May 14, 2006

Mother’s Day

So here I sit in our marvelous old great car. Geo Prizms were maybe the best cars built in 1993, so of course the breed is now extinct. Zelda (which means heroine) has 160,000 + miles on her. Except for new brakes (we do have killer hills in San Francisco) and several sets of tires, and a couple of new batteries, we’ve hardly had any expenses except gas and oil for this car. The first and only part that went was the Radio and Tape Deck, which we gladly replaced with a CD Player.

Today is Mother’s Day. A holiday invented in the US, to sell Greeting Cards, and Flowers, Candy, and here in San Francisco, Sunday Brunch, which is THE San Francisco tradition. The weather today is glorious; sunny, and clear, with a lilting breeze. The Best of the Bay.

Wonder Woman and Laura LaRue, who is visiting from Boston, just left me here in the car, while they took Ruby, our Toy Poodle for a walk. They were walking off our Sunday Brunch feast, and I was writing it off, which like triking, is a non-weight bearing exercise.

Mothers and their children are strolling by. Most of them are with husbands (males anyway). We’re at Crissy Park. Right on the Bay here in San Francisco, in the area of the city called the Marina, is this field that runs alongside the bay. It has the flattest and longest bike/trike/jogging path, totally safe from traffic. On the end where I am sitting, is the Golden Gate Bridge. Today, it’s a natural Mecca for sun worshippers, droves of Mother’s Day celebrants, city jocks, dog walkers, bikers, old people with walkers, or using canes, or just tottering (sad and true, the gait of ‘tottering’ enters into our lives as we age, sorry) pass in front of me. We’re parked and I’m facing the amazing Bay. There’s a walking, or whatever, path in front of this copious parking lot. Beyond it is a long strip of beach, today teeming with people and their colorful umbrellas. Beyond the beach is the Bay itself, filled like the stars fill the sky, with many, many white sailed boats of all sizes.

My first remembered beach scenes were of the Lagoon, on the beach in Sea Gate. The Lagoon was a sheltered cove, right there on the otherwise, far more churning, Atlantic Ocean. Huge rocks jutted into the ocean in a gentle curve, and blocked the normal tides, and waves and currents, and formed this natural pool like, salt water ‘swimming hole’, where Mother’s brought their toddlers in order to keep them safe from the unpredictable sea. This was the natural pool in which I learned to swim. Twice a day, when the tides changed, the sea water would drain out, and fresh sea water would surge in. It wouldn’t take the cold water long to get as warm as a comfy tub, in the sun of the long summer days.

The rocks that formed the Lagoon were placed there by men, who on purpose designed this idyllic spot. Sea Gate had the best beaches. There were five of them, all conjoined.

All marked off by wood jetties that reached into the sea. No signs, you understand. People who were just ‘summer’ people didn’t know this fact. Us ‘townies’ could always tell each other where to meet on this quarter mile or so, of white sandy expanse. We were either on beach 1, 2, or 3, if we wanted to be closer to the Riveria, which had the Bar, and restaurant, and handball courts, or 4 or 5, if we were true supplicants of sand and surf and sun, and wanted a relative meditative beach experience.

When I got older, I ran with a pack of kids about my age, ranging all these beaches, but mainly we stayed at beach 1. It was there, when I was about 5, or so, that I met, Al the Boatman.

He just showed up one day, at beach 1. He was a very short, athletically nimble, sun sculpted faced, bearded and pipe clenching, oddly dressed old man. He told me and my friends as soon as we met him, that we would all form a club together and he would tell us stories. He had a job for the summer at the Riveria, sweeping the constantly shifting sand that covered the concrete paving under the awning, and under the umbrella tables that were in front of the Riveria. Since the stucco structure faced the ocean, on windy days especially, it was constantly buffeted by shifting sand.

So when Al the Boatman, had his time off time, we would all huddle with him at the top of the beach, where row boats and sea canoes, were chained and stashed, until their owners wanted to use them, along the chain link fence that defined the top of every beach. We would sit there usually shivering and still dripping wet from a last plunge into the sea and roll in the hot sand, to warm up before our meeting. I don’t remember just who all, or how many, kids there were, but I’ll bet some of them were my older cousins (my Dad’s whole family of 7 brothers and sisters all lived in the Gate). We were all on the beach every beach day, brought there by our mothers, beach bums all – they visited with each other as we kids played. Vigilant life guards kept us safe at the waterfront, our mothers took turns eyeballing us out, when we strayed out of their immediate forward towards the sea eye range. We just played.

Talking with Al the Boatman, was fun. He told us sea stories. He had been on steamers that went all over the world. He also told us about the olden days. Tall tales about kings, and queens, and when he walked the earth with them.

One day, my Mom and I were among the only remaining people on the beach. We were usually the first to arrive and the last to leave. I saw Al at the top of the beach and raced over to him. We huddled near the chain link fence, where the boats were chained up. My Dad and some other guys were still playing a hot game of handball, just on the other side of the fence. Al, asked me which man was my father. When I pointed him out, Al then said, “Oh that’s Sussie, then Suzie, is your mother! Do you know who your Mother is?” Puzzled, I pointed in the general direction where my mother was seated, “That woman there!” I said. “No”, he said, “Do you know who she REALLY is? She’s Cleopatra”.

My Dad’s game was over, and he came up to the fence, said hi, to Al, and told me to tell my mother that his game was over and it was time to go home.

When I told my Mother later, while she was giving me my bath, that Al the Boatman told me she was Cleopatra, she said, “Yes,” that was true. Al the Boatman, had been the Captain of the barge that my mother, when she was Cleopatra, used to ride down the Nile River on. That now that he had told me, she wasn’t going to deny it, and she didn’t want me to talk about it anymore, either.