and success began to ebb away. She continued to perform in a selection of nightclubs on the West Coast, and in 1945 she made a few records on the Excelsior label (always careful to watch the content of her lyrics). But with the advent of McCarthyism came the witch hunts aimed at not only communists and their sympathizers but gay people as well. Suddenly, special permits were required for Ms. Bentley to wear pants (I know, it sounds absurd). The House Un-American Activities Committee investigated her as a “subversive.” She grew fearful, started wearing dresses, and cleaned up her act.

In 1950 an article under Gladys Bentley’s byline appeared in Ebony magazine. It’s unclear whether she actually penned the piece, entitled “I Am a Woman Again.” She first writes about how society’s censure “has the effect of creating within us a brooding self-condemnation, a sense of not being as good as the next person, a feeling of inadequacy and impotence.” She talks about how people like her can often find solace in the professional world, in that audiences who would “bitterly condemn” them personally still recognize their talent and pay to be entertained by them. But then she goes on to say that she had renounced her ways after finding the love of a man who awakened the “womanliness” in her, and that through his help and the aid of hormone treatments, she had found a way to be “happy and normal.”

The truth was, Gladys claimed to have married two men in her life, but there were denials (from one or both of the men), and it’s possible she never married either one of them. In any case, the relationships ended, of course, in the inevitable dissolution.

To find some meaning in the paradoxical twists her life had taken, Gladys finally turned to religion, but at the age of 52 she became a victim of a flu epidemic and died, emotionally desperate, guilt-ridden, and terrified.

***

Like many others, I often look back wistfully on “the good old days.” For someone like me, who has led what I consider to be a charmed life, there are good reasons to be nostalgic. But what I often forget is that for many others, the “good old days” simply weren’t.

If I could go back in time, I would thank Alberta Hunter for her guts and for her persistence and for listening to Charlie Bourgeoise when he convinced her to start singing again at the age of 82. As for Gladys, I would thank her for her youthful courage. And given the opportunity I would steer her gently away from dosing her body with hormones in a frightened, misguided attempt to rework her essential nature.

A few months before she died, Alberta was asked what advice she would give to young people. “Learn respect,” she answered, “and by all means respect the other fellow’s ideas and thoughts. Have a mind of your own. Don’t let money get you off the track. And don’t begrudge other people of their success. And don’t sit around waiting for somebody else to do things for you. Do them yourself. And remember, time waits for no one. It passes you by. For no one. Do you hear what I’m saying? It rolls on forever like a cloud in the sky.”

Our ephemeral lives are indeed short. But who knows what more either of these two women could have accomplished if the times in which they lived had been more forgiving of people’s differences. How much better could this world be if people were only allowed to simply be themselves?

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“Fishing First!”

Those of us who live in California are getting a bit tired of the unending rain. We’re ecstatic, of course, over the apparent end to our five-year-long drought, but enough is enough. I have to check the weather sites and watch the “motion radar” every few minutes just to determine whether it’s safe to take our dog out without walking into a deluge. The lakes, streams, and reservoirs are getting full now – some dangerously so – and we could all use some sun exposure.

When I was young, full lakes and the promise of spring meant one thing to our family: fishing. We never took fancy vacations, but we spent many a Saturday or Sunday throwing worms or minnows into a host of Santa Clara Valley reservoirs hoping to bring home bluegill, crappie, bass, and catfish. Mom packed a picnic basket full of salami sandwiches, potato chips, and Cragmont sodas. Dad spent much of his time untangling our lines, and he and my brother ultimately had the task of cleaning and filleting the fish. (We ate everything we caught.) Once in a great while we would rent a cabin up at Fallen Leaf Lake in the Sierras, and Dad would take us out in the early morning chill to fish for trout. I remember that he used to sing or whistle the Army’s “Mess Call” (“Come and get your chow, boys”) so the trout would bite. In the early days, I believed that that worked. I will never forget the taste of fresh rainbow trout, right out of the water, wrapped in bacon for breakfast.

The Bocciardi kids became avid anglers.

1962_07_sea-cliff-fish_paula-marc — **1962, flounders caught at Seacliff State Beach, CA**

Meanwhile, we also loved to form clubs devoted to our youthful pursuits, and as luck would have it, I still have the “minutes” to two of those clubs. One of them, The Tibby Club, was dedicated to my grandmother’s dog, an adorable but spoiled and yappy Lhasa Apso whom we revered. The other club was The Fishing Club. We were a little older then, so the minutes were, of course, typed.

The year was 1969. The meetings took place in our house in San Jose. I was 13 years old, my brother Marc was 11, and our beloved but beleaguered (you’ll see what I mean) little sister Janine was 8.

Please note that although there were four meetings, all of them appear to have taken place on the same day. Then the club completely fell apart in acrimony.

I don’t believe I need to say anything further. I have re-typed the minutes precisely as they originally appeared. They speak for themselves. Enjoy.

MINUTES

Date: June 19, 1969

Time: 8:25 – 8:48 a.m.

Place: Paula’s room

Present: Paula Bocciardi, Marc Bocciardi, Janine Bocciardi

Acting Chairman: Paula Bocciardi

The meeting was called to order by Paula at 8:25 a.m. All were present.

This was the first meeting. The list of club duties was passed around.

Next, we voted on the place to go fishing. The area that came in first will be presented to our parents and if they disagree, the others, in order, will be presented to them. Lexington was first with 11 points, Mt. Hamilton second with 9, Coyote and Chesbro with 5, and Anderson is the alternate.

Then we decided on date, time, bait, and other articles which will be on the plan. Paula will type the plan.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:48 a.m.

***

Fishing Club Duties:

The main duties and functions of the fishing club are as follows:

To plan and prepare one fishing trip a month
To trade fishing gear
To make better fishermen of all its members
To find out the fishing rules and regulations for various areas
To aid, if possible, in fish conservation
Any other duties pertaining to a fishing club

***

Members:

Paula Bocciardi – secretary

Marc Bocciardi – equipment manager

Janine Bocciardi – frog-keeper

Meeting place – 3561 Telegraph Drive

Meeting days – anytime

***

Motto:

Fishing First!

***

Fishing Plan:

Date: July 19 or 26
Place: Lexington
Area: Drive around lake, then return to old spot if no other one is available.
Getting up time: 4:45 [a.m.]
Bait: 2 dozen minnows, 2 night crawlers, 2 worms, no clams, etc.
Leave: anytime parents want, possibly no later than 2:30 [p.m.]
Children will:

Make food
Load car
Go across street to buy bait
Wake up parents
Get ourselves ready
Make breakfast

All parents have to do is dress, drive, and pay for bait.

HAVE FUN!

***

Fishing Day Activities:

Make breakfast (Janine, Paula)
Get Bait
a. Tell man what we want (Paula)
b. Pay (Marc)
c. Carry bait (Janine)
Wake up parents (Janine)
Load car (Marc)
Make lunch (Paula, Marc)

***

1968_07_clearlake_paula-marc-janine-2 — **1968, Clearlake, CA**

MINUTES

Date: June 19, 1969

Time: 12:37 p.m. – 12:52 p.m.

Place: Marc’s room

Present: All

Acting Chairman: Paula Bocciardi

The meeting was called to order at 12:37 p.m. The minutes were read.

There were no corrections. There was no old business.

Paula read the fishing plan. No corrections were made.

Janine suggested that we have a suggestion box. This was voted down.

Paula informed Marc that, as manager of the equipment, he must obtain a notebook for the club.

Marc suggested that we should collect dues every once in a while to pay for certain fishing gear we could buy. Paula added to this and said that the equipment manager should present something new we might get at every meeting and we could vote on these presentations.

It was decided not to present the parents with our plan today, but wait.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:52 p.m.

***

1970_08_ship-n-shore-resort_clearlake-ca_marc-janine-paula-1 — **1970, Clearlake, CA**

MINUTES

Date: June 19, 1969

Time: 2:24 p.m. – 3:09 p.m.

Place: Paula’s room

Present: All

Acting Chairman: Paula Bocciardi

The meeting was called to order at 2:24 p.m. The minutes were corrected by Janine, who said that the opinion she gave of the problem that she and Paula would fight over the lures, etc. we buy was not included in the minutes. However, since this was only part of the discussion, and not a suggestion, it does not have to be included in the minutes.

Janine, the frog-keeper, was called upon to report. She said that she was going to ask the twins (Chris and Dan Sears) to take care of Toby, the frog, when we go up to Fallen Leaf Lake on Saturday. The twins weren’t home, so Marc will call them later.

Marc, the equipment manager, was called upon to propose some ideas on things to buy. He suggested a bass/crappie jig, some split shot, some #8 hooks, some #2 hooks, or a plastic worm. We voted on the split shot. We will pay, as individuals, 8¢ for 20. It was agreed that anyone who loses a lure, etc. will be unable to use the others.

There was no old business.

We then chose some projects to undertake. Marc will write to the Fish and Game Department and ask if there is anything we can do, such as putting up posters. I, too, will write to them and tell them about the bad situation at Ed R. Levin Park.

Marc then read the portion of the fishing regulations that tells about night fishing. We discovered we cannot night fish at lakes here.

We decided that Janine should put up posters saying to come to our house for information on local fishing. Janine refused and was kicked out of the club.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:09 p.m.

***

MINUTES

Date: June 19, 1969

Time: 9:44 – 9:58 [p.m.]

Place: Paula’s room

Present: All

Acting Chairman: Paula Bocciardi

The meeting came to order at 9:44 p.m. The minutes were read. There were no corrections.

There were no new developments on the frog. The equipment manager had nothing to report.

There was no old business.

Janine orally took an oath, then signed a written one, which enabled her to come back into the club. This was done because Janine tattled and Mom said that if we didn’t let her in, we couldn’t have a club either. Mom also said she did not want any posters to be put up so we’ll have to think of a new project for Janine.

Marc got a notebook during the meeting.

It was decided that we will write our letters tomorrow if possible, and if not, as soon as possible when we get back from vacation.

We voted on a suggestion made by Paula and Marc. The club shall temporarily be closed to further membership. However, if one of us would like a new member to join, the person would have to be approved by every other member.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:59 p.m.

***

Oath:

I, JANINE BOCCIARDI. DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT IF KICKED OUT OF THE CLUB I WILL NOT CONVEY THIS MESSAGE TO OUR PARENTS IN ANY WAY. I ALSO DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I WILL NOT DISCUSS ANYTHNG ABOUT THIS CLUB TO ANYONE, INCLUDING OUR PARENTS, UNLESS I AM GIVEN PERMISSION TO DO SO BY EITHER MARC OR PAULA BOCCIARDI.

SIGNED,

Janine Bocciardi

***

I hope you enjoyed that peek into the past. Meanwhile, for those of you not on Facebook, I have some blogging news. I am now the official blogger for the San Francisco Giants on a website called “Sports Spotlight.” If I think any of those blogs might be of interest, I’ll include the links at the end of my Monday Morning Rail posts.

The latest:

On whether Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame: http://sportsspotlight.com/blog/boys-bay-021317/

Save

And here’s to you, Joe Montana

One late afternoon, back in the 1980s, my friend and colleague Ellen and I were interviewing a prospective employee. The two of us worked for a political think tank and book publisher called the Institute for Contemporary Studies. Both of us were drinking beer. It was a wild time to be working in San Francisco. Workdays were short on hours and long on cocktails.

For some reason, even though I was a copy editor, I had been handed the human resources responsibilities when the real HR person had left, even though I had no experience in that field whatsoever.

So we were interviewing John, a cheerful, curly-haired young man with a linebacker’s sturdiness. The position was low-level and I believe it had something to do with the mail room. The sole reason we had chosen John’s résumé from among the others is that it contained the following item:

Winner of Chili Cook-Off, 1983

This skill set was, to us, extremely appealing.

Then he sealed the deal by saying something that I have not forgotten, all these years later.

“Joe Montana is God.”

He was hired.

***

For those of you who aren’t sports fans, the two teams in the Super Bowl yesterday were the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots. The Falcons have been a professional football team since 1966 and have been to only two Super Bowls, both of which they lost. The New England Patriots started out in 1960 as the Boston Patriots but changed their name when they moved about 20 miles outside of Boston in 1971. They’ve been to nine Super Bowls. Seven of those appearances have come during the era of coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. They’ve won five.

It’s really quite astonishing. Belichick and Brady have won more Super Bowls than any other coach and any other quarterback.

I hate them both.

***

I’m not normally a fan of any team from Atlanta. It all goes back to 1993. The San Francisco Giants and the Atlanta Braves were locked in the last true pennant race of all time – before the “wild card” scenario was instituted. The Giants were phenomenal and won 103 games, but the Braves won 104. The Giants needed to win their last game to force a tie-breaker, but they were massacred by the &^%$#@ Dodgers. During that entire season, my stomach ground itself to bits, night after night, and to make me seethe even more I had to endure the Atlanta fans’ odious “tomahawk chop” and war chant whenever the two teams met. I got an ulcer that season. No lie.

So I’ve continued my loathing for all teams Atlanta.

But this year I was all in for them. Anything to put Brady and Belichick in their respective places.

***

Bill Bellicose, as I like to call him, has to be the world’s surliest man. His hostile unwillingness to ever utter more than a two-word mumble at press conferences – even after he has won a Super Bowl – makes me sick. The least he can do, before he runs home with his $7.5 million annual salary, is offer his fans a smile and some insight. Instead, he wears a perpetual frown and a perpetual gross sweatshirt, glares at everyone in the room, and acts as if it would be far too much of an imposition for him to answer a simple question.

Here’s a tiny compilation of Bellicose’s upbeat cooperation at press conferences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCSqCCOHzDg&spfreload=10

I’d say he was generally a sore loser, but truth be told, it’s hard to tell because all of his press conferences are exercises in moroseness, whether he wins or loses. I do know that in 2008, when his Patriots were upset in the Super Bowl by Eli Manning and the New York Giants, the classless Bellicose actually left the field before the last play of the game. I imagine it might have killed him to shake the hand of winning coach Tom Coughlin, or to congratulate him.

“They made some plays. We made some plays,” he said magnanimously after the game.

***

During his reign, Bellicose has presided over both “Spygate” and “Deflategate.” His role in the 2007 Spygate mess (in which the Patriots were caught videotaping an opposing team’s signals from the sideline) personally cost him half a million dollars, the largest fine ever exacted on an NFL coach (and the maximum allowable amount).

For his role in Deflategate, quarterback Tom Brady may have taken some flimflam tips from his coach. In 2015 he was accused of using purposely underinflated footballs to his advantage during the AFC championship game. The Patriots would have won the game anyway, but the point is that Brady cheated, then contorted himself into a pretzel trying to deny the hefty accumulation of (admittedly circumstantial) evidence, then destroyed his own cell phone immediately before he met with NFL investigators! (In the end, he was given a four-game suspension to take effect the next season.)

I don’t know Brady personally, but word around the NFL is that he is a whining crybaby. Players say he looks at the referee nearly every time he gets hit, hoping for a penalty flag.

One of my favorite gems about him: he left his girlfriend when she was three months’ pregnant to take up with his now-wife Gisele Bündchen. I just love his family values. Oh, and Gisele herself is a paragon of sportsmanship as well. After her husband’s team lost in the 2012 Super Bowl, she said, blaming Brady’s receivers, “My husband cannot f—ing throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time.” So lovely.

***

There’s no doubt that Tom Brady is one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to have played the game, and he is now the winningest Super Bowl quarterback as well. Someday soon he will be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

I wrote much of this blog post just before yesterday’s game. I wrote from the perspective that, regardless of who won the Super Bowl, Joe Montana would still be the greatest quarterback of all time. But this morning, as I savor the memory of cocktails, “Betty’s Shrimp Dip Divine,” wings, bruschetta, nachos, sliders, and Derby pie, I have to concede that Brady now shares the podium with Joe.

In my heart, though, Joe stands alone. He might have four Super Bowl rings to Brady’s five, but Joe is the guy I’d want to be helming my all-time fantasy team. He never lost a Super Bowl and in his four championship games he threw for 11 touchdowns with no interceptions. NO interceptions. Brady can’t say that.

But greatness is not necessarily measured by stats. Joe was a consummate leader who could see the entire field, coolly call a game, complete a miraculous pass, and carry out a comeback with steely calm. He was smart and never sloppy. He also played, let’s remember, during an era when football players – especially quarterbacks – were not protected the way they are now. If Brady had to take the hits today that Joe took during his career, he’d be full-out bawling on the turf.

***

Someone once asked me to explain why anyone would be a sports fan. I tried to tell her that in my view it’s all about hope and loyalty. For a variety of reasons, a fan develops an emotional tie to a team or a player, and from then on, season after season, the allegiance perseveres. And hope endures – for the next game, the next season.

On December 7, 1980, I was driving up Highway 280 back to San Francisco from my parents’ house in San Jose. It was Joe’s second year with the 49ers, along with his genius (and 100 percent classy) coach Bill Walsh, and although the team still ended up with a losing season, the Niners had improved over their 2-14 record from the year before. That day, Joe presided over the greatest comeback in NFL regular-season history by erasing a 28-point deficit and beating the New Orleans Saints 38–35. I was listening to sportstalk radio and a young-sounding guy called in, his words cascading over themselves with excitement about the promise of his team and of Joe Montana. It was only the Niners’ sixth (and last) win of a 16-game season, but that young guy’s world was bursting with hope. That’s what sports are all about.

In Joe’s case, he gave us hope during each and every game. There was no deficit that could not be overcome. Joe could see the unseeable, throw the unthrowable, find the unfindable, score the unscoreable.

I remember watching the most famous 49ers play of all time, when Joe completed the touchdown pass to Dwight Clark that won the 1982 NFC championship game against the Dallas Cowboys and opposing quarterback Scramblin’ Roger Staubach. The sporting world refers to that play as “The Catch,” which honors its matchlessness. The entire game had seesawed back and forth, and for me it was four quarters of fierce pain and intense hope. My father, who watched the game with me, kept darting out into the backyard and slamming the screen door behind him. “Dad, why in the world aren’t you staying in here to watch?” I yelled to him. I’d never seen him behave this way before. “I just can’t stand the stress,” he said.

After that game, the Cowboys were no longer a dynasty. And the 49ers went on to win the Super Bowl and to dominate football throughout the 1980s. My friends and I would gather every Sunday, throughout the fall and winter, to watch those games. We stopped talking whenever Joe had the ball, wondering what kind of miracle he would pull off next.

There is no doubt that yesterday’s comeback performance by Brady and his receivers is historic. Before that, though, most sports fans would have pointed to the final drive of the 1989 Super Bowl, culminating in Montana’s touchdown pass to John Taylor, as the most riveting performance ever in a football playoff game. The Niners were on their own 8 yardline, trailing the Cincinnati Bengals 16–13, with only about three minutes left to play. Before starting his legendary 92-yard drive down the field, Joe calmly looked toward the stands and breezily said to his tense teammates in the huddle, “Hey, isn’t that [comedian] John Candy up there?”

Joe threw that winning touchdown to Taylor with only 34 seconds left in the game.

He would have 31 fourth-quarter comebacks in his NFL career.

With Joe, there was never “not enough time.”

***

A couple of decades later, I have lost some of my love for watching football. Too many sketchy characters seem to be part of the game now. We’re seeing multiple arrests for domestic violence and other criminal behavior, and the NFL has done far too little for far too long. Aaron Hernandez, a New England Patriot (no comment!) now serving a life sentence for murder, already had been involved in violent behavior when he joined the team. There had been a bar incident in which he refused to pay his bill and then punched an employee and ruptured his eardrum, but city officials looked the other way, reportedly because of his athletic talents. He also may have been involved in a double shooting later that year, but no charges were ever filed. Eventually, he learned that he couldn’t get away with out-and-out murder.

Maybe my disappointment with football also has to do with the 49ers and the mess that owner Jed York has made, what with the move out of San Francisco down to Santa Clara and into a poorly designed stadium that caters to the wealthiest ticketholders, and York’s decision to show the door to coach Jim Harbaugh, who might be grating but who led the 49ers to a Super Bowl. And then there’s quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who, I hope, will be moving on to another team any minute now. Good riddance. Joe Montana is the only player to have thrown two touchdown passes of 95 yards or more. Kaepernick is lucky to ever connect with a long bomb. And he can’t see the whole field, in my opinion. He just doesn’t have all the tools. And he surely isn’t a leader.

***

My friend Kelly once played basketball with Joe Montana. That’s right. He was a terrific basketball player, and she was at her gym one day when he came in and both of them ended up in the same pickup game. She said he was just as cool on the court as he was on the field, and just as inclusive. He didn’t seem to notice that he was a celebrity and everyone else was just a regular person at the gym. He didn’t treat Kelly, a woman, any differently from the respectful way he treated the guys. In fact, he set a tone. That’s what good leaders do.

Joe Montana and his wife of more than 30 years have four children. He spends much of his time now devoted to charities – the bulk of them for kids. “Typically, we don’t do things in public for charity because we feel like if you’re doing it for charity, you shouldn’t get anything back for it,” he once said. And that’s how people of character feel.

Maybe that’s what I miss – character. You never heard about Joe, or Jerry Rice, or Roger Craig getting into any kind of trouble whatsoever, or being anything but dedicated athletes. There weren’t any cheating scandals, and their wives didn’t make statements disparaging the team. It was another era, I guess. People didn’t spike the ball, do the chicken dance, kiss their own biceps, and congratulate themselves every time they made one good play. It wasn’t all about self-promotion. It was about the team.

But enough about that. The world has changed. I don’t want to get stuck in the past. Congratulations to you, Tom Brady.

But my heart will forever be with Joe.

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A sloth’s guide to exercise

When I was talking to my good friend Julie R. last week, she told me with great disappointment that she had a terrible cold and had to scale her cardio exercise session “down” to 30 minutes. Then she and I immediately laughed, because we both know that getting up to 30 minutes of cardio is my never-ending goal.

I am cursed blessed with a group of friends – none of them spring chickens, mind you – who all seem to be paragons of physical fitness. The aforementioned Julie R. runs marathons. Jill and Barb climbed Mt. Everest and, when that got a bit tedious, trekked around Machu Picchu. Michele works out with kettlebells (or, as I like to call them, “rotator cuff rippers”). Ron hikes the Pacific Crest Trail. Annabelle is a national champion in velodrome cycling. M.L. does triathlons.

It probably goes without saying that none of those things is in my repertoire.

For the most part, I hate exercising, unless it involves playing competitive sports. I used to be a decent athlete, but nowadays my sports endeavors typically end in a torn muscle, a broken bone, or some combination of the two. So I have settled on exercising as an individual, because of course it’s good for your heart and helps keep your bones from disintegrating and blah-dee-dee blah blah blah.

I have a feeling that some of my readers (outside of my close circle of superjock friends) might feel the way I do, so I would like to offer my surefire method of starting an exercise program and sticking with it. My method involves just three components:

Exercising for only 30 seconds;
Getting into a furious lather over newstalk; and
Hoping that Max Weinberg gets food poisoning.

Follow the “30 Seconds” program

The most critical element of the Bocciardi exercise program is exercising for only 30 seconds. Now, I know you’re all assuming that I’m just trying to be funny, but my closest friends and family members can verify that what I am about to say is 100 percent true.

It seems that every year or two something happens that completely derails my exercise program. I shatter a bone, rip a ligament, get sick, experience some kind of life interruption, or just plain get lazy. And as many of you know, it is really, really hard to start up exercising once you have stopped. It is painful. The lungs burn, the legs ache, the heart labors, and it’s simply a boatload of misery. So I have found that the only thing that makes me start up again is knowing that I have to do it for only 30 seconds.

My cardio machine of choice is the elliptical, and what I do is exercise for 30 seconds on my first day back, 60 seconds the next time, and so on. Of course, increasing by only 30 seconds per outing means that it takes 60 outings to work my way up to my 30-minute max, but that’s fine with me. (And if I get on the elliptical three days a week, that means it will take five months to reach my half-hour max – about enough time for me to tear another ligament and have to start all over again.)

Knowing that I have to suffer for only 30 seconds that first day is a sublime motivator. And I really get into it. I pull on my sweats, grab some Gatorade, and even make sure I wear my sports bra.

Get infuriated over newstalk

My ideal sports regimen involves using the elliptical on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I work out for 20–30 minutes on our hybrid weight machine in our downstairs “guest room.”

I discovered many years ago that listening to newstalk radio in the car always makes me furious, which can really make a lengthy trip zip by in seemingly no time at all. If a 22-year-old know-it-all starts ranting about how future Hall of Fame coach Bruce Bochy doesn’t know what he’s doing and should have replaced a pitcher, the time you spend sitting in rush-hour traffic will pass swiftly as your disgust rises. Or if one of those “survivalists” calls in from his bunker to offer his completely uninformed opinion about the Constitution, your three-hour trip will evaporate while you seethe.

So, while I spend time downstairs on the weight machine, injuring myself in small increments (until one day: SPROIIIIIIING!), I watch cable news on television. I can simultaneously do a shoulder press and shriek at the TV, “Why on earth do you still have a job, Wolf??! Is no one else sick to death of your breathless pettifogging?”

Not only does that pass the time, but my blood boils, my heart pumps like a locomotive, and my theory is that it enables me to lift more weight!

Imagine Max Weinberg with salmonella

While I’m on the elliptical in the garage, though, I don’t watch television. What I do is put one of my so-last-millennium CDs into my so-last-millennium living room CD player and listen via wireless headphones.

(Of course, as you might imagine, when I’m exercising for only 30 seconds, I don’t get to hear very much of a song.)

Dealing with the pain and misery of cardio exercise, however, requires that I do something more than just listen to music. So I fantasize.

fess_parker_as_daniel_boone — Fess Parker

When I was a little girl, my favorite fantasy was that I was a wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers. As I got a little older, I had a dream (now legendary among my circle of friends) about Fess Parker and me that involved no clothing whatsoever except for coonskin caps. It was rather wonderful, but I digress.

For the last two years I’ve slowly been going through my entire Springsteen CD collection, which includes studio recordings, EPs, and a raft of bootlegs. My objective is to catalog all of them in a detailed database and to rate each studio and live performance according to the Bocciardi ratings system. This means hundreds of hours listening to Bruce while I work out on the elliptical.

What I do for the entire 30 minutes – or seconds, as the case may be – is fantasize that I am playing drums in the E Street Band behind Bruce at a live concert. In my scenario, I’ve been conscripted to play, on the spur of the moment, because regular drummer Max Weinberg is suddenly stricken and unable to take the stage.

Rock fans, this is where we absolutely must discuss the fact that this did happen to the world’s luckiest teenager. And it occurred right here in Daly City.

On November 20, 1973, the Who – one of the greatest bands of all time – were (or is it “was”?) in the middle of a show at the Cow Palace when drummer Keith Moon passed out cold, allegedly from a combination of tranquilizers and brandy. After being revived offstage with a shower and a cortisone injection, he came back out and continued drumming, seemingly back to normal. But during the very next song he passed out again, and this time he meant it.

Miraculously, some of this was filmed and has been posted on YouTube. You can see Keith slumped over at about 8:22, right after “Magic Bus” ends.

https://youtu.be/aIjH9OU2JKw

Guitarist Pete Townshend then looked up into the crowd and asked whether there were any good drummers who could come down and help them out. Holy nirvana! This doesn’t even happen in the movies!

Nineteen-year-old Thomas Scot Halpin, a fan who’d arrived 13 hours early with a friend to see the legendary band, was standing on the floor off to the side of the stage. When Townshend made his plea, the friend dragged Scot over to a security guard and insisted that he knew all the material and would be the perfect person for the job. Concert promoter Bill Graham came over to check out what he thought was a security issue, but he ended up recruiting Scot for the job. So Halpin found himself onstage, where someone gave him a shot of brandy to calm his nerves and he proceeded to spend the next few minutes of his life living out a dream that afterwards he could barely remember because of the adrenaline and the unreality of it all.

The band did three more songs, two of which were classic blues numbers. The third song was a Who tune called “Naked Eye” that had been played live but had not been released on a studio album, so I don’t know whether Halpin had even heard it before.

Although he had not touched a drumstick in a year, and Townshend sometimes had to help him through the tempo changes, I think the teenage drummer did a great job:

https://youtu.be/X5ZGlVY5rg4

At the end, Halpin takes a bow with the band and looks like the happiest man alive.

It gives me chills to watch it.

My fantasy, as I mentioned, is similar. But there is no way Max Weinberg would ever be under the influence at a concert (or probably anywhere). For a long time my scenario involved his having a heart attack, but after many months it occurred to me that if Max had a coronary before a show, Springsteen would not blithely carry on with the concert as if nothing had happened! So I decided that he needed to suddenly get a raging case of food poisoning. Nothing too serious, of course, but enough to keep him indisposed for a few hours. Meanwhile, I would be dragged up on stage to finish the show.

My appearance would be, of course, triumphant.

And that’s how you can get through your new exercise plan for 2017.

You’re welcome.

Stagecoach days

A few weeks ago, the Chronicle’s outdoor writer Tom Stienstra published a column that was a real blockbuster for me: one of Black Bart’s hideaways may have been discovered in the Sunol Regional Wilderness.

I was about 7 years old when I first learned about Black Bart in a thin little book called Stagecoach Days, a Sunset publication that Wells Fargo Bank gave away to its customers. A few years later, when I frequently insisted that my younger sister and I “play school” and that of course I be the teacher, Stagecoach Days was one of my two “textbooks.” (The other was the Bible. The sole reason I chose them was that they were the only books in the house of which we had two copies.)

Black Bart was an outlaw who robbed stagecoaches in the late 1800s, shortly after California’s great Gold Rush. I became obsessed with him for a couple of reasons. First of all, he was a “gentleman bandit” of sorts. Second, he was known to have left poems at his robbery sites, and one in particular became part of my repertoire. As a youngster and a bit of a loner, I took to memorizing things, and I could recite the states and their capitals, all three stanzas of “O Captain, My Captain,” the last two paragraphs of The Great Gatsby, assorted Kerouac quotes, and the entire Gettysburg Address. But my favorite piece of literature that I committed to memory was one of Black Bart’s poems. You’ll have to wait for it.

***

Born in England in 1829, Charles Boles (later Bolles, or Bolton, depending on his alias du jure) emigrated with his family to America when he was two years old. Not much is known about his childhood on a farm in upstate New York, but we do know that as a young man he and his brothers joined everyone else and their brothers in heading to California for the Gold Rush of 1848, hoping to strike it rich. Some were fortunate, but many came up empty. The Boles Brothers were in the latter group. They made two unsuccessful trips, and two of his three brothers actually died in California.

We also know that Charles fought with the Union Army during the Civil War, marching with Sherman through Georgia and suffering life-threatening abdominal wounds at the Battle of Vicksburg. Though his wounds were considered to be so bad as to preclude his ability to continue fighting, he rather heroically went back and served on the battlefield for three full years before being honorably discharged.

Charles eventually married and raised four children in Illinois and Iowa. But it seems that his stint in California had created in him an unshakeable urge to gamble, and he periodically would leave his family to mine for gold, at first in Montana and Idaho and eventually back in California. During this period he sent his wife a letter, recounting an event in which Wells Fargo agents tried to buy out his share of a small mine he was tending in Montana. When he refused, apparently the bank agents somehow cut off his water supply, forcing him to abandon the mine. His conviction that he had been wronged caused him to tell his wife that he was going to “take steps” to exact revenge. The poor woman never saw him again, and at this point she just assumed that he had died.

But he hadn’t. And gold fever still infected his bloodstream, so he headed back to California with one last hope of striking it rich.

***

In those days, stagecoaches were often used to transport passengers, mail, and valuables to and from areas not served by the railroad. Enterprising robbers realized that they had a convenient opportunity to simply travel to areas through which they knew the stage would be passing and quickly hold up the helpless driver and passengers without leaving a trace. They often would select a spot through which the stage would be traveling laboriously – e.g, up a steep hill – and spring out from the bushes, brandish their rifles, demand the loot, and scram out of there in very short order. The greatest bounty they could get was the box of money that companies like Wells Fargo transported to pay the workers who labored in their mines.

During the period 1870 through 1884, there were 313 attempted robberies of Wells Fargo stagecoaches. Wells had the money to hire some very accomplished detectives, though, who did a fairly good job of solving these crimes. Five miscreants were killed during the attempts, 11 were killed resisting arrest, 7 were hanged by lynch mobs, and 206 were ferreted out and sent to jail. Only 84 robberies were “unpunished,” but many of them, it turns out, were committed by the same person.

***

During this time, Charles Boles was living in San Francisco. He lived a rather highbrow life despite not necessarily having the means to do so, since all he appeared to own were some unsuccessful mining interests in the hills. He attended the theater and concerts, ate at the finest restaurants, wore natty clothes, and always sported a cane. The cane was fashionable rather than functional; he was in terrific shape, walking many miles a day. He reportedly never took a drink in his life, always carried a Bible with him, and was generally a respectable, quiet man who eschewed profanity and was not prone to any kind of excess other than his unending tendency to take a gamble.

***

Beginning in 1875, Wells Fargo stagecoaches traveling through California’s Gold Rush country would be hit 28 times by the same bandit. Some say he was afraid of horses and others say he simply couldn’t afford one, but in any case he walked to and from his crimes and carried a shotgun that he never fired, which was a good thing because it was so rusty that no bullet could have successfully traveled through its muzzle. He wore a flour sack with two holes cut out for the eyes, and he sported a linen duster (which is a long coat). Unfailingly polite, he never harmed a passenger; in fact, if they handed over their money or jewelry, he would insist on giving the items back to them. All he wanted was Wells Fargo’s money. And he was highly successful, netting thousands of dollars a year.

For me, though, the most delightful thing about the bandit was that on a couple of occasions he would leave poems at the site, like this one:

Here I lay me down to sleep
to wait the coming morrow;
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
and everlasting sorrow;

Let come what will, I’ll try it on
my condition can’t be worse
and if there’s money in that box
’tis munny in my purse

— Black Bart

Black Bart was the name of a fictional character who had appeared in a story called “The Case of Summerfield” that ran in the Sacramento Union in the early 1870s. That man, though, was a vicious villain and certainly didn’t resemble the gentleman who was robbing these stagecoaches. But the name sounded ominous, and the robber didn’t mind the fear it instilled in the public. He probably also thought the moniker would evoke an image that was such a far cry from his public persona that it would throw detectives off the trail.

The story goes that at his first holdup, in July 1875 in Calaveras County, Black Bart asked the driver to please “throw down the box” and shouted over his shoulder into the woods, “If he dares to shoot, give him a solid volley, boys.” The driver, on seeing several rifles pointed at him among the trees, swiftly threw down the box as ordered. Then, after the bandit disappeared, the driver discovered that the rifles in the woods were just meticulously crafted sticks.

It was at the scene of his fifth crime that Black Bart left the poem that I have memorized, and it makes me smile every time I repeat it (bear in mind that Stagecoach Days conveniently did not include this particular poem):

I’ve labored hard and long for bread
for honor and for riches,
But on my corns too long you’ve tread,
you fine-haired sons of bitches.

***

Black Bart committed his last robbery on November 3, 1883. A man with one of the greatest first names in the world – Reason McConnell – was driving a stagecoach out of Sonora alongside a 19-year-old boy named Jimmy Rolleri, who had just been gifted a new rifle and was out to do some rabbit hunting. At the bottom of a place called Funk’s Hill, Jimmy jumped down from the stage to look for rabbits and Reason continued up the incline. Black Bart leaped into the road at the summit and, as was customary for him, politely asked for the express box, which was bolted to the floor in an attempt to thwart such robberies. When Reason pointed out this situation, he was ordered by our robber to step down and unhitch the team, at which point Bart himself jumped up and started working on the box with a hatchet. Meanwhile, Reason slipped away and got Jimmy’s attention, and somehow three or four shots were then fired at Bart with Jimmy’s new rifle. The local newspapers reported that the driver had fired all the shots, but Jimmy’s family members insisted that after Reason missed the first two, Jimmy disgustedly snatched the gun from him and slightly wounded the bandit in the hand. (Apparently there is some evidence that Wells Fargo later gave Jimmy a fancy inlaid and engraved rifle.) In any case, only one of the shots grazed Bart, who took the $550 in gold coins and 3-1/4 ounces of gold dust worth $65 and got clean away.

Or so he thought.

Wells Fargo detective J.B. Hume was quickly dispatched to the scene, and there he discovered a black derby, magnifying glasses, field glasses, and a handkerchief, among other things. And in one corner of the handkerchief was a laundry mark.

Ultimately, Detective Hume and his associate Harry Morse traced the laundry mark to San Francisco and, after visiting 90 laundries, finally learned that that particular mark was used by a fine gentleman named C.E. Bolton. Mr. Bolton took frequent trips into the hills to check on his “mining interests,” but he always came back to his boarding house in San Francisco – which, by the way, was directly across from the police station. In fact, he often dined with the gentlemen of the police force and expressed an acute interest in that nasty outlaw Black Bart.

Detective Hume filed this report:

“Bolton, Charles E., alias C.E. Bolton, alias Black Bart, the PO-8 [“poet,” get it?], age 55 years; Occupation, miner; Height 5 ft. 7-1/2 inches; Color of hair, gray; color of eyes, blue; gunshot wound on side. He is [a] well educated, well informed man, has few friends. He is a remarkable walker, has great strength, endurance.”

Charles pleaded guilty to the one crime and spent four years in prison at San Quentin. During that time he sent a number of letters to his wife, professing his love, expressing remorse for this crimes, and asking her for forgiveness. She apparently responded that she would be willing to take him back, but when he was released from prison, he vanished.

He was the most successful bandit in the history of the American west.

There are countless rumors, folktales, tall tales, old saws, fables, and fantasies about what happened to Charles after he was released. Three Wells Fargo stagecoach robberies took place shortly thereafter, but no one was ever caught, and there was no tangible evidence linking Charles to the crimes. In one story, however, Detective Hume somehow tracked him down and offered to pay him a lifetime pension out of Wells Fargo’s money if he would just, for the love of God, stop ripping them off. Some say he moved to New York City, where he spent his last days. Others speculated that he went back to Montana to try more mining. The most popular story seems to be that someone saw him boarding a steamer and heading for Japan.

***

So, who were the “fine-haired sons of bitches” to whom Charles directed his antipathy? His hatred probably didn’t emerge during his Civil War days; in researching this piece I learned that it was common among Confederate soldiers – but not among Union soldiers – to aim their sights at companies that appeared to have too strong on a grip on the economic machinery that ran the country. No, most likely it happened when the Wells Fargo agents used their power to unfairly force him off his own mine. So his particular grudge was probably against that one company. And perhaps the wealthy money-lenders could afford to keep their hair fine? I don’t know. Maybe someone can look that up for me.

I know that it’s wrong of me to harbor any feelings of admiration for a criminal. And just because he stole from a massively wealthy company does not mitigate the crime. I learned this early on from my mother. When I was in college, my friend Jeanne and I concocted a scheme by which we could talk endlessly to each other, long-distance, for free. In those days, of course, it cost a ton of money to make a long-distance call, and there was no way my parents would have paid the bill for such a luxury. (Plus they completely distrusted Jeanne because she wore wire-rimmed glasses.) But Jeanne was working as a telephone operator on the East Coast, and she had access to credit cards held by large corporations. So I would find a remote, unoccupied phone booth somewhere, and I would somehow place a call to her, through an operator, that allowed me, without charge, to give her the number on the phone in the booth. Then I would hang up and she would call me back using a random corporation’s credit card number.

As I type this, I am absolutely appalled at myself. But back then I thought that it didn’t matter because those big companies had unending funds and they would never miss the paltry amount it would cost them. I was so clueless about what I was doing that, in fact, I went home and cheerfully told my mother all about the scheme and how clever we were and that we would never get caught. Very calmly, but while undoubtedly choking back her complete disgust, my mother explained to me that stealing is stealing. It took all of two minutes for her to point my moral compass away from south and back to true north, where it has been ever since.

Still, I will always secretly admire California’s gentleman bandit, and I will forever appreciate the way in which he poetically told those fine-haired sons of bitches that they had stepped on his toes for far too long.

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My dear Kentucky home

Before I met Julie, I assumed that Kentucky was a southern state representing all of the personal and political stereotypes we coastal folks like to impose on a huge swath of this country. Essentially, I imagined that Kentuckians all swilled moonshine and feuded with each other. I figured that there weren’t any real cities there but just an endless procession of tobacco fields, ramshackle dwellings, and muskrats.

But I was so wrong. The Commonwealth of Kentucky, as it is delightfully called, is an uncommonly beautiful state, with luxuriant hills, blazing forests, abundant water, and long, rolling country roads. It has prosperous cities and well-known universities. It is the most affordable U.S. state in which to live. And its residents are blessed with experiencing all four seasons – none of them in the extreme. The average annual snowfall is about a foot, so most of the time it’s just a “wintry mix,” whatever that is. Julie complains about the humid summers, but her whining falls on deaf ears because I happen to think that humidity is really sexy. The air rests heavy on your skin and is thick with desire. Remember Marlon Brando wearing that damp t-shirt in A Streetcar Named Desire? I rest my case.

Louisville, where Julie was born, sits in the northern part of the state, near the Indiana border. It’s a blue town in a deeply red state, and Julie always claims that “it’s the Midwest while the rest of the state is the South.” This morning I looked up the latitude coordinates for Louisville, and sure enough, it is actually located north of San Francisco. It’s what I’d call a medium-sized city, with both modern and historic architecture, stunning parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (who, by the way, also designed Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Central Park in New York), lots of museums and performing arts spaces, a burgeoning indie scene, a fairly sizeable gay neighborhood of beautiful Victorian homes, and of course a population of rabid college sports fans. Most importantly, chefs from all over the country are serving some of the most creative food in America at a host of new restaurants that have sprung up in the city over the past decade or two.

Every year, Julie and I drive out to Louisville with our dog Buster at either Thanksgiving or Christmas, and we get to spend a happy week or two with her family. We stay with Julie’s father Bill in a lovely part of the overall Louisville metro area called St. Matthews. Bill taught high school physics for a little while at the beginning of his career but then got into computers (in the punch card era) and never looked back. A lifelong runner, he’s finished many a marathon and half-marathon in his life, often taking top prizes in his age group. To this day he still helps out at races around town, and although his creaky knees prevent him from participating, he walks more than 10,000 steps a day and still looks and acts like a young man. Now that he’s retired, he spends most of his time helping people with age or disability challenges. The rest of the time he spends watching college basketball games or telling loads of corny jokes, 75 percent of which are funny.

The holiday celebrating is typically done at the home of Julie’s sister Lori. Like her dad, Lori works with computers (databases, to be precise) for a large health insurance company. (Julie says she is the smartest of the siblings.) Lori inherited her mom’s penchant for decorating, and at Christmastime her house has the most gorgeous lighting, scents, and holiday adornments you could imagine. (I frequently walk into the bathroom, ostensibly to wash my hands but really just to get a whiff of the vanilla or cinnamon or whatever spices seem to miraculously infuse each room.) She makes the creamiest mashed potatoes on earth. She is really funny, and sometimes I make her laugh so hard that she has to scrunch up her face to keep from peeing.

Lori’s husband Dale is a strong, good-looking man who can fix or build anything on the planet. He’s been an iron worker and a general handyman and now he’s building houses as a general contractor. He’s a perfectionist, and I have every expectation that his houses could withstand the tornadoes that I always fear will be rumbling through Louisville at any minute. Dale enjoys a good bourbon, and one time the two of us foolishly decided to do a “bourbon taste test” that involved slamming down shots of five different bourbons in quick succession. I don’t remember much after that. What I love most about Dale, though, is that for all his masculine toughness, he has an uncommonly sensitive disposition. On one Thanksgiving visit, we all wrote down on little slips of paper what we were thankful for, and then we took turns pulling the slips out of a hat and reading them aloud. I remember that he stood in the middle of the living room, read his little daughter’s note that she was most thankful for her mommy and daddy, and started to cry.

darnell-morrison-family — Tara, Lori, Dale, and Alicia

Which brings me to my two Kentucky nieces. The “little daughter,” Alicia, was born shortly after I met Julie and is now in her second year of nursing school. I know that wherever her career takes her, it will involve caring for others. She’s always been very, very kind, with a soft spot for anyone different or less fortunate. A little boy in her neighborhood who had suffered a series of strokes in utero was born with the gender identity of a woman and wore dresses ever since he was old enough to do so. Alicia took him under her wing and made him feel loved and normal from the day she first started babysitting him. She’s artistic and creative, too; in high school she studied theatrical design and production and became an expert in costuming. She also has an uncanny sharp wit.

Alicia’s older sister, Tara, lives and works in Nashville (what a cool town!) and has the most boundless energy of anyone I’ve ever met. She walks into a room and lights it up. She’s a musician, and life to her is a big dance. She’s happy when others are happy. She gets outrageously excited over the smallest of pleasures. She loves San Francisco, and once when she was visiting and we were driving around Twin Peaks, I kidded her about the way she would throw her arm out the window in glee, snapping photos with her cell phone in the most breezy fashion, never looking at what she was photographing, and then I would look later at the pictures and every single one of them was beautiful and perfect and artsy. That is Tara in a nutshell – a creative, refreshing, and breezy romp through life.

When Alicia and Tara were both out in San Francisco one year, I recorded their voices and I now get to listen to them every day when I turn my computer on and off. When Windows boots up, Tara’s exuberant voice greets me with, “Hellooo, loverrrrrrrrrrrrr!” And when the computer powers down, I hear Alicia signing off with “Ciao, bella, Paola, Paola.” (I taught her a couple of Italian words and it turns out that she has one of the best accents I’ve ever heard on a non-Italian.)

Even Buster loves our Louisville family. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that he is completely smitten with Tara’s alluring little red-headed vixen of a poodle.

Our holiday times in Louisville are always rollicking good fun. We were last there for Christmas in 2015, right after I had broken my foot, so I was hobbling around on crutches the night that Julie’s aunt Judy treated us to a terrific dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Ohio River, right on the outskirts of Louisville. It was a dark and stormy night, and I had been watching the ongoing weather reports and growing increasingly worried about a host of potential horrors, including how I would be able to crutch around through a driving rainstorm. In addition, I was hearing reports of a tornado watch in the county, and I imagined that, if we managed to make it home alive, we would find the house and Buster gone.

Julie’s relatives all listened to my concerns and looked at me as if I hailed from another planet. Major storms are apparently just an inconsequential part of life out there. They simply threw my sniveling self into the car and off we caromed. At the restaurant, I was seated by the window, staring out at the high winds, drenching rain, hail, and lightning. A couple of minutes later, I actually got rained on through a roof leak that became suddenly apparent. Then the power went out. But these Kentuckians paid it all no mind. The restaurant’s backup generator kept everything on except the computer, which for some reason meant that no food orders could be taken. I have no idea why they couldn’t simply write down the orders and enter them later. Furthermore, in true southern fashion, they were mysteriously able to take our drink orders, so we had plowed through quite a bit of alcohol by the time the computers came back up and we could order our food. A couple of hours later, the storm had blown past. The roads home were covered with downed tree branches, flooded areas, and emergency workers, but the neighborhood – and Buster – were unscathed. Crisis ignored.

The one missing part of our Kentucky visits is Julie’s mother, Lynne. Lynne passed away a few years ago from the worst disease known to humankind. But her spirit is always there. She had the strongest accent in the family, which made her wild southern tales even funnier. My favorite story of hers was that she attended a rug-hooking convention with her friend Bonnie once, and the sign outside the hotel said, “Welcome, hookers!” In the lobby she ran into a group of businessmen and proceeded to announce to them, “Well, gentlemen, the good news is that the hookers are here. The bad news is that you’re lookin’ at ’em!”

I found out fairly quickly that I could make Lynne laugh very easily, and like her daughter Lori, she would giggle until she cried and peed. She had a lovely singing voice and was a talented musician who played a variety of instruments in a mountain music ensemble. (When I first heard the term “mountain music,” I thought again of moonshine and feuds. After I reluctantly attended one of Lynne’s rehearsals, though, I was absolutely blown away by the enchanting music created by the sweet interwoven notes of dulcimers, fiddles, pennywhistles, banjos, mandolins, and other acoustic instruments.) She collected miniatures and built me a miniature country store that I keep in our guest room to this day. She took me on dozens of day trips when I visited so that I could learn all about the history and folk culture of Kentucky. But most of all, she was a loving mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law. You could tell Lynne anything, and she would listen until you were done. Then came her quiet wisdom.

As I once told her after she took ill, Lynne was my courageous hero. A little piece of Kentucky magic left with her. I miss her so much.

19-lynne-and-bill-in-center-patio_edited-custom — Lynne and Bill

During the holiday season in particular, it is not lost on me that I am among the lucky people who are blessed with a loving second family. Bill, Lynne, Judy, Lori, Dale, Tara, and Alicia (with a special shout-out to Lynne’s friend Bonnie) took me right into the family from the moment we all met each other, and it’s a generosity of spirit that I will never forget. I hope they know how much they mean to me.

One of the greatest benefits to me, too, of being a part of two families is that I have gotten to know and understand people from a region I would likely have never explored. We may believe that there are intractable divisions in this country, but learning about each other on a personal level is invaluable. My heart and my world were both expanded when I first met Julie’s family back in 1995. I am richer for knowing them.

This holiday season, let’s tell our loved ones how much they mean to us, open our hearts to the differences of others, and listen to everyone until they are done.

***

I would like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, all the people who have taken the time to read my blog this year. It really has changed my life in many ways. I especially love your comments, because otherwise I would have no idea whether anyone was reading the darned thing.

Some of my posts have been good, others have been only so-so, and nearly all of them have been too long. I will try to work on that in the coming year.

I did write one masterpiece, in my opinion, and that was my first post, about my beloved parents (for my more recent subscribers, it’s here: https://mondaymorningrail.com/2016/05/30/the-courtship-of-paulas-father/). Mom and Dad always encouraged me to write because they thought I was good at it, but I never believed them. I do truly believe, however, that they both had a hand in that first post.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone.

Screaming through Bakersfield

When I was a little girl, I was afraid of a multitude of things, including lawn mowers, elevators, cat’s eyes, cuckoo clocks, the mosaic stone tower at Valley Fair Shopping Center in San Jose, and the revolving Hamm’s beer display (with a giant bear) at the local supermarket. Sometimes, with luck, those things would disappear. For example, my grandparents would nail shut the little door of their cuckoo clock whenever we visited. And the revolving Hamm’s display was ultimately taken down. I spoke Italian at that age, and when the scary things vanished I would ask my father where they had gone. “Dov’è la statua che gira?” (“Where is the statue that turns?”) And Dad would always answer, “It went to Bakersfield.” That town clearly had a lot of open space.

Well, one day when I was three years old, our family was driving to the L.A. area to visit our grandparents, and in those days you had to drive down Highway 99, which ran through the San Joaquin Valley and was the only major connection between northern and southern California.

Most of the towns along the route had arched signs over the highway, welcoming travelers to their communities.

So, visible from the highway was a big banner that announced “BAKERSFIELD” in enormous capital letters as we approached that cowboy town.

That would have been just fine, except that Jerry and Beverly Bocciardi had forgotten that they had taught their daughter to read at the age of three. (It was absolutely unheard of then, although common now.) So they were startled, to say the least, when an ear-piercing scream such as they had never heard before issued forth from their hysterical daughter in the back seat.

The scream did not relent. I shrieked all the way through Bakersfield and continued to shriek through the next three towns. My parents both suffered partial hearing loss. The sheer decibel level caused all the Bakersfield residents to stop in their tracks. Local lore has it that Buck Owens even wrote a song about “The Unending Scream.”

In my mind, all the lawn mowers, elevators, cuckoo clocks, disembodied cat eyes, stone towers, and Hamm’s beer displays were waiting along the side of that dusty road to attack me.

More than half a century later, my terror of even the word “Bakersfield” was finally alleviated when I reluctantly spent the first night of a ’cross-country trip there and was not assaulted by a marauding bear statue.

Whew. One totally unreasonable terror that I can now check off the list!

The rhythm of the rails

I was hoping for yet another dream trip when I took Amtrak last month from California to the East Coast and back. But the day before I boarded the first train, a god-awful microbe boarded me and rendered me virtually unable to speak, not to mention saddling me with a bad cold, a rattly cough, and an angry sore throat all the way to Maryland. The return trip, thankfully, would be much better. As usual, I took a notebook (yes, and a real pen!), and I thought I’d share some of those scribblings with you here, in this ’cross-country train travel primer.

October 4, 2016 (California Zephyr, eastbound from Emeryville to Chicago, day 1)

Long-distance Amtrak passengers can travel in one of two ways: by coach, or in a sleeper car. Coach travel is the most economical way to go. For about $230 (if you get your ticket well in advance) you can ride the rails from the San Francisco Bay Area to Washington, D.C. The trip takes four days and involves two trains: the California Zephyr runs to Chicago, and after just a few hours’ layover, the second train (the Capitol Limited) departs for D.C. Not a bad price, really. But you have to be willing to sleep in your reclining seat (or grab a few winks in the observation car, if you don’t get chased out). There’s no question, though, that the seats are leagues better than those on an airplane; they’re comfortable, wide, and long (plenty of legroom), with leg and foot rests, eating trays, reading lights, and electrical outlets.

The other option is to get a room in a sleeper car. Generally, there are two choices: a roomette or a bedroom. Both have fold-down bunk-style beds, but the bedrooms also have a combination shower/bathroom. (The other two options are the “family bedroom,” which is wider and has room for two children in addition to the adults, and an ADA room – both located on the lower level of the train.) Restrooms and a huge shower room, accessible only to sleeper car passengers, are also on the lower level. All meals are included. These days I opt for the bedroom. It’s a perk, I suppose – and a necessity – of being, shall we say, “seasoned.”

So, how do you pack for a train trip? Well, let me just start by emphasizing that most of the coach seats and sleeper cars are on the upper level on long-distance trains, and to get there you have to ascend a narrow, twisting set of stairs. There is very little room in which to maneuver, and unless you’re a linebacker, you probably don’t have the strength to carry a heavy, loaded suitcase directly in front of you. So most people leave any heavy suitcases downstairs where they will cheerfully await them when they disembark, and they carry a lighter, soft bag up those treacherous stairs on their back. I learned this tip from my friend Leon Emmons. I did not follow his advice when I made the trip in 2014, and the attendants (formerly called porters) had to schlep my corpulent suitcase up the stairs like sherpas because there was no way I could do it. So this time I got smart. I bought a wheeled backpack. That way, I could throw it onto my back as I went up the stairs but could also wheel it along behind me in the train stations, etc.

This idea was very good, but it would have been more brilliant had I not filled the backpack so full of unnecessary items that it was almost heavier than my suitcase. I nearly snapped my lumbago. I wore my turquoise “train outfit” today and brought two or three no-iron train shirts and miscellaneous socks and underwear. That would have been fine. But I also felt that I needed my SF Giants orange polo shirt to wear during tomorrow’s wild-card playoff game with the Mets. I also packed peanut butter crackers, granola bars, and chocolate-covered almonds for snacks. And I had to have a hairdryer (gotta look good), a huge sundries bag, and about 30 types of drugs for my virus. Of course, I was laden with gadgets like my phone, an iPad, my brand-new camera, and an iPod (which my sister Janine says is “so last-millennium”). And I brought a jacket because I didn’t know what the temperature would be like. All of these came in handy. But to top it off, even though I downloaded books onto my iPad, I insisted on bringing Springsteen’s new hard-cover autobiography, which must weigh 5 pounds. And finally, for who knows what reason, I packed a bottle of vodka. Now mind you, I really don’t drink vodka. But I did the same thing for my last train trip, and both times I never once opened the bottle. What is wrong with me???

***

So, what are the “bedrooms” like? Well, they’re sufficient but small, and they require a certain amount of flexibility and limberness. On last year’s trip, I was assigned to room A. Little did I know that room A is legendarily difficult to navigate. Its design is a bit different from the other rooms, with the bathroom situated so that if you need, say, to get up in the middle of the night, you have to crawl down to the foot of your bed and roll directly into the bathroom. There is just no room to even stand up. So when I made reservations for this trip, many months ago, I called rather than book online because I wanted to specifically ask not to get room A. And it turned out that that request was not a problem at all. (In fact, I suspect it may be quite common.)

The two beds are bunk-style, and when folded back up each morning the bottom bed becomes a couch. There is also a little table and chair, a sink, a trash can, and the bathroom. The shower faucet is almost directly over the toilet, so many people just sit on the toilet, with the seat closed, and take their showers that way. It’s easier to sit down when the train is barreling along and you don’t want to be thrown pell-mell into the shower controls. That could cause, in the words of my friend Mark Houts, “quite the contusion.”

Riding Amtrak is not good for people who have any expectations whatsoever about service and amenities. For example, sleeper cars are supposed to come with bottled water, soap, and shampoo. Only once on my six sleeper-car train trips did I ever get shampoo. Usually, but not always, I got soap. In some cases, I had to ask my attendant for water every single day, while on other occasions there were cases of water outside the rooms near where the juice and coffee are set up for sleeper passengers. Basically, it’s all just – as the kids would say – random.

I’d like to mention, too, that every sleeper car includes an array of buttons that do not work. There are all kinds of knobs and levers related to temperature and air flow, and none of them makes a whit of difference. There is also a button called “Music Control,” and I’d love to know what function it ever served, because now it serves none at all.

***

I wanted to get an observation car seat before we got to Sacramento this morning. The observation car is open to everyone and is terrific because it has ceiling windows and is often a place for genial conversation. Unfortunately, because my throat hurt so much, I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone in the observation car. There were definitely some chatterboxes there. One guy who lives in Santa Rosa said that he drives into Guerneville every day to do a radio show that is “part 60s soul and mostly 50s doo-wop.” I think he might be “Papa A,” a regular on KGGV-FM.

There was some discussion about whether a person should be allowed to save a seat in the observation car. The conductor’s announcement when we first boarded noted that no seat-saving was allowed. But one woman kept making an issue of it, asking people around her whether they agreed with the rule. She wanted to save a seat for her husband for at least an hour(!), and she disagreed with the rule. I firmly believe in the rule (quelle surprise!) and I wondered who on earth she thought she was, but my near-laryngitis kept me mute, which was about making me crazy.

***

For dinner, an attendant comes to the sleeper cars first to take reservations, and I typically ask for the earliest time because I am constantly hungry. I was really worried this evening because of my laryngitis and the catch in my throat and my congestion; it was all enough to terrify any self-respecting healthy person. But no one shrank away in revulsion, and I was at least able to eke out a question or two, although there was no way I could form a complete sentence and talk about myself.

I sat next to a very young woman named Michaela, who was getting off in Elko. She’s from the Sonora area near Yosemite but is moving to Elko with her fiancé. She’d typically taken buses before (including one to Idaho), but said trains were much better. Across from me were Lori and her husband. They’d formerly lived in upstate New York but had recently moved to Florida. Although they must have been at least in their fifties, she was super hip and had a nose ring plus all manner of chains and other metallic accoutrement on her left ear. They’d been out visiting her son, who lives in Santa Clara and used to work for LinkedIn. Because the New Orleans-to-Florida tracks were completely damaged in Katrina, they couldn’t take a southern route but had to take the Zephyr east to Chicago, the Capitol Limited to D.C., and then a third train to Florida.

Dinner choices:

Thyme-roasted chicken
Spice-rubbed cod
Signature steak
Chinese noodles
Vegetarian lasagne
Creamy tortellini with pesto

The food is free for sleeper car passengers, who have to pay only for alcohol and whatever tip they want to leave. The herbed chicken was excellent and came with a baked potato (fair) and green and yellow beans (cooked to absolute death). The chocolate lava cake for dessert was outstanding, though. The couple across from me had the Signature steak, which seems to get high marks from everyone. I may try it tomorrow.

After dinner, Karen (our attendant) came by to set up the bed and to remind me that we’ll be in another time zone tomorrow morning, so I set my watch and camera. All time zone changes on this entire trip happen in the middle of the night, conveniently.

washoe-county-nv_moon — Washoe County, Nevada

October 5, 2016 (California Zephyr, eastbound to Chicago, day 2)

I had a terrible night because of my horrendous throat pain. But, not completely daunted, I got up at 6:30 and donned my Giants polo shirt and earrings to bring my team luck for the game later today. One of the attendants, who complimented me on my turquoise train shirt yesterday, exclaimed, “Nice sweater! You’re just a fashion extravaganza!” Ha ha ha!

***

We stopped for about 20 minutes in Grand Junction, Colorado, so I got off to stretch my legs and then took the opportunity to get some hot tea in the café car (well, a cup of hot water with a Lipton tea bag on top of it).

grand-junction-co-4 — Grand Junction, Colorado

***

You can have dinner brought to your sleeper if you want, and tonight I decided to do that because of my near-total voice loss. Unfortunately, the Signature steak arrived nearly raw. I hated to do it, but I had to call my room attendant and protest (using more gestures than speech). The chef then personally brought a new meal to me and said that mine had been put on the wrong tray. Well, I have to say, the steak was utterly delicious, with a sauce to die for! For some reason I had to buy a half-bottle of red wine because they did not have it by the glass as they do in the dining car. I drank one glass and saved the rest. That’s how ill I was feeling!

Leon and Julie both texted me throughout the Giants game with updates. The Giants won with Bumgarner’s pitching and a Conor Gillaspie homer! Now they play the Cubs. I’ll be fine if the Cubs win and take the whole darned Series. They’ve waited over a century, for goodness’ sakes.

October 6, 2016 (transfer from California Zephyr to Capitol Limited, eastbound to Harpers Ferry, day 3)

I’m so bummed not to be able to talk. In the observation car this morning I heard one conversation about the Cubs and another very intellectual discussion about jazz between two obviously knowledgeable fellows. Dang!

We got to Chicago a little early, so I had 3-1/2 hours to kill before our 6:00 boarding time. Chicago’s Metropolitan Lounge – which is open to sleeping-car, business, and Amtrak Select passengers – offers drinks, snacks, wi-fi, and comfortable furniture. Today’s snacks were just Chex-Mix type things, and they were a bit too spicy for me; I tried them and immediately was overcome by a paroxysm of coughing. But the unlimited cold orange juice made me feel better.

We boarded at 6:00. I didn’t want a dinner reservation, so I just had peanut butter crackers. Not a very nutritious day.

There was a horrible burning-wires smell in the train shortly after we boarded and one of the conductors (a woman!) walked through the train and told me that an engine had quit working and they had to do a last-minute repair. The beauty of this is that when she mentioned the failed engine, I did not panic. I did not start to cry. I did not hope that there was a priest on board who could give me the Last Rites. I did not have to prepare myself to plunge 30,000 feet to my agonizing death. No, I was not on a plane. I was on a safe, hospitable train. I thought nothing of a bad engine. Ah, the Zen of it all.

October 7, 2016 (Capitol Limited, eastbound to Harpers Ferry, day 4)

TIP: To avoid constantly being thrown from side to side as you walk through a train, you need to employ a bit of a Charlie Chaplin walk. Watch the conductors, and imitate them as they point their toes outward and sway from side to side while they move down the aisle. That way you won’t bruise your boob in every doorway, or go sprawling across a diner’s lap. Not that I’ve done any of that.

between-elkhart-and-south-bend-in-1 — Near South Bend, Indiana

I had a hard night. It was freezing in the room and I actually had to wear my North Face fleece jacket all night! I noticed in the morning that I had no soap, so I had to unscrew the hand soap dispenser from the sink. Then, to make matters worse, I discovered that the plastic cover was up on the toilet paper holder when I took a shower, so the entire roll of paper was soaked through. From that point on I had to use the sandpaper Kleenex. Luckily this was the last day, and it was a short one; I arrived at Harpers Ferry around noon.

***

This blog post is about train travel, so right now I won’t go into the time I spent with my wonderful friends in Maryland. Suffice it to say that I had a lovely time, and I only wish that I could have talked more with my friend Ellen, who put me up in her home and helped nurse me back to life while I could only croak at her. She even had to translate what I was saying one time for a waitress! But I was better by the time I got to Baltimore, and I spent some of my best days that week jamming with my friends Julie R. and Lauren, who play folk music together. I even got to drum with them at a gig. Someday I will try to put into words the joy of making music with other people.

***

October 17, 2016 (Capitol Limited, westbound from Rockville to Chicago, day 1)

The closest Capitol Limited station from Baltimore is Rockville, Maryland. I didn’t realize that the Rockville station has no restroom and, as it turns out, no signage at all indicating that it’s an Amtrak station. I freaked out (again, quelle surprise!) but Julie R., bless her heart, figured it all out for me. The train was supposed to stop for only one minute(!), so I was worried about finding someone to store my huge suitcase below the sleeper car, but they were very efficient, actually called my name, and loaded my bag while I boarded. Carlos, my attendant, had already made me 6:00 dinner reservations. I was really looking forward to eating in the dining car and speaking with other humans!

I had dinner tonight with the world’s nicest couple, from Michigan. She (Nancy) just “retired” as a PT, although she still does occasional contract work. He taught middle school for 30+ years. They spend their winters warming up in south Texas, near Brownsville (he has a brother there). They have three or four kids and a couple of new grandchildren. She had just heard that her daughter, who sleepwalks, tried to step over her husband in bed and woke up as she was crashing to the floor and breaking her shoulder. Too bad Nancy was on the train trip and not there to help her! Oh, and they told me that Brownsville is apparently the grapefruit capital of the country. Who knew that?

I had the steak, creamy mashed potatoes, the usual mixed vegetables cooked to death, a salad, a roll, a chocolate dessert, and a glass of cabernet.

October 18, 2016 (transfer from Capitol Limited to California Zephyr, westbound to Emeryville, day 2)

I slept deeply last night. I’d been dreaming that I had bedbug bites all over my toes, but I woke up when we pulled into a stop. I peered out the window and saw passengers pouring off the train, so I sprang out of bed and actually yelled out loud, “Oh, my God, we’re in Chicago already!” only to calm down, look at my watch, and note that it was 4:45 a.m. Then I saw that the station sign said “Toledo.”

***

In Chicago’s Metropolitan Lounge, this time, they started putting out wine bottles and veggies and cheese at around noon. I was worried about my nervous stomach, though, as always and decided to forego anything until I got on the train.

We boarded at 1:30. I was the first one into our car. After I plopped myself in the room, I tore into a bag of Dove chocolate-covered almonds and shoveled peanut butter crackers into my mouth like a ravenous jackal. And it was right about then that the drama began.

A woman and her husband, who had been behind me in line, were trying to navigate their way down to their room (A) at the other end of the sleeper car. But the woman could not get her legs to operate at all, so two conductors had to get her up the narrow, steep, twisty stairs. Her husband Bill was completely useless because he paid no attention to her pleas for assistance. It turned out that she had multiple sclerosis, and I don’t know whether she was having a surprise attack or whether she was always unable to use her legs. In any case, after they got her up the stairs, one of the conductors was needed elsewhere, and it became clear that she would have to drag herself painstakingly along the floor, down the entire length of the aisle.

(I heard Bill say that the ADA room had been booked by someone else and that he had called in advance and was told that the aisle would accommodate her walker, which it clearly did not.)

Now, here’s where I was faced with a choice, and where I fell somewhat short. As I mentioned before, I had booked bedroom E a year in advance so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the dreaded room A. But I thought this woman could greatly benefit from my room, since she was already approaching it and it would take her forever to crawl down to room A at the other end. Not to mention the humiliation of the experience for her. I hemmed and hawed internally and cursed the whole situation and cursed my own inaction and selfishness, but finally, as she was just past my door by an inch, I forced myself out into the hallway to ask the conductor whether I should switch rooms with that poor woman and her husband. Surprisingly – and I have to admit that I was relieved – he told me that the couple’s belongings were already situated in room A and that I should not attempt to make the switch.

I still don’t know that the conductor was acting in everyone’s best interest when he made that decision. He came back later, thanked me for making the offer, and said, “You don’t want room A. It’s small and undesirable, and it wouldn’t be fair to you to switch.” In retrospect, it seems to me that he should have been thinking more about the woman with MS than about me or what was “fair.” Not to mention the fact that there were two people who were going to be in that room, one of whom was disabled and would not be able to leave the room for any reason until she arrived in Sacramento two days later. It took the woman thirty minutes to crawl to her room. I think this will haunt me forever.

***

After I got over that trauma, I was eager to get down to the Zephyr’s observation car and possibly speak, with actual functioning vocal cords, to a fellow passenger. And much to my surprise and amusement, who should be in the car, down in his customary seat at the end, wearing his customary camouflage hat, but the Chico guy from 2014! Harvey! He was loudly bloviating as usual, and I took my seat at the other end of the car. But no one sat near me, so I was alone with my thoughts.

Younger man with Harvey — Harvey in 2014

***

I was also eager for dinner, and I decided to bravely sample the tortellini. I have to say, they were al dente and pretty good! They were strangely topped with those bland overcooked veggies, but I still enjoyed the meal.

My dinner companions were Les, a bald man whose accent I immediately picked out as Philadelphian, and Barbara, a reed-thin woman with pigtails, an abundance of wrinkles, and red rheumy eyes. Les is heading out to visit his daughter in L.A., but he’s going to get off in Emeryville and kick around San Francisco for a week first. He used to work for the railroad, first as an accountant but then as a computer guy in the 1950s, using keypunch cards. He never went to college but worked his way up to a fairly high supervisorial position. Barbara is from Virginia and goes out to visit her son – a biogeneticist – in Mill Valley every year. For some reason she spoke in barely above a whisper, so it was hard to hear her. She did say that the previous night she had dined with a “crazy” woman who assumed that all food on the train was all-you-can-eat and free for everyone!

October 19, 2016 (California Zephyr, westbound to Emeryville, day 3)

Paul, our nice attendant – who, by the way, is also a PGA professional – came by as we were pulling into Union Station in Denver to tell us that the dining car was open, so I flew down there to beat the Denver rush. I had scrambled eggs, bacon, grits, a biscuit, and coffee – all good. Clara and Jack, two 80-year-olds who had lived in Reno for 40 years, were seated across from me. Both of them were in terrific shape. I’m beginning to think that 80 is the new 50! At first I was slightly put off by him, because he seemed to be constantly correcting me or “teaching” me something, albeit in an extremely pleasant way, which was unnerving. Well, it turned out that he was an emeritus professor of philosophy, so I suppose his lifelong propensity to teach was exerting itself. I found myself not only nodding but subtly indicating to him that I already knew what he was trying to impart by answering “right,” or “yes, indeed,” or “I’ve been there.” Because he was born and raised in Chicago, I thought it might interest him to hear my one-minute condensed story about Myra Stratton, the Chicago nun with Alzheimer’s whom I’d befriended and whose life I had researched (https://mondaymorningrail.com/2016/10/02/finding-myra/), but although he smiled a lot he didn’t seem particularly interested. Clara was the one who asked me questions. She was a law librarian for a national judicial education center, so she knew about the Center for Judicial Education and Research (part of the Judicial Council of California, where I used to work). She had librarian hair – neck length, bangs, a straight and simple cut – and no wrinkles whatsoever! Jack interjected that there is no judicial education for trial judges “anywhere,” but I pointed out that, at least in California, there certainly are minimum judicial educational standards. I don’t know where he gets his information. Oh, and apparently he teaches a class in “reasoning” to judges. Whatever! Anyway, they visit their son in San Francisco frequently and of course Jack had to tell me all about the Bernal Heights neighborhood as if I had no clue about it. But he really was a sweet man. He had trained at one point to be a pastor, so he had that serene manner about him.

rockies_grand-county-co_colorado-river-5 — Colorado River

***

The train is really an introvert’s dream. At times – sometimes for hours while going through the Rockies – there is no online connectivity at all (no wi-fi on the long-distance trains). WHAT??! How on earth do people survive? Well, they read, listen to music (perhaps on their so-last-millennium iPod), watch the scenery, think. Or write. When I got back to the sleeper, I continued reading The Girl on the Train – which, by the way, I think is highly overrated. I figured the whole thing out from almost the very beginning, and normally I am completely flummoxed, confused, and in the dark about everything.

At one point over the Rockies, Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero” and then the Mills Brothers’ “The Glow Worm” played on the iPod. The train rushed through a long pitch-black tunnel and I danced crazily to both of them. No one could see me. For those of you who don’t know “Glow Worm,” it’s a song that just makes you happy.

***

At around 11:30 I headed for the observation car. The more scenic side was completely full, with Harvey down at the end as usual. And, just as in 2014, he was talking about his guns. Mainly about calibers. At first he had a young woman caught captive, and he was telling her that he’d taught his nephews how to assess wind direction before peeing outside. He also mentioned that he’d tried to get his daughter to pee outside as well, but she’d have none of it. (Well, duh, Harvey!) Then he roped a really old codger into his conversation, and the two of them had an amusing “discussion” during which they didn’t respond to anything each other said!

The next victim was a sweet, small man whose only interjection was that he believed in the Bible and eternal life. Harvey responded that he disagreed about the Bible but made it a point never to discuss religion or politics because it always ended in animosity. He showed a sensitive side, too, talking fondly about his college-age daughter and mentioning that he and his sister were both adopted. His ex-wife, he said, was a “mess,” a former singer who messed up her life when she was on the brink of a contract with RCA. And he himself, he admitted, had made mistakes with drugs and alcohol in the past. He said that he’d never lied to his wife, but that there were things he omitted (it was her fault, he claimed, because she didn’t ask!).

There were some Mennonite couples in there, too, as well as a group of mentally challenged adults. Definitely a diverse bunch!

***

I saw a bald eagle as we glided by. And that reminds me. There’s a new Google television ad with four hipsters on a train paying no attention to what is outside the window but instead giggling gleefully over the virtual reality headsets they’re wearing. That commercial makes me absolutely apoplectic.

***

rockies_grand-county-co-15 — Rockies, Colorado

Dinner tonight was the chicken again, but this time instead of being herb-crusted it was in a terrific chopped-tomato sauce. And I want to bathe in that chocolate lava cake with the warm caramel center. My dining mates were Joleen and Ned (a couple from Kansas) and Matt, a young, extraordinarily handsome man from Australia with reddish hair and a trim beard. He recently got out of the Australian navy and is currently driving trucks. The navy wants him back, but he’s at a crucial crossroads, not knowing how he wants to make that decision. Of course, I urged him to follow his heart and be neither swayed nor flattered by persuasion. He comes to the U.S. every year and makes it a point to take at least one train ride per visit. He said the Australian trains are six times as expensive as Amtrak, are only for rich tourists, and are decidedly not worth it. Joleen and Ned have been married for 52 years and live in Kansas, where their families have been for centuries. Ned said their family tree is really a “family shrub.” He had been in public education for 50 years, starting out working stockrooms and sweeping floors but ending up teaching, coaching, counseling, and eventually serving as a high school principal and then assistant superintendent. He claimed that he and Joleen are the only two people in Kansas not voting for Donald Trump.

rockies_garfield-county-co-5 — Rockies, Colorado

Afterwards I decided to spontaneously head down to the café car and ask for a hot toddy. After all, my friends had been recommending it to me during my bout with this awful cold, and even though the cold is all but gone, my voice is hoarse and catchy, and I still have a slight cough. The guy gave me a cup of hot water, a container of honey, and a mini-bottle of Jack Daniels. I plopped down at a table in the observation car and the man across from me looked over and said, “Ah, you have the makings of a hot toddy.” So I ended up talking with him and his wife a while. They were headed west to go to an annual reunion of soldiers who had shared a tent in the Vietnam War in 1965. These four guys and their wives had been getting together every year for decades.

October 20, 2016 (California Zephyr, westbound to Emeryville, day 4)

Around 4 p.m. today (and so far, miracle of miracles, the train is exactly on time!), I will disembark in Emeryville, be put on an Amtrak bus to the Temporary Transbay Terminal in San Francisco, and then need to get a cab home. Stressful!

[Note: I ended up doing just fine getting home. But I have a confession to make. There was only one cab waiting at the bus station when we got there, and I literally ran past Joleen and Ned to get to it. I needed to get to the west side of town through rush-hour traffic, and it was going to be a long trip for my weary bones. I can’t be nice all the time, can I?]

sierras_kingvale — Kingvale (Sierra Nevadas)

As we pulled into Reno, the dining car announced “last call” for breakfast, so I zipped down there. The oatmeal with raisins and honey sounded like a good plan, but they were out. So I had my standby of scrambled eggs, grits, a biscuit, and coffee. Across from me was a young couple from Idaho who had just finished moving themselves (in four 1,000-mile trips!) to southern Utah to be near his 77-year-old mother. He had long-ish hair and looked almost exactly like John Tesh (remember him?), and she looked a little like the Piper character from “Orange Is the New Black,” except worn around the edges. To me she looked a lot older than he did, but I’m not great with ages. They were taking three trains to go visit a friend in Spokane, then were riding a motorcycle down to San Francisco, and then were heading on to Atwater in southern California, where they would be visiting her daughter and new grandchild. Mother and daughter had been estranged and had not spoken in four years but had had some sort of breakthrough. He was a truck driver and was clearly very smart. He said he’d spent two years in a Holiday Inn Express in Nevada, walking across the street each morning to work, trucking fuel somewhere (he was a “fuel specialist”), returning to the motel at the end of the day and falling asleep, only to do it all again the next day, for 70(!) hours a week. It was a lonely job and he got to know the hotel workers better than any family member or friend. He was kind of mesmerizing – a fluid, brilliant storyteller. Next to me was a 30-something, short-haired, tough and stocky blond woman who’d grown up in New Jersey but moved to Berlin and was living there as a freelance translator of architectural and museum materials. All of us tentatively ventured into the realm of EU, German, and American politics. We lingered a long time. It finally eked out that all of them were against Trump but rarely discussed issues with friends or families because of the potentially damaging rifts that could result. The German woman made a couple of inflammatory and denigrating remarks about Americans but I held my tongue even though my blood pressure spiked and I almost threw a clot. Sometimes it’s best to just listen. It’s interesting to hear what Europeans think of us anyway.

***

I’ve been spending my final hours listening to music. The most recent songs have been:

Desperadoes Waiting for a Train (The Highwaymen)
Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down (Kris Kristofferson)
Samba Pa Ti (Santana)
Friday I’m in Love (The Cure)
Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash)
The Waiting (Tom Petty)
Riding on a Railroad (James Taylor)
Rise to Me (The Decemberists)
Seven-Year Ache (Roseanne Cash)

For some reason, “Seven-Year Ache” makes me cry today. It was such a dream to play music with my friends in Maryland, and it upsets me to live so far from some of the dearest people in my life. At one time they all lived in California; why did they have to move away? I vow to myself to forever stay in touch. Hang on, hang on, hang on to the people you love.

***

Many people, when I tell them about traveling by rail across the country, say that instead they would like to take “the train that goes across the Canadian Rockies.” But that is a different experience. It is an elite tourist train that touts its “luxury and comfort beyond compare” and, by the way, puts you up in a hotel at night.

This is not my aspiration. I love Amtrak. Amtrak is a passenger train; more than 30 million people a year climb on board. It doesn’t cost $5,000. It allows the average person to get from point A to point B. But it remains constantly in political danger, and I continue to urge people to ride and support the passenger rails. They are a bridge for all of us.

I don’t want to be in a hotel. The amenities might not be perfect, but being on a train is like being in a moving cottage with beautiful picture windows and the great American expanse passing in front of your eyes. I want to be falling asleep to the rhythmic rumble of the wheels and to the periodic squeaks, squeals, and groans, the random hisses, and of course the low-pitched whistle of that powerful locomotive.

We need these trains. They are honest. They are for everyone. They are longtime survivors of a simpler time. They honor the past and they honor our country. And they make me feel safe.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

Begone, Marlins Man!

The World Series begins on Tuesday, and I for one cannot wait. For those of you who don’t follow sports very closely, it will involve two of the most storied teams in baseball: the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians. The Indians last won a World Series in 1948. But Chicago’s drought beats that dubious record by decades: the Cubs have not been to the Series in 71 years and have not won it since 1908. That’s a 108-year deprivation.

For me, though, this historic Series will be slightly marred by one thing. One guy, actually. His name is “Marlins Man.” And I loathe him.

I first became aware of Marlins Man last year, when he showed up at the All-Star game in July. He was constantly on camera because he sat right behind home plate, and he was wearing an orange Miami Marlins sweatshirt and an orange visor.

Then he became a fixture during the playoffs and World Series, always sitting behind home plate, always wearing the ubiquitous Marlins outfit. (Mind you, the Marlins were not in the postseason at all.) Of course, all of the other fans were wearing the colors of the two teams involved. But not Marlins Man. He really stood out. He was a blazing beacon in orange.

It amazed and intrigued me that one guy could somehow score a ticket – right behind home plate – to every playoff and World Series game. (Well, not every playoff game, obviously, because sometimes multiple games occur simultaneously and he had to choose one.) How can that even happen? It’s not that these tickets are easy to come by. And the chances of getting a coveted seat in a particular section on camera must be very, very slim.

So I did some research on the guy.

His name is Laurence Leavy, he’s 60 years old, and he owns a big law firm in Miami. And it’s not just baseball games he attends. He’s also inhabited choice seats at the Kentucky Derby, the Super Bowl, the NBA finals, etc.

So how does Mr. Leavy score the tickets? Generally he gets them off of StubHub – a site on which season-ticket holders sell their unused tickets. He apparently has no problem getting them because, as he boasts, “people will sell them for good money.” He says the price he’s able to offer is equivalent to an entire year’s worth of seats. So we’re obviously talking YUUUUGE bucks.

I use StubHub myself. That’s where I buy my tickets to all of the Giants weekday afternoon games. I set myself a price limit of $20-$40, and I sit in the highest-level seats, in sections 312–314 because they’re near the escalator and Tony’s Slicehouse Pizza, which also happens to sell Sierra Nevada beer. Nirvana.

Marlins Man, obviously, is in a far different league. He’s unbelievably wealthy. During the 2003 World Series, he apparently bought an entire section of seats and brought 104 people to sit with him. There was nothing wrong with that, of course; the Marlins were actually in the Series that year, and I am not one to unilaterally demonize the rich. He did a generous thing, and wealth in the hands of good people can do immense good.

Why, then, does Marlins Man bother me so much? I’ve asked myself that question many times.

marlins-man-cbs-sports-2 — That stupid visor

First of all, I hate that he wears the same outfit to every game he attends. The same orange Marlins sweatshirt, no matter the weather, the event, or the location. And I hate that he wears a visor, for cryin’ out loud. Why not wear a baseball cap, as everyone else does? Visors are for accountants, bookies, blackjack dealers, high-society Napa ladies, and golfers (not that there’s anything wrong with any of those people!). To make matters worse, he often wears the visor sideways, which really gripes my keister. It just looks ridiculous.

I hate, too, that he hardly ever watches the game. He’s either blathering to the fans around him or obsessed with his cell phone. Since he has no particular allegiance to either team involved, he doesn’t feel a burning need to focus on the game. In the ninth inning of Saturday night’s Cubs victory, for example, while the Chicago fans were at once nervous and weeping with joy, he was turned with his back to the camera, taking selfies. What a jerk.

I’m not the only one who takes issue with this guy. During last year’s World Series between the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets, the Royals were royally miffed that he was there. They tried to bribe him with World Series paraphernalia if he would just jettison the *&^%$#@ orange sweatshirt. And they even offered to move him to a private suite. But he refused. After all, he’d paid $8,000 for his ticket. And he certainly was well within his rights to wear what he wanted and sit where he wanted. But still, it was almost a deliberate attempt to flaunt his power and show up the Royals fans. What a putz.

He also got into a beef with some Indians fans once, so this upcoming World Series should be interesting. After the incident (which is too unclear to recount), he actually engaged in a Twitter storm with Indians fans and somehow ended up tweeting something about the “Japs.” Lovely. What a bully.

It bothers me, too, that he feels he has to have seats directly behind home plate. In my view, those seats should go to diehard loyal fans. Instead, Marlins Man admits that he wants those seats so that he will be on camera for the entire game. If he fit in with the crowd, and didn’t make such an effort to call attention to himself, no one would notice him. But what a shameless publicity hog.

Of course, Marlin Man’s ability to get those seats also means that someone is willing to give them up. This is what really puzzles me. If I had a World Series ticket, and the Giants were playing, and I could be sitting a few feet behind Buster Posey, would I sell my ticket to this obnoxious dude from Florida? That hypothetical recently prompted a conversation between Julie and me. I asked her to imagine that she had such a ticket and that Marlins Man offered her money to give it up. How much dough would it take? I declared that for me, it would take half a million dollars. Julie said that she would sell out give up the ticket for $10,000. (I was aghast.)

marlins-man-miami-herald-2 — He’s on the phone, as usual.

Mostly, though, what bothers me about Marlins Man is that this one wealthy guy can have continuing access to the most coveted seats at the most significant sporting events in the country. There are people throughout this nation who would give their eye teeth to go to one of those games, but they can’t afford even the least expensive of regular-season games, which are now – like everything else – beyond the means of so many. The concept he represents is what most of us know to be true – that wealth equals power, and part of that power is the ability to have anything one wants and to wield control, however subtly, over the less wealthy in the process.

I’m sorry, dear readers, to have put this guy’s visage in your heads, because if you tune in to the World Series, he is going to haunt you. I guarantee that he will be at every World Series game starting Tuesday, sitting in his usual spot, and you will not be able to avoid his garish presence. I’ve been thinking about sticking a Post-It note on my TV screen over his vile head.

But keep in mind that you will be witnessing history. I cannot wait to watch these two great teams play for the greatest title in the greatest American sport. My heart lies with the Cubs, because of family and friends and that 108-year dry spell. But I will not be dismayed by a Cleveland victory if that happens. These are two honorable teams, each of them deserving.

And if your eyes should fall on Marlins Man, just avert them. This rich, orange, entitled, self-besotted, intimidating cretin of a media hog may lurk around for a little while longer. But come early November, when the contest is over, we will be rid of him. And what a relief that will be.

***

By the way, I would love to hear from my readers as to how much money they would be willing to take for a coveted ticket. Don’t limit this to the World Series. Imagine it’s a ticket to something you revere. It could be the Super Bowl, or the NBA finals, or Wimbledon. It could be front-row seats to see Streisand or Springsteen. Or a chance to ride with the Blue Angels. Just let me know how much lucre it would take for you to sell your soul!

Finding Myra

This is a tale about a woman named Myra Stratton who had no memory of her own life story. It’s about how I became her closest companion, and how I grew increasingly obsessed with figuring out exactly who she was. But she had no friends or family, and virtually all I knew about her was her name and her age. She could tell me almost nothing more. So it was all going to be up to me.

It’s a long story, so you might want to get your beverage of choice and settle in.

***

A few years ago, I realized that I needed to get back into volunteer work. I had tried it when I was younger, but I’d never found a volunteer stint that was a perfect match. My first assignment was reading books to sick children at Kaiser Hospital. That was a terrible fit. Those poor little souls had absolutely no interest in hearing me read them a story, and it made me horribly uncomfortable to barge into their rooms and inform them and their parents that I was going to be interrupting their day. All in all, I had neither the aggressiveness to start the process nor the stomach to remain dispassionate about those suffering children.

Then I worked for an organization called Little Brothers: Friends of the Elderly and visited lonely elders on their birthday. But most of them wanted me to come back regularly, and it broke my heart every time I had to tell them that I would never see them again. So that didn’t work out for me, either.

Finally I decided to volunteer for the Institute on Aging (IOA). One of their programs paired volunteers with elders who had no friends or family, and our charge was to provide them with companionship a few hours a month. This, I thought, was perfect for me. I sent in the paperwork, got my required TB test, and showed up for the orientation in March of 2009. After the orientation was over, of course I got lost trying to find my way out of the building, so no one was around when I promptly fell down the stairs. Quite a bit of time elapsed while I sat alone that night in the building’s empty lobby waiting for the searing pain to subside. Finally I dragged myself to my car, drove home, and was taken to the ER. I left the hospital on crutches, but luckily it was just an ankle injury. When I recounted this story to my sister-in-law Janet, who had been trying unsuccessfully to persuade me to post my various misadventures on Facebook, she noted that my tumbling down the stairs and injuring myself at the Institute on Aging was ironic, hysterical, and the perfect example of a Facebook gem.

***

I had indicated on my IOA application that I was open to being paired with an Alzheimer’s patient because I had lots of experience in that area. My father lived with that cruel disease for 15 years and I had developed extreme patience in responding to his repetitive questions and comments. I came to understand his fears, his paranoias, his limitations, and the ways in which he communicated.

Months passed before I finally got word that a match had been found for me. There was a woman living in a residential care facility out in the Avenues who had no known living friends or relatives. I was told only that her name was Myra Stratton; that she was 85 years old and had been born and raised in San Francisco; that she had once been a nun; that she was “friendly, polite, reflective, and confused”; and that she had Alzheimer’s.

***

I met Myra in January of 2010. She was living in a small house with other dementia patients. Generally the caregivers there were very kind, but because of language barriers Myra did not have a single soul to talk to her. She lived her life sitting in the living room staring at – but not comprehending – a blaringly-loud television. The first time I visited, the television was tuned to a sports program about baseball catcher Joe Mauer. Neither the residents nor the caregivers had any idea who he was, nor were they able to follow the narrative, nor did they care. The residents were just parked there. I sadly realized that for Myra, it was just one day in what could be many years of a completely empty existence.

But I would end up injecting a bit of human connection and brightness into that existence, and I would come to find joy myself in discovering Myra. By the end of that first visit, I could tell that she was a diamond. She had wit and intelligence and that certain kind of virtue and grace that I often ascribe to people of previous generations. I had to figure out who she was. I had to learn about her life. I had to honor her. I had to do her justice.

***

What Myra told me during that first visit was that she was born in San Francisco in 1924 (which seemed to be the correct year, according to the age I’d been given) and that her father was a famous politician. She also said she had a sister Myrtle Marie, who was four years older, and a brother Chuck who was eight years older and had been killed in World War II. She seemed to recall that she had become a nun before she finished high school, but she had no idea why she eventually left the convent. In fact, she remembered nothing beyond the age of 18. But there were bits and pieces of her childhood that always made her smile. She said that she lived near a big park (which I assumed to be Golden Gate Park) and that there was always lots of love and energy in the house, with friends and relatives coming and going, and big meals over which everyone talked passionately about politics. She adored her parents and her siblings, and she said that her childhood was a deliriously happy one.

But I would learn soon enough that the things Myra told me were often colored by the fluctuations of her declining mind. She got the emotions right, but not necessarily the details.

***

When I got home after that first visit, I sat down at my computer and started my year-long quest to decipher who this woman was. First, of course, I did a Google search for Myra Stratton. And I came up with absolutely nothing. Normally I’m a crackerjack sleuth, if I must say so myself, but the initial results were nada, zip, zilch.

I then decided to look for her brother Chuck. If he was eight years older, that would have meant he was born in 1916, putting him in his mid-thirties when he would have enlisted in the war effort. So that was definitely possible. I combed through every online World War II record I could find relating to military casualties, but again, I came up with nothing. That seemed odd to me. If a Chuck Stratton from San Francisco had been killed in the War, I think I would have found something.

***

There was so much I wanted to ask Myra. First and foremost I wanted to know what it was like to live in San Francisco in the twenties, thirties, and forties. I wanted to know about labor strikes, high society, the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, and the dealings of big-city politics back in those days. I wanted to know why she became a nun and why she left, and what she had done with the rest of her life. But other than the scattered bits she recalled about her childhood, there was just no way to unearth the rest of her buried memories.

I enjoyed our visits nevertheless – especially during that first year. She was curious and kind. She spoke with elegance. And despite her dementia, Myra had a sense of humor. She once told me that she was going to get her hair dyed so that she wouldn’t look old. She also told me that that she had come from a family of Republicans, and that she was shocked to discover that there weren’t very many Republicans around her now!

In the beginning, she also understood my own lame attempts at jokes. When she claimed that she had once seen an Alcatraz prison cell, I asked her whether it was as a visitor or as an inmate. She thought that was HIGH-larious.

And in her clearer moments, she could spin a few yarns. One of them was that she was named Myra because when she was born her father was at a baseball game. He was a huge fan, she said, and her mother kidded him about cheering at the game while she was in labor and suggested they name the baby “Rah.” Allegedly Myra’s dad looked down at the baby and said, “My Rah,” and they ended up with “Myra.” I was pretty skeptical about that one. After all, the Giants wouldn’t get to San Francisco until 1958 (although I supposed that her dad may have been a fan of the San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League).

Sometimes our visits broke my heart. Once she told me that she prayed to Jesus every day that He would give her memory back. She also suffered from anxieties influenced by her strong sense of dignity and propriety. At one point her dentures became loose and made a clattering sound when she talked, and the poor thing was profoundly ashamed. I reassured her that I couldn’t hear her teeth unless I put my ear right up to her mouth and that she needn’t be embarrassed. She said that she was relieved because it had been worrying her so much.

I tried to come up with interesting things for us to talk about on our visits. I repeated the names of her siblings each time, because I knew that soon enough they, too, would escape her memory. I also brought my San Francisco Then and Now books so that we could look at old photographs. She didn’t seem to recognize any of the old places or landmarks, but she appreciated the photos nevertheless and even commented to fellow residents about how interesting they were. Remember, these visits were Myra’s only real interactions of substance with anyone in many years.

***

One day the living room was occupied with too many loud people, and Myra and I went to her bedroom to chat. I took the opportunity to look around for any personal effects she might have, but the only thing on her nightstand was a plaque. Myra proudly insisted that I look at it. It commemorated her 22 years of service with the United States Department of Labor. Of course I went home and Googled the DOL, and I found an online reference book that listed her as the agency’s San Francisco Regional Director, 1972–1994.

***

Later that month, Myra finally remembered the name of her father. It was Charlie Stratton, she told me. So I rushed home to do more Internet sleuthing. This time – finally – something startling popped up. It was a question posted on the Ancestry.com message board in 2003: “Looking for info on Charles Stratton and his wife Rose McMonagle, my deceased grandparents. They lived in Chicago IL. Children: Myrtle Marie, Charles, and Myra. Rose died of cancer circa 1937, Grandfather died circa 1950 in Chicago, IL.”

Myrtle Marie, Charles, and Myra. Holy smokes.

Myra did not grow up in San Francisco, as everyone had told me. Myra was from Chicago.

***

When I saw her next, the first thing I asked her about was the baseball reference. “Myra, when you said your dad used to bring you to baseball games, were you talking about a place called Wrigley Field, where the Cubs played?” A huge smile crinkled her eyes. “Or maybe it was Comiskey Park, where the White Sox played?” When I mentioned the White Sox, she got a look on her face like she had just smelled a pile of rhinoceros poop.

That proved it. The famed rivalry was alive and well in her head. This lady was raised in Chicago.

***

Although I could read that Ancestry.com post, I could not get onto the actual Ancestry site unless I was a member. The annual fee was a couple of hundred dollars. It took me all of 5 seconds to decide that I needed to join. That’s how possessed I was.

After I joined, though, I spent many weeks in dismay. It turned out that no one had answered the question I’d seen posted, and when I searched for the Strattons on the full Ancestry site I could find nothing. That made no sense! Over and over again I looked for the names of Myra, her siblings, and her parents. Nothing. I practically got an ulcer over it.

***

At one point I decided to change tacks and try Googling “Sister Myra Stratton.” Usually nuns change their names, or at least eliminate their last names, but in this case I did find two interesting search results. There were a couple of brief references to a Sister Myra Stratton who was a student at the University of Nevada at Reno in 1969. “I suppose that’s possible,” I thought, “but it still doesn’t tell me much, other than that Myra was still a nun in 1969, at the age of 45 – if that was indeed her. But why would she have been a student at that age, and why Reno?”

The second link, though, was a more interesting discovery. It led me to two pieces written by a Sister Myra Stratton for a Catholic journal called Commonweal, which still exists. In May 1968, Sister Stratton authored “Sister Scabs in the Suburbs” about tense relations between unionized teachers and the school administration. Among other things, the administration instructed the teachers that they were not to allow the “Negro” students to have a mass for Dr. Martin Luther King after he was assassinated and that such a request would “cause trouble.” The article said that the author – whose sympathies clearly did not lie with the administration – was a teacher at St. Mary’s High School in Chicago. Aha! There was now no question in my mind that this was my Myra.

In 1970, Sister Myra Stratton of Reno, Nevada, wrote a letter to the editor of Commonweal, recounting the story of her trip with other nuns to Washington, D.C., for a peace march in 1968, only to be summarily turned away by the Catholic nuns and given lodging by the Presbyterian church. She wrote that she and her fellow nuns had “taken seriously the ideas presented in Pacem in Terris” but that the Washington diocese seemed to be a place “where obedience to Humanae Vitae seemed to allow for no such discussion.” I have absolutely no idea what that means. But it’s quite clear from both pieces that Sister Myra Stratton was a brilliant writer.

***

After many weeks of frustration with my fruitless searches for the Stratton family on Ancestry.com, I had a breakthrough. I had been looking at some of the Bocciardi and Steger records related to my family, and I’d noticed spelling mistakes galore. The 1930 census, for example, indicates that my father’s last name was “Boccirdi,” and even more ridiculously, my grandmother Ambrogia’s name is listed as the decidedly un-Italian “Amblonia.” It occurred to me then that the census takers in the 1920s and 1930s walked from door to door and recorded their notes in longhand, and whether immediately or through subsequent translation, spelling errors were rampant. So it popped into my head that maybe even the simple name “Stratton” could have been misspelled.

So I tried “Stratten.”

Eureka.

I found her.

***

Myra Stratton (“Stratten”!) was born in Chicago on May 30, 1924. Her siblings were indeed Chuck and Myrtle Marie. Chuck did not pass away until 1981 and was thus not killed in the War. Her father, Charlie, was not a famous politician but an iron welder. Her mother, Rose McMonagle, was from Holy Hill, Wisconsin, and had died when Myra was only 14. The family lived near Garfield Park (aha! – not Golden Gate Park) on the west side of Chicago. I began meticulously building the Stratton family tree on Ancestry.com.

As soon as I started mentioning Chicago, Garfield Park, Holy Hill, Rose McMonagle, and the other tidbits I’d gleaned, Myra opened up. She would smile and laugh and tell me about the wonderful childhood she had. She could walk to the train station and go downtown (on the Garfield Park L-Line, I later figured out, which no longer exists) and help her mother and sister, who had a dress shop there. Sometimes she and her sister would dance for money in front of some sort of audience (which puzzled me). The family would take fall vacations to the most wondrous place on earth, Holy Hill, with its farmland and fall colors. And she often mentioned visits from her favorite cousin Mary Ann, who apparently lived in New York and had a very exotic mother.

I shared all of this information, of course, with Myra’s social worker, and shortly afterwards I got an e-mail from her city-appointed conservator. He told me that he actually had addresses for two of her old friends, and also for an unknown person named Mary Ann Hogan. She was still living!

It took me just a few hours to fire off a long letter to Mrs. Hogan.

***

A couple of weeks later, I got an eight-page handwritten letter from Mary Ann Hogan in Flushing, New York. That dear woman told me as much as she knew. She was widowed, was getting on in years, and had a disabled daughter, so she hadn’t been able to see Myra in quite a few years. The last time she saw Myra was at the Broadmoor, an independent living facility for the elderly in San Francisco. But she could already tell at the time that Myra’s memory was fading. And shortly afterwards Myra stopped answering Mary Ann’s notes and did not answer phone calls, so all contact was lost.

Mary Ann finally cleared up the mystery about the political affiliation – and in a big way. Myra’s great-uncle William J. Stratton was the Illinois Secretary of State from 1929 to 1933, and her cousin William G. Stratton was the Governor of Illinois from 1953 to 1961. According to geneaologytrails.com, Governor Stratton (a Republican) not only “built the economic backbone of the State of Illinois” but “spoke out against racial discrimination, attempted to create a fair-employment commission, and named the first woman and first African-American to a gubernatorial cabinet.” To this day I wonder what Myra’s politics (if any) were. It became clear that her family was well known in Republican circles, but Myra may have leaned Democratic, considering her labor and civil right causes. Then again, the two major political parties were much different then. [Ed.’s note: That is the Understatement of the Year.] Interestingly, I would learn later that Myra played a small part in the eventual trial of Governor Stratton – a trial in which he was quite likely railroaded by a powerful political machine, and during which she came eloquently to his defense. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

myra-stratton-flower-girl-1934_edited-custom — Myra Stratton at far left

***

Mary Ann told me that, as a nun, Myra had gone to New York for a few years to teach part-time at a Catholic school on Long Island while going to college part-time and earning her degree at St. John’s University in 1959. She later got a master’s degree in English from Creighton University in Omaha and finished her coursework for a Ph.D. at the University of Nevada at Reno but never completed her dissertation. While she was there, according to Mary Ann, Myra contributed 10 percent of her income to her order (the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary, centered in Dubuque, Iowa) but was so poor that she sometimes hung out in casinos, scouted out slot machines that weren’t paying off, waited for the gamblers to leave, and then tried playing the machines in hopes of a payout. And although Myra was happy to contribute to the convent back home, she was deeply, deeply disappointed that the order completely abandoned her emotionally and spiritually. “She felt alienated,” said Mary Ann, “and decided to leave.”

According to Mary Ann, Myra went to New York after she made the agonizing decision to leave the order. She joined the U.S. Department of Labor there, transferred in time to Washington, D.C., and eventually went to San Francisco when a position as regional director opened up. So that’s how she got to the City.

I looked up some Department of Labor records and discovered that Myra was the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance in San Francisco, where it appears that her last role involved helping women find work in nontraditional jobs formerly dominated by men. She retired from public service in 1994, at the age of 70, after 22 years of service. Hence the plaque in her room.

***

By the way, around this time I learned another vital piece of information. Although she would eventually use her given name, the name Myra initially chose when she became a nun was not Sister Myra Stratton. It was Sister Mary Charlesita.

Eureka again!

***

Now I needed to start searching for “Sister Mary Charlesita,” just in case there was anything there. Sure enough, there were two tidbits.

A journalist named Kathy Farren, a past-president of the Illinois Press Association (IPA), recounted that in high school she’d opted out of classes with a dour 80-year-old nun and decided instead to take journalism and literature “with the smiling, 30-year-old Sister Charlesita.” Ms. Farren’s career began then and there.

sr-mary-charlesita-016_edited-custom — Sister Mary Charlesita (Myra), 1964-65, Dubuque, Iowa

It was from the second tidbit that I first found out about the tax evasion trial of William Stratton. (He was completely exonerated, by the way.) I also learned of the existence of a book called A Political Passage: The Career of Stratton of Illinois. Of course, I promptly ordered myself a copy. What is notable is that during the trial, Senator Everett Dirkson read aloud a letter he received from “a humble little nun – Sister Mary Charlesita, BVM, a teacher in the Regina convent in Dubuque, Iowa who wrote that her prayers were with the former governor in this case.” She wrote that “there are few whose lives could be scrutinized as was yours in this endless presentation of minutiae without revealing weakness or vice.” How beautiful a line is that? According to Chicago writer and broadcaster Thomas F. Roeser, “After that, there was such quiet in the courtroom that the ticking of the clock could be heard.”

***

I started writing furiously to anyone I could find who knew her. I wrote to Kathy Farren, I wrote to Thomas Roeser, I wrote to the two long-lost friends that the conservator had told me about, and I wrote to the convent. And I heard back from almost all of them. A couple of her sister nuns (now long retired) recalled her fondly and remained impressed by her intellect and progressive ideology. One remembered that Myra encouraged her to include Film Study in the Communications curriculum in the 60s, at a time when high school students were typically not yet being exposed to the cinema as art. And her students absolutely adored her, believing her to be the most impressive, brilliant, forward-thinking, beautiful, loving teacher they had ever known. A journalism student of hers recalled that after St. Mary’s had abandoned the school newspaper for some years, the students wanted to resurrect it and Sister Charlesita was a “vital advocate in that regard. Working with her and learning from her was a joy. I remember her as a kind and patient teacher; a true educator. Our class of ’67 had more than its share of strong personalities and Sr. Charlesita embraced all of us.” Kathy Farren mentioned that Myra’s nickname as a teacher was “Chuckles.” I could see that. Even in her eighties, with dementia, she was still smiling and chuckling.

The best return on my investment, though, was an actual telephone call. One of Myra’s students, Susan Endre, was so excited to get word that Myra was still alive that she found my phone number and wanted to talk. She had been looking for Myra – well, Sister Charlesita – for THIRTY-FIVE years and wanted to thank her for her support and influence all those years ago. She told me that Myra was “gracious, sophisticated, kind, and beautiful.” I told her about Myra’s dementia, and we both cried.

***

After making all these connections, I decided to build a website in tribute to Myra. I did it for two reasons: 1) I didn’t want her to be forgotten, and 2) I wanted to put her name out there so that anyone else looking for her could find her. So I published a simple site (after all, I didn’t have that much information about her), and Susan sent me a photo of a young Sister Charlesita that I could use. I asked someone at the residential facility to snap a photo of Myra and me, and I posted that as well. Done. (http://sistermarycharlesita.weebly.com/)

***

During a visit with Myra one day, I went looking for a Kleenex for her and noticed a manila envelope in her nightstand, full of photos. I hadn’t known that Myra had any personal effects whatsoever except for her Department of Labor retirement plaque. So I took the envelope home, scanned the photos (some of which are now on her website), and returned them the next week. Shortly after that, the envelope disappeared. Myra had just gotten a new roommate, and it looked as if the new person’s family had commandeered the nightstand. They probably cavalierly threw out those photos. I was absolutely apoplectic. I mentioned it to the staff, and they did a cursory search, but nothing ever came of it. Nobody really seemed to care.

***

I can honestly say that my determined search for Myra’s identity was self-serving in many ways. I felt like the detective I had always wanted to be. But ultimately my discoveries helped Myra as well – to a degree more profound than I could ever have imagined. Now I was able to buy her a book called Chicago Then and Now, which was filled with photographs of places and landmarks in Chicago. It turned out that Myra was able to recognize, however faintly, a few of those places, including churches, libraries, and of course the famous Marshall Fields department store. I also made sure to repeat names of her family members, which now included cousins and other extended family and produced surprise and smiles. Most importantly, I continued to delight her with all of the wonderful comments that were pouring in from her students. Remember that this woman had no tangible connection with her own past. Day after day she sat alone in front of a television, her memory mostly shredded. But the gratitude I delivered to her from her former students put her on Cloud 9.

I clearly remember one day when she kept repeating how happy she was to hear about the lifelong influence she had had on her former students. Right about then, a caregiver entered the room. The caregivers there were very capable at conducting their business, but they also tended to be loud and brusque, and they had thick accents. So when the caregiver curtly tried to tell Myra that she needed her clothes changed immediately, she didn’t understand, and I could see by the look on her face that the usually sweet and docile Myra was not happy. I quickly assured her that I was not leaving and would wait for her on the couch, and she turned to the caregiver and said, as she was being led away, “Okay, but I hope whatever you’re going to do with me is as wonderful as what Paula was saying to me!”

***

In December of 2011, I had my first contact from someone who had Googled “Myra Stratton” and found my website. This was precisely what I had been hoping for! On the other end of the phone call that awakened me that morning was a woman named Cynthia who knew Myra in the period long after she was a nun, when she used to visit her brother Chuck out in Indiana. Cynthia was Chuck’s landlord, and of course she absolutely adored Myra and had been wondering about her for years. She told me that Myra had had a “gentleman friend” at some point. I remembered that, early on, Myra had told me that her long time spent as a nun had prevented her from being able to relate as well to men as she would have liked. That was the most lucid thing she ever said to me, actually. After talking with Cynthia I asked Myra about the gentleman friend, but of course the fog of vanished memory had already crept in, and she couldn’t remember anything about him.

***

In the spring of 2012, a woman named Patricia found the website. Pat had worked for Myra in the Bay Area when both were at the Department of Labor. “Myra was very involved in the area of equal opportunity,” Pat wrote to me. “She was the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance in San Francisco. Although her position was managerial, she did a yeoman’s job of helping all of us with inadequate resources. She would work with contractors and their representatives and put in far more hours than anyone else I have seen in her position. She taught many of us well. She lived a very cosmopolitan and full life. Her stories were enriching and thought provoking. She and I would go shopping at I Magnin in San Francisco. I marveled at her taste in clothing. She always pulled the beautiful tailored suits as we walked through the sale racks together.

“I found your web site just because Myra came to my mind and I had to see how she is. I went on the web and Googled her name and the city. After I read your web site I knew I had the right person. Thank you for doing this for her.”

chuck-perhaps-and-myra-1988_edited-custom — Myra, 1988

***

The next year, Myra began losing her ability to converse. She clearly appreciated the things I kept reminding her about her past, but she wasn’t able to really respond other than to repeat the things that were meaningful to her (like her siblings’ names) and to smile. The caregivers told me that although she had recently forgotten my name, she continued to ask where her “friend” was. So I hoped that somewhere deep in her brain, I was still having an impact. I printed out a map once of the area near Garfield Park where she used to live, and I pointed out her old neighborhood to her. “You are very good,” she said.

Every so often, her impish sense of humor would still come through. I remember that once she made a point of showing me that after she blew her nose, she wadded up the Kleenex and rifled it under the bed with a pitching arm like a shotgun. She said she liked to throw it back “as far as possible” and demonstrated this technique a couple of times for me until I was snorting with laughter.

As the months went on, I reveled in the brief moments of peace and lucidity that came over Myra. Once, after I told her that she now lived in San Francisco, for the first time ever she started singing! Of course, it was “San Francisco, Open Your Golden Gate,” and I sang along with her. So I brought in some CDs of 30s and 40s music. Unfortunately, whether it was because of her fading hearing or her lack of focus, the music didn’t resonate with her. But “San Francisco” always did, as long as I was singing it.

***

Later that year, I began to be contacted by long-lost relatives. A second cousin, and then her nephew Roy, found the Stratton family tree that I had created on Ancestry.com. Both sent me photos, some of which I posted on the website. Roy wrote, “Dear Paula, you have no idea how you have enriched our lives just by letting us learn that Myra is still alive. Since we lost contact with her we have felt that she must have died all alone not knowing that there were still those of us who loved her dearly. As for the dancing in Chicago for money, she is right on the money. She and my mother used to go into town and dance with the servicemen for a dime a dance at a USO dance pavilion.” He went on to tell me that Myra started having health problems after she had taken a fall stepping off a streetcar, and that “[a]t one point a few years ago I had the SF police go by her old apartment only to learn that she had moved to a nursing home two years prior but it was unknown as to which home she went.”

A Bay Area cousin named Cathy found the website, sent photos, and helped me identify some of the people in the pictures I had scanned. She mentioned that Myra had become a member, and later president, of a chapter the San Francisco Lions Club. Like some of the other relatives, she talked about how Myra just seemed to fade away and disappear at some point. “We tried to call and write to her. But she no longer returned calls or answered her phone, and the letters came back ‘undeliverable.’ In June 2005 I attended a three-day seminar in San Francisco and I walked up to her last known apartment on Jones Street. Her name was still on the buzzer/mailbox but someone else had just moved in. I spoke to the manager who said that Myra had been moved out just the week before. He wasn’t very clear about where she had moved. He just said it was somewhere in San Francisco. He probably couldn’t give her new address to anyone. He did tell me that she hadn’t been paying her bills or rent so I assumed that perhaps she had some dementia. Since she had a Federal Pension I assumed that she had resources to pay her bills. We hoped that whoever was taking care of her would somehow figure out that she had relatives in the area and try to contact us.” Well, that didn’t happen.

Another cousin remembered Myra’s brother Chuck and said that he had lost an eye in World War II. So that finally cleared up the mystery of Myra’s belief that he had been damaged in the war. “I remember her transformation to a strong unionist and outspoken critic of the Cardinal,” the cousin said. “Myra was teaching in the late 1960s. That was a very turbulent time, not only in American history, but within the Catholic Church, as well. She became very angry with the Archbishop, John Cody, regarding his views on nuns, their emancipation, and the poor working conditions for lay teachers in the Catholic schools, which he fostered. There was a strike, and Myra became very much an activist and very vocal. I remember my mother sitting on the phone talking with Myra for at least two hours the night Myra told her she had decided to leave the convent. I was pretty surprised because I had always thought Myra was very ‘nunny’ and pretty docile. Boy, was I wrong.”

***

Around that time, my neighbor Mary Clare lent me some CDs of old religious hymns, along with a “meditative book,” as she called it, and an old Catholic missal, thinking that perhaps those things might have some meaning for Myra. It was a wonderful gesture. When presented with them, Myra didn’t recognize, as far as I could tell, any of the music or prayers, yet she declared them to be beautiful – especially the Latin pieces. (She also loved my boombox and its antenna!) The look that came over her face when I recited “The Lord’s Prayer” was beatific. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes got bright, and she gasped, “Oh, my God!” As far as I could tell, she had no grasp of the concept of God at that point, but the recitation of the prayers really moved her. When I reported this back to Mary Clare, she taught me about “being present.” She said that my frustration at not seeing many glimmers of memory from Myra and not being able to “accomplish” anything anymore with her was something that I could perhaps let go of, and that maybe instead I could just focus on getting out of fate’s way and just being present with Myra and holding her hand. Why hadn’t that occurred to me?

***

Over the next couple of years, Myra’s dementia reached a more advanced stage. She started to worry obsessively about how she wasn’t doing “the right thing.” I assured her constantly that she always did the right thing, but I knew that as soon as I left, she would fall back into bleak anxiety. And she began to get into the sometimes-paranoid “loops” that I recognized from my own father’s illness. Try as I did to deflect from the pattern, she would talk in an endless circle about the embroidery on her bedspread, or how groups of people were traipsing through her room at night, or how the [imaginary] man she was dating was angry at her. She would begin a sentence lucidly and then trail off into gibberish halfway through the thought.

In 2013, Myra started wandering, so special locks had to be installed on her door.

It was then that I began to recognize the heartbreaking irony that all the while I was finding Myra, I was also losing her.

***

On April 15, 2014, I arrived at Myra’s facility only to be told that she had tried to walk without her walker and had slipped and hurt her leg. The caregivers didn’t think she had a serious injury, but because she was so vocal about the pain, they had her taken to a hospital. I was worried. If she was that vocal about the pain, she must have broken something. I went home and notified the social worker and the conservator.

The next day, I learned that Myra had indeed broken her hip and had undergone surgery. I was about to head off on my ’cross-country train trip, but I knew there would be no visitors to see her at the hospital so I made sure to go down there. She was asleep most of the time, but when she did wake up, she was happy and almost buoyant – a sign that the pain medications were doing their job, I imagine. The surgeon’s associate came by and said that the plan was to transfer her to a skilled nursing facility after a few days, but he warned me that sometimes patients with dementia are unable take care of themselves as well as non-dementia patients and that it remained to be seen whether she would be able to return to the residential care facility. I was just glad to see that even though she was all alone, she wasn’t terrified.

Three days later she was transferred to the nursing facility. From what I heard, she was doing very well in physical therapy, was in a good mood, and was able to stand at the parallel bars.

At my request, Jeff the conservator kept me posted. On May 14 she was able to go back to the residential facility, and I was ecstatic.

On May 19, though, Jeff wrote to me that Myra wasn’t doing as well as it had sounded in previous reports. She had lost a lot of weight and wasn’t eating or drinking much.

Finally, on May 28, I got this e-mail from Jeff:

Hi Paula,

I just wanted to let you know that Myra passed away this morning at about 9:15. I can’t thank you enough for everything you did for her.

Jeff

***

It’s been a bit of an arduous task, writing this post about Myra. I wanted to do her justice, but I know so little about her. I can tell that she was a woman of dignity and virtue. I know that she felt a strong religious calling at a young age and that she spent many years teaching students who would never forget her. And I know that at some point her conscience persuaded her to veer off in a different direction and to devote the rest of her working career to public service, helping women find work in nontraditional jobs and leading her employees by example. She was energetic and progressive and generous. And I don’t know the half of it. What is certain is that all along the way, she touched the lives of countless people.

People are often asked, for fun, questions about whom they would choose as a dinner partner if they were able to name anyone, living or dead. For me, much as I would like to say Aristotle or Abraham Lincoln or Walt Whitman or Katharine Hepburn or Hank Aaron or my boyfriend Bruce Springsteen, my biggest wish would be that someday I could meet Myra as she was, with her clear and brilliant mind, her wit, and her unending sparkle. For now, though, all I can say is that I think about her nearly every day. And I marvel at this unquestionable truth: Myra Stratton – even as her mind and memory failed her – continued to bless others with her presence every minute of her life. She certainly blessed me.

mqc_ioavolunteer_sandyjack_011 — Myra with volunteer, 2011

*********************************************************************

I would like to dedicate this blog post to my friend Val (Vienot) McNease and also to her father Robert B. Vienot, whom she lost on September 19. Val may not remember this, but she was the person who initially suggested I write Myra’s story. Bob Vienot served in the Marines and fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal and Okinawa in World War II; he was married to his high school sweetheart for 69 years; and he had a full and distinguished career as a San Francisco police officer. As Val said, he “exemplified the common values of the Greatest Generation – duty, honor, courage, personal responsibility, love of family and country – and lived his life by example, with dignity and deep devotion.” Myra was a member of that same generation. Hats off to both of them.

*********************************************************************

OK, on a lighter note . . . . I will be boarding the California Zephyr train on Tuesday morning and, if all goes well, I’ll be gliding across the Sierra Nevada mountains by mid-afternoon. On the other end of the trip, I’ll be spending time with friends in Maryland before heading back home on the same route. What this all means, my friends, is that the Rail will be on hiatus for awhile. But stop your cryin,’ ’cause I’ll be back with more stories.

Panic at the pump

I’m afraid of salad bars and gas stations.

There. I’ve said it.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a “Dear Abby” column that consisted of three letters entirely about people’s fears and neuroses. One letter, in particular, broke my heart. It came from a poor soul in Montana who described being terrified of driving on interstates and said that the phobia was preventing him or her from going places and doing things. The person believed that no one else in the world had such a fear.

But I can relate. When I first learned to drive, I was afraid of merging. Once I made it onto a freeway I was fine, but the act of merging was nearly incapacitating for me. Shortly after I got my license in San Jose, I was driving with my friend Carolyn to the movies in my 1971 Toyota Corolla. Our younger sisters were in the back seat. As my sister Janine reminds me, we were on the freeway on-ramp when I freaked out and stopped cold, on the ramp, screaming that I was too terrified to merge. Carolyn had to leap out, race around, jump into the driver’s seat, and get us to the theater. There must have been some very patient drivers behind us.

I’ve conquered that fear, thankfully, but it has been replaced by a raft of others.

The common denominator of my phobias seems to be a general terror of being tasked with figuring out how to do something new. What are the rules? Will my impracticality prevent me from following the simplest of directions? Will my fear of embarrassing myself paralyze me?

About 20 years ago, there was a salad bar on 2nd Street south of Market, near my workplace. This was long before the techie migration to the City – long before the emergence of artisanal brewpubs featuring hand-massaged beef and French fries made with specialized potatoes grown only in the Kennebec region of Maine. No, the whole restaurant was just a salad bar, full of fresh and delicious items that ranged from healthy vegetables to caloric pasta salads. As much as I loved that place, though (primarily for the enormous fried-in-butter croutons), I was filled with dread every time I ventured inside. There were so many ways to mess up. In the first place, I was never sure about the etiquette. I zoomed around the salad counter at a pretty quick clip, but there were many customers who lingered over every item. They would debate for what seemed an eternity about what kind of sprout to get. And I never knew whether it was ethical to jump ahead of them and head for the pasta, so I suffered in silence. Then there were other issues. For example, the price of the food was based on the weight of the salad (which meant that my salads were always very, very expensive). But it also appeared that customers were entitled to free bread. How many slices were we allowed to take? More importantly, were we supposed to put the bread on top of the salad, which would greatly increase the weight? Or could the bread be carried separately? Similarly, were the little Saltine cracker packages free, or did we have to disclose them? And what about the soup? How did people carry that back to the office? (I ended up never getting soup; it was way too stressful to think about it.)

You get the picture.

I don’t know whether there are salad bars like that around anymore, so I no longer have to worry myself to death over that particular scenario. But one fear that will affect me until I no longer drive a car is my abject terror of gas stations.

I believe the underlying principle is the same: I’m worried that I won’t be able to figure out the “procedures.” Nowadays it seems that there is often an enormous set of complex instructions greeting you at the pump. Does the station take cash, regular credit cards, oil company credit cards, or some combination thereof? Do I have to wander inside and pay first, or can I pay right at the pump? If I have to go inside, how do I tell them which car belongs to me? Do I leave my card with them and then have to retrieve it later? And how does the pump itself work? Are there handles I have to position a certain way before the gas comes out? Do I have to hold the nozzle the whole time, or is there a little lever I can flip so the gas flows on its own? Do I have to wait for the pump to tell me to “remove credit card quickly,” and if so, do I really need to yank it out violently, or can I just remove it at whatever pace I prefer? And God forbid I need to put air in the tires. Do I have to relentlessly stuff quarters into the air machine while trying to inflate four tires? Or is the use of the air free for customers, in which case do I go inside and tell them that I just paid for a tank of gas? If so, how will they know I’m not lying? (And by the way, do other people find it really hard to stretch that air hose all the way around the car to the tires on the opposite side? I feel like I have to muster up herculean strength to do that, and then I’m always afraid the hose will snap out my hands, whip across the car, break all the windows, and tear up the paint. Plus the whole process takes forever, because I always seem to let out more air than I put in.)

My solution to this problem, my friends, is that for decades I have gone to one gas station, and one only. In the entire world. It is the Chevron station at the corner of 19th Avenue and Ortega Street in San Francisco. I have been a customer of this one and only gas station for 25 years. And I know all the procedures.

One might wonder how I have managed to get gas at only this station for most of my life; I mean, I’ve traveled by car through all 50 states except Alaska and Florida. Well, when we need fuel and we’re in another city or state, Julie gets the gas. It’s that simple. Our road trip to Kentucky? Yep, she fills up every time. Inclement weather? Julie has to be the one to brave the elements. There’s no sense in risking my having a nervous breakdown over a tank of gas.

Then one day it happened. Julie and I were driving by the 19th/Ortega station when, as she describes it, I actually gasped, screamed “No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!” and threw myself against the passenger window, my face and hands plastered against the glass, my mouth open in shock and horror. I had just seen some barricades and a sign that the station was closed for renovation. I never could have imagined such a thing. Poor Julie had to put all the gas in our car for the two years it took for my beloved Chevron station to open back up again.

I don’t know why it freaks me out so much to deal with the unknown, or with change of any sort. We learned recently, for instance, that Julie has to go on a business trip to Denver the day I arrive home from my train trip next month (if this *&^%$# chronic vertigo even allows me to go). So she can’t pick me up when I arrive in Emeryville as we had planned. When I heard that truly devastating news, I panicked and could hardly sleep that night. I mean, I can change my ticket so that an Amtrak bus brings me from Emeryville into San Francisco. “But then what?” I cried plaintively. “How will I get home? I can’t get on a Muni bus with multiple suitcases at rush hour! I’ll be all alone on the Embarcadero and have to sleep on the streets!” Julie very calmly asked whether I had perhaps heard of something called a taxi. Oh.

I’m so grateful that Julie understands my phobias and does not laugh (outwardly) at them or force me to confront my phobias if they are only negligibly inconvenient for her. She knows that I have powered through my fear of flying many times over the years because we were visiting her family. But the gas station aversion doesn’t really bother her. Thank goodness I’m not dating anymore: “Hi. Before we go out, let me show you a list of all my neuroses. I’ve typed them out on this 10-foot scroll. Plus I have toe fungus.”

I wish I could tell the poor sweet Montana interstate-phobic person that he or she is most definitely not alone. I believe that all of us have fears of some kind (except maybe Sully Sullenberger). There are the standard phobias, and then there are other terrors that we’ve developed over the years for one reason or another. And we can’t necessarily get over them very easily. As my sister says, “There’s no applying logic to an illogical fear.”

Isolated fears also don’t mean that we are weak. We can be brave in many respects and anxious in others. I had a friend ask me why I wasn’t afraid of traveling alone across the country. That has never occurred to me. Some people fear surgery or anesthesia, but I’ve never been a bit nervous about going under the knife. If you want to operate on me, have at it! But don’t ask me to summon a taxi.

I just read a funny little book by Nora Ephron called I Feel Bad About My Neck. She says, “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh. So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke.” It’s always a good practice, I believe, to own our fears, our mistakes, and our shortcomings. Talk about them.

You are not alone, my friends. I promise you.

Humbled!

Well, I can’t restrain myself any longer. So far, I’ve avoided using Monday Morning Rail to rail against anything at all. But the escalating misuse of one particular word in the English language has gotten me so worked up, so incensed, so indignant that there is no containing my rage. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and I am FURIOUS.

So what’s the offending word?

“Humbled.”

I normally don’t notice, or care about, people’s word usage. That’s the honest truth. Sometimes my friends tell me that they hesitate to write to me for fear that I might secretly cast judgment on their grammar or spelling. In reality, though, I hardly ever notice such things. You can “ain’t” me to death and I won’t even wince. And you’ve all seen my typos; my writing is riddled with them. The older I get, it seems, the less likely it is that an error will jump off the page at me. So don’t worry – I’m really not conscious of anyone’s mistakes.

(On the other hand, I do admit that I once told my father that I found myself wildly attracted to anyone who used good grammar or an uncommon word. He said that he completely understood.)

The reason that the misuse of “humbled” drives me so utterly bananas is that it really is emblematic of the societal trend that is most disturbing to me: people’s compulsive need to trumpet their own wonderfulness to the masses.

***

Okay, let’s start first with the general meaning of humility. The 10-pound Webster’s Dictionary sitting on my desk says that humility is “the quality of being without pride; voluntary self-abasement.” That seems a bit overboard to me, so I prefer the Oxford definition, which is that humility is “a modest view of one’s own importance.” Many religions of the world – Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and others – go a bit farther. They teach that humility is a virtue, and that to attain it requires a recognition that one’s individual place in the world is subordinate to a higher power and is no different from, and no loftier than, anyone else’s.

I believe that true humility is a goal we should all pursue. Now, I’m not talking about abdicating all sense of pride or worth in ourselves, because that’s just counterproductive. (In fact, I know from experience that my own personal insecurities can even be annoying to others. After our last rehearsal, my bandmate Dina said to me, “If you would just get over all of your ‘isms’ and phobias, you could actually be a good drummer!” I’m still laughing about that one.) Anyway, what I’m talking about is realizing that we are all much too besotted with our own perceived greatness when in fact, as the Firesign Theatre so deftly put it, we are all just bozos on this bus.

All right, that’s out of the way. So, now, what does “humbled” mean? In its most extreme definition, it could mean being debased or demeaned. I prefer to define it as the state that occurs when people are made to feel less significant or important than they thought they were.

For example, let’s say a braggart boasted that he was the best in the world at something, and then he entered a competition and came in last. He would be humbled.

Here’s a gentler version of that – a true story that happened to my brother and me. When we were teenagers, my father wanted to teach us what real work was like – you know, the kind of work his own father had done in the poultry business when he settled in San Leandro in the early part of the last century. So Dad arranged for Marc and me to work one weekend for a kindly, elderly family friend named Joe Gallo who had a small ranch in San Jose. Our job was to cut apricots and lay them on pallets to dry. That’s all we had to do. We were put to work under an outdoor canopy with a gaggle of older women, and we looked around at them and thought that we were “all that and a bag of chips.” We would leave these ladies in the dust, we assumed, with our apricot-cutting talents because they were so ancient and tended to yak amongst themselves the entire time. Two days later, our hands were crisscrossed with knife slices. We were hot and we were sore. Our technique – which essentially was “keep sawing keep sawing keep sawing keep sawing, ok, one apricot done” did not compare to the ladies’ technique, which essentially was “slice, done! slice, done! slice, done!” They cut roughly 20 pallets to every one that we did. On Sunday afternoon, we went up to Mr. Gallo to collect our pay, which was based on the number of ’cots we had cut. With great solemnity, he presented us with our checks: $3.75 apiece, for two days’ exhausting labor. That, my friends, was humbling.

So what is going on with the sudden, pervasive misuse of “humbled”? Well, one of the corruptions of the word involves its substitution for the words “honored” or “grateful.” If someone were to ask me, for instance, to host an awards ceremony for local heroes, I would say that I would be honored to do so. This would mean, “I am thrilled to be asked and I am full of respect for what I am being requested to do.” And I would be grateful to have been the chosen speaker.

Or if I were to win the Pulitzer Prize (which is a reasonable bet), I would say that I was honored to be among the many talented writers who have received that award and grateful to have been chosen.

However, when the great baseball slugger Jim Thome was awarded a plaque on the Philadelphia Phillies Wall of Fame last month, he said he was “humbled.” No, he wasn’t. He undoubtedly deserved a place on the wall; after all, he hit 89 home runs in his first two years with the club. So he may have been honored to be there among the other Phillies greats, but the accomplishment certainly did not humble him. This word-substitution problem seems to be really prominent among athletes who may have simply won a game or title of some sort (“I’m so humbled to have thrown the game-winning pass in this [meaningless] regular-season game!”).

But I have left the most egregious offense for last. What I really cannot abide are people who are simply out for self-aggrandizement and have begun to use “humbled” to somehow indicate that they’re heroic for touting themselves!! For example, they tweet something or post something self-serving on Facebook, then tack “humbled!” onto the end to make themselves sound virtuous!

E.g.:

“One of my clients just told me he thinks I’m terrific. Humbled!”

Of course, it’s very convenient to claim that you are humbled when what you really want to do is announce to the entire world that you’ve just been given some sort of trivial accolade – either by someone else or by your own puffed-up self!

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

Sigh.

***

I think I will jump on the bandwagon, and I encourage my readers to comment with their own “humbled!” statements.

Here are mine:

My Uncle Dave, who was a professional baker, said my molasses cookies were “quite tasty.” Humbled!

The hairdresser just told me I have a thick head of hair. Humbled!

I finally figured out what a Dutch oven is. Humbled!

Not to boast, but my boobs haven’t started to sag yet. Humbled!

My heart’s still here . . . .

I’ll never forget the night I was sound asleep in my San Francisco apartment when the phone rang and a friend of mine demanded that I leap out of bed and rush immediately to the Symphony.

I had just started work for the state Administrative Office of the Courts, at a job I thought would be temporary but, as it turned out, lasted 26 years and netted me a pension. We worked only until 4 p.m. in those early days (ah, the 80s!), and my new co-workers told me about their “tradition” of periodically heading out to the Cliff House bar after work to quaff a few on a Friday night. I happily agreed to go along, and that night they introduced me to the delightful but merciless beverage called the Long Island Iced Tea. This insidious assassin of a drink contains five different alcohols, with a little Coke thrown in for good measure. I certainly hadn’t been a teetotaler up to that point – far from it – but I had no idea what that drink was. The very first sip was absolutely delicious – it tastes, of course, like iced tea – so I downed a tall one and then ordered another, unaware that the copious amounts of hidden alcohol in that lovely amber cocktail could kill a horse. About halfway through the second one, I realized that I couldn’t feel my feet.

So I stopped drinking and left for home, probably on a bus, because I’m sure I wasn’t driving. It was only about 6:30 p.m., but of course the minute I got home I decided it was time for bed.

I was already slumbering soundly when my friend Kay called. She worked as a marketing person for the San Francisco Symphony and had two tickets for the Symphony that very same night. In about an hour. Insisting that I go with her, she wouldn’t take my protestations seriously. “Good God, Kay,” I groaned, “I’m already in bed! My contact lenses are being disinfected and I already have my retainer in! And I’m sure my hair by now is a rat’s nest. Plus I just drank the equivalent of four liters of alcohol and can’t feel my feet! Forget it.” But one of Kay’s gifts was the power of persuasion, and for some reason I acceded to her demands and dragged my sorry self wearily out of bed.

I hardly had time to get dressed, but I managed to pull on some nylons, the only dress I owned, the only shoes with heels I owned, and the only coat I owned, which was a London Fog raincoat, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I thought I should try to look elegant.

Mind you, I was not a Symphony type of gal. In addition to rock and roll, I definitely loved Big Band and the great American crooners. But to a great extent I’m a cultural philistine, and I keep my distance from the refined arts. So I had never been to the Symphony or the Opera and had intended to keep things that way. Still, I had heard a few classical pieces and thought to myself, “Well, some of that stuff can be rousing and might get my adrenaline going. How bad can this be?”

I’ll tell you how bad. What I didn’t know until the music started was that I was in for an evening of ancient chamber music, performed by a string quartet. Four people with violins on a stage. The best way I can describe the entire night is that it went like this:

Plink.

With an occasional:

Plunk.

Needless to say, it was neither rousing nor inspiring. It finally got to the point where, much to my amusement, I thought I heard the older gentleman next to me sawing logs. Then a loud snort came out of me and I realized, to my mortification, that I was the one who’d been snoring.

***

When Kay drove me home after the evening mercifully ended, I told her in no uncertain terms that she owed me BIG TIME. What I demanded in return was that she get us two tickets to see Tony Bennett when he appeared with the Symphony later that season. She thought I was joking. “Tony Bennett?? You’ve got to be kidding me. That old guy? What are you, a senior citizen?” But I would not back down. I loved the man, and she was going to take me to see him. She teased me about it for months and proclaimed my uncoolness to all of our friends, but I kept my resolve and won.

***

I had been a Tony Bennett fan for nearly my entire life. When we were kids, my mother kept a radio on top of the refrigerator, and it was on KABL night and day. Mom was first and foremost a Sinatra fan, but she certainly loved and appreciated all of the sophisticated adult (i.e., non-rock) music of the time. I absorbed all of it.

Sinatra, I thought, was an actor as much as a singer, and his style could practically conjure a feature film out of every song. Perhaps because of my age I wasn’t a fan of his woeful laments like “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” that he recorded when Ava Gardner was about to leave him. But I adored his big-band and swing tunes, Sinatra at the Sands with the Count Basie Orchestra being an album I could listen to every day.

Tony Bennett, to me, was jazzier and less mercurial. He didn’t have Sinatra’s urban rakishness, but his voice was so good that flair was unnecessary. He could do ballads and he could do swing, with equal weight. He was never breezy. His voice had a hint of Italian huskiness to it, like a little bit of peppery seasoning on a tender filet.

Sinatra famously said Tony Bennett was “the best singer in the business.” Is there a greater endorsement?

***

Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born in Queens, New York, in 1926. He studied music and painting in school but dropped out at the age of 16 because his family needed the financial help. During World War II he served on the front lines with the U.S. army infantry – an experience, by the way, that spurred him to become a lifelong pacifist. After the war, he decided to study singing and acting. Pearl Bailey discovered him in Greenwich Village, Bob Hope put him in his road show, and Columbia Records signed him in 1950. Lucky for us. Since then, he has sold more than 50 million records.

Tony’s life wasn’t without its problems. When music labels began demanding that singers record rock albums in the 1970s, he hated compromising his principles so much that he apparently would get sick before recording sessions. The rock records didn’t sell. His second marriage dissolved, his lack of business savvy brought him to near financial ruin, and he got involved with drugs. Fortunately, his son Danny helped him completely resurrect his career. He got Tony booked on “MTV Unplugged” in 1994 and exposed him to a hip, younger crowd. The Unplugged album from that show won the Grammy for Album of the Year, and Tony was hot again.

Tony Bennett is a gentle man, happy and grateful, with an artist’s sensibility and an abundance of class. He walked with Martin Luther King in the Selma-to-Montgomery marches. He’s an accomplished painter whose works hang in the Smithsonian. His paintings have been commissioned by the U.N. and he was named the official artist for the 2001 Kentucky Derby. He is tirelessly involved with a host of charities. He and his wife founded Exploring the Arts (which promotes arts education) and the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, a high school dedicated to performing arts instruction. Right now he’s in the middle of a tour that runs at least through November and includes a show next month at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

On August 3, he turned 90 years old.

***

Most people don’t know that “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” was written in 1953 by two gay World War II vets, George Cory and Douglass Cross. They lived in New York City after the war but strongly missed what George called “the warmth and openness of the people and the beauty [of San Francisco]. We never really took to New York.” They moved back to the Bay Area in the late sixties, and three years after Douglass died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 54, George took his own life. The coroner’s office reported that he was “despondent over failing health,” but I wonder about his broken heart.

After it was written, “I Left My Heart” languished until late 1961, when Tony was looking for a song to add to his repertoire while he was on tour. Not even realizing that the tune would be a hit, he sang it for the first time in December 1961 at San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, where his tour culminated. He recorded it in January 1962 and it was released as the “B” side to “Once Upon a Time.” The rest is history. It won the Grammy award for Record of the Year, and Tony won for Best Male Solo Vocal Performance, his first Grammy.

San Francisco adopted “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” as the city’s official song in 1969. In 2001 it was ranked 23rd on the “Songs of the Century” list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.

***

On Friday, August 19, San Francisco organized a huge celebration for Tony by unveiling a statue of him in front of the Fairmont Hotel. The Giants game that night was dedicated to him as well. I had decided months ago to attend both events, and I was determined to follow through with the pledge, despite the fact that I was suffering from vertigo.

(Yes, I’ve been dealing with dizziness for about three months, on and off, and am not happy about it. It’s become clear that it has something to do with my ears – so I probably don’t have a brain tumor, which is always my initial assumption – and I’m going through the process of getting medical attention. But I’ve been living in a disoriented fog of dizziness, nausea, and general ennui on and off since May. It was so bad last week that I wasn’t able to work on my blog because I just couldn’t focus. I hated not posting something, but it also made me realize that there is no way I can come up with 52 good ideas a year anyway! So now I am reconciled to the fact that Monday Morning Rail won’t be published every single week. At least my misery has resulted in a revelation.)

Anyway, that Friday morning I found myself walking up Powell from Market Street towards the Fairmont. It may not have been the best choice of routes, because in that area Powell Street is so steep that you practically need climbing gear trying to summit it. I was huffing up the street at a pretty good clip, though, silently congratulating myself for being in such decent shape after not having exercised in many weeks because of the *&^%$# vertigo, when I looked to my left and a young woman and her three-year-old child went skittering past me up the hill like a couple of mountain goats.

I could probably write a 100,000-word love letter about San Francisco, and maybe I will someday. The subject, though, is probably much too broad and much too emotional for someone like me to adequately capture. I would undoubtedly lapse into clichés or drunken sentimentality. But let me just mention that the two hours I spent in front of the Fairmont were arresting. The fog, of course, was hanging over us, somewhat lightly, but enough to keep me cool in the almost constricting crowd. There were tourists, residents, babies, parents, old folks, and people of all colors. The bells of Grace Cathedral were ringing melodiously and with grandeur. The San Francisco Chief of Protocol (I love that quaint designation) spoke, as did the mayor, and Nancy Pelosi, and Dianne Feinstein. Behind the blue birthday balloons – some of which were lurching and popping in the wind – the Fairmont’s procession of international flags lined its historic façade. I was thinking about the Fairmont and how it survived the 1906 earthquake, and how I loved the hotel’s tropically decorated Tonga Room and its thatch-covered floating stage and its exotic drinks, and how the Fairmont had been the site of our wedding reception and I had actually, truly, gasped when I first saw the view from the room. About then, a cable car stopped behind us and remained there for the ceremony, the conductor ringing its bells periodically with great spirit and joy.

View from Fairmont — The view from our reception room at the Fairmont, 2008

Three very elderly women were standing behind me, and I could tell that they were native San Franciscans – probably Italians. They spoke with a classic San Francisco accent, and yes, there definitely is such a thing among the old-timers. My cousin Jerry, who was born in San Francisco, used to speak with a combination of Boston and New York accents – an articulation cultivated specifically by the Irish and Italian Catholics who lived out in the Mission District. Sure enough, when one of the speakers joked that the world is divided into people who are Italian and people who want to be Italian, the ladies cheered. I knew it! Anyway, these women were about 4-1/2 feet tall at best, all dressed to the nines. And they had that unselfconscious way of speaking their mind and not caring who is in earshot – common to the elderly, I think. “The papers said this ceremony was going to be on the Fairmont lawn,” one of them declared loudly. “There’s no lawn at the Fairmont. What a bunch of crap!” She was right about that. When Dianne Feinstein came out to speak, one of them sucked in her breath at what she must have considered a fashion faux pas. “Oh, my,” she hissed, “can you believe she’s all in red?”

The sun finally broke through the fog, with its usual good timing. Tony Bennett walked out to much applause and his huge statue was unveiled, depicting him with his head thrown back and arms raised upwards, singing with great heart, as he always does. The real Tony choked up and told everyone, “You have been so wonderful to me. I’ll never forget this day.” I felt embarrassed to be fighting back tears myself, but I stole a glance at the young man beside me and he was sobbing!

***

That evening, Julie and I took the streetcar out to the ballpark for Tony Bennett Night. Tony didn’t sing, but he said a few words. The entire stadium sang “Happy Birthday” to him. I had a crab sandwich on sourdough.

After every Giants home victory, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” is piped over the public address system at the ballpark. While most people file out of the stadium, I always stick around to listen to the song. For those three minutes, I relish not only the victory but my great fortune to have spent a lifetime loving both Tony Bennett and San Francisco.

That night, the Giants won 8-1.

***

You know, something else sticks with me about the day. Mayor Lee made a point of saying that while the city is facing new problems that need to be resolved soon, “we also need to celebrate what is right and what is great about San Francisco.” To me, everything about that day was right and great.

Shakin’ all over

No, that isn’t me in the photo. It happens to be my niece Tara. A couple of weeks ago, Tara threw me into a fit of hysterical choking laughter when she texted this picture completely out of the blue. The photo references one of my many mortifying personal stories, and it must have stuck with her, because she spontaneously saw fit to do a reenactment. So I thought I would re-tell the story. I’ve been writing some fairly serious blogs lately and I thought I’d lighten things up this week, in keeping with my vow to periodically post little vignettes that capture the inane, embarrassing, and/or idiotic things I’ve done in the past.

(See, for example, “Broken windows and empty hallways.”)

It all started at 5:04 p.m. on October 17, 1989. Northern Californians remember that day well. The Giants were about to start the third game of their first World Series in 27 years. They had lost the first two games, but of course there was still abundant hope circulating in the heart of Paula Bocciardi. I was working in the Civic Center and was desperate, of course, to get home for the start of the game. So, like the devoted but precise employee I was, I SHOT out the door at the stroke of 5:00 p.m. as if there were a rocket strapped to my back.

My preferred mode of transportation at the time was my cherished “hog.” It was a red-and-white Honda C70 Passport motorcycle. Okay, it was only 70cc and its top speed was 44 miles an hour, but for the City it was perfect. A few people had dared to call it a “scooter” or, even worse, a “moped,” but I would quickly put those people in their place. First of all, you needed a motorcycle license to ride that bike. Second, the tires were motorcycle-sized so you had to lean into curves as you would on a real chopper. Finally, it had actual gears that you had to shift. I felt studly riding that thing, even though, to be honest, if it fell over I could pick it up with one hand.

So I hit that throttle and zoomed down Larkin Street, heading towards Geary to get home, when suddenly my bike was thrown into the next lane. And I mean thrown like kindling in a cyclone. I had just gotten a new tire, so I instantly assumed that the mechanic had done something terribly wrong. I hollered every expletive I knew into my helmet. Thankfully, I was still upright when I came to a stop. And it was then that I noticed that the ground was rolling, a burgeoning cloud of dust was filling the air, and people were streaming out onto the street. The air got thicker and browner, the traffic lights suddenly went out, and everyone was yelling. I finally figured it out. EARTHQUAKE.

It took me forever to get home, stopping at every intersection in the City because the lights were out. When I pulled up to my apartment building, one of the other tenants was standing outside. “Did you feel it?” he asked. I explained that I had been on my bike and hadn’t really understood what was happening at the moment it hit. To this day, I remember his exact response: “It’s a good thing you weren’t here in the apartment building,” he said, “because you would have lost your lunch.”

There really wasn’t much destruction in my apartment at all. My beloved 19-inch television, perched on top of a trunk, had been shaken off and onto the ground, and a few things on shelves had fallen and broken, but overall everything was okay.

My workplace was closed immediately after the quake because of structural damage, so I headed up to spend a few days with my parents in Clearlake, away from the aftershocks. All in all, then, I was fairly sheltered from experiencing the true drama of that devastating quake.

When I returned to my apartment on Friday night, I settled in to relax and watch television. Channel-surfing, I landed first upon a local news station that was running a montage of never-before-seen footage taken during the temblor from various video cameras around northern California. I started to absorb the horror of what I was seeing: the terrible shaking, the merchandise falling and shelves crashing onto the floors of local businesses, a panicked bartender racing out from behind a bar to escape shattering glass, customers screaming, a freeway collapsed.

Suddenly, I was petrified. It was three days after the event, everyone else was calming down and starting the work of healing, and I became paralyzed with fear. I concluded that there was going to be an imminent aftershock that would be stronger than the initial tremor on Tuesday, and that we were all destined to perish. It was terror delayed, but it was the kind of terror a child experiences when he knows that, the instant he closes his eyes at night, a monster will leap out of the closet.

I needed to take action to ensure my safety. That action, I concluded, was to place a motorcycle helmet on the bed next to me before I went to sleep. That would save my life.

For some reason I didn’t choose my black helmet that made me look like Darth Vader in tennis shoes. In a cool way. At the time, I had a passenger helmet that was a god-awful yellow hue, with no face guard or chin strap, and that’s the one I laid carefully next to my pillow that night.

Well, wouldn’t you know, I was slumbering peacefully when all of a sudden the most clamorous racket arose in my apartment. Wham! Clang! Bang bang bang! It was like John Henry hitting a piece of iron with his mighty hammer. Bang bang bang bang bang! My eyes flew open and the bed was shaking violently and I knew exactly what was happening.

“IT’S THE BIG ONE!!” I shrieked.

I snatched that helmet, crammed it on my head, and raced for the doorway, bracing my arms and legs against the jamb and preparing myself for the inevitable crumbling of the walls.

My doorway faced into the living room, and when I could finally focus, I noticed that my big heavy flower pot, suspended from the ceiling by a long macramé hanger, wasn’t moving. Not swaying a bit. In fact, nothing was moving. Nothing at all.

Hmm.

It seems that, since the power had gone out three days before, the automatic timers that worked the building heating system had been out of whack. The heat was now coming on in the middle of the night. And every apartment had the old-fashioned metal baseboard steam heaters that sound like hammers when water first starts to flow through them. So it was the radiators that were clanking.

And it was my pounding heart that had set the bed moving.

There I was, then, adorned in that yellow beehive of a helmet, pressed in fear against the doorway. I was facing out towards the street, and when I looked out my huge living room window, I saw two passers-by staring up at me.

Did I mention that I was naked?

You’re a good man, Leon Emmons

Leon Emmons is going to kill me. If my body is found tomorrow morning at the bottom of a nearby river, please give his name to the police. You see, today is Leon’s birthday, and he has no idea that I am writing about him. He’s going to be mighty mad and I’m going to be in trouble.

***

Leon Emmons lives in Des Moines, Iowa. He and I have been friends for 14 years, but we met each other for the first time only two years ago.

The catalyst for our very unlikely friendship was the Thunderbird that I bought in the fall of 2001 and drove down Route 66 with Julie. It took Ford two years to produce the car after it was introduced in concept form at auto shows in 1999, and many of us around the country managed the wait by joining what were then called online “newsgroups.” Leon and I were both members of the Thunderbird newsgroup, but I didn’t know him at all. After my Route 66 journey, though, I submitted a long piece about the trip to the Vintage Thunderbird Club International for inclusion in its quarterly magazine. There was no money involved. All I requested was that I be sent a couple of copies of the magazine when my article was published. Unfortunately, the organization’s president fell out with his colleagues and refused to ever send the copies. I happened to mention this in a newsgroup post one day, and that’s when I became acquainted with the generous, decent Iowan I am writing about today.

Leon sent me an e-mail telling me that he had a bunch of copies and would send them to me. To this day I have no idea how he acquired those copies. When I profusely thanked him, he actually said he was grateful to me for having written the Route 66 story, especially because it had an uplifting ending. He told me that a few years earlier he had been in a hospital with bacterial pneumonia, fighting for his life after being given a 5 percent chance of recovery. He said that he continued to be thankful every day, and that “we all need to slow down and reflect, and your trip was a great way of showing lots of busy people the real meaning of life.”

Of course, I have no memory of what I wrote back then, so I had to go back to those now-dusty magazines and read the ending again:

Well, I’ve worn the same socks for a week; my cholesterol has GOT to be over 300; and my uncut hair looks like Ringo-Starr-meets-Bozo-the-Clown. This is the end of the line. A bittersweet end for me, but it was certainly a joyous ending for the Dust Bowl travelers who saw the orange groves of the L.A. basin for the first time. For me, my reward was to see the orange sky over the Pacific Ocean at sunset in Santa Monica.

One thing all of us have been brutally reminded of this year is that it is all too easy to make our way blindly through the minutiae of daily life. But we live in a gorgeous country whose past and present we need to respect and cherish. All of it is out there to experience: the roads, the burger joints, the friendly motels, the abandoned buildings, the farmhouses, the autumn leaves, the canyons, the desert, the sun setting over the ocean.

Okay, that settles it: The primary thing that Leon and I have in common is that we’re both a couple of saps.

***

Buster and Leon's football — **Buster with Leon’s football**

Since that time, Leon has periodically sent me newspaper articles and packages. They’re often Iowa-related. I’ve received food items like Maytag blue cheese and a kind of Norwegian crepe-like potato bread called lefse. He’s sent articles about the Iowa Cubs minor league team and about famous gymnasts who have trained in the state. When we got Buster, he sent a little stuffed football. And if I happen to mention something I like, he remembers it. He sent me a 49er jacket. He sent me a Route 66 book. When I mentioned that I watched “Mad Men,” he mailed me a DVD box set of season one, signed (and personalized) by January Jones because of course he knows her. Similarly, when I noted that I watched “Nashville” regularly, he sent me a personalized, signed photograph from one of the cast members because he somehow knows her, too.

For the past 28 years, Leon and a bunch of his buddies have rented a ski lodge for an annual get-together in the Rockies, and he mentioned once that they had brought a bottle of rye whiskey with them. When I responded that I had sampled my share of Kentucky bourbon but had never tried rye whiskey, of course a bottle of Templeton Rye arrived in the mail.

I’m afraid to ever tell him that I have never ridden in a fast, expensive car, because I fear that a few days later a Ferrari will show up on my doorstep!

***

Early in our friendship, after Leon started sending me things, I decided to Google him, because of course one never knows the intentions of strangers. What I found was an article in the Des Moines Register about a tragic accident in which a 13-year-old boy named Roger, riding on the back of his dad’s motorcycle, was seriously injured when they were hit by a truck. The dad died. The doctors told Roger that he was paralyzed from the neck down and would have to breathe through a tracheostomy the rest of his life. Leon somehow heard about the story and paid for the boy’s first month at the Ronald McDonald House. He also gave him a jersey signed by Vikings QB Dante Culpepper, organized a meeting with former running back Chuck Foreman, got one of the coaches to call, and promised Roger a trip to the Metrodome if he walked out of the hospital. According to the article, three months later Roger’s bones had miraculously fused, and sure enough, he walked out of that hospital.

Leon hadn’t mentioned this to me.

When I brought it up with him, he just said that we all need guardian angels.

***

Leon is a salt-of-the-earth midwesterner. He’s been married almost 40 years to Sherry, a “blond beauty,” he says, who is the absolute love of his life. (The story of their courtship and marriage actually made it onto the nationally syndicated Paul Harvey show.) They have two children and a couple of beautiful grandchildren. He’s a religious man – a man, I can attest, of tremendous faith.

The town of Emmons, Minnesota, is named after Leon’s family. Every year, Leon takes his mother to a Minnesota Vikings game. She is NINETY-SEVEN years old. When she turned 95, she asked Leon to buy her a push mower for her birthday. Man, they make ’em strong and tough in the Midwest.

I know that Leon has an attorney brother, so I should probably be doubly afraid that, if Leon doesn’t kill me when he sees this blog post, he may take me to court. I don’t know the brother’s name, so just for fun I will assume his nickname is “Lemons.” Lemons, please read this whole thing before you sue me for libel.

(By the way, just as an aside, Sherry’s maiden name was Clemens! And yes, she’s related to Samuel Clemens [Mark Twain]!)

So please forgive me, Leon Emmons, Lemons Emmons, and Sherry Clemens!

***

In 1981, Mickey Rooney starred in a made-for-TV movie called Bill, a true story about a sweet, charming, developmentally disabled man named Bill Sackter who was institutionalized at the age of seven and spent 44 years in a neglectful home, never seeing his family again, and not knowing the touch, affection, and love of other human beings. Forty-four years. Imagine that. Bill was doing menial work when he met Barry Morrow and his wife Beverly – two saints who would save his life. Barry Morrow was just out of college and starting a career then (he would dedicate his life to the disabled and go on to write the Oscar-winning screenplay of a little movie you may have seen called Rain Man), and he and Beverly befriended Bill, got him out of the institution, brought him to Iowa when Barry got a job at the university, and essentially saw to his care and development.

Bill was a funny guy; he would make everyone around him smile when he’d say things like “Be careful when you cross the street, because a car can kill you. And that isn’t good for anybody.” He played a mean harmonica. He was a loving, giving, charismatic man, and as much as Barry and his circle of acquaintances taught Bill, Bill returned the favor by helping them all see the beauty in our differences.

In 2005, a director name Lane Wyrick made a documentary about Bill’s life called A Friend Indeed. The documentary points out that the only times Bill would get sad would be when he obsessed over his wigs. Apparently, when he was living in the institution, a cruel worker had once grabbed his hair and thrown him down the stairs so violently that his hair was pulled out by the roots and never grew back. Bill was self-conscious about his baldness, and he always wore terrible-looking wigs, sprayed with a bottle’s worth of shellac-like wig spray, placed on his head in ways that could only generously be called “askew.” The documentary points out that an Iowa man in the hair restoration business saw a photograph of Bill in the newspaper and noted the god-awful condition of Bill’s wig. So the businessman volunteered his services to make a good-looking wig for Bill that would be stylish and match his beard. Bill absolutely adored his new wig and it marked a turning point of sorts in his life. His self-consciousness abated. That generous businessman was, of course, Leon Emmons.

A Friend Indeed is one of the most moving documentaries I have ever seen. At 90 minutes it’s a bit long, so it was edited into a one-hour version. It won a lot of independent film awards and was shown on various PBS stations throughout the Midwest. When I stopped weeping after I saw it, I decided to write to the public TV stations in San Francisco and Santa Rosa to ask if they would run it. The Santa Rosa station didn’t bother to respond, and the San Francisco station took a pass. I guess they figured that their viewers, with the attention spans of three-year-olds and all the empathy of speed bumps, wouldn’t care for it. It’s a real shame. That film is a wonderful reminder of the kindness of strangers.

***

Speaking of the kindness of strangers . . . . When I took my train trip in 2014, I started off on the California Zephyr, which runs from Emeryville to Chicago by way of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, and Iowa. One morning our attendant Lamar showed up at my room and delivered to me a bottle of red wine from Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, along with a card from Leon and his buddy Bob. At Leon’s behest, Bob had actually driven to the Amtrak station, met the train, flagged down a conductor, and given instructions for me to receive the bottle. What a fantastic experience it was for me to be presented with a gift while traveling alone 2,000 miles from home. These Iowans are good folks.

***

I have to say, one thing not so good about Leon is his ability to predict the outcome of sporting events. Every year I participate in a March Madness pool, and as most people know, Iowa seems to breed some pretty rabid college basketball fans. A couple of years ago, Leon told me with great confidence that certain Iowa teams were going to go all the way. Knowing nothing about college basketball, I took his word for it when I filled out my bracket. And every single team he touted failed miserably in the first round. That’s the last time I’m going to take sports advice from Leon Emmons.

***

I finally met Leon, face-to-face, in October 2014. Julie and Buster and I were driving to Kentucky and at the last minute decided to detour and avoid Missouri, which was plagued at the time by bad weather, baseball playoff traffic (did I mention that the Giants beat both the Cardinals and the Royals to become champs that year?), and unrest in Ferguson. We ended up driving through Iowa close to Des Moines, and I decided to get in touch with Leon and meet him in person once and for all. I texted him and sure enough, he dropped everything and came to our hotel lobby, bringing some edible Iowa goodies with him.

***

When my mom passed away last fall, Leon sent me a card. I was sitting in our backyard on an uncommonly warm evening, drinking a glass of wine, when I opened it. Inside the envelope was some money that Leon specifically told me to use on a Giants game, because he knew that every year we brought Mom to one or two games in the fancy Club Level (where she wouldn’t have to climb any stairs). I’m sure the wine magnified my sentiments, but I burst into tears at the thoughtfulness of Leon’s gift. So on August 19, Julie and I will be at the game in Club Level. I chose that night because it is Tony Bennett Night at the ballpark, and Mom and I shared a love for him. Tony just celebrated his 90th birthday, and that morning the Fairmont hotel will be dedicating a new statue to him. Rumor has it that he also may be at the game and may even sing for the crowd. In any case, I’ll be thinking of Leon when I am in my seat at the ballpark.

***

One of Leon’s best friends was a gay man who lived in San Francisco. I’ll call him “Aaron.” Every year, Leon would come out to California and they would go to a 49er game together. When Aaron died, Leon wrote to me in grief and said that he was glad that God had given him the opportunity to get to know the man. Aaron had been one of the ski buddies, and Leon told me that the guys were going to hold their own service in Iowa, at a synagogue up the street from his business. “What a sight that will be, a bunch of Baptist conservatives praying for the soul of someone with such a different lifestyle. When it comes to compassion, [Aaron] showed us and taught us the real meaning of love and not labeling people,” Leon wrote.

Barry Morrow said at the end of A Friend Indeed that it’s important that we value people who we might think are lesser than us. I would suggest that we also value people different from us. In this day and age when everyone judges everyone else, I hope that’s still possible. I suspect that Leon and I are different in many, many ways. But I believe him to be one of the greatest people on earth.

Leon, there is absolutely no reason for you ever to have been so kind to me. After all, I have done virtually nothing in return. So this is finally my gift to you, Leon. Happy Birthday.

I know you, rider

It won’t be long, now, before I hop on my next train heading across the country. I’ll be boarding the California Zephyr for Chicago, then the Capitol Limited into Harpers Ferry. It will be round-trip this time, and I can hardly wait.

My last ’cross-country train trip, in 2014, got off to an extremely unpredictable start, on a couple of levels. First of all, the night before I was to begin my long-planned journey in Emeryville, CA, I got a call from the Amtrak folks. When I picked up the phone, I heard only a recorded message that was both cryptic and unnerving. The message, in its brief entirety, was, “All or part of your train trip is being rerouted and you will need to take alternate transportation.” Click.

There was no hint about the nature of the problem, what the “rerouting” would entail, and how I would arrange for the “alternate transportation.” Would I need alternate transportation all the way to the East Coast??

Well, my fingers couldn’t dial the customer service number fast enough, and the scenario turned out to be perhaps one of the lesser of all possible evils. There had been a rockslide in Colorado that was preventing the Zephyr from being able to arrive in Emeryville on time, so all passengers would be bused to Reno and would catch the train there. This meant that I would be on an interstate bus for 6 hours rather than sipping a mimosa in the observation car at 9 a.m., leaning back to watch the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains out the windows of a train.

I wasn’t happy about losing nearly the entire first day of my trip to a hot bus ride with no amenities, but a phone call I received when we made a pit stop just outside of Colfax gave me an abrupt lesson in reality. One of our closest friends, while bicycling to work that morning, had been hit by a car and was in the Trauma Center at San Francisco General with severe injuries: two skull fractures, three broken ribs, two pelvic fractures, and a broken clavicle. I felt devastated about the timing and offered to come back once I hit Reno, but everyone agreed that that would be pointless. It was strange, though, that I was about to be cheerily setting off on an adventure while my friend was lying in a hospital so seriously hurt. (That story ended well, by the way. Thank goodness.)

Once I got settled onto the train in Reno, it was nearly time for dinner, and this was the part about train travel that filled me with the most trepidation. It wasn’t the cost; meals are provided “free” for sleeping car passengers. Nor was it the quality of food; I found, to my surprise, that much of the food I was served on Amtrak was passable, if not good. No, what caused my nerves to fray was the specter of dining with strangers.

I’ve mentioned before that my idea of hell is a locked room with Joni Mitchell piped in through the walls and only couscous to eat. But I neglected to mention that my experience of hell on earth is going to a gathering at which I don’t know anyone. I fear coming across as ignorant or half-baked, and I fear being the world’s biggest bore. When I was much younger, my friend Kay and I admitted to each other once that after nearly every social event, we would drive home alone and, while rehashing the evening’s events in our mind, we inevitably would just pound on the steering wheel and repeatedly scream out “I am such an —hole!” to no one in particular.

On Amtrak, you make a dinner reservation for whatever time slot you want, but when you get to the door of the dining car, you wait there to be seated. And you have no choice about your dining companion, especially if you happen to be traveling alone. It’s a scene that fills me with absolute dread.

What I discovered, though, was that sharing a meal with complete strangers turned out to be no problem at all. In fact, it was an experience that would generally open my heart and mind to people with whom I had absolutely nothing in common.

The reason is this: Seated across a table from someone on a train, you have the most utilitarian opening line in the world: “Where are you headed?” It’s a question that applies to every person on the train, and the answers are always different, always intriguing, and always conducive to follow-up questions. It’s a ready-made conversation, and you don’t have to worry about ideological arguments or about feeling uneducated. You don’t have to look alluring. You don’t have to be hilarious. You don’t have to be clever, slick, or twee. (I just wanted to throw in that last word because it always makes me giggle.)

On top of that, almost everyone on a train is happy to be there. They haven’t been irritated by long lines at the train station. There is no such thing. They don’t have to worry about being admonished to stay in their seats if they get up to use the restroom. They’re not afraid that at any moment, one errant bolt with a tiny flaw is going to pop off the train and send them plunging 30,000 feet to their deaths. (Okay, that’s me on a plane.)

Train passengers have nothing but time on their hands.

On the first and only other train trip I took, back in 1984, I met a young woman named Behan who was originally from Turkey but had been living in Rhode Island for three years. She sat down across from me to smoke (yes, people, this was 30 years ago!) and we struck up an instant friendship. (It probably didn’t hurt that, as my diary entry says, she was “luck of lucks, beautiful – and I mean startlingly beautiful.”) Behan taught me the rules of backgammon, which we played incessantly when we were not in the bar car swilling whiskey. Another passenger said to us, “You two girls are having the most fun of anyone on the train!” I recall that when my contact lens cooker (again, this was 30 years ago!), with lenses inside, was removed from the bathroom for some reason, she helped me out of my (literally blind) panic and hysteria by going through the train asking every single person if they had seen the cooker until she finally located it with a porter. Oh, and Behan had this funny story about trying to drive on the icy roads of Rhode Island for the first time and just sliding from one side of the road to the other. She also told me with a straight face that it would be so windy in Chicago that I would need all of my heavy luggage just to weigh me down!

Anyhoo, getting back to 2014, that first night in Reno I was seated across from Deborah and Dan, a very nice couple from Florida. They were first-time train riders and had gone to North Dakota to see a 42-year-old female friend graduate from law school. I don’t know what kind of work Dan did, but Deborah was an independent contractor who set up new Ace Hardware stores all over the country. Neither of them ate pork or shellfish because they were trying to follow the Book of Leviticus.

On another occasion I dined with a young father and his 5-year-old son. He was employed by Apple (the dad, not the 5-year-old – although who knows these days?), and his particular mission was to work on battery life. I thought he meant developing a longer-lasting battery, but he explained that he was working with developers to get their apps to stop cavorting in the background and draining so much battery life out of iPhones.

An 84-year-old broad from Chicago – a seasoned gambler – told me that she doesn’t wager at home but takes a “vacation” once a month to play the slots at gambling meccas like New Orleans and Reno. She conceded that it’s an inevitably losing proposition, but she chalked the losses up to “entertainment.” And she’d been taking the train ever since 9/11 robbed her of her desire to fly. She was a spry thing, with a lined face but clear and youthful blue eyes, and long gray hair tied back behind her neck. She spoke wistfully of the passing of the “fellow [she] lived with,” so there had been a man (but no husband, apparently) in her life. Before her “vacation” in Reno she had been out in San Francisco visiting her 37-year-old grandson, who, she said, was serially unemployed. He was formerly a “portrait artist” but then became a rabid adherent of his own interpretation of the Bible and decided that portraits are an abomination.

The only people who weren’t really friendly were a surly Frenchman and his wife (or perhaps she was a mistress – let’s make the story interesting!), but I will choose to presume that they couldn’t speak English. They never even looked in my direction. So I chatted the entire meal with my seat partner, a gentle, cherubic-faced man from Minnesota who said “Oh, my” all the time when registering interest, approval, or wonder. He had traveled across the north, taking the Empire Builder into Portland and then the Coast Starlight south to see his sister, who was performing in the Modesto symphonic choir. Who knew Modesto had such a thing? He was making his way home via the California Zephyr, just to shake things up.

Not all of the passengers take their meals in the dining car. To save money, they might buy things like burgers and sandwiches from the café car downstairs. Or they might bring their own food. In another blog I mentioned Pearl and her son Benny. Pearl bought her own snacks from home – things like peanut butter crackers and the like – and I noticed that she also would take a nip in the evening from a suspicious-looking bottle she carried in her oversized straw purse.

I met lots of these people in the observation car. Harvey, a guy from the outerlands of Chico, loudly held court, not necessarily to anyone’s delight. I found him to be a curious diversion. He was one of those guys who live off the grid. A handyman by trade, he had really grimy hands and a dirty bandage on his finger, just like Neal Cassady. He said that he liked to live in a place where he could shoot his handgun. Harvey was heading to Harpers Ferry to help shore up his son, who had fallen on hard times, and then to take his daughter on a six-week train trip. He seemed to have a big heart, despite his off-putting persona. He insisted on declaring how much he loved “Modern Family” – “even the gay guys.” He even sort of took a young man, who was traveling alone, under his wing.

A woman named Cheryl – who, along with her husband, used to work for the National Park Service and knew what she was talking about – often took it upon herself to correct the Amtrak employee who was giving us an intermittent audio tour over the loudspeaker. One day as we glided along the Colorado River, Cheryl told us that frequently the rafters and kayakers out there will moon the trains. I made what I considered to be a lame joke about how they should call it Moon River and got a surprisingly big laugh. Someone mentioned Andy Williams and I informed the entire car about Jerry Butler’s much more beautiful version of that song. As much as I love Andy Williams’ velvet voice, Jerry Butler will make you WEEP. He will break your heart.

Then there was the very old old-timer with a passion for the rails, who lived in Grand Junction but had taken the Zephyr to Sacramento, only to turn around and head immediately back.

One evening as I stood in the door of the dining car, waiting to be seated, I saw that there was a table of three with an empty seat. It looked like two teenagers with dreadlocks were at the table, along with a man who could be their father. “Oh, God, please don’t seat me with dreadlocked teenagers,” I silently prayed. “Don’t put me with the teenagers! They will think I’m uncool. They’ll have nothing to say to me! They’ll be reciting rap lyrics!” See what I mean about our biases? Well, sure enough, I got seated with the Dreadlock Family. And oops, it turned out that one of the alleged dreadlocked teenagers was actually the mom, and she was probably in her forties! The teenager was totally silent and sullen; so, what else is new? But the parents and I got on famously. The mom, a special ed teacher, was a big sports fan and had season tickets to the A’s although her heart was with the Giants. The dad worked for a company that laid natural gas pipes and patiently explained to me why modern plastic pipes are so much better than steel pipes, especially in earthquake-prone areas because of plastic’s flexibility. We actually yakked for so long that we got in trouble and were kicked out by the conductor because other people were waiting for our table. So much for me and my dreadlock phobia.

As I got up from the table to head back to my sleeper for the evening, I thought I heard a young man singing up in the coach section. His voice was so full of pathos and lament that I turned around and headed in his direction, unable to help myself. It turns out that he was a cowboy, complete with Stetson and work shirt. I heard later that he was headed to Colorado. But at the moment all I heard was the guitar he was strumming and the old blues/folk song he was singing:

“I wish I was a headlight, on a northbound train;
I wish I was a headlight, on a northbound train;
I’d shine my light through the cool Colorado rain.

I know you, rider, gonna miss me when I’m gone . . .”

***

Ok, folks, get out your handkerchiefs ’cause I will be on hiatus for a few weeks. I seem to be coming down with Vacationitis, along with Mangiapasta Syndrome and probably some kind of blight or canker. Talk to you down the line!

Cheeseburgers in Paradise

If I’m ever convicted of capital crimes, and then I am sentenced to death,
I know what I’ll want for my very last meal, just hours before my last breath.

Don’t give me a pile of hummus, not caviar nor any peas.
Don’t make it gourmet or artisanal; just give me a cheeseburger, please!

You can skip buying brie or manchego; a big slab of cheddar’s delicious.
Whatever you do, don’t add a fried egg – by God, that is just sacrilegious!

The bun can be laden with gluten, the beef need not come from Japan.
You can grill it or broil it on a flame or a stove, in a cast iron skillet or pan.

Its invention is claimed by multiple folks. Some say it was born in the west;
Some say Kentucky and others say Denver and everyone thinks they know best.

Well, whoever decided to slap on that cheese and throw that ground beef on the grill
Should have gotten a medal and a Hollywood star and a monument up on a hill.

The cheeseburger’s part of a glorious feast of distinctly American things.
I hope we remember, this Fourth of July, the blessings our citizenship brings.

I suggest as we gobble our hot dogs and pie, and drink a Sam Adams (or two),
That we put down our phones and reflect on the things that this country allows us to do.

If you shut your eyes tightly and listen quite close, you’ll hear the American song:
A racecar’s roar on a Darlington track, a freightcar chugging along.

A carousel ride on the midway, the crack of a bat on a field,
Guitars being tuned on a boardwalk stage, a church’s bell being pealed.

A tenorman wailing at midnight, the whoosh of an eagle in flight,
The choice of a dozen talk-radio shows to make us less lonely at night.

A cowboy boot on a barroom floor and a trucker unpacking his load.
Sinatra’s voice and a shot of booze and another one just for the road.

Now open your eyes and take a good look at the landscape we’re privileged to share.
Strap on a backpack and camp ’neath Sequoias and drink in the stars way out there.

Pack up a Winnebago, my friends, pay the fare for an outbound train,
Cross the mountains, the desert, the long fields of corn, to the rocky coastline of Maine.

Hop on your Harley or jump in your car and seek an alternative byway
Like Route 66, or the Turquoise Trail, or the fabled and eerie Blues Highway.

Marvel at seeing Mount Rushmore, visit Nashville or old Santa Fe,
Streak boldly across the Badlands, go crabbing in Chesapeake Bay.

Or pull on your blue jeans and pick up a book, if you feel like you want to stay in.
Open a copy of Leaves of Grass, spend your evening enjoying Huck Finn.

Try watching a classic western, perhaps, directed by John Ford.
With all those swingin’ tavern doors, and all those whiskeys poured.

If you listen to different musical styles, it’ll open up your ears.
You can savor a Woody Guthrie song, or the Sons of the Pioneers.

Maybe try some hip-hop tunes, some ragtime, or some punk,
Count Basie or Cole Porter, or some great New Orleans funk.

And finally, friends, let’s not forget the ones who brought us here:
The legendary midnight ride and the cry of Paul Revere.

And the brilliant Thomas Jefferson, who penned the Declaration,
Pledged his life and “sacred honor” to the free and fledgling nation.

And never forget the people who were here when it all began.
The ones who loved this great land first: the Iroquois, Hopi, Cheyenne.

Centuries have passed since then, and changes have been clear.
Colors blend, and stories end. Things beloved disappear.

But Americans always find their way; it’s something in our past:
The balance of democracy; the balance that holds fast.

Our pluralism strengthens us, we’re bolstered by dissension;
If one group cannot see a wrong, another pays attention.

So let’s all root for the underdog, leave lights on for neighbors in need,
Lend our hearts to the wayward man, and bandage our comrades who bleed.

Test out the roads less traveled, my friends. Tamp down the cynical snark.
And honor the heroes who gave us their lives, and the artists who left us their mark.

It’s all Springsteen’s fault

The terrible shootings in Florida have taken a toll on many of us these last couple of weeks, and I haven’t been able to figure out what to do with the heartache. June 23 was Julie’s and my 8th (official) wedding anniversary and, more importantly, in a few weeks we’ll commemorate 20 years together. It should be a time of celebration, but I just can’t shake the news about Orlando (not to mention Sandy Hook, and San Bernardino, and Charleston). So I’ve decided to display my defiance by simply telling my story. And along the way, I want to explain how Bruce Springsteen made me gay.

***

I first heard the ferocious wall-of-sound chords of Springsteen’s “Born to Run” through my FM converter as I was driving to San Jose State on a scorching day in 1975. I actually pulled the car over and stopped on the side of the road, breathless. The song was a revelation. It was the anthemic answer to the insipid music dominating radio during that time. There was a lot of disco and very, very little rock and roll. That year spawned an anemic swarm of hits that represented the nadir of once-great artists. Glen Campbell sold out with “Rhinestone Cowboy.” The underrated folk-rock singer Johnny Rivers covered “Help Me, Rhonda.” Cat Stevens recorded the forgettable “Two Fine People.” Paul McCartney released – gag me – “Listen to What the Man Said.”

The songs on the Born to Run album pulverized the mold. None of them followed the standard verse-verse-chorus of pop music. They were, instead, long poetic stories about what it was like to be young in the seventies, populated with characters right off of the Jersey shore. The band was full and resonant, with guitars and piano and organ and a lyrical, echoing sax that always sounded like the mysteries of a city at midnight. The songs were about nights on the beach, wheels on the highway, the rush of the city, and the languorous days of summer, with “barefoot girls sittin’ on the hood of a Dodge, drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain.” Bruce was the poet Everyman for teenagers like me who didn’t do drugs and didn’t mess up our lives but still lived slightly recklessly because we had no responsibilities and everything was magic. It didn’t hurt, either, that Springsteen’s voice was growly, howling, and provocative. It was almost choked with desire.

I know it’s heresy to some people, but I really prefer men’s voices in rock and roll. My vision of hell is being trapped in a room where I am forced to eat nothing but couscous and listen to piped-in Joni Mitchell music.

***

It took nearly three years for me to see Springsteen in person. In late June of 1978 I went with my brother to see his concert at a half-empty San Jose Civic Auditorium. We practically frothed with anticipation. We had heard rumors, after all, that his shows were nearly four hours long, and it all proved to be true. Even in front of a fairly small audience, that man and his band spent every last ounce of their energy on that stage. The songs became epics; the youthful Bruce leaped onto his amps, onto the piano, and into the crowd; and we all were held fast by what Springsteen calls “the power, the magic, the mystery, and the ministry of rock and roll.” The show is among the very few for which there is no fully recorded bootleg and no complete setlist. I remember, though, that after the last of the drenching encores, I knew that I had just seen the greatest live American rock and roll band in history.

***

In those days, I thought I wanted to be a police officer. But when I graduated from San Jose State with my law enforcement degree, I was still too young to apply to the force. So I decided to move up to San Francisco, a city I dearly loved, and get a second degree in English. That was a fortuitous decision. I would have made a terrible police officer, for two reasons:

I am not brave; and
I can’t make a quick decision to save my life.

***

So in the fall of 1978 I moved into the SF State dorms, and on a Sunday morning in November I was reading the Chronicle’s pink section when an ad sent me rocketing out of my chair. Springsteen was coming to Winterland the next month and the tickets were going on sale at 10 a.m. that very morning. My diary actually says that the ad “shot me into the realm of ecstasy.” (I was a bit dramatic in those days.) I hurriedly picked up the phone and called BASS (the local ticket supplier) multiple times but never got through. Panic set in. Certain that tickets would be sold out within minutes, I grabbed my credit card and screeched off in my Corolla to the closest ticket outlet, which was inside Bullock’s department store in the Stonestown Shopping Center. There was a fair-sized line, and when I got to the counter, the woman casually told me that it was cash-only. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Two tickets would cost me $15. I didn’t have that kind of dough!! I had only five bucks and some change to my name. I noticed a phone hanging on the wall and I shakily dialed my roommate for help, but she said she had only two dollars. Then the phone ate all my change. What a nightmare!

It was, according to my diary, the coldest November 12 in San Francisco history. But I flew so fast getting back to my car, and then from my car to the dorm, that I was pouring sweat. I bolted down the hallway, pounding on doors and begging for money, but no one had cash to spare. Then, as I sped past the glass-enclosed study room on our floor, I glanced inside and saw a young woman I had not seen before, studying peacefully. I skidded to a halt, threw open the doors like a SWAT officer, and bellowed, “I know you don’t know me, but in the name of God, do you have $10 I can borrow?” She didn’t say a word. She got up quietly, said “follow me,” and led me to her room, where she slowly opened up a little wooden box that she had brought with her to school. Inside one of those “secret” compartments was her emergency savings: a $10 bill. What I didn’t know at the time was that she had grown up with very little money, was the first in her family to go to college, and was dependent on that money. I snatched the bill out of her hand, threw an “I promise to pay you back!” over my shoulder, and raced back down the hall. I ended up with two tickets. And that Winterland show is now universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have ever done.

As life goes, that encounter was my destiny. It was not the concert. It was Cynthia. It was the beautiful 19-year-old girl with the $10 bill.

***

I had dated a few men – well, boys, really – but it had never been quite right. It’s not that I didn’t find them to be attractive, but the way I explain it is that there always felt like there was a wall between us. Like a clear Plexiglas wall that I couldn’t break through. I couldn’t feel the euphoria of young love that others felt. It was being withheld from me.

When Cynthia’s dogged pursuit ultimately wore down my resistance, the wall cracked and then disappeared. We had no money, yet we lived an exuberant life in the City and drove around the country in her VW bus between jobs. I was as happy as it was possible to be while living in secret. I hid my entire life away – from family, friends, co-workers, everyone. I know it became a burden for her, and I lost her, with much heartbreak, after five years. In retrospect I see now that it was primarily because I was crouched with fright in the closet.

And it took me forever to realize what a burden it was for me, too. I mean, when she left, I spent the weekend at my parents’ house in Clearlake wearing nothing but a trenchcoat.

And no one had any idea what on earth had gotten into me.

***

Decades later, I now firmly believe that I owe it to myself, my family, my friends, and the community at large to be honest about my life. But it can be a terrifying step to take, and for some people, the consequences can be disastrous. So I understand the need for people to be revelatory at their own pace.

I had it fairly easy. When I finally told my family, they were terrific. My father, I believe, already knew. “Is there something you would like to tell me?” he had asked when I was parading around in the trenchcoat.

My mother needed more time and didn’t speak to me for a few months, but the thaw happened fairly quickly. The younger folks, like my friends and siblings, didn’t seem to give a gnat’s ass. And my sister tells me that she and a friend were riding in her car one day, speaking about me in hushed tones, when my 9-year-old niece piped up from the back seat, “Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Mom, I’ve known about Auntie Paula for years!”

But whether it was because I was old-fashioned, religious, ashamed, or just plain scared, I really wasn’t able to speak openly about myself to everyone until this millennium. I learned from watching a good friend of mine at work speak naturally and easily about his partner. He never really “came out.” But when someone would ask what he had done over the weekend, he didn’t circumnavigate the question, the way I often did. “Oh, you know Paul; he made me chauffeur him all around town,” he would say and roll his eyes. Everyone loved him and would laugh. It was as easy as that. A name and a pronoun.

***

Julie and I got married on June 23, 2008, one of the happiest days of my life. Just a few weeks earlier, Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the California Supreme Court had authored the state high court’s opinion that granted gay people the right to marry in California. I don’t think I have ever been able to adequately describe what that decision meant to me. It was more than just the sudden, exhilarating right to get married. It was, for me, a sense that I could enter the mainstream that I always wanted to enter. I was being accorded respect and dignity – not by a politician or an activist or a celebrity, but by an authority figure with solid integrity and conservative credentials.

“In light of the fundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right to marry — and their central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society — the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all individuals and couples,” the Chief Justice wrote.

My sister had come down to my workplace the day that the decision was announced. She and I and some colleagues gathered in my director’s office to await the news. When the decision was read, most of us erupted in cheers. I was tearfully weak with amazement and emotional fatigue. But I do remember that a colleague from a different group had a stricken look on her face and turned away in disgust. It hurts me to this day. It’s too bad that that’s something I’ll always remember.

But I called Julie, demanding that she leave work and meet me at the county clerk’s office, and we were the first in line to get our marriage licenses. Our picture was in the New York Times.

***

As strange as it is for me to recall now, I was hesitant to tell my mother that I was getting married, even though she loved Julie with every fiber of her being. She was a devoted Catholic, and I was afraid of putting her in an awkward position. But I finally called her, and it turns out that she was full of joy and couldn’t wait to be a part of the festivities. She later told me that she “talked” about it with God for a few days and that after those conversations, she felt that He kept asking her, “Why not, Beverly? Why not?”

***

I know that I have a handful of dear friends and family members, including some of my blog readers, who have heartfelt religious convictions preventing them from supporting gay marriage. (Oh, yes, I know who you are!) I’m deeply happy that you continue to share your friendship with me anyway. And I firmly believe that some of you, at some point, will come to ask yourselves, “Why not?”

***

I have read the entire Bible, cover to cover, word for word – including the “begats.” When I finished the last page, I was thoroughly intoxicated with the rhythm and beauty of the writing and the power of the message. The Bible never gave me doubts. It is the interpreters who have bred the doubt.

I take comfort in knowing with absolute certainty that no one could ever condemn my sweet Julie to eternal damnation. But what about me? What if I am a different story? I’m a religious person, I still say prayers every night, and to be 100 percent honest, I occasionally worry and obsess over whether I will end up rotting in hell with Joni Mitchell and all that couscous.

***

I met Julie Scearce 22 years ago – where else but on a softball field. Duh! It’s how we all meet! She was visiting from Kentucky and filling a temporary vacant spot on our team during a tournament in Tahoe. That girl could throw a baserunner out from far right field. Dreamy.

Julie denies it to this day, but she was actually repulsed by me when we first met. Lucky for me, I eventually won her over with my endless charm, and she moved out west and into my house 20 years ago. She left her family, her friends, her job, and her home to be with me. I think she knew it would kill me to leave my beloved San Francisco, so she made the sacrifice. Those who know Julie would not find that surprising. The woman never thinks about herself.

***

People say that marriage is hard work, but in my case it’s been very easy. I can remember only two major arguments between Julie and me. One happened when she didn’t like a piece of furniture that I had suggested buying, and in the middle of the Ikea aisle I loudly accused her of not loving me. (I believe some hormone issues may have come into play when I pulled that one.)

Our second major argument was on June 13, 2012. It was about baseball. I don’t want to point fingers, so let’s just say this: We were both watching the Giants on television. One of us fell asleep in the middle of the game. Matt Cain went on to pitch the first perfect game in Giants history. The awake one did not want to rouse the asleep one. The next morning, the asleep one found out what she had missed and went bananas. Absolutely bananas. I won’t say who was who, but the argument raged for days.

***

Without Julie, I would never be able to follow the plot of a movie. I just never know what is going on. Thank goodness we now have DVDs and streaming videos and I can pause every five minutes to ask Julie what the heck just happened. Why are they whispering? Is he a bad guy or a good guy? Is that Brian Dennehy or Charles Durning? Is the dark-haired guy Luke Wilson, or one of those innumerable Arquette siblings? What does “money laundering” mean? Why is that guy hiding in the shrubs? Is there a conspiracy I don’t know about? For crying out loud, what’s the connection????!!

(I think I have a hard time telling people apart. Back in the 1990s, when a lot of my friends followed Stanford women’s basketball, I went to one game and realized that I couldn’t distinguish one player from another. I just collectively called them “The Blond Ponytails.” They all looked alike. And to make matters worse, their names were all some version of “Kate”: Kate Starbird, Katy Steding . . . . Oh, and then for God’s sake, there was also Kate Paye!!! I mean, COME ON!!!)

***

Without Julie, there would be no smoky smell of southern barbecue floating into my kitchen window on weekend nights. She lovingly tends to her marinated meats and veggies out on our center patio while I wait inside, drinking my glass of wine like the Queen of Sheba.

Without Julie, I would not understand what baseball’s “double switch” is. She patiently explains it to me over and over, every season.

Without Julie there would be no one in the house to install light switches, set up wireless networks, pound mollies into lathe-and-plaster walls.

Without Julie, I would not know the burnt-oak taste of a good bourbon.

Without Julie, no one in my house would joyfully drive over the speed limit.

Without Julie, no one would do “the Tom Jones dance” down our hallway.

Without Julie, I would not have the unqualified love of my second family in Louisville, and I would not know the natural beauty of Kentucky’s forests and lush green hills, the exhilarating crash of a cleansing thunderstorm, or the flash of fireflies on warm summer nights.

Without Julie, I would not know how to pronounce “Lou-ah-vul.”

Without Julie, there would be no humor in my home.

Without Julie, I might still be encased in Plexiglas.

Without Julie I would be a roiling cauldron of anxiety.

***

I have dragged Julie with me to many of the 15 Springsteen shows I’ve seen. This last time, in March, she had been up nearly 72 hours straight working on a critical project for her employer. Her exhaustion was almost beyond measure. And we had tickets for a Springsteen show in Oakland. I asked her repeatedly whether she should just stay home, but she said that she knew it meant a lot to me and that she would insist on attending. I have no idea how she stayed awake for those four hours and the BART ride home. And it turns out that the next day she came down with viral meningitis, a serious illness that would sideline her for a month. The doctor said it happened because the virus opportunistically raided her exhausted body. She should have been home sleeping that night. But she went out of love for me.

When it comes to our relationship, Julie definitely ended up with the short end of the stick. I can be moody, nervous, impractical, distant, hypersensitive, and juvenile. She, on the other hand, is steadfastly perfect. Always kind, always empathic, always mature. She is good-natured, even-keeled, strong, capable, and selfless. She encourages my passions for drums and train travel. She likes my blog. She calms my nerves. She steadies me.

Happy anniversary, Sweetie. I love you with all the madness in my soul.

Broken windows and empty hallways

Today’s post will be the first in a sporadic series of short anecdotes detailing some of the myriad clueless and/or humiliating things I’ve done over the years. If you are a family member or friend who goes back a long time with me, you’ve probably heard these stories ad nauseam, so just hit the delete key and go on with your life.

The incident in question happened on May 19, 1985. I know the exact date because I kept a diary every day of my life from 1970 to 1987. I filled every blank line in those diaries with two lines of printing so microscopic that only eagles can read it without a magnifying glass. So we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of words that I set down during that period. Anyone with questions about events that occurred during that time frame, or even about what they said to me during those years, should feel free to ask me for a full recounting.

I had just moved into a one-bedroom apartment on Lake Street in San Francisco. My housemate Keith and I had been essentially kicked out of our flat on Pine Street by unscrupulous new landlords who falsely claimed they were moving into the building (which enabled them to skirt the rent-control laws) and then immediately doubled our rent. We couldn’t afford the astronomical monthly increase, so we were forced to leave.

In retrospect, it was a great move. I had just spent the bleakest period of my life in a place that was as dark, cold, and dank as my emotional state. It was the bottom flat of a three-flat Victorian. At high noon, it was pitch black. On a sunny day, we could see our breath indoors. And it was so damp inside that we actually had – I kid you not – mushrooms growing out of our bathroom tiles.

The place I found on Lake Street looked like the absolute blight of the block from the outside. Amidst the beautiful houses that line that street, my building looked like an aging pinkish ill-proportioned flat-nosed trapezoid or rhombus or one of those odd shapes we all learned about in geometry class. I’ll include a picture and maybe someone can tell me what on earth it is and why anyone would ever have built the thing.

Inside, however, it was actually quite darling. The rooms were big, bright, and airy; the kitchen was both vintage-cute and functional; and it felt like a brand-new start. Indeed, that place represented the first light of day to me. I wish I could have told my younger self, and could impress upon every young person today, that things that threaten to rip you in pieces – that make you feel like you’re going to “walk down the street and fly apart,” as my friend Ellen used to say – will usually align your compass towards a better direction. The thing that binds you involuntarily will ultimately free you. It just might take awhile.

The only flaw in my delightful new apartment was that one of the living room windows was stuck open. The window was an old-fashioned crank-style, and although I struggled mightily to close it, it would not even begin to budge. And it was frigid in that apartment. People who have never lived in San Francisco may be unaware that a “warm San Francisco night” is a rarity. (I don’t know what Eric Burdon was ingesting when he wrote that song.) Summer days in SF can be foggy, drizzly, and even bone-chilling, and the nights can be worse. I was freezing in that place, and unfortunately the heating system did nothing to counteract the temperature. The apartment had baseboard radiator heaters that were controlled by building management on a timer. They came on for only a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening, and although that ordinarily was okay, the bitter wind coming in off the Bay and right through my open window almost killed me.

I made a couple of phone calls to the realty company handling my apartment, but those calls were not returned. My blood was starting to boil (as much as it could, in that refrigerator of an apartment), and on the evening of May 19 I was heading out the door, fleeing the apartment to have dinner at Ellen’s house. I was looking forward to being in a toasty home and eating a warm meal and just, for God’s sakes, warming up!

Well, as I descended the stairs I saw an open apartment door, with a man in the usually-deserted hallway collecting money from the tenant inside. And his accent exactly matched the indeterminate accent that I heard the building manager speak when I had initially rented the place. Oh, hallelujah, it was the landlord!

“Excuse me, are you the landlord?” I interrupted him. He gave me a quizzical nod. “Well, my window won’t close, and I thought maybe you could come up and look at it. I’m Paula, the new tenant in #7. Please just come and look at the window, OK?” I don’t believe I sounded angry or threatening; I was just pleading plaintively, like a character in Les Misérables.

It worked. He dutifully followed me up to my apartment, and I showed him the window, recounting in strict detail my unreturned phone calls and the efforts I had made to close that (*&^%$! window. He tried his own hand at forcing it shut, but it would not yield. “It looks like the hinge is rusty and won’t bend,” he said. “I think that what you need to do is get a can of WD40 and see if that works to clean it.”

Well, that annoyed me. Typical landlord, I thought. Too miserly to call in a real repair person to do the job right or, heaven forbid, replace the hinge.

“All right, I’ll clean it,” I said, with some irritation, “but if it still doesn’t work, you’re going to hear from me again, be-lieve-you-me.” I made an internal vow to be assertive, for once in my life, and not let him get away with shirking his responsibility.

“OK,” he said. I glared at him.

“I’d like to help you, lady,” he continued, backing slowly out the door, “but I have three more pizzas to deliver.”

The wood is tired and the wood is old

I have spent many exhausting and frustrating years recommending to my nieces and nephew, as they entered college, that they sign up for a course in Entomology. That’s right – bugs. I’ve emphasized strongly and repeatedly that the course would prove to be a transformative experience. For me, it actually provided confirmation of the existence of God. I am completely serious.

But no one ever listened to my advice, no one ever took the course, and to this day I continue to be appalled.

So I am now going to take up another cause in hopes that one person – just one! – among my legions of readers will adopt my counsel. Here it is: Watch the “CBS Sunday Morning” show.

This charming TV show was recommended to me by my friend Gigi, who shares with me the desire to shut out the disturbing elements in life and ferret out the poignant, the generous, the beautiful, the artful, and the heroic. The 90-minute program, hosted by the delightful Charles Osgood, features beautifully written and filmed vignettes about regular people, some of whom have done extraordinary things in very simple ways. The stories are folksy, sweet, emotional, informative, and always eminently respectful of their subjects, no matter how eccentric.

My all-time favorite piece on “CBS Sunday Morning” was about 10-year-old twin boys whose love of the game Battleship turned into a trip to the aircraft carrier Yorktown in South Carolina, which resulted in their learning about a still-living World War II sailor with whom they became instantly enamored. Even talking about the man made them burst out crying. “We want to hear what his voice sounded like, we want to touch him, we want to know him a lot more,” one of them said through his tears. The story is about how their surprise meeting with the 90-year-old sailor changed all of their lives. I blubbered through the whole thing.

[You can watch the story at the link below. If you can get through the short video without crying, please leave a “comment” to that effect and I will immediately declare you to be a hardhearted fussbudget.]

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/students-experience-living-history-on-retired-aircraft-carrier/

I was catching up on my “Sunday Morning” shows last week when I was particularly captivated by a story about fossilized wood that is pilfered every year from the Petrified Forest in Arizona’s stunning Painted Desert. This was a familiar subject to me because in 2001 I was conscripted to actually return a piece of petrified wood to that same area.

In the fall of that year, I decided to drag Julie on a month-long road trip down nearly the entire length of Route 66. The whole thing came about because I had fallen obsessively in love with the new, retro-looking Thunderbirds that had just been released, and I was determined to get one. Frustrated with the prohibitively long waiting lists and outrageous dealer markups in California, I had the brilliant idea to call some dealers in Kentucky. Kentucky is Julie’s native state, and we were out there often to visit her family anyway. It turned out that at a dealership in Versailles (pronounced “Ver-SAILS” in Kentucky), lo and behold there was no markup and no waiting list. So we put in our order, and I came up with the plan to drive the car back home to California on Route 66. We would take our time, spending a few weeks cruising appreciatively down the historic road that had been the conduit for so many Americans searching for better lives.

Not all that many decades ago, Route 66 (or “The Mother Road”) was the main travel route for people crossing the country. It became official in 1926 when, with the automobile establishing itself in the minds of Americans as their ticket to freedom and prosperity, the U.S. government decided to create a comprehensive network of interstate highways. As Bobby Troup wrote in his famous song, it “winds from Chicago to L.A” and covers 2,451 miles, eight states, and three time zones. It begins in Illinois, drops down into the verdant state of Missouri, clips a corner of the Kansas plains, plows through the Oklahoma dust, then heads straight west out of Oklahoma City through the Texas panhandle, over the long stretches of desert through New Mexico and Arizona, and into California at around Barstow, where it snakes its way through the orange groves of southern California until it ends at the Santa Monica pier.

Route 66 was the great trail that brought people west. Black Americans fled the nightmarish Jim Crow south; poverty-stricken Dust Bowl families set out to find work on California’s farms; and after World War II young soldiers and their wives, bolstered by the GI Bill and national optimism, packed up their infant boomers and went looking for housing and employment. In the more prosperous years that followed, people with cars and leisure time and a decent income took family vacations to see more of what this country had to offer than they could find in their hometowns.

What a great time it was for travelers back then. They could start their day with a heap of flapjacks, eggs, bacon, and hash browns for about a buck, washed down with a piping hot mug of coffee brought to their table by a smiling diner waitress. Then they would spend the day on the road, stopping in each small town to buy local crafts or let their kids play on the kitschy amusements set up as lures in front of each store. Take your photo next to a giant Paul Bunyan statue! Ride on a big blue cement whale! See the inside of a totem pole! At the end of the day, hungry and tired, they would pull into a truck stop and fill their stomachs with flame-cooked burgers, fried chicken, and milkshakes or ice-cold Coca-Colas, followed by enormous slabs of berry pie heaped with fresh whipped cream. Another hour or two of driving straight west into some of the most glorious sunsets they’d ever been lucky enough to see, and it was time to stop for some very sound sleep at one of the ubiquitous, neon-lit drive-up motor courts that had popped up along the road.

Unfortunately, the quaint, friendly cross-country stretch that was Route 66 suffered a terrible blow in the 1960s and 1970s, when the 42,000-mile national interstate highway system was built. Interstates 55, 44, 40, and 15 would essentially parallel Route 66 but bypass all of the small towns that had grown up along the route. Slowly, those towns withered and died as the “big slab” (as many called the interstate) promised travelers the ability to traverse great distances in far less time. Chain motels, chain restaurants, and chain gas stations replaced the colorful lodging and eateries along the route. People lost their livelihoods and moved away from their homes. In 1984, the last bit of Route 66 was replaced near Williams, Arizona. An era had ended.

Fortunately, some individuals, organizations, and state legislatures have stepped up in recent years, restoring old buildings and maintaining sections of the old road. Nostalgia-seekers and people with time on their hands are heading back down Route 66. There are parts of the road that are long gone, forcing travelers to hop on the freeway for miles at a time, especially in New Mexico and Arizona. But stretches of the old road do remain, and there are refurbished diners, gas stations, motels, and roadside attractions – not to mention museums – to be enjoyed. I highly recommend it. It’s almost as much fun as entomology.

Before we headed out on our own Mother Road adventure, my guitarist friend and bandmate Dina M. – a transplanted New Yorker – told us that she had purloined a piece of petrified wood from the Petrified Forest at least a decade earlier when she had moved out to California. In the Petrified Forest, it is absolutely illegal to remove anything because of the numerous ongoing scientific experiments that are conducted on the fossils there. Wood becomes petrified when mineral matter seeps into buried trees and, over the course of millions of years, eventually replaces all the organic matter, turning the wood into a fossilized stone. That wood/stone can reveal an entire geologic record about the passage of time.

So, consumed with guilt, Dina asked us to do her the favor of bringing the wood back to its home so she could be relieved of the crime and the emotional burden once and for all. We agreed, and we brought that little rock (it couldn’t have been more than 6 inches in diameter; we called it “Little Dino”) with us from California all the way to Kentucky and then back west as we meandered along the length of Route 66. It was 50 miles off the route and out of our way to go into the Petrified Forest, but well worth the detour – for Dina’s sake, for Little Dino’s sake, and also for our own amusement, edification, and overall sense of self-congratulation.

The petrified wood in this forest can be 225 million years old, and signs about the federal penalties attached to removing the wood were everywhere. Although we were bringing contraband into, not out of, the place, I remember sweating like a drug dealer when we passed through the entrance gate and had to undergo the ranger’s interrogation about what we had in the car. Then, once into the park, we could find only groups of large rocks that completely dwarfed Little Dino, and he was going to look supremely out of place. But we had no choice. Holding the contraband clandestinely in the inside of my jacket, I awkwardly tossed it a full 3 inches and it landed among its new boulder family, where I presume it lies to this day.

This whole caper is caught on film, thanks to Julie’s persistent cinematography. The link to the 4-minute clip is below:

https://youtu.be/oNa6kfUF6vc

For the “CBS Morning Show” story, the reporter met with a park ranger who displayed his collection of remorseful letters written by petrified wood thieves – many of them children. These people, like Dina, had carried guilt around with them for years, and their letters accompanied the pieces of wood they were finally returning. (You know, the postage on some of those boulders must have been astronomical!) As I watched, I began to get miffed. I thought that I should have been interviewed. After all, the show likes to feature people who do extraordinary things, but instead the story was showcasing the criminals who had taken petrified wood out of the park – not heroes like me who had gone out of their way, nearly 1,000 miles from home, just to bring back a 6-inch rock.

My attention was starting to drift when, at the end of the story, the reporter casually mentioned that the rocks that are sent back to the park are simply stored away because they cannot actually be put back. When I heard that, I snapped quickly to attention. The ranger explained that no rocks can be introduced back into the area because the scientists conducting their careful studies could inadvertently pick up something that had no reason to be there and the study results would all be totally botched.

Uh-oh. Oh, no. Now we’ve got to go baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Save

This train carries saints

In early 2014, I developed a plan to purchase what I considered to be a “train outfit.” I had decided to take a dream trip on Amtrak from San Francisco to the East Coast, where, as it happens, three of my good friends live within a few miles of each other in the state of Maryland. I would be on the train for four days, and although I was content to dress like my slovenly self for three of those days, for some reason I wanted to look feminine and sophisticated for at least a 24-hour period. And because “feminine” and “sophisticated” are not adjectives typically ascribed to me, this would be a bit of a stretch. To help myself out, I turned to the TravelSmith catalog, and I finally settled on a lovely turquoise microfiber “big shirt” to be accompanied by a white microfiber tank top and white pants. The trip would be in the spring, after all, and my understanding is that one is allowed to wear white pants after Memorial Day. I would accessorize the ensemble with matching aqua earrings that my sister had made for me. I could really see myself breezing through the cars in a supremely confident fashion.

(I am posting a picture of the general outfit. Obviously, the young woman in the photo is not me, and she is wearing black pants which is clearly a mistake. She is, though, hanging off the side of some sort of transportation, so she clearly agrees with me that this is, for all intents and purposes, a “train outfit.”)

Originally I thought I would describe my entire, wonderful Amtrak journey in detail in this blog, but it occurred to me that droning on and on about it might give my legions of readers a good reason to drop their heads and snore. So, fast-forward to day two of the trip. (Day one was a fiasco involving a six-hour bus ride to Reno, but I can save those details for another post.)

I was in the observation car that day when I met a woman named Pearl. (That is not her real name, and I didn’t think I should post a photo of her. And she is not one of those two characters in this blog’s featured photo. They were just fellow denizens of the observation car.) Anyhoo, Pearl lives in San Francisco, and she was heading back to visit her relatives somewhere in the Midwest. One of the first things I asked her was how she’d found herself in SF, and she told me she had moved west when she realized that she was not going to survive financially where she was living and that California offered a lot more in the way of support.

Sigh. This is where my bias started to kick in. I started to make internal assumptions about Pearl, and I wondered if she was taking advantage of California’s legendary largesse.

To be perfectly honest, one of my shortcomings is that I can form a strong, stubborn opinion early on. But I’m also willing to listen and then completely change my mind. For example, when my former band Three Hour Tour decided to insert “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by the Stooges into our setlist, I gnashed my teeth and whined like a baby: “Too vulgar, not our style, gross, loud, and just plain VILE!” Three months later, I declared it to be my favorite drum song of all time.

So, I decided to suppress my rush to judgment and ask Pearl about her story, even though I was continuing to assume that she was on the dole and sucking away the taxpayers’ money. Well, it turned out that she had three sons. Two of them were out on their own, including a military medic who had just gotten back from Iraq. But her youngest son, Benny, was 31 and autistic, and, although fairly high-functioning in some ways, he was totally unable to care for himself. After her husband left her, Pearl had gone to work as a paralegal, but the cost of home care for Benny ate up most of her earnings. In fact, she began to see herself heading for abject poverty. So she moved to San Francisco, where she could get enough assistance to enable her to support herself and her son. She did sell her car, which meant that she and Benny had to haul their Costco groceries on the bus back to their small apartment in a questionable part of town. But at least they were able to live on the money she earned through In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) for working as her son’s caregiver. I was starting to see that California’s largesse was, in some instances, a godsend for people who were struggling to manage the daunting challenges they had been handed.

I ended up spending a lot of time with Pearl, and one morning she asked me if I could do her a favor. She and Benny were in the coach section of the train, and Benny was pestering her because he wanted to know what a sleeper room looked like.

I had gotten a sleeper room because I really did not want to travel four days across the country sitting upright in a seat. I was very fortunate, of course, to be able to afford the luxury of a bed (loosely defined) and bathroom (even more loosely defined). Pearl and Benny had no such good fortune, and they would be together, never losing sight of the other, sitting upright in their seats for days. (I will say, though, that Pearl looked like a million bucks. She wore – and slept in – the same outfit every day: a neon orange suit, festooned with all kinds of fun costume jewelry. She felt that a respectable person should dress for the train.)

So Pearl asked me if I could show Benny my accommodations, and as soon as the word “sure” barely escaped my lips, she whirled around and scampered off to the café car to get a burger, which threw me into a sudden and severe state of panic.

First of all, I have the worst sense of direction known to humankind. We all know lots of people who claim to be similarly handicapped, including, I would guess, a good proportion of the people reading this blog. However, I firmly believe that my particular affliction is unparalleled. In fact, it is legendary. One time I was dining with a group of co-workers at the California Pizza Kitchen on Van Ness when I found myself (shudder!) having to get up to use the bathroom. When I emerged from the restroom, I could not for the life of me figure out how to get back to my table, and I found myself out of the restaurant entirely, in a back alley with a bunch of construction workers. When I got back to the office, I was recounting the story about the construction workers to my friend Kate H. and she said it sounded “like the plot of a porn film”!! That line will make me laugh until the day I die.

The thing is, Pearl had asked me not only to show Benny my accommodations but also to bring him back to the coach section to find her! Ordinary people would think nothing of this, but it was already a challenge for me to find my own way around on the train. To be honest, I was never really successful at it; I just went lurching from car to car until I found myself in, for example, a place with tables and silverware, which I would then cleverly deduce was the dining car. One evening I headed back to my sleeper and threw open the door to what I thought were my accommodations, only to find that it was the porter’s room. And he was in there. I stammered my mortifications and lurched away to find my own room.

My other source of anxiety was the fact that I was unsure of myself around an autistic person. At the time, Benny might have been the first autistic person I had ever met. Would I know how to behave? Would he like me? Would he express emotions in uncomfortable ways? Would he ask me math problems I wouldn’t know how to solve? Would he suddenly curse me out as had happened to me once when I worked with a writer with Tourette Syndrome? (“Your articles are very sweet and graceful,” the writer had told me. “F— you!”)

But I swallowed my anxieties and carefully led Benny back to my room. He absolutely loved it and took photos of just about everything. He did nothing unusual and didn’t curse at me. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all until I got him back to his coach section when I luckily spotted Pearl’s neon orange outfit. “Okay, Benny,” I said, relieved that we had found our way. “There’s your mom. You take care now.”

He hesitated. “I want to tell you something first,” he said. “I love the way your blue shirt matches your eyes. Did you know that there are many shades of blue? There’s periwinkle, cornflower, royal blue, midnight blue, turquoise, powder blue, sky blue, baby blue . . . .” Five minutes later, he finished with “. . . and cerulean.”

He actually said “cerulean.” I didn’t remember that one from my box of Crayolas.

“But yours are more like sapphire blue,” he said. He smiled and put both of his hands on my face. “And you are absolutely beautiful.”

****

Well, not really. But it didn’t matter. I floated back down the aisle in my glamorous train outfit. Meanwhile, Benny and his devoted mother continued on their journey, bound together forever. God bless and protect them both.

The courtship of Paula’s father

When we were kids, my brother Marc and I decided to torment our younger sister Janine by claiming that we could speak Romanian.

To bolster this claim, we produced a letter allegedly sent by the Romanian Language Division of local pop/radio station KLOK. Dated June 13, 1969, the letter informs me that Marc and I were among 23 listeners who had participated in the station’s broadcast of Romanian language lessons and that we had scored very highly on the final exam.

It could be said that I myself wrote that letter, although it was signed by one Nicholai Jansek. If that isn’t a Romanian-sounding name, I don’t know what is.

For some reason, not only did we claim to speak Romanian (which required that we utter complete gibberish to each other), but we also claimed to be able to sing in Romanian. The song we selected as proof was Simon and Garfunkel’s “Feeling Groovy.” In Romanian, the last line of that song is apparently “Sah-bay ding-dong!”

My sister bought it.

Romanian is one of the five most common Romance languages (along with Italian, Spanish, French, and Portuguese). They all evolved from Latin, and they are the most beautiful languages in the world.

I bring this up because I was thinking about both romance and language the other day. I’ve been slowly going through my mother’s things since she passed away a few months ago, and when I was looking through her wedding album, a diary entry caught my eye. Although we all knew that Mom and Dad had eloped to Reno 64 years ago this month, I’m not sure that anyone knew they had been arrested along the way. At least, that’s what it says in my mother’s matter-of-fact entry:

“Saturday, May 10, 1952: We departed from San Leandro, California at 10 a.m. Arrested for speeding at 10:30 a.m. Arrived Reno, Nevada at 2:30 p.m. Car vapor-locked; delayed forty-five minutes. Married 5:20 p.m., county courthouse. Telegrams sent to parents, 6:00 p.m. Dinner at Riverside Hotel at 7 p.m. Gambling in the evening until 11:00 p.m. Bride won, groom lost.”

Gerald Raymond Bocciardi and Beverly Jane Steger met in the fall of 1951 at the University of California at Berkeley. Twenty-five-year-old Gerald was heading towards his Ph.D. in Romance Languages and was teaching Italian II. He had grown up in San Leandro, the first-generation son of Italian immigrants, and had started school without knowing a word of English. But he was soon proficiently bilingual, and by the time he was a couple of years into his stint at Berkeley, he was a multilingual scholar. For some reason, he had originally signed on as a pre-med student, but as my mother tells it, he would “faint at the sight of a bloodshot eye” and soon realized that his calling was elsewhere. He got his master’s degree but never finished his Ph.D. because, after getting all the way through the coursework and the oral exams, he couldn’t bring himself to write the dissertation. “It’s just nonsense,” he told me once. “I didn’t want to spend a year researching Petrarch’s pubic hairs.” The man had a way with words.

Beverly, born in Wisconsin and raised in southern California, escaped a fairly loveless household when she made her way to Berkeley. The Stegers had an unhappy marriage, and they were stoic and demanding parents who never hugged their two daughters or told them they loved them. Despite her environment, however, Beverly knew no better and would have stayed at home had she not gotten a scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley. She was a strong student and a professional-caliber athlete. But she was also quite provincial, and she was worried about moving to such a cosmopolitan city. Of course, as life goes, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to her.

That September day when Beverly sat down in Jerry’s classroom, he felt – for the first time ever – love’s mysterious and feverish joy. He was smitten with her beauty, her freckles, and her impeccable pronunciation of the Italian language. She seemed to be everything his unformed self had ever wished for. So he would gallantly light her cigarette in class (yes, it was the 1950s!). And he would frivolously call her up after class to discuss homework. But there was nothing more he could do; he was, after all, her teacher, and though there were no written rules about consorting with students, he was a man of ethics.

Until, that is, one day when another instructor had to depart suddenly for Italy to care for an ailing mother. The department’s teachers were hastily rearranged, and Jerry announced to the class on a Friday morning that he was being transferred out. That night, he called Beverly for a date. On Monday morning, Jerry was miraculously teaching Beverly’s class again. Somehow he had finagled a way to get back in. But he had already asked her out, so his ethics – however shaky – were intact.

On date 1, Jerry took Beverly to San Francisco to see An American in Paris and have dinner in North Beach. They got back to Bev’s Berkeley dorm at 7:45 p.m. – 15 minutes after curfew. Bev, who had to beat on the door and be let in by the “house lady,” was “campused” (grounded) for her transgression. Jerry was mortified and sent red roses to her every day for a week. Flowers lined the hall, filled the bathroom, and ended up in other girls’ rooms because the whole place began to look like a hothouse.

On date 2, Jerry took Beverly to the very fancy Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose. Beverly, who had never had hard liquor in her life, made the mistake of ordering a Tom Collins. She drank only half of it before getting violently ill. Still, on the way back to Berkeley, Jerry cheerily announced that they would take a “little detour” to San Leandro so she could meet his parents. Beverly hung her head out the window of that little Nash Rambler all the way back. It took a while to make the trip in those days, on the slow backroads, and the bracing fall air must have cleared her head, because she ended up making a lovely impression on Gustavo and Ambrogia Bocciardi. When she returned to the dorm and mentioned the “little detour,” her friend Hjördis – from Sweden and eminently more sophisticated – issued a prescient warning: “Uh, oh. You’re stuck. When you meet the Italian parents, you are hooked for life.”

On date 3, Jerry took Beverly to the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland and then to an observation point in the Oakland hills, where he finally got up the nerve to kiss her. He then immediately asked her to marry him.

Beverly laughed out loud at the insanity of it and initially turned him down. But they would be married within a few months.

They were making plans for the wedding one day, and drawing up the guest list, when Beverly started to cry. With the Italians, you know, you have to invite Uncle Lorenzo’s barber and the next-door neighbor’s live-in boarder, and the list was growing and the Stegers were refusing to pay (they wanted cake and punch for 12 people, not anitipasti and ravioli and lamb for 212), and the Bocciardis had no money, and the Italians were complaining about the wedding being in southern California because none of them had been on an airplane before and God forbid they get in cars and drive, and the whole thing was getting to be a fiasco. So Jerry suggested they elope to Reno and have a tiny little church wedding later, and Beverly breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

They jumped in the car as soon as the weekend came because they just could not wait a moment longer. It was a different time. There is no doubt in my mind that they were both virgins. They were both good, chaste Catholics. But they also loved and fervently desired each other, and I’m sure those tires left skid marks peeling out of San Leandro that Saturday morning. Hence the “arrest” for speeding just half an hour into the trip.

My mother and father had an absolutely storybook marriage. In their early days, they lived on and off with Gustavo and Ambrogia in their tiny house in San Leandro. “Groom’s room remodeled by bride,” Beverly wrote in that wedding album. “Improvement is indescribable.” Beverly shadowed Ambrogia, learned about olive oil, prosciutto, parmesan, and chianti, and laughed all day with my grandmother over stories about the Old Country. My favorite was about an Italian relative who named her child Ultima (“last”) because she didn’t want any more children; she then proceeded to have three more, and when she finally pilgrimaged to Lourdes to pray that her fertile days would end, she got pregnant while she was there!

Jerry spent his days at Berkeley earning his secondary teaching credential, his weekends working side by side with Bev at his father’s poultry business, and his evenings on the porch, writing poetry for his new wife and chewing the fat with every Italian and Portuguese neighbor who passed by.

Those were the days of wine and roses.

***

I was thinking about what makes marriages work. Some people say that it’s best not to get married young; after all, people can change dramatically, and it’s hard to know, at age 19, who you really are.

But in my parents’ case, their youth was a gift. When they looked at each other, they were exhilarated.

None of us really knows, when we first settle in with a friend or lover, how well our hearts will mesh through the years. I actually believe that the key to a successful marriage is a lot of luck. My father could not have known, when he met my mother, that she was his perfect complement. He was a brilliant man, but there were few practical things he could do outside of teaching. My mother was the household engineer; she knew what to do with a plumber’s wrench and how to fix a carburetor. She hand-made all of our clothes, handled the finances, whipped up delicious multi-course meals when my father brought school administrators home on the spur of the moment. She went shotgun-shooting with Dad and learned how to fish. And she immersed herself completely in the culture of his family.

And Mom certainly could not have known that Dad would lead her gently away from her lonely childhood and bring her into an Italian family that shouted their love of each other to the rooftops. They were loud, funny, embracing, hungry. It must have been like a dream for her – all that adoration and attention. One of my father’s favorite memories that he told me repeatedly – even in the throes of the Alzheimer’s that would eventually claim him – was that one time his mother was rolling out some pastry dough, and she looked up and said to him, “See this dough, Jerry? If I were to try to make, with my own hands, someone who would be the most perfect wife for you, I could not even dream up someone as wonderful as Beverly.”

(Or, as she pronounced it, “Bebboli.”)

And throughout his entire life, my father demonstrated to my mother what devotion and romance really are. When we were kids, he used to write poems about her upper arms. Sometimes they were in English and sometimes they were in Italian. He would write them on the spur of the moment on a tiny piece of paper that he would fold up and ask one of us to deliver to her. I used to wonder if maybe “upper arms” was a euphemism for . . . well, you know. But no, he just thought her upper arms were magnificent. She saved all of those poems. We found them when we cleaned out their house.

***

In 2004, when I was still working for the Administrative Office of the Courts, I did an interview with Judge Al Delucchi, who had been assigned to preside over the Scott Peterson capital trial. As I began to ask my first question, the judge stopped me and said that he first needed to know one thing. “Is your father by any chance Professor Gerald Bocciardi, who taught at UC Berkeley?” When I said yes, he said that he had been one of Dad’s students. “And my guess is that your mother was in that class, too,” he added with a chuckle. He was remembering back 53 years. That was the impression my parents made.

My beautiful, beautiful parents.

The train has left the station

Over the last couple of years, dozens (and by “dozens,” I mean a handful) of family members and friends have been suggesting that I write a blog. The thing is, I’m very old-school; I honestly don’t understand our hyper-self-besotted culture in general, so blogging has always been a big mystery to me. As I’ve said many times, I don’t know why anyone would want to read my musings. And I don’t say this because I’m fishing for compliments and praying that someone responds with, “Oh, but Paula, you’re practically the Ernest Hemingway of West Portal.” Let’s face it: No one wants to read about my life.

“I woke up. I organized things. I exercised for 12 minutes. I walked the dog. I organized some more things. I ate clam dip and watched the Giants. I put toe fungus medicine on my foot. I went to bed.” Snooze-o-rama!

Last fall, though, my sister-in-law Janet told me she had a friend who wanted me to write her obituary. Don’t worry; the friend, thankfully, is not dying. But she apparently let it be known that if I am alive when she does shuffle off this mortal coil, I am to be commissioned to memorialize her. It must have had something to do with the way I write about people, and their lives, with fondness.

In any case, Janet – who herself has a blog (http://www.honeyfromthebee.com/blog) – immediately began a crusade to get me to create my own.

So, because I’m über-organized, I made myself an Outlook reminder:

“Start a blog.”

And I’ve been snoozing it every week. (Some of my Outlook reminders I have snoozed for more than a decade. I’m not kidding.)

Now that I’ve decided to do away with that annoying reminder, though, I haven’t figured out what on earth will be the focus of this blog.

One of my passions is being on the road; I’ve been across the country by car multiple times and have been to every state except Alaska and Florida. (My longest road trip was my first. We spent three months in a VW bus traveling and camping through the south, up the East Coast, into Maine, and back through the north. I was a film bug then [before everyone became a cinematographer] and I edited dozens of rolls of trip footage into a 2-hour Super 8 film with location sound and a full music soundtrack. That thing is a classic.)

And lately I’ve become enamored with riding the rails. I’ve taken the train to Washington state, to Chicago, and to Harper’s Ferry, and this year I’ll be making a roundtrip rail journey to and from the east coast, which adds up to about 8 days on the train. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my own biases from the people I’ve met on these trains. Perhaps those stories will make their way into a post at some point.

Finally, I like to spin yarns. When I write about myself, it’s usually about all of the foolish, idiotic, impractical, and embarrassing things I’ve done. There must be hundreds of such incidents.

But it gives me greater satisfaction to write about the lives of others. I truly believe that most people are good and that we all have interesting stories to tell. I also think that all of us have done quietly heroic things in our lives, and that the meaning of our time spent on earth is just that: to discover, and put into commission, the silent heroes in ourselves.

I named my blog “Monday Morning Rail” after a lyric in one of the greatest songs ever written: “City of New Orleans,” penned by Steve Goodman and recorded by Arlo Guthrie in 1972. I don’t want to brag, but I thought the blog name was ridiculously clever, since it references 1) trains and 2) the act of forcefully bloviating about one’s opinions. Truth be told, though, I doubt that I’ll do much, if any, railing. I’m tired of snarkiness and criticism. I just want to celebrate, with love and gentle humor, how great life can be.

And for those of you who browbeat me into writing this danged thing, you &^%&*$ well better subscribe to it!

**********

This is how you “follow” me to get an email when I submit a new post:

Enter your e-mail address above the green “Follow” button. Click the button. When you get your confirmation email, click on “confirm follow,” and you’ll be all set!

Note: Much of the information in this piece was taken from the beautifully researched Curveball: The Remarkable Story of Toni Stone by Martha Ackmann and from A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie “Peanut” Johnson by Michelle Y. Green.

(photo credit: San Jose Mercury News)

TIBBY CLUB OF AMERICA

Hi Paula,

I just wanted to let you know that Myra passed away this morning at about 9:15. I can’t thank you enough for everything you did for her.

Jeff

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