Our June Trip: San Francisco!

My friends, if I absolutely had to go live in a big city somewhere, San Francisco would be high on the list. At least, that’s what I’ve been thinking since our trip there last month.

The thought struck me immediately as our taxi waited at an intersection with Market Street, on our way to our hotel our first day there: I noticed that all up and down Market, the “main street” of San Francisco, at regular intervals, there were rainbow flags. Big ones. As far as the eye could see.

June, of course, is Pride month internationally (it commemorates the Stonewall riots that occurred in New York in June 1969, which mark the beginning of the modern gay rights movement). And San Francisco has one of the biggest LGBT pride celebrations in the world, with a huge parade that goes down, yes, Market Street. Everybody goes.

I was fortunate enough to have an internship in San Francisco during the summer of 1990, so I got to attend one of those festivals. I saw the parade and everything. By the end of that summer, I was practically a “resident” of the City.

(I used public transportation a lot!)

(But even though I used public transportation a lot, I still had a big hill to walk up to reach my house! That burned a lot of calories!)

People like to talk about how wonderful America is—about our diverse population, the immigrants cherishing their freedom and opportunities, and so on. It’s not so much of a “melting pot” as it is a stew, where people from various ethnicities and cultures blend harmoniously, yet retain distinctions from the “old country.” To be proud Americans, yet retain what is precious and colorful about our roots. At least, that’s the goal, I think.

Of all the places I’ve seen, San Francisco seems most “American” in this way. It is proud of its diversity. It goes well beyond tolerance—the citizens of that city seem pleased to have cultivated a place where everyone can be who they are.

Of course I wax nostalic—I know it’s not a utopia. But how can I not be irreversibly impressed, and deeply moved, when I come from the Midwest? Sue and I don’t dare fly our rainbow flag outdoors in our neighborhood, in our city. It would be begging for vandalism, because too many Missourians think that it’s cool to put down gay people. I know it will be many, many years before Jefferson City puts rainbow flags all along High Street!

Anyway, you just have to imagine how it feels to a gay person from the homophobic Midwest to arrive in a city that goes out of its way to show you that you are not just tolerated, but valued as a contributing member of society.

Here's another example. This is an inscription on one of the walks at the AIDS Memorial Grove at Golden Gate Park. The grove is an exceptionally beautiful, peaceful place. The city dedicated park space for this memorial grove.

Well, that’s enough words for now. This trip, we were flat-out tourists, and we had a great time trying to see as much as possible in the three days we were there.

We rode the cable cars!

We had a breakfast at the venerable (and touristy!) Sears Fine Food, on Powell Street across from the Sir Francis Drake! (I had actually never eaten there before, and you know what? It was really good! They deserve their reputation!)

Then there is the big Asian influence. Yes, Chinatown is always rather fun, but so are lots and lots of other Asian areas, such as Japantown, and the Japanese Garden at Golden Gate Park (this is the entrance of it):

Because of our interest in Asian art, we also had to visit the Asian Art Museum! (When I lived there, this building was the main branch of the public library!) The collections are spectacular and varied, including a wide geographical range, and ancient through contemporary works. Very impressive!

Do I even have to mention the excellent Asian food?

With all the delicious chow available, San Franciscans should be grateful there are so many hills to climb, and beaches to walk. Even when it's windy!

Anybody familiar with this part of the coast ought to know these flowers: ice plants! These are some of the plants that grow closest to the beach. They smile at you coming and going.

Another thing this little tourist was eager to see was the rebuilt Steinhart Aquarium, part of the California Academy of Sciences (and also in Golden Gate Park). The last time we were in San Francisco (2005), they had torn down the venerable old aquarium and had moved to temporary new quarters, and this new building was basically only a big hole in the ground.

So it was a real treat to see the "finished product," a "green" building with up-to-date displays and interpretive information. I'm not convinced that video screens, which need electricity to work, are in any way better than printed signs, but what do I know. Still--the state-of-the-art aquaria was neat to see.

Here I am at the entryway to the new Steinhart. That above me is a life-size model of the jaws of a megalodon, a Cenozoic shark that was 52 feet long and lived in ocean waters worldwide. The teeth are about 7 inches long. Whoa, nelly!

The aquarium is on the lower level of the California Academy of Sciences, though some of the larger tanks are two stories high and can be seen from above and below. There's a nifty tunnel beneath one of these huge aquariums full of large freshwater species. If I lived in San Francisco again, I think I would come here to just sit on the bench and read.

In this big tank are three arapiamas, which, I think, are the very same fish that lived in the Steinhart back in 1990. I used to visit them! I have a special appreciation for arapiamas. Did you know they are the largest strictly freshwater fish in the world?

Okay, now, a disclaimer: In this post, and in the last one (about Florida), the BEST pictures are the ones taken by Sue! Mine are the pedestrian snapshots. Here's one of my pedestrian snapshots, of Sue as she's taking a real photo!

My abundant thanks to Sue for letting me post so many of her photos!

Twenty Years Ago

One of the interesting things about keeping a journal is that you can look back on what you were doing in the past, and as you reread your own words, you can usually remember exactly what you were thinking and feeling at the time.

And then you can also reflect on how everything has changed since then.

Today’s post has nothing to do with the here and now. It has everything to do with where I was—and where we all were—twenty years ago today, October 17, 1989. I had just moved to Phoenix for grad school, and I’d recently bought my first television set.

This is transcribed from my journal.

Wed. Oct. 18, 1989
12:51 a.m.

Wow.

I’ve been watching the news for the past 3 hours, and my head is spinning. Images twirl around thoughts. Things I’ve seen; crunched cars, huge areas on fire, huge long stretches of highway, one level smashed onto another, the videotape of the car driving on a bridge, then disappearing, dropping down into a huge hole in the road. The pickup behind it braked, put on its backup lights, and backed up.

And they said one of the people who’d been pulled from his car—a Nissan Sentra that’d been sandwiched between two layers of highway—the dude had survived. His car was no higher than 18 inches. And he was relatively unharmed.

And another guy said his house was basically upside-down.

All of this boggles my mind . . . how within a few minutes, so much could happen. What went through everyone’s mind? What was it really like to see light poles “thrashing around”?

. . . Yeah, I’ll bet you saw all those news images of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, too. I think all of America was glued to CNN that night.

It’s funny how you can look back on something like that—some famous event in a place that you didn’t directly experience at the time—but with which you eventually become somehow connected. I mean, I had never been to the Bay Area when I wrote that journal entry, and had no plans to go there. I had absolutely no idea I’d be living in San Francisco within the next year, that I would drive over that repaired spot in the Bay Bridge where the car had tumbled in, and that I would form personalized connections with San Francisco that endure to this day.

It’s just funny how life turns out. I’m always amazed by it.