Stepping back in time

I took a trip to south S.F. with my friends Veda and Bill to visit Daiso; The Japanese "dollar" store in Serramonte. One can spend twenty bucks and walk out with a shopping bag full of items you didn't know you needed. Especially kitchen gadgets like silicone spatulas and hot plate holders. I wanted to get some glow in the dark dots that really glow bright to stick on my Spirit Rocks. They didn't have any this time. I especially wanted to visit my sister's store in the Castro but we were running a little late, and Bill didn't want to deal with the traffic getting in an out of S.F. on a Sunday after a Giants game. The City has just become crazy dense these past few years and it looks like that trend is not going to let up any time soon.It's really a young person's town nowadays. If I was still in my twenties or thirties and upwardly mobile, I would be up for the challenge to try and take it in on again. Not so in my sixties.

It's weird to watch a town grow over the years. Our family arrived in S.F. in the middle of the beatnik era. The Giants had arrived there to play in Seal Stadium only the year before. My dad took me to a game where I got to watch Johnny Antonelli pitch knuckle balls as I was more interested hearing the the beer and hot dog vendors yell out their products as they roamed the stands. It got cold after the fifth inning as the fog rolled in. The ever present summer fog. Coming from Connecticut, I mistook date palm trees for evidence of tropical weather because I recall seeing coconut palms in Florida as a kid, and figured that Bermuda shorts and a t-shirt would be de rigueur as I caught a nasty first summer cold following a"free" concert in Sigmund Stern Grove that July . How quickly one discovers that you are charting new territory when you hear for the very first time that dreadful time-warn "Coldest winter" quote from Mark Twain.

Tourists be forewarned... always bring a jacket.