A Native Poet
Retraces His San Francisco Youth
It’s been over six
months since the fire at my Noe Valley apartment, which has
forced me to temporarily relocate at my sister's home in Marin
County. I'm feeling stir-crazy today, and the nice weather tells
me I should return to San Francisco for a day in the sun. I slip
into a sport shirt and a pair of jeans and drive across Golden
Gate Bridge to the home of my birth. It’s a thirty-minute drive
to Diamond Heights where I stop to pickup my mail from my postal
box. The same box I have maintained since l974. I put the mail
in the trunk of my car and head down Clipper Street to my old
apartment building. I park the car outside, slip my key into the
door lock, and, enter the building, walking up the three flights
of stairs to Apartment Eight. I slip the second key into the
lock and open the door. The apartment has been cleared of the
rubble and the walls and ceilings torn down. I am staring at a
room on beams. There is no evidence that any other work has
begun. I close the door and lock up after me, deciding to make
the most of the day, as I head for Martha’s Coffee Shop, three
blocks down the street.
I order a cop of decaf coffee and sit at one of the outside
tables, sharing part of my blueberry muffin with an overly
aggressive sparrow. I open the newspaper and turn to the sports
page, touting the Warrior's series win over Dallas. The
basketball Gods have smiled on the Bay Area.
I finish my modest breakfast and return to my car, opening the
seldom used sunroof, and drive off with no particular
destination in mind. First stop is Aquatic Park, where in the
declining days of the Beat Generation, I drank wine with the
late poet Bob Kaufman. Finding the concession stand closed, I
drive to North Beach, stopping off for a beer at Gino and
Carlo’s bar, where I first met the poets Richard Brautigan and
Jack Spicer. I glance at the photographs on the wall, behind the
bar, and am taken in by the handsome Irish features of the late
San Francisco Chronicle columnist, Charles McCabe, and, remember
how he held court there and was always generous with his words.
I finish my beer and head out to Golden Gate Park, traveling the
backroads of my youth. I drive down Kennedy Drive, with few cars
on the road, this early in the day. Two miles down, towards
Ocean Beach, I spot a mounted policeman and wave out the window
at him. I think maybe all police should be on horses or visa
versa.
I stop off at the Polo Grounds and think how odd it is that I
never visited there when I was a young boy growing up in his
native city, never having watched a polo match and having no
desire too. The bison are still there, grazing in a fenced in
area. Once nearly extinct, they are now a living testament to
man’s need to seek out and destroy. The horses at the riding
stable are still there too although they look a bit bored, if
not tired.
II drive back the opposite way, heading for Stow Lake, and
remember how as a member of the Poly High Track Team, I had run
around the lake in effortless ease. I park the car and walk down
to the concessions stand, and order an Eskimo Pie, my first one
since I was twelve years old. I sit down on one of the hard
wooden benches and watch the ducks compete with the seagulls for
scraps of food tossed to them by a small group of Japanese
tourists.
Fifteen minutes later I drive to the Japanese Tea Gardens for a
cup of steeped tea, remembering how Dolores (the Landlord’s
daughter) and I were banished from the gardens after we were
discovered wading into the wishing well pond to remove coins
tossed there by tourists.
On to the Golden Gate Park Bandstand where a friend and I had
ranted our poetry and gibberish to a bewildered bench-seated
audience, so long ago that it now seems like a dream. Growing
restless I return to my car, put on a pair of sunglasses, and
drive to Big Rec, where in my teens I had played baseball,
dreaming of one day playing for the home town Triple “A” San
Francisco Seals. A dream that ended in Panama when I I tore-up
my right knee playing baseball. I don’t know that being a poet
is a fair trade.
On to Irving Street where my best high school buddy and I drank
our first beer, and later puked our guts out. I decide to have
one last drink at the old Wishing Well Bar, where I had lost my
innocence. I get back in the car and drive by what had once been
my high school (Polytechnic), long since demolished and replaced
by row upon row of tacky looking houses.
You know you’re growing old when your high school has been torn
down.
Back to my old neighborhood to have lunch at Eric’s, voted the
best Chinese Restaurant in town. Sitting there looking out the
window at the passing cars, I day dream about when I will be
able to return to my apartment; walk up those three flights of
stairs, sink my butt down on the sofa, turn on an old Billie
Holiday record, and return to a life that now seems like a
surreal dream.
The sun beats down on me through the sunroof as I leave my Noe
Valley digs and drive back across the Golden Gate Bridge on my
way back to Marin County.
No betrayals
No poets
No jive
A great day
To just be alive.
