Postcards from San Francisco

   On the way to San Francisco for a conference, I suffer all the little common worries of the modern traveler.  Will there be room in the overhead for my suitcase?  If I have to give it up here at the gate, will it really make it into the belly of the plane?  Will the person sitting next to me be obese?  Will they give us the whole damned water bottle this time, or just a stupid plastic cup of it?  And so on.  It’s ridiculous, of course.  Especially once you’re up in the air and soaring west and further west, across the vast plains, the mountains, the deserts.  

   Five hours in and one to go.  You’ve done your work for the day, read the interesting bits of the Sunday Times (of which there were too few), and your back is sore.  But still, you are making good time, incredible time, flying in this rocket ship.  Below, the occasional highway looks like a dusty trail.  Your sore back and cramped legs are nothing compared to those of the pioneers who set out, not so long ago, to cross these lands in hard wagons, or walking alongside them, trying to stay in the wagon’s shade.

   Somewhere over Utah (I think), I hunt through the journals on my laptop for the notes I wrote of my last visit to San Francisco, which turns out to have been eleven years ago.  I don’t date what I write (I should), but there is this reference to Miss Megan being six: 

   We are at war in Iraq, and with Al Qaeda.  The news contains rumors of terrorists in the U.S., or perhaps elsewhere, armed with surface-to-air missiles and the intention to take down commercial airliners.  I am about to fly to San Francisco for a conference on asbestos litigation.  A colleague at work asks if I am nervous about flying.  I respond as Churchill did to his aides who urged him to take cover during the Blitz.  “I am protected by the impenetrable shield of probability.”  At home in the evening, talking to my 6-year-old who does not want me to go away, it is harder to feel sure.

   Megan, of course, is long over any separation anxiety around my business trips.  Sadly, incredibly, we remain at war in Iraq and with Al Qaeda.

   I did a good job last time getting out of the conference hotel and exploring the city, and ate well, too.  Strolling The Embarcadero, checking out the sea lions at Pier 39 and gazing out at Alcatraz (La Isla de los Alcatraces, The Island of the Pelicans); Fisherman’s Wharf, looking for actual fisherman and fresh fish, not just chowder in bread bowls; and Ghiardelli Square.  Riding the cable cars.  The park at Fort Mason.  The marine museum at Aquatic Park.  The buttery swordfish atop a spicy, colorful curry with lemon, mango, red jalapeno peppers and coconut at Ponzu; a salad with Dungeness crab and bay shrimp at one of the places along The Embarcadero; and the whole roasted fish and two fine glasses of wine at The Slanted Door, at the corner of The Embarcadero and Brannan Street. 

   Brannan Street, I later learned, is named for Samuel Brannan, who on May 12, 1848, rode through the streets of San Francisco waving a bottle of gold and shouting, “Gold!  Gold!  Gold from the American River!”  So began the great Gold Rush.  One wonders what else might be named for Brannan, besides this one street, if only he had kept his mouth shut for a little while.

   Strolling through Chinatown, with its grocery stores and meat shops and fish shops.  Fish lie gasping, flopping, bleeding in tanks and tubs that range out onto the sidewalk.  Large eels rope around on top of the ice.  Enormous, phallic clams hang out of their shells.  Striped bass are plentiful, the schoolies laid out whole, the large ones hacked into big chunks, some proudly displayed with a good portion of entrails attached.  Heads for sale.  Tails for sale.  Heads and tales and who knows what, all tied up in a plastic bag for sale.  A buck fifty.

    And when I have seen it all, I haven’t.  There in the back, on the floor, were two boxes with dark, green turtles in them.  Live, low-to-the-ground turtles.  One of them out of the box, heading slowly, steadily, knowingly it seemed, toward the front door.  I looked away, so as not to tip anyone off.

   The notes I wrote last time seem pretty poor now.  Not much more than "I did this, and then I did that.  And then I ate this and that."  Except maybe the bit about the turtle, which I still like.  And maybe this, about my stroll one night after dinner.

   The walk back to my hotel takes me past the Greyhound bus terminal.  A big, desolate place, with the long, high-backed benches that you see in all the old bus terminals and train stations.  It looks like the loneliest place in the city, right now.

   A sad sigh wells up as I remember the nights my dad took me down to the train station in Bellows Falls to catch the Montrealer down to Philadelphia.  What did my dad think while we made small talk and waited for the train?  Did he try to imagine what college life was like, not having gone?  Did he look at me the way I now marvel at my girls?  Did he wonder if I’d be hungry on the train?  Or was he lost in thoughts about the work ahead of him the next day, and the extra cup of coffee after lunch that this late-night excursion would require?

   The sadness is immense at times.  That I can’t talk to him about any of this.  I miss him.