It’s A Life

Born in October 1952 on the day tea rationing ended in Britain (good timing that, given my mother’s obsession – and subsequently mine – with the brew) and, as an only child, I enjoyed a happy childhood, revolving mainly around football and cricket.  I had the good fortune of growing up during the sixties, the music of which provided a thrilling soundtrack to my that period.

I attained a BA (Honours) in English and European Literature at Essex University, writing my dissertation on the novel At Swim-Two-Birds by Irish novelist and journalist Flann O’Brien.  This was followed by studying towards an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature at Leeds, majoring on James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and W.B.Yeats, including writing a treatise on the novels of Patrick Kavanagh (The Green Fool and Tarry Flynn).

Eventually, I exchanged academia – via portering in a major department store and “making” sultana cookies and other exotic (for the time) biscuits – for the last refuge of the modern scoundrel and joined the UK civil service in March 1980.  I subsequently spent 29 years in the Department for Work and Pensions and its many antecedents, latterly in human resources and diversity before poaching early retirement in March 2009.

My interest in the subject led me to undertake a Level 3 BTEC Advanced Certificate in Travel and Tourism via home learning.  I completed the course in December 2010, achieving a Distinction in all three elements – understanding the travel and tourism industry, tourist destinations and tour operations.  My ambition now is to concentrate on writing and, hopefully, to publish on a regular basis.  I have been focusing principally on my passions of San Francisco, cricket and travel, though I am not able to resist on pontificating on life in general from time to time.

This blog has now been active for nearly two and a half years. But I want to do more than that. At present, I am in the final throes of co-writing a book on the centenary of Kent County Cricket Club’s fourth County Championship title in eight years, and future writing projects include a series of short stories based in San Francisco and an expansion of our U.S. road trip diary of September / October last year.

Aside from the above topics, my other serious interests are walking, skiing, baseball (a fan from afar of the San Francisco Giants), association football (a life long fan of Gillingham), music (principally folk, blues, country and West Coast rock borne of the original Summer of Love in 1967), going to the theatre and eating out.

I feel extremely grateful to have the health and energy to pursue all of those interests, as I am also for the support and encouragement of my wonderful wife Janet whom I married in Vegas on Halloween 2009 after 27 years together (that makes it 31 now!).

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San Francisco Photo Gallery: Haight Ashbury

Anyone who has visited this blog before will know how much I love the Haight Ashbury neighbourhood of San Francisco. Several posts have been dedicated to its history, architecture and culture.

I have posted a number of photos on the area in those posts. The twelve below represent some of my favourites. For once, I will let them speak for themselves.

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Sami Sunchild: An Enduring and Endearing San Francisco Icon

Any visitor to San Francisco who still hankers for the Summer of Love might seek some solace in the Red Victorian bed and breakfast on Haight Street, between Belvedere and Cole.

The Jefferson Hotel, as it was  originally known, was opened in 1904 as a resting place for visitors to the newly opened Golden Gate Park, but had its name changed to Jeffrey-Haight in that momentous year of 1967.

Ten years later it was bought by a 52 year old Washington state born doctor in Transformational Art and Societal Change, Sami Sunchild, who immediately set about painting its façade red with 9 other trim colours and renaming it the Red Victorian (though the building is Edwardian of course). Her aim since then has been for the “Red Vic” to embody the ideals that, if only briefly, pervaded the Haight a decade before her arrival - peace, concern for the environment, a sense of community and social justice.

From here Sunchild runs her myriad operations – the non-profit making Peaceful World Foundation, the Peaceful World Center, the Peaceful World Café, the Living Peace Museum and the Peace Arts Gallery, which contains her own bright and colourful artwork in the form of t-shirts, postcards, posters, peace buttons and mugs, available for purchase in the adjoining gift shop.

Every Sunday morning, from 9.00 to 10.30, or as long as its participants want it to last, Sunchild holds “World Conversations” or “conversation cafés”, which “bring people together to talk about topics that matter in their own lives and in the world as a whole”. These are seen as an “opportunity for San Franciscans and travelers alike to get together and share stories of our lives and the lessons we’ve learned, make new friendships and engage in open dialogue”.

In addition to these semi-formal events, guests are encouraged to engage in conversation with the owner and each other over breakfast, whilst passers by are welcome to ”drop in” for a chat at any time.

Sunchild, who has travelled extensively, including the Polynesian Islands and much of Europe and North Africa, hopes through her work to build ”a global network of travelers and conversationalists committed to doing good for the world and each other”.

Back in the sixties the rooms in the hotel served as “crash pads”, containing Indian bedspreads and other hippie paraphenalia, and accommodated as many occupants as could be crammed in! Using what she calls “Transformational Interior Design”, which enhances the consciousness of her guests, Sunchild has restored it to the state where it now boasts 18 guest rooms, each of which has been designed and decorated by her with an specific theme, such as the Japanese Tea Garden, Flower Child, Redwood Forest and, of course, the Summer of Love (complete with Grateful Dead posters!).

Internet reviews of the Red Vic reveal that Sunchild’s enterprise excites strong emotions.  Many celebrate it for its living embodiment of the hippie ideals espoused in the time when Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and Grace Slick were residents of the area.  Staff are universally regarded as friendly and helpful, and words such as “quirky”, “quaint”, “funky” and “eccentric” are regularly uttered with a smile by visitors and residents alike.

Others complain, however, about a dark, dreary, rundown feel, and lament the lack of private bathrooms in most of the rooms, though those that there are, both private and shared, are beautifully decorated.  Radios, TVs, refrigerators and ice machines, staples of a more conventional modern hotel, are conspicuous by their absence.  Wireless connection can also be unreliable. And the verdict on the food and drink available in the café is similarly mixed.

On my one visit (this article has refuelled my desire to go again on my next trip), I found the people welcoming, if, perhaps, a little earnest, and  the coffee and vegetarian sandwich wholesome.

So if you want to get a glimpse, warts and all, of what it might have been like to stay in the neighbourhood in those “heady” days, this is as close as you are likely to come in modern day San Francisco.  Moreover, if you want to understand what makes a historic part of the city tick, a visit to Sami Sunchild’s Red Victorian is essential.

And when you do, pay heed to the words of Sunchild’s “When you travel”:

When you travel take peacemaking, friendship, learning, and listening as your sacred, God given duty. Refuse to carry with you an empty head or an empty heart. Give thanks for every human encounter,  every bird, animal, every plant that shares this gorgeous planet. Thank them, talk to them, nourish them. Let no greed or selfish thoughts distract you. Let no anger, anxiety, or bitterness accompany you.

Travel unencumbered by too much stuff or by too many pre-conceived ideas. Enter every new encounter with gratitude for another opportunity to learn and listen. To be the happiest and best travel ambassador on earth.

Affirm the natural ability to balance out the injustices of the world. Know that hate crimes will cease when we listen to each other, when selfishness and envy are replaced with compassion and even enemies become friends. Hold in you mind a vision of a peaceful world where travelers are the sowers and seeds of joy!

This message emanates from one of the more than 50 Peace Posters that Sunchild has designed and created and which can be found at www.peacearts.com .

Finally, I am extremely grateful that Sami has taken the time and trouble to proofread this post and given her personal blessing to its contents.

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Haight Ashbury Flower Power Walking Tour

We were stood on the corner of Waller and Stanyan, alongside the McDonald’s parking lot and opposite the historic Stanyan Park Hotel. It was 10.20 on a sunny if cool Saturday morning in April. The shops in Haight Street a block away were drowsily coming to life, and a gaggle of skateboarders and assorted “heads” were making their way over to Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park to hang out for the day.

After ten years of inexplicable resistance, we had finally decided to give the Haight-Ashbury Flower Power Walking Tour a try. Having read our e-mail confirmation carefully we were confident that we were at the appointed meeting place. But the time was beginning to concern us. Whilst both our e-mail and the official website had expressly stated that the tour began at 10.30am, we had collected a leaflet the previous day quoting 9.30am.

As 10.25, 10.30 and 10.35 passed without anyone joining us, we began to speculate on what might have happened. Was it really a 9.30 start and we were horribly late? Had the tour been cancelled because we were the only participants (and if so why hadn’t we been informed)? Or was the guide merely delayed? I rang the telephone number quoted on the e mail with no success.

As frustration turned to irritation at 10.40, a balding, middle-aged man approached us and enquired whether we were on the tour. He had received a telephone call to say that the guide was running late due to a burst water main near her flat.  A Kentuckian, he was accompanied by his 20 year old daughter, as well as his son and his girlfriend, both of whom were studying at San Francisco State University.

Five minutes later our ears were assailed by a cheery “good morning” emanating from behind us on Waller Street. On turning around we were greeted by a diminutive woman dressed from head to toe in black, apart from the psychedelic leggings flashing intermittently from beneath her huge coat, shuffling towards us. This was Izu, our guide for the next two and a half hours. My heart soared (I may have been alone in this reaction) – here was someone who had palpably lived and breathed the hippie dream in the sixties and, equally importantly, was still doing.  This was going to be fun – and I was not to be disappointed.

Having made her apologies, referring, not for the only time, to “hippie time”, she squealed with delight at the sight of my Grateful Dead “Steal Your Face” t-shirt. We were instant soul mates and, given my familiarity with the history and music of the era, she regularly sought my input, which, whilst being very gratifying personally, might have annoyed the remainder of the group who weren’t as well informed beforehand. The son’s girlfriend spent most of the morning hiding behind his back and when gently challenged on this by Izu, insisted that she was not feeling well. I’m not convinced she wasn’t just a tad intimidated by Izu’s earnest, energetic approach.

Izu’s credentials to conduct this tour were impeccable. She  had lived in the Haight for a month during the Summer of Love, and despite returning home to New York immediately thereafter, had been resident in the neighbourhood for many years.

One of her most endearing traits was that she had retained her broad New York accent which, incongruous though it might seem, gave an added charm and piquancy to her feast of anecdotes. I particularly delighted in her repeated pronounciation of Haight-Ashberry, proclaimed in a manner that could be heard from several blocks in any direction. 

Armed with our free gift of a Haight-Ashbury Flower Power Walking Tour button badge we set off down Waller Street, pausing at the SFFD’s Fire Station 12 which, uniquely, carries the Grateful Dead “Steal Your Face” logo on its engines. We learned too about the Human Be-In, the influx of young people from all over the United States and the invaluable social service provided by both the Diggers and the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic.

Whilst we stopped at properties that had been lived in by such counterculture luminaries as Janis Joplin (several), Country Joe and the Fish and Jimi Hendrix, as well as Charles Manson, the highlight for me was the Grateful Dead house at 710 Ashbury. Now, I have stood outside this pad many times but, with Izu at my side, I didn’t feel as uncomfortable, as much of a stalker, as I had done before. It helped that Izu knew both the current tenants and their neighbours – well, actually, she appeared to know everybody in the vicinity! We barely passed a shop, café or homeless center without her stopping to hail its occupants.

Whilst I went along with every photo opportunity arranged by Izu, I did draw the line at taking one of the Haight-Ashbury sign – been there, done that, not cool. I think we fell out briefly at that point!

Many San Francisco walks are more like hikes, especially when they involve negotiating its unforbidding hills, but this one is leisurely and laid-back. We barely walked more than 100 yards before Izu asked us to gather round to listen to her stories, not only of the music scene but also the general history of the Haight. She was aided by a canvas shopping bag, from which she intermittently plucked vintage photographs.

The tour culminated in a visit to the recently opened Haight Ashbury Museum of Psychedelic Art and History, a center designed to showcase the arts, music and creativity of the era. Depending upon your point of view, it was either impossibly cluttered or incredibly comprehensive. Izu alerted us to historic posters, photographs and newspaper extracts from the hippie Haight.

The slogan of the museum is The Hippies Were Right!, a mantra repeated by Izu throughout the tour. As the (larger) badges extolling this theory illustrated, this relates to concern for the environment, emphasis on organic products, peace and love rather than war, sustainable housing and fuel efficiency, and, capping it all, “more fun and less unnecessary work”. I for one find it hard to argue with any of that.

The tour ended with heartfelt hugs outside the museum and clichéd, but utterly necessary, poses for the cameras.

In summary, this was a relaxing and thoroughly entertaining walk. In fact, the word “walk” doesn’t adequately describe it. It was a “show” in which Izu, in her inimitably animated, slightly wacky style, conveyed a vast amount of information and observation on both what was arguably the neighbourhood’s golden era and how those ideals are being implemented today.

Anyone who is deterred by the prospect of becoming preached at on the virtues of free love and rampant drug taking should really not be worried. Whilst Izu, inevitably, relates stories of excessive LSD, marijuana and heroin usage, she takes every opportunity to explain her vehement opposition to drugs. Nor does she gloss over the many unsavoury elements of the period.

So go with an open mind and you will be rewarded. But first listen to some live Grateful Dead or Jefferson Airplane whilst you are searching for that old kaftan, transfer a few flowers from your garden to your hair, throw on any piece of jewellery you can find, get on the bus and make your way up to the corner of Waller and Stanyan on a Tuesday or Saturday at 10.30am (yes, that’s 10.30am hippie time).

And remember…………….the Hippies Were Right!

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What No Golden Gate Bridge or Cable Car?

Only after we returned from our latest trip to San Francisco did it occur to me that, during the ten night stay, we had neither visited such perennial favourites as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Palace of Fine Arts or Alamo Square, nor taken a single ride on a cable car.

How can you travel nearly 6,000 miles to one of the most popular cities on earth and not take in its most iconic locations I hear you say? Surely, you are missing out on the greatest experiences it has to offer?

That is not, however, the way I see it. Rather than accept that this represents poor planning and an opportunity missed, I rather view it as a sign of our growing maturity as visitors to San Francisco. The fact is that we no longer feel the need to tick off as many of the guidebook recommendations as possible, tiring us out unnecessarily in the process.

The nature of our time spent there is increasingly taking on a different, more relaxed, you might even call it ordinary, tenor, one that more closely mirrors that of how we live at home.   Being in San Francisco has become such a familiar and regular part of our lives, somewhere we visit more often even than the places we love in our own country, that it has assumed that status of our second home, and, therefore, somewhere we neither  have to pretend to be what we are not, nor have to do what we feel we ought to do.

Choosing to stay some distance from the tourist enclaves of Union Square or Fisherman’s Wharf, as we did in Noe Valley this year, allows us to do as much, or as little, as we feel on any given day.

If all we want to do is to hang out at the apartment in the morning, watching the Bay Area news on TV whilst catching up on household chores, before strolling out to a neighbourhood café for lunch, followed by gift and food shopping and then returning to the apartment for a glass or two of wine on the outside private deck whilst watching the world go by, then so be it. We then might eat in in the evening – or we might try out one of the local restaurants. Or we might decide to take the metro downtown and eat in Chinatown or North Beach.

The point is that we are at liberty to do as we wish, not as we feel we ought to do to make the most of the trip and the not inconsiderable expense. Of course, it has been the happy conversion from hotel to apartment living over the past three years that has enabled us to do this.

And if it sounds to you that living in San Francisco has become less exciting for us, even routine, even a chore, then you could not be further from the truth. Whilst I can comfortably claim that we now feel at home in the city and, for myself in particular, probably did so before I ever visited it, I am tempted to suggest even that we have become, in a small way, San Franciscans, interested in its politics (with a small “p”), culture and, undeniably, its sport – just as we do at home.

And remember – those wonderful attractions are still a short drive or a bus or taxi ride away.

Nor is it the case that we no longer go sightseeing – far from it. On our recent trip we may have bypassed some of the more renowned locations, but we made a conscious effort to sample new, and nearly new, experiences, some of which were long overdue. These included a tour of City Hall, exploring Nob Hill, the Castro and Hyde Street Pier in depth, reliving the Summer of Love on the Flower Power Walking Tour, sunbathing in Dolores Park, and spending an afternoon in the excellent California Palace of the Legion of Honour.

Attending two Giants games at AT & T Park and a thrilling Elvis Costello concert at the Warfield, as well as eating out at more traditional restaurants such as John’s Grill (in the Maltese Falcon room) and the Daily Grill (Lefty O’Doul’s was too busy) added real richness to our stay.

And we still found time to take in several of our favourite spots – Golden Gate Park, including the Japanese Tea Garden and Stow Lake, Sunday brunch at the Cliff House, dinner at the North Beach Restaurant, Beach Blanket Babylon, Haight-Ashbury, the Ferry Building and the depressingly under threat Gold Dust Lounge.  And, of course, a spot of DSW shoe shopping for my wife in Union Square – now, heretically, resident in the former Border’s bookstore (the shoe shop, that is, not my wife – though she might like to be).

Having read the above, perhaps the vacation wasn’t quite as relaxing as I first thought!

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Love and Haight in the City of Saint Francis

Anyone with the merest acquaintance with this blog will observe a strong bias towards the city of San Francisco in it. If the heading of “A Golden Gate State of Mind” and accompanying photograph did not immediately give it away, the preponderance of posts on the city certainly will.

So what, you ask, is the attraction of what San Francisco based Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti called “this far-out city on the left side of the world” to a cricket loving, warm beer drinking Englishman?

Well, that is a very good question (I do wish you hadn’t asked it).  It’s not sufficient to say it is because I “love” it.  After all, there are many things that I love – my wife, my father, my football team, my favourite rock band, skiing, fish and chips, and the BBC Breakfast presenter, Susanna Reid (I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell my wife about that one) – the list goes on.

But “love” – like “great” - is an overused – or rather over abused – word today. In fact, I may have proved this conclusively in the preceding paragraph. Everyone will have places that they “love”, whether it be Paris, Rio de Janeiro, New York or even Leysdown-on-Sea. Few of us would deny “loving” their favourite holiday haunts, particularly if they return to them time and again.

So I think you deserve a more substantial explanation than that. After all, it took me nearly 43 years to finally feast my hungry eyes on the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, even though I had venerated the city from afar for nearly three decades before that. So what do I find so special about it now?

Before I answer it – and I’m not prevaricating, honest – I think it is worth considering what it is about a place that makes us become attached to it. After all, isn’t it nothing more nor less than a collection of natural features and man-made buildings?

I suppose that many of us, including myself, claim that we “love” the place in which we were born and / or raised. It is this emotional attachment, linked to childhood memories, that, I believe, is the crucial factor here. And the acknowledgement of that attachment may not manifest itself without the aid of age and distance.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “there’s no place like home” may be cliches but they still have a sturdy ring of truth. James Joyce – that incomparable chronicler of place – could not, as he himself admitted, have written so profoundly or entertainingly about Dublin had he stayed there instead of leaving it to work and live in Trieste, Zurich and Paris.

My last post (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/walking-with-our-mutual-friend/) conveys my affection for my own home town of Rochester in Kent, and an earlier one (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/to-my-home-county/) describes the pride I have in being a Man of Kent, a grateful product of its rich embrace of coast and countryside.

So our attachment to place begins, as with so many of our passions, with our childhood experiences.

But I digress. We’re not in Kent(as) anymore, Toto. You want to read about why I “love” San Francisco. Well, I presume you still do or you would have given up by now. So here goes.

I could cite the stunning beauty of the bay and its glittering “bracelet of bridges”, the gorgeous skies, the cute, clanking cable cars, the abundance of fresh seafood in its classy restaurants, the diversity of its music and theatre scene, the richness of its ethnic neighbourhoods, the thrilling exploits of the Giants and 49ers, and, of course, its renowned tolerance and reputation as a haven for the otherwise discarded and disaffected – all of these are part of it.

However, thousands of other visitors have been equally captivated by most, if not all, of these qualities. It is not for nothing that many leave their heart in San Francisco.  But their “love” is invariably on loan, perhaps until the next trip or another geographical gigolo snatches their affection. Mine is permanent, organic, forever.  

So what is it about this place that has lured this individual into spending what time he can’t reside in it dreaming and writing about it?  Why has this place gotten hold of my heart” where other cities I delight in visiting, such as Venice, Florence, Barcelona, Dublin and New York have not? And why, with relatively little time left, and  just as I am about to resolve to go somewhere else, does it sing its siren (or is that sea lion) songs to me, steering my boat back into the dock of the bay?

For much of my life it was a platonic, long distance affair.  It started with the Summer of Love (1967) when San Francisco snared the imagination of many people across the globe, including one 14 year old English schoolboy an entire continent and ocean away. Intrigued by the love and peace mantra, he was inspired by Scott McKenzie and the Flowerpot Men to commit fashion suicide by wearing paisley shirts and, on at least one occasion, flowers (almost certainly plastic) in his hair, to football matches that year – fortunately, it pre-dated the skinhead era or he may not have been given such an easy ride!

Three years later, the music of the Bay Area, in the form of the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service began to fill my head. “Everyone’s favourite city” had become the epicentre of my cultural universe. However, another two and a half decades passed before I set foot on San Francisco’s ever shifting soil.

And, for me, Haight-Ashbury, from whence that dazzling music came, still represents, more than any other location in the city, MY San Francisco, and where I gravitate to on every trip, however short. Free concerts by the Dead on flat bed trucks in the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park, tie-dye shirts and the pungent waft of marijuana smoke remain enduring images of that time.

And there is just enough of that atmosphere – at stores like Positively Haight Street, Haight-Ashbury T-shirts and Pipe Dreams, as well as Sami Sunchild’s Red Victorian (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/great-san-franciscan-characters-14-sami-sunchild/) – to keep me enthused as I saunter down Haight Street today.

That is not to say that other parts – the Tenderloin and Civic Center no less than the trendy neighbourhoods and tourist honeypots – are not equally “real” embodiments of the modern city, all too real some might say. Though I embrace them all, the Haight remains the heart of my San Franciscan experience. Its only failing is that it does not aford bay views!  Or does it? I really must check on my next trip!

Another earlier post (www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/my-san-francisco-top-ten/) summarises those parts of the city that captivate me most, so I will not bore you by repeating them here.

It’s not just the physical sights and sounds that appeal, but the literature (Armistead Maupin, Jack Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Dashiel Hammett, Jack London) and history (the Barbary Coast, the earthquake and Great Fire, the cultural movements of the fifties and sixties) that fascinate me too.  And has there been a better chronicler of a city anywhere than Herb Caen(www.tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/great-san-franciscan-characters-6-herb-caen/), renowned columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle?

Indeed, it was Caen who wrote half a century ago in one of his many ruminations on what made a San Franciscan:

I don’t think that place of origin or number of years on the scene have anything to do with it really. There are newcomers who become San Franciscans overnight – delighted with and interested in the city’s traditions and history. They can see the Ferry Building for what it represents (not for what it is), they are fascinated with the sagas of Sharons, Ralstons, Floods and Crockers, they savor the uniqueness of cable car and foghorn. By the same token, I know natives who will never be San Franciscans if they outlive Methusalah. To them a cable car is a traffic obstruction, the fog is something that keeps them from getting a tan, and Los Angeles is where they really know how to Get Things Done.

I like to think that I fit into Caen’s San Francisco “newcomer” category, though I’ll settle for being the ”sophisticated tourist” who is “charmed and fascinated” by the city.

I have used the word “home” in a number of features on San Francisco, and that, I think, is the key here. That is not to say that it replaces the town in which I was born and raised - though, equally, it might – but rather that the city engenders those same feelings, not just of comfort and security but also of confidence and pride that allows me to engage with it on all levels. Venice and New York do not. Nor even does “dear, dirty Dublin”, despite my Irish ancestry.

Back where we started then.

And my wife and I have deliberately fostered this feeling in recent years where, by staying in apartments in different neighbourhoods - Hayes Valley and North of the Panhandle, and for our upcoming (ninth) visit, Noe Valley – we aim to “live like locals”, whilst continuing to take in the traditional tourist sights too (our stays are still too short to omit them, even if we wanted to). It is another of San Francisco’s virtues that we can do both.

How many of us can say that anywhere, at least beyond the place in which we live, that we can call it “home”?

Do you have any place that exercises that same grip on you?

I’ll end with Herb Caen again:

thank God or Allah or whoever it was that blessed this small, special, annoying, irresistible place at the tip of a peninsula and the end of the world.

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