July 28, 2005 – City by the Bay

July 28, 2005 – City by the Bay

A warm summer day in San Francisco, August, 8, 1963—meaning temperatures in the mid-70s (Fahrenheit)—I’ve collected my 21- by 36-inch top load olive drab Navy duffel bag, with hand grip, shoulder strap, and lockable metal loop. Coming from boot camp in San Diego, the temperature difference was inconsequential. What was of great consequence was the freedom after being confined to a barbed wire enclosed training facility for over two months. The freedom was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It was terrifying because for the past 17 years, I’ve been told what to do and when to do it, the last 12 weeks in recruit training have been especially so as nearly every waking moment was filled with duties to perform. Even the weekends were spent preparing for the week ahead: doing laundry, mending clothing, shining shoes, and writing letters home. Meals were served at specific times during the day. There was a prescribed time when lights were turned out and you were expected to be in your bunks. And you were awakened at exactly the same time every morning to begin your day.

Now, as I left the airport in my dress blue uniform—pullover jumper, spotless white navy cap, 13-button, trousers—with spit-shined shoes, I had to decide whether to take a cab or the bus into the city. Where there had been clear guidelines about what to do right up until I boarded the bus to the airport from boot camp earlier in the morning, I was now on my own. I took a cab. After being cooped up with a barracks full of sailors living asshole to belly button for the past nine weeks I wanted some space between me and other humans. I told the cab driver to take me to the Marines Memorial Hotel at the corner of Mason and Sutter in the City. I had until Monday to report for duty on Treasure Island. Here I was in the city I had dreamed about coming to as a teenager. My senior year in high school living with my parents at Ft Lewis, Washington, I would listen to radio broadcasts from San Francisco as I lay in bed dreaming of the day I would walk the hills of the city. One of the late night broadcasts was from a nightclub in the city—I want to say the Hungry i, but I can’t remember for sure. I can recall wondering what it would be like to be in the audience, sipping a drink—back then I would have ordered a scotch and soda because I had heard the Kingston Trio sing the song of the same name and I became hooked on the music and the drink. My experience with alcohol was limited to screw top wine and Olympia Beer, though I had aspirations to more sophisticated adult drinks—the power of ads in Playboy were apparent in me.

Established in 1948 in a building that was rose in 1926, the Marines Memorial Hotel bearing an early 20th century motif, which back then was no big deal. It’s a fine hotel in a city of great hotels. The non-profit Marines' Memorial Association built the hotel as a memorial to the Marines who lost their lives in the Pacific during the Second World War. I was told by a sailor I had struck up a conversation with at the airport in San Diego that members of the military were welcome. Paying the cabby, I walked in without a reservation and asked the desk clerk if he had a room for the night and luckily he had. Also, there was a special rate for active duty servicemen, which would still take a good chunk of the over-two-months pay I had amassed during boot camp but I had nothing else to spend my money on—certainly not scotch and soda since I was still under the drinking age in California. Furthermore, one of my dreams was coming true. I was checked into a nice hotel on a hill in San Francisco: the lyrics of the Tony Bennett hit recorded the year before stuck in my head: “to be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars…”

After unpacking my bag, putting all my belongings neatly into the dresser and closet of my hotel room and stowing my folded duffel bag away—boot camp training—I set out to explore the city by the bay. Mason runs parallel to and is a block west of Powell so I struck out on foot heading east to Powell then turning left and started climbing Powell to Nob Hill. In the middle of Powell, a succession of cable cars crowded with tourist with no stomach for the ascent on foot watched my slow labored progress. I eventually arrived at the crest “above the blue and windy sea” and wandered through the Mark Hopkins and Fairmont Hotels. This was a life that I wanted to live, to be a well dressed civilian with the wherewithal to travel the world frequenting places like this as I went about doing whatever it was I was going to do when I grew up. A while later after taking the elevator to the top of both hotels and wandering the cavernous baroque lobby of the Fairmont and the more intimate one of the Mark Hopkins, I followed the cable car tracks down to Fisherman’s Wharf.

The Wharf in 1963 comprised the restaurants along Jefferson Street between Taylor and Jones Street: A. Sabella, Castagnola's, Alioto's, and Fisherman's Grotto, as well as the curio shops selling San Francisco souvenirs. The steel-hull, square-rigger Balclutha was birth at the Pier 41 across Embarcadero from Powell Street. She was named for a town in New Zealand. I had to go aboard and wander about a ship where I was the one person properly dressed. It was the first ship I had been on that was in water since I joined the Navy. All the drills we performed during boot camp were done in parts of ships that were planted firmly on the ground. You could feel the deck of the Balclutha move under foot. It felt good and I thought how great it would be to be underway aboard ship somewhere beyond the Golden Gate. I would know this sensation but it would take over a year and a half for me to experience it. Toward evening, I walked south on Stockton Street to Columbus Street, southeast on Columbus into Chinatown on Grant Avenue where I wandered the crowded streets walking in and out of shops teaming with people. I returned to Powell from Grant on Broadway Street—the neon signs were on but the Sun hadn’t set and the place looked like a aging tart without her make-up. South on Powell until I reached Tad Steakhouse—a great steak and fries at a price a sailor could afford. After dinner I walked back up Powell to Broadway. I had to see the street all lit up. The Condor and other joints along Broadway had their hawkers outside their entrances doing everything to entice those passing by into their club short of physically grabbing you. I had to answer to everyone of them as I walk the length of the street from Columbus Avenue to Sansome Street. Carol Doda had yet to arrive though she would make her debut at the Condor before I left the city

I was blithely living my “scotch and soda” dream in my “city by the bay.” The one thing lacking was someone to enjoy it with. I would have to travel to the other end of the country to find her and spend another 10 years getting both of us back here. But we did make it and it has made all the difference.