It’s 2020. This week marks four years since we put our Rainey to sleep. I wrote this four years ago. This is the second of a series of posts from a now defunct blog. I started the series in July of that year as it seemed that we were on the verge of losing our girl. I published this on July 27th. When I wrote this I felt that the end was coming but I didn’t know that it would be less than a month. Still there was hope. I revive the series every now and then. I was relatively new to blogging then. The original left something to be desired in some ways and this posting includes some edits. While the words and punctuation, the nuts and bolts so to speak may have been changed, the story and the lingering heartache remain.
Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. ~ Roger Caras
She’s trying gamely to walk around the house, albeit awkwardly with the pink bandage on her lower front leg. She’s eating again. She hobbles over to the couch and hits me with her nose, her way of saying, “Hey old man get me some head scratching.” There’s no moping in a crate, or raising a painful paw in supplication. It’s starting to feel like I have my dog back.
She’s alert again – pissed off when someone has the effrontery to ring the bell on HER door. She goes back near the open kitchen window to stick her nose up. The nose twitches discerning everything that her day blind eyes can’t. I feel like I have my dog, my best friend, back again.
She’s not totally whole yet. She struggles to get to her feet because that one paw is still weak and doesn’t give her the leverage to lift her up. It’s certainly still sore but she isn’t afraid to put some pressure on it. The stairs are supposed to be off limits but Rainey saw an opportunity when the gate was left down and she bolted up and went to one of her favorite sleeping haunts.
The other night she asked to go out on the back patio. So the two of us sat quietly in the warmth of a summer evening. She stuck her nose up and looked into the dark fields beyond the wire fence. Something out there, a deer or a coyote, irritated her and she barked into the darkness. I’m getting my dog back.
Peeking from under the table at a restaurant. Any scraps yet?
It’s 2020. This week marks four years since we put our Rainey to sleep. I wrote this four years ago, the first of a series of posts in a now defunct blog. I started the series in July of that year as it seemed that we were on the verge of losing our girl. I revive the series every now and then. I was relatively new to blogging then. The original left something to be desired in some ways and this posting includes some edits. While the words and punctuation, the nuts and bolts so to speak may have been changed, the sentiments and the lingering heartache, the actual structure, has not changed.
She has a beautiful feathered tail that would flip back and forth like a metronome when we went for our morning run. Her trot graceful and effortless as she led out, looking back every now and then as if to reassure herself that I was on the other end of the leash. After the run we sat outside Starbucks. I drank coffee and she lounged like a princess as she took in the compliments, “Such a beautiful dog.”
This week Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge is All about buildings: Old buildings, Barns, Sheds, Houses.
I like photographing old things; old buildings, old boats, old bridges. Seems like almost everyone with a camera likes to photograph old barns, especially if there are rusty old tools and implements in the scene. Add an old horse and you’re really in business.
I ran across some old buildings right here in Hercules, California where I live. Most of Hercules’ old buildings sit atop a hill near the shore of San Pablo Bay on a small tract of empty land. The fronts look out on a residential neighborhood. These buildings date from the days when the major employer in the area was the Hercules Powder Works which manufactured explosive powder.
My favorite of the old buildings is the Masonic Lodge, which sits across the street from a sleek, new restaurant with a chic glass enclosed patio that overlooks the old building and the bay beyond. It’s quite a contrast to the restaurant a few steps away.
Street view of the Masonic Lodge
The old building is giving way to creeping vines. Nature is in the process of reclamation.
Doorway of the Masonic Lodge
What’s really cool about this building is that from the street it’s just a long squat building but if you look at it from the recreation trail in the rear, you see that the Masonic Lodge is actually multiple stories built into the side of the hill.
Masonic Lodge – rear view
Masonic Lodge – rear view taken on a foggy morning
This week Tina of Travels and Trifles chose Creativity in the Time of Covid for our Len-Artists Photo Challenge. When Covid broke out I was just starting a project to photograph San Francisco’s Mission District and it’s gallery of murals. After one afternoon the project was put on hold but will be continued. Just for fun here’s a sample.
The past few months have been a slog, a deep depression. A little gloomy at first and worsening as the days, weeks and months progressed. August arrived in cheerless desolation. It’s been a descent with no rise in sight.
Of course the prime suspect would be COVID-19 but it hasn’t been so much the virus itself as the rudderless, drifting, constant course changes in state and local mandates and the reaction by the president and his minions that’s been sad and at the same time sadly slapstick. A pathetic response punctuated by denials, blaming, reliance on Youtube celebrity witch doctors, half-baked theories about mainlining bleach and notions that the virus will “poof” go away.
And then, coronavirus aside, there’s been the three and a half years of Donald Trump and his merry band and their dismantling of America. As election day has gotten closer and closer my apprehension has been rising and at the same time pushed down my spirits. The questions are tormenting. The system is supposed to work but since January 20th 2017 the workings have been gummed up.
Will Trump try to sabotage the election?
What will he do if he loses the election?
It’s almost certain that if Trump wakes up on November 4th in defeat, be it a squeaker or a mandate, he will not go quietly. And what will be the reaction of the staunch supporters that make up a bona fide cult? America has been teetering on a constitutional crisis and events in the days running up to the election and the days following, whether Trump wins or loses, could push America into the abyss.
Things changed slightly this week. A sense that maybe we’ll see some deliverance, an event that ignited a flicker of hope and was not directly related to COVID-19. COVID-19? It won’t go “poof” and I’ve more or less resigned myself to the fact that it’s going to be around for a while, thanks in large part to Trump’s criminal ineptitude. This singular event that showed just a brief shimmer of a silver lining came from the political arena.
Amy hosts this week’s Len’s Artists Photo Challenge and she has selected the topic Under the Sun, meaning literally, “anything under the sun.” In her post, Amy points out the commonly held rule that shooting under a bright sun or towards the sun is often a photographic no-no that causes high contrast, blown out highlights, lens flare. To see Amy’s post on Everything Under the Sun click the link.
My take is that the sun often produces drama, spectacular lighting, and lens flare can often add some flare.
Washington DC.
These soldiers at the Vietnam War Memorial appear to be looking to the sun’s light
Alpenglow
That special time of day when indirect sunlight reflected off of clouds after sunset or direct sunlight right near sunset or sunrise adds a rare red, pink or orange glow to the image.
From my backyard patio
Clouds from my backyard patio
Otherwise drab grass glows golden in the setting sun
Summer is waning – almost gone. The sun rises noticeably later these days, passing lower in the sky, closer to the hills surrounding our little valley. In another week or two Home Depot will begin to slash prices on garden furniture. Soon after that, lawn chairs and patio umbrellas will be replaced by Halloween decorations; cackling electronic witches, howling wolf skeletons and moaning ghouls. In the supermarkets the summer novelties will be shoved off to the clearance aisle and bags of Halloween candies will populate the featured aisles. The way things are going there isn’t a ghost of a chance that kids will be trick or treating this year.
It might have worked out. The kids could conceivably have been going back to school. They won’t be though. Not here in the Bay Area. My grandchildren and all they’re classmates will be spending the first month or two doing remote learning.
That doesn’t square with the fantasy world of the White House. The President of the United States has used his typical gambit of bluster and intimidation, this time threatening to cut off funding to states that don’t mandate children back in school. It’s a threat that governors have shrugged off.
Since threats haven’t worked the propaganda arm of the administration is attempting to make the the national head whirl such as what happened at a recent press briefing when press secretary Kayleigh McEnany spun a web of contradictions. “The science should not stand in the way” (of schools opening) she cautioned. And then in the very next breath she boasted, “The science is on our side here. And we encourage localities and states to just simply follow the science and open our schools.” Yes you do have to read this a time or two to try to make sense of it but save yourself the effort. One can’t cobble coherence out of drivel.
If this briefing had occurred on the TV show The West Wing it would be followed by the scene in which Chief of Staff Leo McGarry, watching on TV would turn apoplectic and summon Toby Ziegler and C.J. Cregg into his office for a good old fashioned ass chewing. In the real West Wing there would be no ass chewing for spouting nonsensical double talk. In the current White House delivering hogwash is accepted procedure.
It wouldn’t be so maddening and disheartening if we, we being the collective America, had actually tried hard and despite our best efforts fallen short. I could live with trying and failing. What we’ve done though, failure due to lack of effort, is a bitter pill.
The COVID depression has been running deep this month and it’s continuing in an inexorable descent. An emotional wash. Each day, sometimes each hour depending on the winds of the news cycle and skyrocketing stats, is like another step deeper.
The occasional seeds of depression that blew in and out are starting to take root. Maybe it’s just realizing where we were a year ago, hell just a few months ago, wondering how we got here and above all how we’re going to get out.
Passing blame; it’s all the rage these days and when I say “rage” I mean that in both senses of the word. Blame something, anything, on somebody, anybody. If you’re finding it hard to spot a target just follow Kris Kristofferson’s sage advice from decades ago – Blame it on the (Rolling) Stones.
Me? I’m blaming it all on Padma Lakshmi (If you’ve watched Top Chef, you know Padma. If you’ve never watched Top Chef, Padma is an Indian born author, model and advocate for immigrant rights.). The contact tracing of my depression puts the blame squarely on Padma. Contact tracing – who knew? Who cared besides epidemiologists? Continue reading
My San Francisco is a series of posts that describes my own personal relationship with The City. My San Francisco pieces might be photo essays; they might be life stories or they could be commentaries. They might be a combination of some or all three. My impressions aren’t always paeans to San Francisco; it’s a beautiful city but like any beautiful city it has it’s dark side and its ugly stories. These pieces will always have one common theme; they are my expressions of my personal San Francisco experience.
Washington Square Park is the centerpiece of San Francisco’s North Beach and it represents my earliest memory of San Francisco’s Little Italy.
Washington Square Park with St Peter and Paul Church in the background
October, 1964, I’m on the cusp of my 12th birthday and President Lyndon Baines Johnson is appealing to San Francisco’s grass roots. It’s less than one month until the presidential election and I’m in a far corner of Washington Square with my parents as LBJ presents his case. Johnson hasn’t been in office for a year yet, having risen to the presidency after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963. Now Johnson is running against Republican Barry Goldwater, trying to earn the office in his own right. By this time barring something along the lines of an Access Hollywood tape, LBJ was a shoe-in to win the election. Goldwater had not only shot himself in the foot, he’d dropped an atomic bomb on his own campaign and left it in ruins with the assertion that field commanders should have the authority to use nuclear weapons without presidential approval.
Goldwater’s perceived laissez faire attitude towards nukes led to the production of two of LBJ’s own campaign nukes. One was the slogan, “In your guts, you know he’s (Goldwater) nuts.” The other was the “daisy girl” television ad that to this day is still famous among those of us who remember it. It was, and still is, a chilling ad.
My San Francisco is a series of posts that describes my own personal relationship with The City. My San Francisco pieces might be photo essays; they might be life stories or they could be commentaries. They might be a combination of some or all three. My impressions aren’t always paeans to San Francisco; it’s a beautiful city but like any beautiful city it has it’s dark side and its ugly stories. These pieces will always have one common theme; they are my expressions of my personal San Francisco experience.
Looking for a beach at San Francisco’s North Beach? THE San Francisco beach is Ocean Beach but that long stretch of sand along the chilly Pacific is miles away and over the San Francisco hills. You could go a mile or so northwest to Aquatic Park where hardy souls jump into the cold bay waters for a brisk swim. South Beach is, well, south and that’s a marina with no real beach. North Beach? There is no beach at North Beach.
At one time in North Beach you could’ve stumbled onto Beach Blanket Babylon. No beach there though, unless it was on the stage. Beach Blanket Babylon (known informally to friends and fans as BBB) was the title of a bawdy musical review that enjoyed a 45 year run and over 17,000 performances at Club Fugazi in the heart of North Beach. Producer Steve Silver named the show after the Annette Funicello/ Frankie Avalon beach movies of the 1960’s and if you’re familiar with those movies then you’re either old or you’re an aficionado of campy old movies.
BBB was a parody of the pop culture and politics of the times portrayed through the adventures of the main character, Snow White who travelled the world in search of her Prince Charming. The show was most famous for the outrageous hats worn by the characters (In the closing scene, longtime cast member Val Diamond would sing the song San Francisco while wearing a ten foot wide, 250 pound hat depicting the San Francisco skyline). I regret that I never took Cora to see this whacky show that delighted even Queen Elizabeth II in 1983. Still I’m one of the over 17 million people to have seen BBB. I used to sneer at BBB as something of a tourist attraction until 1978 when I was cajoled by my girlfriend Linda into dinner and a performance.
Linda and I were working at Fox Hardware, a retail store in downtown San Francisco when we met. Our’s was a short and interesting little run punctuated by arguments over some of the dumbest damn things. There was the argument in front of a club in Cancun over disco music that had us stomping back to our hotel room separately and then doing the classic pissed off balancing act on opposite sides of the bed. We fought about King Tut; yes King Tut. Being Chinese-American she wasn’t cool with the way the movie The Deer Hunter portrayed Asians. That argument simmered for days. But in the end BBB was something that we did agree on. It was a delight. The show became such a landmark that one block of Green Street in North Beach was renamed Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard.
Why no beach at North Beach? Originally there was a North Beach beach where the waters of the bay lapped up around what is currently Francisco Street, which is five blocks from the current center of North Beach.
In the late 1800’s, as a part of city expansion, landfill was added along with the construction of docks, wharves, warehouses and all the complimentary industries of sin that are part and parcel with a waterfront; saloons, bordellos and gambling establishments. After all the landfilling, the waters of the bay ended up a good five blocks further north.
The district’s proximity to the docks made it a natural melting pot of incoming immigrants, British, Irish, German, French, Italian, Peruvian, Mexican, Swedish, Canadian, Chinese, Russian and Greek could all be counted as residents, some temporary, of North Beach.
After the 1906 earthquake most of the ethnic groups left North Beach, with the exception of the Italians. Immigration from Italy continued and during the period between the world wars the North Beach population of those claiming Italian descent swelled to 60,000. After World War II the Italian community began to shrink as fewer immigrants moved in while residents began to move to different parts of The City or to the growing suburbs.
Today many of the Italians are gone. I used to enjoy having coffee at Stella Pastry or a sandwich at Molinari’s and enjoy the atmosphere. You could close your eyes, smell the dusky espresso or fruity Chianti and listen to the old Italian men speak rapid fire in the mother tongue and imagine yourself in Rome. That scene has sadly become a rarity now. Still the Italian flavor hasn’t completely left North Beach. Below, the Italian tricolor is visible throughout North Beach.
The Life in My Years 