I was walking from Potrero towards Mission when I began seeing faces from the past. 3 faces in a row, just like that, and—just like that—they were gone, like balloons meeting the pin. I wasn’t sure if I’d even seen them in reality because so often when walking in the city of my birth and looking at places that used to be around when I was a kid—movie theaters, restaurants, corner markets—I find that little of what I remember remains as gentrification takes root in my city; rooting out those with roots going back generations. My culture, that is, my San Francisco culture is something that appears in flashes that are becoming less frequent. One of the faces belonged to Darrell, an African-American SF native of about 50 or so who I’d worked with as a security guard. Darrell has been a guard for 20 years. His face shows the signs of graveyard shifts and unpaid days off. He was trying to keep up with his wife who was on a mission to Costco. We shook hands quickly. “Good to see you” he said, his rough hands trying to reign in his 4 grandkids. “Good to see you too” I said. We went our separate ways. A few blocks later I ran into Rudy. Rudy is a Chicano cat who goes a long way back in the Mission. I’ll never forget meeting him when I worked as an employment counselor in the Tenderloin. Rudy was in an employment training program. He was always hardworking, cool. We’d drink coffee and eat tortas and he’d talk about his favorite album, Joe Bataan’s “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre”. Joe Bataan, a black Filipino, like myself, and the undisputed king of Latin soul. He loaned the CD to me. I never returned it. Rudy never mentioned it. I owe him. I walked on. I looked at the Victorian flats masquerading as condos or inhabited by folks whose only connection to the community is a google bus ride and a take-out burrito.
Finally I saw another face. It was Jim, San Francisco native of Potrero Hill. Jim knows everything about bikes. He tries to teach kids in the neighborhood about fixing bikes and sometimes they listen, sometimes they don’t. They sometimes tease him about his injured hand—busted tendons that scream in the cold. I saw him on his bike coming down Market Street. He wore his usual Giants cap and windbreaker. He smiled at me and I noticed a full mouth of teeth. When I met him he had no teeth at all. He was able to get a set through a work program but lost them in a freak accident a couple years back. How’d you lose ‘em” I asked. He sat on his bike and explained that he was crossing the 3rd street Bridge on his way home when he stopped and looked out at the water. He said that he took out his teeth and they slipped thru his fingers and fell into the bay with a minimal splash. He said that those teeth would have gotten a perfect 10 if it had been an Olympic diving event. He couldn’t jump in and get them so he just smiled as best he could and continued his journey home. We laughed at the whole scenario. Jim said that somewhere in SF Bay, there’s one happy fish swimming around, grin as wide as the bay bridge. I was glad to see Jim. I’m glad he’s still in the city to remind me that the bay still smiles, despite everything.
(Photo from uncle Eddie's Theory corner)