(copyright)
The WALTHER REPORT
By Tony Walther
I had a sense of foreboding and possibly some morbid thoughts as I prepared to take a trip back in time. My wife and I went to San Francisco at the top of the week so that I could have a consultation with a doctor at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, concerning my cancer.
It seemed that I might be looking at a possible bone marrow or stem cell transplant with a future even more uncertain than futures always are.
We booked a room at a hotel (the kind that’s a cross between a hotel and a motel) and got
there a day in advance. As it happened, we were staying in the neighborhood where my family lived when I was born, nearly 59 years ago.
One terrible thought that went through my mind was, well, that’s fitting, I’m going back to die where I was born.
But the news was good, although I hasten to add, I’m not out of the woods yet. But the doctor indicated that I am basically in remission, although a few more things need to be observed yet.
Before I heard all that, though, I took a stroll down memory lane. I was just approaching my fourth birthday when my family left San Francisco, but I have a good memory.
I’ve been back to the old neighborhood countless times over the years. But this was different. It was as if I was in a time machine, going back 55 years ago:
I walk a couple of blocks from the hotel room and I’m at Judah Street and Great Highway, where the street car tracks double back toward downtown. I remember getting on the street car with my mom and going downtown. Walking around the stores is tough on a little guy. As the day wore on I would get cranky and the strings from the material in the fabric department would tickle and irritate me. That’s why she often left me with a baby sitter.
I walk another block or so and I’m standing in front of the house where my family lived when mom brought me home from the hospital. The house and the one next door is set back from the other row houses. But now I realize that while the one house looks to be in pretty good shape, the one where we lived does not. And over the years it’s been converted it into a kind of triplex arrangement. My dad dug a basement through the sand. He did the work by hand.
And, by the way, this is called the Sunset District. It slopes down to the Ocean. After World War II it was built out. But even when I lived there, there were a few empty lots with sand dunes.
In the next block, I find myself standing in front of the house I remember, the one we lived in when we left the city, a row house, second from the corner. I recall standing on the corner and a grandmother who lived around the corner from us tried to take me in her arms. I bawled uncontrollably. I was scared of old ladies. One of my own daughters suggests maybe I saw the Wizard of Oz on TV and thought they were witches.
The old house looks somewhat the same, but it was redone in front some time after we left. None of the homes there now have the little tiny strips of lawn like ours and some others did back all those years ago.
I remember spending days with my mom while my dad was at work and my next oldest brother and my sister were at school. We’d look out the window and see the Pacific Ocean. For a time, my dad had a photographic studio several blocks away. He made real estate photos all over the city. Sometimes I would accompany my mom to the studio, where she did administrative duties. She would walk and I would ride my tricycle. I retrace the steps, but not on my trike this time. I walk down the street. The old neighborhood is not as clean as it used to be. Here and there are cigarette butts and some fast food litter, along with some sand and dirt on the sidewalks. I would not call it rundown or even filthy. It just doesn’t have quite the clean look it once did. I do like the trees that have been planted here and there, though.
Back in our day, it was predominantly Caucasian working class folks. The houses were not terribly expensive back then. But land, and land near the ocean, and land in San Francisco, over the years became quite expensive, to say the least. Even in the new troubling economic environment, with falling home prices, your average working person could not afford to settle there now, I wouldn’t think. But I’m not into all of that, so I don’t know what the current situation is.
Over time, the Asian population in the city has expanded beyond its historic enclaves and has moved into the Sunset, as well as other areas. There are some Hispanics too. And I see many Caucasians still there.
I see a little neighborhood market (a real market, well it’s a liquor store too, but not an AM- PM) and go into it. I mistakenly think it is one my mom and I used to go to quite regularly. I talk to the proprietor. He’s, maybe Armenian, I don’t know. I’m not good at guessing some ethnic identities. He says he’s been there 16 years. But when I tell him the old name of the market I was thinking about, he says this is not it (mom, 97-year-old mom, confirms later, I was at the wrong one — she also notes there are a lot more cars parked in that neighborhood these days).
I walk on. I see a workman standing in front of a home talking into a cell phone. “Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay.”
I notice the row houses have a larger assortment of color as I once recall. There are splashes of red and green and blue and salmon. There’s also a lot of beige and white, and I think that was typical.
Most homes appear to be in good shape, but some not so good shape. Some have been converted into apartments. There are workmen doing different stages of repair and remodeling, along with what appear to be some homeowners doing their own projects. Not a lot of people on the street, but some are starting to come home from work. In front of an open garage door, two young men, an Hispanic and a Caucasian, appear to be working on a transmission. On down the street, an Hispanic kid comes ducking out a doorway. It’s a warm day and he’s wearing a heavy coat and that kind of sports type wannabe gang outfit (which I am no expert on). I don’t make eye contact.
I get to the corner of Judah and 48th Av and I recognize a barroom I once entered as a small child wearing an Indian headdress (and that’s a story in itself that I’ll forego here). The place is empty with a city condemnation notice taped in a window. I walk back to the hotel.
The view from the third story balcony of the hotel is magnificent. You can see the ocean and the ships moving in and out of the Golden Gate.
I remember my mother telling me as a boy that we were lucky to live in such a special place as San Francisco.
But I realize something. There’s nothing here for me.
Despite my memories, I didn’t actually grow up in my birth town. I know now I would never want to go back (visit, only maybe, live there, certainly not).
I’ve spent most of my life in the Sacramento Valley. It’s not San Francisco. I don’t care for
the hot summers in the valley. I hate the way so many do their best to uglify the place. And there’s that small town, often narrow-minded outlook. The quick buck often prevails over preserving natural beauty, although fortunately not always.
But it is home. We do have Mt. Shasta to look at. And since I may be getting my health back, I should be able to enjoy our lovely and extremely nearby mountains.
I met my wife here in this valley. We had our children here. We’ve lived most of our lives here . And that’s good enough for me.
