I always lived on the ocean side of San Francisco, in the Richmond, the Sunset, and Parkmerced. All had their beautiful aspects, but Parkmerced was my favorite location by far.
I felt like it was a close as one could get to living in a major city without feeling like you lived in the city.
By J. Ash Bowie
It was wonderful for walking and felt more like a community than the more typical city neighborhoods.
By J. Ash Bowie
I’m convinced that living in Parkmerced helped me maintain my equilibrium as a freelance musician coping with irregular hours while driving to gigs throughout the greater Bay Area.
I hear they’re making big changes there now. Oh well. I’m just grateful it was the calm and serene environment I needed all those years ago.
San Francisco has been on my mind so much these days that I figured I might as well wrap up the week by reflecting on one more thing I loved about living there.
Fog.
Yep. People complain and complain about the fog, but I loved it.
Well, I loved it 90% of the time. At least once every summer we would get a solid three weeks of fog and that really was a bit much.
But the rest of the time you simply never knew, from moment to moment, what you were going to get — you could look out the window at the most gorgeous day, decide to finish your half-hour project and then go enjoy the sunshine, only to look up after twenty minutes and it’s nothing but fog everywhere.
Of course the reverse was also true. You would bundle up and resign yourself to a chilly excursion in the park, only to find the sun burning through the fog twenty minutes later.
And the cool temperatures of foggy days were the best for long walks all over the City.
But some of my favorite fog experiences came when I would spend time in the hot summer temperatures of the South Bay (Milpitas, San Jose, Los Altos, etc.), then drive up Hwy 280 to return to the City.
At a certain point the air itself would dramatically change, getting cooler and smelling of moisture. Then you would look left (or west) and see the fog literally pouring over the coastal mountains. Absolute magic that I never tired of seeing.
And now, all this thinking about fog made me so homesick for the entire San Francisco experience that I had to go find a video of foghorns.
After waxing so nostalgic about San Francisco the past couple of days, it’s not so surprising that — after grabbing the frozen blueberries I was in Master’s Market to buy — I made a beeline for an IT’S-IT ice cream sandwich.
My first IT’S-IT experience was probably during an elementary school field trip to San Francisco, now lost in the dim recesses of my memory. But I certainly remember eating them at regular intervals when I lived in the City as an adult, and they continue to mean “SF” to me.
When I decide to write about something in my blog, I often end up learning way more about it than I would have believed possible. Today was no different, so here’s a great article about the history behind the treat.
Yesterday I was remembering Golden Gate Park, but today’s photo is about memories of the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Yes, indeed! I was one of the hundreds of thousands of people walking on the bridge that day. But, no, we didn’t make it all the way across.
It’s hard to believe, but the organizers didn’t have the imagination to picture what would happen if people poured onto the bridge from both the north and the south without having designated north/south lanes.
In all fairness, they evidently also lacked the imagination to anticipate the vast numbers of people who would come out to participate in the event. According to the news video below, they expected 18,000-20,000 people to come out, but there were 300,000 instead.
(There were 300,000 on the bridge at the same time; they estimate that 800,000 pedestrians spent on the bridge before it was all over.)
The end result was the most amazing gridlock you can imagine, with more and more people entering from both sides even after there was no more room to maneuver in the center. I can’t recall just how many hours we were out there, but it was definitely the closest I’ve ever come to hysteria in my life.
Being short, I couldn’t see over all the people around me, which made me feel very claustrophobic. A few people fainted and were removed by being passed along over the top of the crowd.
Of course, this was before cell phones, so we were just out there — not knowing exactly what was going on or what (if anything) was being done about it. I would feel the anxiety and agitation of the crowd gradually inching up to something close to panic, but then someone would call out a joke or some sort of reassuring words. I don’t remember exact words, but it would be enough to make people laugh and connect and bring the anxiety level down a few notches.
In fact, I agree with what someone shared in the video comments: “i was there, i was stuck in the middle. it was scary AF in the gridlock, but i’ll say one thing, it was all love. there was no violence, people helped each other out.”
It was definitely a beautiful San Francisco moment.
San Francisco was one of my first loves. I remember a field trip to the City in third grade — I was sooooo excited! We were going to see boats, and in preparation we made drawings of boats on blue construction paper using red, white, and black chalk.
It was sooooo cool.
Although born in San Francisco, I grew up in the South Bay — an hour away. But once I graduated from high school I gradually moved north until I finally became a resident while attending San Francisco State University.
I had arrived.
I lived in San Francisco — Parkmerced; the Richmond; Inner Sunset; outer Sunset; and back to Parkmerced — for over twenty years and loved it.
I spent hours and hours at the ocean and circling Lake Merced. I walked all over — literally. I learned to drop everything when the weather was perfect (because it wouldn’t necessarily stay that way for long; great training for living in the moment).
I read Herb Caen’s column every day. I learned to drink strong coffee and ate lots of Chinese food. I thrilled to the sound of the fog horns from my home at 30th and Geary. I loved the fog, period. I worked at the Cliff House and the Sutro Bath ruins were my home away from home.
And Golden Gate Park was like my own personal backyard. God, I loved it so much, spending hours and hours on the trails; walking from the panhandle to the ocean; learning all the nooks and crannies in between — the lakes, the creeks, the meadows, the touristy places and the private spots.
Amazing how all these memories came flooding back as I looked at this photo.
My karma with San Francisco finally came to an end and it was time to be elsewhere. I haven’t lived there since 1999 and don’t even visit very often.
But the love still remains. It will always be my city and my park.
Many years ago now, there was a brief period when I became sort of an honorary member of the Irish-Irish (as distinct from the Irish-American) community in San Francisco.
It’s a long story, which I won’t go into, but during that rich and expansive time I became acquainted with the writings of John O’Donohue and even had the blessing of hearing him speak in person.
I hadn’t thought of him in many years, but was very moved to find this beautiful blessing for the new year. I was even more delighted to discover a recording of him reading the poem himself.
(Interestingly, I learned that I’m posting this on his birthday — January 1st — and that he was born in the same year I was.)
[Note: “Beannacht” is the Gaelic word for “blessing.” A “currach” is a large boat used on the west coast of Ireland.]
Beannacht: A Blessing for the New Year
On the day when The weight deadens On your shoulders And you stumble, May the clay dance To balance you.
And when your eyes Freeze behind The grey window And the ghost of loss Gets in to you, May a flock of colours, Indigo, red, green, And azure blue, Come to awaken in you A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays In the currach of thought And a stain of ocean Blackens beneath you, May there come across the waters A path of yellow moonlight To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours, May the clarity of light be yours, May the fluency of the ocean be yours, May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow Wind work these words Of love around you, An invisible cloak To mind your life.
This afternoon I was skimming an article in the SF Chronicle about iconic San Francisco buildings, of which the Transamerica Pyramid is one of the most recognizable.
I have no particular connection with that building — apart from it being part of the distinctive SF skyline — and downtown was never my favorite part of the City. So, I was a little surprised to be hit by a strong wave of nostalgia as I gazed at the photo.
But on top of that, there was another article about the future of the Cliff House, which WAS one of my absolute most favorite locations in all of San Francisco.
Stunned is how I felt when I saw the headline announcing the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
It wasn’t that I was surprised she had died; after all, she was 90 years old.
No, it was more to do with the fact that she had such an impact during my years as a young adult living in San Francisco, and was indelibly connected with tragic events that rocked my world at the time.
I’ll never forget the moment in November 1978 that I parked my car in front of my apartment and heard her tell reporters that, as president of the Board of Supervisors, it was her duty to inform them that both Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk had been shot and killed by Supervisor Dan White.
It was shocking in and of itself, but coming as it did so soon after the murder-suicide of over 900 People’s Temple members in the Jonestown massacre, it left the entire city feeling completely traumatized.
I wasn’t fully conscious of it at the time, but as I grieve Dianne Feinstein today, I can inwardly feel the truth of what she said years later: “I hope I projected a calm stability, regardless of whether I felt it myself.”
As a flutist, I had several opportunities to observe Mayor Feinstein up close, during events at City Hall or elsewhere. I even played for a private party at her home. I don’t recall that I ever actually met her, but I do remember being struck by the power of her presence and magnetism.
Of course, it was in the San Francisco Chronicle that I was reading about DiFi this morning. Despite not having lived in the City since 1999, I’ve never acquired the habit of reading any other newspaper. The Chron is another entity that is indelibly connected with who I was and, I guess, still am in some ways.
At any rate, I was deeply moved when I read Dianne Feinstein’s description of how she hoped her legacy would be perceived: “A simple thing. That she did a good job, that she really does care, that she’s been able to solve a lot of problems.”
You definitely achieved your legacy; rest in peace, Dianne.
It was Ramesha who read this morning that Tony Bennett had passed away at the ripe old age of 96. He told me the news and then asked who Tony Bennett was.
Of course, I immediately started singing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” which meant exactly nothing to Ramesha, who was born and raised in Switzerland.
But as I sang the song — the entire thing, remembering pretty much all the lyrics — I remembered just how much I loved “the City by the Bay” for the twenty-odd years I lived there.
And even though I was never a huge Tony Bennett fan, I feel a lot of sadness on his passing. As well as a whole lot of gratitude for gifting us with this wonderfully iconic song.
We left Canobbio at 6:30 this morning, to drive to Malpensa airport (outside Milan).
After our traditional cappuccino and brioche with Silvio and Graziella we boarded a short flight to Zurich, followed by a twelve flight to San Francisco and — voila! — we’re back in California.
