oregonbearboy

[oregonbearboy]

Westward

We always wanted to sit behind the old man in our little 53' Ford because he had a hard time reaching you to smack you. I'm 9, my sister is 11, and my brother is 13. We're driving from Ft. Meade, Maryland to San Francisco in 1957. Three thousand or so miles. I tried to forget the dreary, pavement-pounding progress down the highway. I tried to remember the rest of it.

It was amazing...an enormous sameness of fields that stretched to the horizon with wheat standing arrow straight, their lush heads drooping with ripeness and then corn a dark green ocean to infinity with yellow-tasseled ears angling up into a bright noon sun. We stopped at roadside produce stands with bins overflowing with the true wealth of this world – perfect shiny red tomatoes, potatoes fresh and hard as a rock, strawberries a shocking, brilliant scarlet, sparkling plump and fresh this morning, peaches all downy cream and magenta and begging for a taste...endless riches. Then the ones who made it possible, sometimes making you ache a little...the dirt-poor kids sad and shy wiggling their bare toes in the soil and with souls ages older than they should be. Now smiling with a cool, dripping slice of watermelon and a treasured and fleeting moment of pleasure so perfectly and fiercely American.

You could find yourself a little on a journey like this – so close to the land and the people with a daily series of sights and a surreal panorama that no artist could capture. In the 2am darkness of the middle of Texas, the only light was a combination gas station/diner that was absolutely smothered in a writhing, squirming mass of insects, harmless but impossible to forget how the people there ignored them and got things done. When the hum and rumble of the road lulled you to sleep, you may partially wake to pass slowly by a tragic wreck with stony-faced police attending and blanked-covered victims in a sad row. Just after sunset one day, I saw a group of men around a fire in a trainyard and the vision stayed with me – a small cauldron bubbling up steam as they waited for their meal, each with the same stare, a sort of a hopeful despair in their faces.

Food becomes a manic focus. You may get lucky and find where they create a great hamburger or fries too-hot-to-eat but perfectly crispy or ham and eggs, toast and hashbrowns made with love and care – it was a roll of the dice back then...sometimes you won, sometimes not. The miles ground on in the four-day trek, seven or eight hundred a day behind you before you could look for a motel and a night's fitful, tossing sleep. San Francisco actually seemed to be slowly edging away rather than drawing closer, but when the mountains slowly rose in the western horizon you could feel the progress. California lay beyond them, and with it the end of this odd adventure.

Looking back, the memory of those tedious and endless days softens into a fond recollection of the family and country I love, of staring in awe at the natural beauty we saw, and of feeling a closeness and kinship to the people of this amazing land. I saw this country edge to edge at a unique and wonderful time. For that, I find myself forever grateful.

[oregonbearboy]

Oz, Again

After all this time to reflect, I still have no idea why I was drawn to love this city right from the start... my start, that is. As a little boy looking across the water from Berkeley, I only knew that I was fascinated by it and that the adults spoke of it reverently as “the city”, as if there were no others.

I got to live in our modern Oz in the early to mid 60's – a four-year state of grace in a city that may as well have been designed simply to please me, for instance:

Ocean Beach could be a cold and gray expanse where the wind cut at and pestered you and the surf rumbled in low and somehow hostile while a gust-driven bit of sand stung your cheek. Even the birds might simply hunker down and shelter in the gloom to let time pass and better days follow. Or, it could be a soft, warm place under a sweet blue sky with arguably the finest lungfuls of air planet-wide and that air filled with happy sounds from Playland and the seductive rhythms of conga drums – all of it followed by a sad/happy sunset that people sometimes stared at in pure, open-mouthed awe.

It's one thing to find a great place to fish, it's entirely another when that place is on San Francisco Bay almost beneath the most beautiful bridge there could be with the cool green of the Presidio's thousands of trees at your back, the city on display to your right, and watercraft busy everywhere with ship's horns and tug whistles as perfect ambiance. A day there at Ft. Point left you rosy-cheeked with sun and wind burn but blessed anew with the pure wonderfulness of it all.

They were trooping out in a ragged line, the groundskeepers with their clanking wheelbarrows loaded with rakes and hoes and thick orange hoses. I walked into the space they had worked, not far from the de Young Museum– perfect rows of brilliant yellow daffodils and blue iris, the soil raked and tended and now host to scampering ground squirrels and chirping sparrows...all fresh and dewy and the air filled with the rich scent of overturned soil and newly mowed grass in trimmed perfection. Golden Gate Park was and is an absolute treasure.

Our imperfect jewel...the city. It may just be that there are no others.

[oregonbearboy]

Sunset Thoughts

San Francisco, 1966, The group is the Sandpipers, and their smash hit song is “Guantanamera”, a song from Cuba in 1929 that came to symbolize that country's fight for independence from Spain. This beautiful melody was originally about a woman leaving an unfaithful man, but the poetry of Jose Marti, the treasured Cuban poet and activist who became the conscience of that nation, made it resonate with me when I looked up the extended lyrics that the hit song ignored. One line stayed with me through all the years: “I am good, and like the good, I will die with my face to the sun.”

San Francisco is a city of sunsets – those special mixes of tragedy and promise, of light and dark that cannot be experienced without leaving a small part of yourself in those moments. Many times that drama made me pause to take it all in, all the while wishing it would last. There is just something about sunsets...

From the Avenues in the Richmond, my view was the homes on 17th, each with a walled back yard that was first to darken as the sun moved down, slowly elegant and majestic while porch lights came on and a cool calm prevailed. Each back yard was a small kingdom, arranged just so.

From the Presidio, the end of the day put the trees in stark silhouette, dramatically backlit as if frozen in mid-movement. The birds would make their final forays for the day, flickering across the red-orange face of the sun as the swallows swooped and dove after insects, soon to be replaced by bats, dark and darting with the same intent.

From the beach, the view could be cool silver with the full-on mystery of deep fog wreathing the area like a mellow carpet, clipping and muting the sounds of the surf into a dull throb. Or, you may have been there when the sunset was a grand exit worthy of a true star, blazing a spectrum of colors while seeming to hiss into the ocean's surface while the surf roared a tribute.

From across the bay, with the world's most beautiful bridge now alive with twinkling lights and the final rays of sun shimmering in the wavetops and the city easing into night, you may find your perfect sunset. I did.

[oregonbearboy]

Listen

I love how a unique sound can instantly take you back to a time you heard it in the past – not just the simple memory, but the entire experience that the sound evokes. I was dozing in the morning sun today on my back porch when I heard a crisp, musical note of metal on metal, source unknown, that made a scene arise from the past to live again within me for just a moment.

The year was the mid 60s, and the temperature was in the mid 70s at the San Francisco Marina under sweet blue skies and enough wind to keep the gulls aloft in their effortless grace, wheeling and soaring in their now and then noisy search for food. I was fishing in the short canal that connects the marina to the bay, having walked here from my home on the Presidio.

I had a blue metal tackle box, dented and scuffed and a little rusty from all the hours I spent on the water, a 5 foot salt water rod with an open faced reel packed with 20 pound test monofilament line, and the other thing that all fishermen have in common: the endless optimism that somewhere under the sparkling surface of the water was a fish that I was destined to catch. Not far away, a solitary gull sat and cocked a wary eye at me with that same optimism, hoping for a snack of one of the shrimp I was using for bait. Behind him bobbed the double rows of sailboats waiting their turn to cut a white path through the bay waters, leaning prettily in the wind and helping to form the picture postcard that the bay could resemble.

The sounds of the scene blended with the warmth of the sun to bring a drowsy contentment. The slap of waves against the hulls of the boats, the breeze whistling past the masts that gently nodded and swayed – then the little musical notes that the guy ropes made when they tapped against the metal of the masts...random chimes, some bright, some dramatic, some cheerful, and some exactly like the note I heard on the porch this morning.

Just for a moment I was there again, young again, and once again loving the generous blessing of having lived in that time and place. Everyone should have memories like that. Everyone.

[oregonbearboy]

...and, scene.

I came here broken and torn and ready to be angry for the rest of my life, but it all fell away from me in our city, even though I was once again the outsider trying to fit in to Presidio Jr. High in 1963, and it looked just as alien and unwelcoming as had El Paso and San Antonio and Tokyo and Yokohama...but, even as those old fears and doubts arose, they somehow became feeble and were forgotten. It was because of here, my friend, and there just isn't anywhere else on earth that is it's match and equal. Witness the legions of those in love with San Francisco – it defies explanation. My love asked me what I would do if I could come back to the city, and she waited while I closed my eyes and put myself there...I'm halfway down from the Cliff House on the sidewalk above Kelly's Cove, my face full into the setting sun and feeling the sweet warmth of it made more dear by the chilled breeze that snaps fresh and crisp every few seconds sending my hair into a wild frenzy. I don't care about anything else other than standing in the bass note of the surf's roar while pure white gulls wheel and caw in the distance. The smell is salt and seaweed – clean and pure and natural from earth's greatest ocean coming ashore here, at our feet, to our so very great delight. If one could somehow know what one's last vision would be and be able to choose it in every nuance and essence and detail, I can argue that standing bold against the wind at Ocean Beach squinting into a kind, setting sun with its gift of a last, fleeting flush of heat and light while the surf thunders and makes the ground tremble beneath you may be the perfect way to end a day...or a life very well lived.

[oregonbearboy]

Bluebirds

Somewhere over the rainbow way up high There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true... Every day that passes can seem to try to put another layer of gauze and mist over your memories, making them just that tiny bit more elusive when you try to bring them back. Time is relentless, and it seems that the only way to slow it down is to keep those memories fresh. They are favorites because they buoyed your heart and filled your dreams at one time, and it can't be a bad idea to relive love and wonder and awe when you are able.

Someday I'll wish upon a star And wake up where the clouds are far Behind me...

    The conga drums combined with the low growl of the surf and a familiar song from a far-off radio...the shank of a long summer day in 1965 at Ocean Beach – everyone mellow and a little introspective as the dusk darkened the scene after a quiet orange sunset and the possibilities shifted from day to night. The driftwood fire cast dancing fingers of firelight in a circle with the smoke being chased away by a tentative southwest breeze that brought that familiar chill. The fire would spark now and then arcing crazily and then dying in the pure black sky. It was easy to sit and think and simply treasure the friends gathered there – simply the best gift one could receive. It didn't seem possible that it would end. Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me...

    The little kids would have to hop up and down to burn off some of the pure joy of holding Mom's hand and walking onto the midway at Playland. It was sometimes a little sad to watch it spiral down, but, now and then, a summer day would find the place teeming with happy, smiling people and noisy with the merry go round music and the clank of the tram cars at the haunted mine and the whoosh of the diving bell resurfacing and the squeals that rang out from the Fun House. Endless summer...endless memories that echo and dim and waver now but keep their sweet edge and bring you the best reward – a smile. Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly Birds fly over the rainbow Why then, oh, why can't I?

I walked that sand knowing that these days were tragically numbered – the little kiss of the shore breeze, that sweet face you adored unknown that knew nothing about the feelings in you, the freedom of facing the endless west and the world that waited there...waited until west became east and you had come full circle and the feeling broke your heart and then thrilled it again. The song said it all, and it made you wonder if everyone could hear it. If happy little bluebirds fly Beyond the rainbow Why, oh, why can't I?

My city was every kind of magic...I hope it still is. I hope people still stand awe-struck now and then there and feel the blessing that is there in the echoes that reflect from the downtown buildings, the bay angry with whitecaps, a setting sun that has every promise of tomorrow, a gentle, loving hand on your forehead as you fall into a sweet sleep. Love is here. I know it. Love is here.

[oregonbearboy]

Forever

    I awoke one morning and it was gone...forever, and it killed me a little. I had just learned about forever when two classmates fell to a tragic accident, leaving me to stare at their empty desks in class and hurt so hard and so fiercely for the first time that it made me wonder how people were supposed to get through life when this kind of thing was part of it.

    It's impossible to completely convey the change and magic and eeriness that wrapped you in their arms when you were in that most San Francisco of all possible places, Sutro Baths. It so perfectly mirrored the city we love and had everything we love about the city wrought into its very structure. When you were here, the past flowed through you and spoke to you in the hollow echoes that the vast space created. You could not stay in your own century, this place took you back, by the hand, and made you feel the energy of the multitudes that visited here, with their now gone voices and joyous shouts that rang out and reverberated through it, along with the shared curiosity and thirst for the unusual that permeates and endures.

    There really couldn't have been another place on earth quite like it, and it wasn't just the bizarre displays like the merman and the hand-made shivs from the prisoners at Walla Walla, or the huge toothpick creations – it was the fact that the building itself made anything inside, including people, different. It may be that the unique energy of our special city was somehow focused here – at least it felt that way.

    I ditched classes at GWHS now and then just to visit. I actually couldn't help it, the place was such a perplexing mystery to me that I was drawn back again and again to stand there in the quiet, surrounded by the ancient and intricate steel and beautiful pale green glass filtering in a dimmed sun and the welcome hush that brought any far-off noise to you in a little muted vibrato that was part music and part magic. I can't express how much I miss it, but forever is forever.

    To my friends, Anthony and Gerald, remembered forever.

[oregonbearboy]

Taboo

·

Some of my fondest and most treasured memories of San Francisco in the mid 60s come from thinking back to places I wasn't supposed to be. It gave the experiences that little extra taste of the forbidden, the risky, and the just plain dangerous that colored and adorned them like the perfect frame for a favorite picture.

    Someone at the Sears store where I worked told me about the wonderful lunch across the street at a dark and smokey bar on Masonic. I was still pretty far from 21, but I acted like I belonged and became a regular. Meatloaf, solid and so savory with irresistible gravy and all served too hot to eat... oven fresh rolls melting cool pats of butter and throwing off warm waves of aroma that enveloped your face in the most delightful and steamy wreath, yeasty and earthy and amazing. Green beans with bits of bacon and done just slightly crunchy with a side of smooth mashed potatoes topped with a ladle dent of room in the middle for a pool of gravy. It was over 50 years ago, and I still ache for it all – not just the food, but the wonderful San Francisco types that you found there – working people thriving in the best city ever...good-natured, animated and engaged. 

  My friend's Dad used to get us Giants tickets from work – great seats right on the 3rd base line at Candlestick. We would sell them and buy cheap seats in left field to watch the game with the rowdies, the fight-pickers, the hard drinkers, the hooters, and the trouble-makers. The Giants once came back from an 11 run deficit against the Dodgers, and I wondered if I would get out uninjured. It was great.

    The Anchor Bar on the waterfront by the decrepit Kennedy Hotel sold steam beer. I had no idea what that was, but one night found my underage self at the bar enjoying a cold one. I had sidled into the darkness hoping to get served, and it somehow worked. A longshoreman at the end of the bar was buying the house rounds, so I soon had two more in front of me. As my eyes became used to the dark, I looked around at the booths and...cops, dozens of them, and some just now noticing me but I was soon gone like a wisp of smoke. 

  The ladder down to the lower level of the fishing pier at Ft. Point looked like it might hold you. It also looked like it might not. Fortunately, when you're 17, you are immortal, so down I went. It was pretty amazing...the sun beams slanting in to illuminate the pilings covered with a thick carpet of anemones, starfish, barnacles, and all the other assorted sea life in all their glorious colors. It was quiet and beautiful and natural. Just being there amid all that life and light and movement was like watching that world breathe...easily worth a moment's trust in a rusty ladder.     Go where you're supposed to. Or, don't.

[oregonbearboy]

Nearby

There were so many times that I just stood in wonder as my senses were overwhelmed, and I would repeat my little prayer to myself that I may some day be able to share that feeling with words and make people feel the special turn that things take in San Francisco – how living and loving and triumphs and disasters and hugs and kisses can all be different here. A difference in the aura that surrounds the memories...special and tucked away for when they may be needed to brighten, even out, and moderate the hard edges that simply existing provides.

    She sat a few rows ahead of me in Mr. Stadermann's class and spent our years at Washington, '63 to '66, completely unaware of how she melted me and crushed me. When she wore her hair up, a few stray curls would escape and dance around her lovely neck when she moved...so perfect, and now and then she would smile and say hi and I would try to pretend she didn't own my heart. She still does...a little bit.

   Once, an older man parked in front of me at the curb by the Bull Pup at the beach. I leaned on the little countertop they provided the walk-up clients and watched while he made the love of his life comfortable in her wheelchair...he knelt at her side and pulled the scarf close around her neck to ward off the little chill and the wisps of fog that curled around us. He settled a lap blanket on her and said something close and soft into her ear and then kissed her hand and her forehead. It was all the love in the entire world and I knew I would never forget.

    I lived a five minute walk from Ocean Beach at 44th and Balboa, and it was like strolling through Oz toward a giant rainbow on the horizon... it started with the ocean just a quiet, distant rumble and the breeze now freshening at the end of block one...then, a little noisier as the sounds from Playland and the Great Highway traffic ramped up. Downhill now, and the real ocean breeze came alive a block away from the sand and now and then you might have to hunker down into your windbreaker and face away from the mist and spray. But, you were right in the sweet middle of it all, and the feeling was that quirky but welcome romance that you can sense for a place that, like a pretty girl, can come to own your heart.

[oregonbearboy]

Neon

I love the way everyone's story is novel-worthy and amazing – such a collection of times when something spoke to your heart and you captured it and kept it prime among all the candidates in your memories, able to be embraced again with all the smiles and hope and happiness fresh again and forever treasured.

    My buds and I were all military kids in 1965 San Francisco – always just a shade of outcast and a different stripe in life that made us feel apart from everyone else, all of us tempered by a childhood that made you stronger by necessity and adversity and ever-changing geography. We were rowdy as hell, and we had a hundred unique adventures in this amazing city, but I feel blessed that I was able to stop now and then to see the sheer poetry and grace and style and heart of this place...always to be treasured and remembered...protected.

    The mounted cops were tracking us one very dark night in westernmost Golden Gate Park. We had been drinking and climbing into the windmills, both of which activities would gain the attention of San Francisco's finest. I had crawled under some brush and emerged at the side of a large open field when I stopped dead and had to stare at a huge moon, cool and silver, hanging and shimmering in the ebony southern sky just above the trees and the man in the moon with a quizzical and surprised look as if commenting on me. I remember it made me smile and not care if I was caught.

    We were in North Beach later that night, underage and useless to the barkers who lurked in the club doorways, snapped their gum and shouted, “All Nude!” into the night, “Live on Stage – all nude!” It had rained earlier, and every puddle was a brilliant rainbow of reflected neon so that simply walking there could amaze and stun the senses while you tried to be part of it all, always failing at that but always willing to try.

    The Fillmore West show was exiting, and we hung nearby, attracted by a nebulous concept of possible contact with girls. They managed to walk past us, oblivious and preoccupied while we hemmed and hawed and gawked and generally accepted another defeat with what little grace we could muster. Onward...

    Later still, we were directly under the southern Golden Gate Bride at Ft. Point, deep dark night and a quiet sea just once in a while splashing against the riprap at the shore. The bridge loomed impossibly huge above us, trembling and complaining now and then when a truck traversed it. I stood aside to see the full extent of the tower and the lovely sweep of the cables and the delicate arch of the midspan as it spoke to me as an old friend...one who had been that image in my dream of home for all my life.

    One Thursday night in my town. Hell yes.

[oregonbearboy]

Dawn

      Fish, apparently, are the animal world equivalent of morning people – jumping out of bed alert, ready, and quivering with energy and hunger at a ridiculous early hour. Because of that, I found myself many times huddled in the raw, dark cold of Ft. Point on the bay beneath the Golden Gate Bridge before the sun and, presumably, the fish, made their appearance. There were usually a few of us out there, chilled hands cupping the warmth of a thermosful of hot coffee, clouds of breath hanging and then chased away by the sea breeze, the quiet only ruffled by a far-off ship's engine cranking up and the rhythmic splash of the waves slapping against the pilings below.

Once you were baited up and cast and the slack taken up in the line, you could settle in and squint into the darkness just as false dawn put a light gray tinge over the Berkeley Hills – a light which phased into a faint pink and then a hint of orange as the far-off treeline was back-lit and beautiful, emerging from the cool dark into a promise of sun. Things nearby and far took shape in the growing light, and you could feel the world settle into gear for a new day.

On a cloudless day, the sun would first appear as a piercing red/orange dot as all faces turned to it for the small dose of warm optimism it carried with it, soon to become long fingers of light that carried across the waves to speckle the downtown buildings with wild pastels – the windows doubling and tripling the effect like neon on a rain puddle.

Now and then those few of us witness to this glory would simply look at each other and gently shake our heads, unable to express the privilege of being there at a time when, just for a moment, everything was perfect.

Sometimes I caught fish. Sometimes not. It didn't matter.

[oregonbearboy]

Melody

I'm like you – I love music. I love the way it sometimes strikes you so squarely and purely in your heart. I love the way it can bring all the sentiments and loves and emotions of a past time in life instantly back to life, fresh again...younger. And you too are younger, looking into someone's eyes as the song unfolds, the music weaving into the moment until they are one – inseparable for all the time you will spend in this world.

1966. There are 8 or so of us gathered in a shoulder-to-shoulder circle around a beach fire at Ocean Beach. Now and then the smoke stings your eyes and the unique driftwood fire smell will permeate your clothes, but the warm is real and her face in the firelight is so beautiful that it makes my chest hurt to look at it.

“As I walk this land of broken dreams, I have visions of many things...” She had this way of being casually unaware of herself and striking endless brief poses in the general course of things, each of which would be etched into my thoughts. The surf nearby added a friendly bass note, rising and falling as the waves came ashore...the night was opaque with fog, and the lights from Playland, bright and joyful and happy, took on a misted pastel hue, muted along with the far-off voices into a dreamy undertone that sweetened the moment.

“But happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion...” I nestled deeper into the sand, blessed to simply be near her. The slight breeze might sharpen and bring a little shiver that may have been from the chill but could have simply been an innocent soul being captured and conquered and smitten and joyous. I poked the end of a dry branch into the hot orange of the fire until the tip glowed, plunging it into the sand to quench it over and over

“The roots of love grow all around, but for me they come a-tumblin' down...” Someone turned up the radio, and the music swelled and made everyone pause just a moment, looking at each other and just loving being there safe and warm and surrounded by friends. Every few minutes, the driftwood fire would pop and throw sparks into the air, twisting crazily until they died and were carried away into the night. She was someone else's true love, and my little dreams blew away and died as well, but only for a while...just for a while. You and I both know what becomes of the broken-hearted.

[oregonbearboy]

Ozymandias

“I met a traveler from an antique land”...the opening line from Shelley's “Ozymandias”, an effortlessly elegant poem from a master, and I find myself now that traveler, thousands of miles worn and weary and still gathering memories, especially now that time has given me a more keen appreciation of them. It occurred to me that the very best and most heartfelt of those came free of any cost other than the moment taken to enjoy and remember them.

    For instance, my friends lived at Ft. Cronkite, just past the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge and accessed through a quarter mile of spooky one-way tunnel at the base of the other side of the Marin headlands. We used his Honda 250 dirt bike to rip and roar through the trails there, and as I crested the hill the view of my favorite city, so photogenic and beautifully framed by the tall, graceful towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, made me pause, quiet the engine, and let the wind rushing and breathing through the scrub grass provide the music for this masterwork. An outgoing ship carved a pure white wake into the bay as it headed east, and I heard the ship's horn salute the pilot boat as it veered away...I've since seen that view in a hundred ads for cars and cologne and whatever, but there was a time about 50 years ago when I had it all to myself – for a small interlude the luckiest person on earth.

    Ocean Beach has a lot of pages in my book. A pretty girl from San Jose kissed me – twice. I don't flatter myself that she remembers now, but I have thanked her for that delight a thousand times in the years since. I once watched a sunset there so magnetic and compelling that it made everyone present – bikers, conga players, surfers, wannabes, and tourists alike - stop and turn to face that glow, warmed by both the heat and the feeling of awe and privilege that came with witnessing that slightly sad goodbye, scarlet fading to orange and finally dimming to twilight. At that special shore, there were many nights under countless stars that we stared into while nestled in the sand with the mellow rumble of the surf and the crackle of a driftwood fire as comfort and company, the chill in the air turned away by the flames.

    I hope you had a grandfather like mine: so cool and wise and funny and smart...he was the one who told me about old San Francisco and made me want to know it all: the money and mystery and romance and drama, damsels and villains, the hills with built-in stairs, the vast dunes that would become the Sunset District, the vistas, the aromas, the pulse and vibrancy of it. His visit with me while I was fishing on a cool, blue day at Ft. Point gave me the chance to stand at his side, happily wind-burned and share that part of his heart for some minutes that now form the best memory of all.

    I wish I had taken more time to love it all. The only advice I ever give anyone is to do just that.

[oregonbearboy]

Bittersweet(est)

 She was fresh from outside in mid-October, breathless and cheeks all peach and rose with that beautifully unforgettable face surrounded by all those curls, long and alive and graceful. It was impossible not to think about holding that amazing face in my hands and kissing those perfect lips – baby kisses, then stopping to look into her eyes and losing myself there. Holding her close and feeling the gentle swell of her breasts and her hips against me, warm and a little urgent and absolute bliss. Then, kissing those sweet eyes closed before another long, lingering embrace just as I felt her warm breath in my ear and she whispered my name. There can't be a more beautiful memory of something that never happened. There can't be...

[oregonbearboy]

City

There's a reason...probably thousands of them, that this city is unique in the world and deserving of the utmost care and concern for its nature and spirit. I lived here in my teens and early 20s, the mid sixties and early 70s,and I confess I couldn't fully appreciate that simply being here was the gift of a handful of precious gems, glinting and sparkling and dazzling, freshly dipped out of a pirate's treasure chest  and beautiful beyond imagining and all the more dear to your heart as a true gift – no strings attached, just thrive and enjoy. Mercy, no wonder this place was the lodestone of its time.

    You could feel the hustle and muscle of it downtown, where I worked security for Bechtel and the street absolutely throbbed with money and the hum of business grinding out profit and I talked now and then with a legless man selling pencils in front of a store that had been going out of business for three years.

    I had a column in the Eagle, the Washington High Newspaper, and I was also the ad manager, and that involved going downtown to the coolest place – the Roos-Atkins store where a sharp-dressed man might find whatever he needed. I stood so many times and looked down Market at the most fascinating scene in full animation flowing and teeming with traffic and people with a rumble and roar that echoed off the concrete and glass...men in hats all business and drive, execs and maintenance men, oddballs, misfits, and derelicts all somehow at peace and each intent on a mission and a purpose.

    The Bay was function and form and substance for a million activities – cargo ships from every port on earth, sea worn and weary, trim and efficient warships, sinister submarines, pleasure craft, nimble and photogenic sailboats, tugs, fishing boats...it simply couldn't been seen without taking inspiration from it. On a clear day with a fresh breeze making you pull your sweater tighter and welcome a small chill of discovery and revelation that made you tell yourself, “remember this”. I did that, and I hope you did, too.

    Those nights at Ocean beach just beyond the reach of the lights at Playland, faces rosy and warm near a driftwood fire with the hushed thunder of waves on the beach and friendly moonlight shining a pathway on the water. Earlier, we stood at the seawall while the sun swelled and reddened, sinking in the east with a slight melancholy and finally gone – another memory, another gem, another invitation to help yourself to all you want.

    A beautiful bridge, so perfect and spun like an immaculate spider's web across the headlands...the fog pure mystery and a cool silver signature of the city...foghorns filling the night with their sad but comforting notes that murmured, “all is well” as they lulled you to sleep...hills, some ridiculous, because flat is boring and they look like movie stars when the fog creeps in and wreathes them like a feather boa. This place – so beautiful and photogenic and dear to our hearts, worthy of our kindest regard. I loved living here, and I've never said that about anywhere else.

[oregonbearboy]

Revisit Any Old Time

 With an abundance of time to reflect, I consider myself blessed to be able to revisit memories that still make me sigh a little with such powerfully fond thoughts – uniquely San Francisco and, for that reason, especially treasured.

    In the last few hours, I stood again on the Marina Green, a mower nearby filling the air with that clean chlorophyll smell, wholesome and natural...gulls wheeling and soaring in a sapphire blue sky buoyed by a breeze from the west. The marina water sparkling with its ebb and flow and the boat masts gently bowing and nodding...two majestic bridges west and east standing as bookends in a bay alive with ships and boats and the grim, hard look of Alcatraz dead center.

    Sunset at Ocean Beach, sometimes an orgy of color that could serve as compensation for a cool, grey day just ending. Then, the fires sparking to life as darkness fell  and small circles of beachgoers became visible in the flickering light and music played, faint and familiar from a radio and the smoke was incense.

    A walk through the eerie, echoing maze of Sutro Baths would awaken any sleeping imagination. It always felt just a bit unsettling and oddly offputting as if foreshadowing its own sad demise. I was there dozens of times, sometimes alone in that most intricate and unique building where old San Francisco seemed to echo, reflect, and preserve itself, ageless and enduring.

    A hillside on the western edge of the Presidio with a spectacular view of the headlands, the Marin side, Baker's Beach, with the wind scrubbed fresh from 5,000 miles of ocean and the feeling of privilege just being there.

    There's an impressive feel of old money in Sea Cliff as those amazing and ornate homes stand, pampered and perfect in a beautiful statement of elegance and graciousness. I walked past them again, taken back in time.

    At the tops of hills – on Powell, or Hyde, or California, you could stand, tired from the climb, and be awe-struck at the wonderful vision before you. The picture-perfect bay and, then turn around and take in the symmetry, size, and extent of a vibrant, thriving city. A cable car rumbles by, bell clanging

    At 15, in 1963, hanging out some days at Dave Sullivan's Sport Shop on Geary, talking fishing and now and then sharing the excitement of a Striper run with dozens of anglers racing to the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge and the air filled with monofilament line and lures trailing wicked single or treble hooks.

    So many days spent at Ft. Point, fishing and just simply reveling in being right in the middle of it all. I visited it all today, and I'll do it again tomorrow. It's been all those many years ago, and I still can't get enough. Chances are, I never will.

[oregonbearboy]

Your Delightful 2020 Horoscope

Capricorn -   As the sun goes down on the smoldering wreckage of your home, you will pray for death and be disappointed yet again.

Aquarius - Your neighbor's huge dog has left a steaming, fly buzzing gift on your lawn which your mower will turn into a miasmic brown mist that sweeps over you – much like being near Niagara Falls, except not.

Pisces - The Publisher's Clearing House prize patrol will be walking up your driveway with your huge grand prize check moments before the first North Korean missiles land directly on them.

Aries - You will survive a three-week battle with the Coronavirus, only to be crushed by a speeding beer truck. The name of the beer will cause every news story about your accident to begin with, “Ironically...”

Taurus - You will cough a little while shopping for groceries. Several older ladies nearby will throw cans of Dinty Moore stew at you until you die.

Gemini - Every Wednesday, several angry clowns crush the flowers in your garden with their enormous shoes. When you complain, they get you with their lapel flower squirters full of what you hope is just water but know better.

Cancer - You buy your daughter a cute little doll. Later, after a series of unfortunate events, you will read the label on it to see if it mentions, “stalking the hallways of your home seeking the flesh of the living to strangle with my tiny little hands.”

Leo - The list of possible side-effects mentions heart attack, brain tumors, kidney failure, incontinence, and “even worse” incontinence. You will think, “this isn't the brand of Aspirin I usually get.”

Virgo - You will live an unusually long life, the last half of which will be spent as a brain hooked up to wires and tubes on a mad scientist's desk, so be aware of the impending trade-off.

Libra - Local mobsters will insist on renting the trunk of your Cadillac for “storage.”

Scorpio – If you have trouble telling the speedometer from the odometer on your car, keep in mind that you're probably not going 72,654 miles per hour.

Sagittarius – You will become so lazy that, instead of working out, you will simply sit and hope to develop tumors that look like muscles.