San Francisco

What is there to say about this lovely place that hasn’t been said by countless numbers of people? The streets are twisty...especially Lombard Street. The trolley cars...cute. The people. The weirdos. The winos.

First, although I have mentioned that I am quite old, we were not in San Francisco because my dad was putting up the Golden Gate bridge...no. But we were there because American Bridge was replacing the original rivets and cables on the Golden Gate bridge. Pretty exciting stuff. I was 13 when we arrived in San Francisco. My parents, sister and brother and I lived in a three bedroom apartment building in a complex on a cliffside. It was pretty spectacular in the Marin County area and our schools were nice, clean and oh yeah, just like in the movies, we were outside a lot....even at school. From our apartment complex, if you had a telescope, you could see the prisoners in the San Quentin yard right across the bay. Things were tumultuous in San Franciso, too. War protests, sit ins, dancing in the streets.

There were great open fields and hills behind the apartment complex. We'd be gone for hours and hours. There were tall, weedy grasses covering the hills and we use to take cardboard and sled down the hills. The grass when bent over was slick as an icy, snow packed sled hill in Minnesota. Kevin and Micki convinced me to climb a "cliff face" behind the complex. I would describe it as huge but I don't have a clear cut idea really of what its dimension might have been, only that I got half way up and panicked. Kevin had to talk me down and I am sure was mortified by my girliness.

Fillmore West. Big time music hall for local and nationally known rock and roll bands. You’ve seen the posters maybe. Usually very, very psychedelic light shows, glo in the dark paint, lots of smoke in the air. Lots. My favorite band was a band from the area, “It’s A Beautiful Day”. I was thrilled not too long ago when I found their entire album on itunes. Couldn’t be happier! My mom, and I still don’t know why, use to let us go to concerts at Filmore West. Kevin, no, but Micki and I were there a lot. I can’t believe it to this day, but I can only think it was because Mom was clueless. That’s the only explanation.

My sister was a scrawny, red haired, freckle faced 15 year old. I still do not know how she did not get picked up hitchhiking by Charles Manson. She was so his “type” and he was in the area, and she hitch-hiked. Oh boy did she hitch hike. We used to get rides to Sausalito and spend all day in that very cool, very pretty, artist town. Its much bigger and commercially now as I understand it, but in 1968, it was awesome. Again, my mom must have been clueless.

I babysat for two families in the apartment complex. The first family was a single mom with a 10 year old boy and 5 year old twin boys. I was 13 mind you. She had me stay in the apartment with them for one whole weekend. I flushed my “feminine product” and stopped up the toilet. Had to call the building maintenance...after calling my mom. What was this woman thinking. I am pretty sure she was as clueless as my own mother. 3 days with three boys? All day? I was 13 for crying out loud. I remember hot dogs and cereal...and terror.

The other family, Hal and Judy Pressman. Two children, very sweet. I babysat for them around the holidays that year. I made popcorn for the kids and had to move the menorah back on the counter while pouring the melted butter on the big bowl of popcorn I had for the three of us. Out to the living room and enjoy the television. Less than 1/2 hour later....smoke. I pushed the candles back too far and the cabinets were in flames. Another call to my mom!

I had a good time in San Francisco. Micki became pretty well...gee, teen-agerish in San Francisco and there were troubled times ahead for my mom and dad and their first girl. It was going to get kinda ugly and I was going to observe, Cindi style.