I sure hope you’ve got the kind of friends I’m lucky to have! Ones you might not see for ages and then get back together with and it’s as if no time has passed? What a gift that is!

Certain places have that feel for me too. Visiting London last summer was just like catching up with an old friend! And it’s been a real pleasure lately to renew my kinship with the city I grew up seeing across the water from my childhood home. Locals refer to it as “the City” – 

That’s San Francisco!

For so many events of my youth, I was fortunate to have the City as a backdrop! And not only does our connection span my own lifetime, it includes two branches of my family tree – and two ladies named Martha!

It’s tough to figure how to organize this massive a topic (although regular readers might suggest I don’t worry much there). And it’s weird, memory-wise. Recently, I punched in the code to enter a storage facility – then forgot the code half an hour later at the exit. But when I think of San Francisco? This huge tide of decades-old memories comes rushing back clear as day!

Just geographically, there are all sorts of places to begin – and I’d have a tale to go with each! There’s lively Fisherman’s Wharf, ominous Alcatraz, chocolatey Ghirardelli Square, or eclectic Golden Gate Park! But I’ll take the plunge with maybe the most iconic San Francisco symbol (where with apologies, I seem to enjoy myself too much to take good pics…):

I had the privilege of growing up with a view of this grand landmark from the family room window! I’d also get to drive over it now and then, and I cruised under it aboard a ship bound for Australia when I was four! I recall Mum’s waking me so I could perch on a step stool and peer through our cabin’s porthole as we glided through the San Francisco Bay. Mum thought that was an experience I shouldn’t miss – and I’m so grateful!

On a recent trip north over the Bridge, I found the queue just to get up to it was lengthy and slow – but it felt to me like waiting to get on some awesome amusement park ride!

So the Bridge remains a constant – but as with people-y relationships, the City has changed in other ways over my time. Back in the day, I got to experience a real-deal San Francisco amusement park – Playland-at-the-Beach with its arcades and attractions that dazzled five-year-old me! It’d soon be demolished to make way for beachfront condos – but a legacy some might know is the ice cream sandwich treat, the “It’s-It”, that was created there and lives on today! Unless it’s in my freezer.

I’ve only seen the ruins but, nearby, there also used to be the Sutro Baths – a recreation complex with seven pools, plus restaurants and a natural history exhibit among its offerings. When Dad was a teen-aged Marine stationed in Vallejo after WWII, San Francisco was his off-duty playground – and he wrote about this neighborhood as well as, um, other City attractions:

“We’d bottle up at the PX, hop the free bus to Frisco, and hit a burlesque show where you could buy Coke from an aisle-walking hawker, pour some whiskey in the Coke, and sit back and make a complete ass of yourself. Fortunately such excursions were very infrequent (I think I lacked the taste and the stomach for them). I saw my first professional theater on Geary Street: “The Student Prince” and “The Firefly” I remember well. Playland dominated the beach south of the Cliff House. And the Sutro Baths were just a block or two north.”

Years later, when work brought Dad back to the Bay Area, he and Mum would take a break from parenting and head over to the City for an evening of comedy at the Hungry I (before it became a strip club), or a symphony concert (from which Mum would bring me back little tins of candy), or simply a quiet-meal-in-peace-for-goodness-sake. When I reached an age where I didn’t get all squirmy in five minutes’ time, I’d join them for touring versions of Broadway musicals, classic plays at ACT, museum visits, and track and field meets. Whatever our family was in the mood for, the City could provide!

Back when Dad was swimming and clown diving at the Sutro Baths, he couldn’t have known he was only a matter of blocks from the home of a woman destined to become his Aunt-in-Law –

Mum’s Aunt Martha.

My childhood was sprinkled with visits to Aunt Martha and Uncle Bill’s in San Francisco! I remember holiday dinners there where there was fancy china, an appliance just for keeping food warm, and an immediate cocktail for any grownup who walked in the door. It became tradition for Mum to take me over to the City for a little birthday shopping on Union Square, and we’d rendezvous after with Martha for a fine dining experience and often a fine view! 

Martha was a well regarded Head Nurse at Fort Miley Hospital (now the San Francisco VA Medical Center), a positively rabid Giants fan, and an all-around sweet lady! Trips to see her did get a bit harrowing when Dad insisted I learn to negotiate San Francisco hills with our stick shift car (can you say Lombard Street..?) – but if we survived, I knew I could count on Aunt Martha for a cool Shirley Temple, a warm meal and an even warmer smile!

I got the knack of releasing the parking brake slowly while givin’ er gas – but friends and I had the easier option starting in the ’70’s of hopping on the local rail system, BART, which opened up the City to us that much more!

These outings weren’t just fun – they could be journeys of self discovery too! Like while trying to feel my way through the pitch-dark spaces of the Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium (“a public learning laboratory where you can explore the world through science, art and human perception”), I definitely perceived that I was claustrophobic. A City summer course attended with dear friend Kathy proved I had absolutely no flare for debating. (Seriously. None.) A trip to the stately Coronet Theater taught me I could better shoulder an increasing load of cares by escaping for just a little to a galaxy far, far away. And I learned that among fancy delights like dressing up for senior prom at the posh St. Francis Hotel, it might be a simple thing like riding the glass elevators for stunning City views over and over (and over) again that winds up being the most memorable delight of all!

Well, a clue to how special San Francisco is to me is that I can’t do it justice in one post! Next time, amid more City sights, I’ll bring my personal history up to the present and reach back on the family tree to introduce another Martha.

Until then – cheers!