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Honeybee's avatar

Well, Steigel, since we're writing our memoirs of San Fran....

At 8 years old, my family and I traveled from Alexandria, Virginia, where my dad had been stationed at Ft. Belvoir, across country by car to Presidio where we embarked for Taiwan--1956--aboard military aircraft. I remember little of my experience except being utterly bored while staying at the Presidio.

Upon returning to Travis AFB 2 1/2 years later, we were bussed to downtown SF where my folks had rented two hotel rooms for us in a small, local, typical SF hotel. We thought we were living in the lap of luxury.

Taiwan (1956-8) had no TV. We ate powdered eggs and milk. We lived with the Chinese. We went to school with other American kids from all branches of the military and from every ethnicity. I grew up in the desegregated Army. Chiang Kai-shek was still alive then, and the Taiwanese heavily anti-Mao.

The only activity my older sister, younger brother, and I wanted to do in San Fran was watch TV as much as possible. We were hypnotized. We couldn't get enough. Oh...I'd watched TV in Virginia but simply hadn't any TV in Taiwan. We went to the movies once a week in Taiwan if we could.

Besides the TV, I remember SF as the friendliest place. Everywhere we went, we were feted. Everyone was so incredibly nice to us. For the week or so we were there (the military was arranging our transport to my dad's next duty station), we often ate at a smorgasbord just down the street which had terrific food. When they saw us coming, they always overloaded our plates...because we passed along through a line (cafeteria-style) where the guy carved meat for you. They couldn't give us enough.

We'd come downstairs in the morning, and the a man in the lobby would run to turn on the TV in the TV Room. What a life!! We were pampered!!! I was 10 years old; my brother 5; and my sister 11.

Fast forward to age 30. Finally got out of Florida. Came across country with hubby to Berkeley. Got there right as Harvey Milk and George Mascone were assassinated. Couldn't understand anything the people were saying on TV. Do remember the young Diane Feinstein who appeared terribly capable in my eyes.

Spent the years practicing Buddhism (heavy time commitment to the organization because I became a leader) and studying acting. Did some plays. Did a commercial or two. Nothing significant or special. Friends eventually began to tell me not to bother auditioning for certain plays because they were only casting minorities...no white actors wanted. This was middle 1990s.

Loved the process of acting but hated the politics in the local theater community. I encountered the same politics when I moved to Las Vegas and drove limo. Tit for tat. Had to pay the head limo driver if you wanted to work. Yeah...it's called a kickback. I hate when people play games rather than dealing straight-up and honestly with people. The sheer pettiness is exhausting.

The SF area was really changing in the 1990s and so was I. I initially thought Berkeley so cool...but over the years, I began to see the effects of an overly liberal government. I began to see how the extremely liberal activists were as fascist as the so-called conservatives they opposed. They were hard-core, hard-line intolerant. I saw the same intolerance in them as I could see in some conservatives. They weren't any better. The area just wasn't the same. I began to hate Berkeley. I worked at UCB for nearly two decades and began to despise the liberalism. I finally left in 1997.

Probably one of the most memorable highlights was living there when Bill Walsh coached the 49ers during the time Montana and Rice played. I remember going out on my balcony in the middle of Student-ville, Berkeley, and screaming at the top of my lungs after they won their 2nd Superbowl. Of course, other people were going crazy then, too. Had cool bosses at UCB. Got the day off to go to the parade honoring the 9ers.

Cali today gives me the shivers. Well...most of the nation does. During the times I've visited So Cal, I've often thought...I'd loved to have seen So Cal in the 1930s...San Fran in the 1930-40s. Orange County when they still had wide open spaces; farms and horses on the streets; and orange groves everywhere. That would've been special.

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Michael's avatar

I am a somewhat decrepit old Brit, born on the cusp of WW2. In my forties, I had an English girlfriend who landed a job in the financial district of San Francisco shortly after we met and became “an item”. I used to visit for holidays and remember thinking that SF was one of the few cities in the world, other than my beloved London, where I could have actually enjoy living and working.

My girlfriend shared my sentiments. The beautiful Alta Plaza was just across the road from the picturesque three storey Victorian house where she had her apartment and was one of our favourite haunts. We’d picnic and play tennis and I would sometimes accept an invitation to join the locals in a scrimmage on the basketball court. I loved the weather (mostly sunny, as I remember, but deliciously cool) and the ambience of a uniquely attractive coastal city that felt - as London always did to me - more like a big village than a metropolis.

I can still see in my mind's eye the shimering bay spanned by the majestic Golden Gate Bridge; feel the wind in my hair on the ferry to quirky Sausalito; taste the Guinness at an Irish pub and the chocolate at Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory. Fortunately, I still have photographs to remind me of the highlights of those intoxicating (literally, sometimes!) heady days - rowing my lovely companion around the lake at Golden Gate Park, wandering hand in hand around Coit Tower and exploring by Moonie. Wow! What a treasure trove of delights SF was - and we revelled in sampling so many of them over the month I was there.

Six months later my girlfriend decided she couldn’t live without me and came back. Eventually, sadly, she decided that, after all, she could live without me - and would prefer to do so. We went our separate ways. and I never had an excuse to revisit to the city of which I had such fond memories. Looking back at what it has become (ah, the joys of YouTube) in the intervening years, I cannot say I'm sorry. Whenever I hear Tony Bennett warbling his unforgettable tribute to the City By The Bay , I tear up inside. The same applies when I reflect on the fate of lovely old London - to which I have vowed never again to return, so great was the shock to the system last time I was there with my eight year old daughter. At the end of our first day exploring, I remember asking her whether she had enjoyed herself. She said she had, then turned to me wide-eyed and said, "Daddy, why does nobody speak English?"

Kind of says it all really. I cannot believe the changes (all for the worse IMHO) to the once-great city where my dear old mother (a Cockney) was born and raised and where I so happily spent nearly 30 years. It has morphed into yet another of those ugly, anti-social "multicultural" hellholes which are the hallmarks of a migrant-devoured, increasingly uncivilised Western society undergoing what I believe is known among "conspiracy theorists" as the Great Replacement.

Ah, well. Thankfully, I shall not be around to see the ultimate realisation of this warped globalist vision of the future. And at least, those of us in our twilight years have our fond memories of happier times to console us. Heaven only knows what present and future generations will be able to look back on with the same warm, if somewhat wistful, nostalgia

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