The Sunset
I was biking through the Sunset district at the westernmost edge of Golden Gate Park. Riding a bike at a leisurely pace, smelling the eucalyptus trees and the sea that evoked familiar feelings from half a century ago, I turned the corner, and there she stood.
The old girl was pushing 100.
Like a few of her contemporaries, at some time in her recent past, she decided to doll herself up. She changed her old paint job. Back when we lived there, she had a proper Victorian gray with a conservative white rim. The salt and sand of the beach gave it a tired, weathered look, making her look aged and dingey. The boring look probably saved us some rent money. Her most recent look was a psychedelic splash of pukey Ghostbusters-Green with a purple trim straight out of Haight-Ashbury.
Some would say she was gaudy, but her brazen make-over did not bother me one bit. Half a century deserves respect. It is a badge of honor to stand tall and proud… and at the same time be a little bit weird. I was pleased that San Francisco could still blow my mind.
On the first of December, 1976, my $200 a month rent (half my monthly income) was due and paid. My flat was long and narrow, with a cute but tiny kitchen, a very tiny dining room, a slightly but very slightly larger living room, a minuscule bathroom, and a bedroom that allowed two feet to navigate around a double bed.
But that double bed…from there one could look out the window across the Great Highway and gaze at the roiling waves of the Pacific Ocean. That double bed which my bride would soon share with me, making it truly a double bed.
In the final week of a very busy December, I led my new bride of two weeks up the stairwell, unlocked the door, and showed her our new home. Of the half dozen places we lived during our next fifty years, the first was the only one with a sea view. Yes, our $200 bought a couple of starving students a front-row seat in the world's largest ocean. Half a century later I can smell and taste the dense sea salty fog. I can hear the mournful fog horns warning sailors to take heed. I hear the clanging of the N Judah streetcar, the rumble of the tracks. I can see the sun slowly dipping into the endless ocean.
All these marked the adventure’s beginning. I stood in prayerful respect for a minute, saddled up, and rode on.
