SGVCC Heart of the Valley, honoring Richard Sloan

Right after I broke up with NoNeil, I moved back to my roots, that is the San Geronimo Valley where I stepped back into a community that I hadn’t revisited since the 1970s. In 2016, I had already reacquainted myself with that is the San Geronimo Valley Community Center food bank, where I became a volunteer and helped serve senior lunches. When I first began volunteering, I had no idea that it would become a lifeline, so when this event honoring Richard Sloan was planned, I knew I couldn’t afford to attend it, so I asked if I could document the event. They were thrilled. 

I first met Richard and artist Donna Sloan when they moved onto our road in 1965. They had a young child, Bryn, and I was the default babysitter and housecleaned. Through the Sloans I was turned onto many ideas including the work of JRR Tolkien, and Phil Ochs.Through Donna and Richard, I became politically involved, I joined his peace and freedom party in 1970 and volunteered as a sign painter for Barbara Boxer’s, Marin county supervisor campaign, etc. so the Sloans were formative in my growing up years. But after Richard Nixon got elected, because of our split third-party votes, I became a reluctant Democrat. Never again.

Donna was instrumental in setting up the San Geronimo Valley Art Center in the old office of Lagunitas School, my alma mater. The building has been public use as a school because it couldn’t be retrofitted. The San Geronimo Valley Art Center morphed into the community center. Full circle. Note bene:Often times the loudest mouth wins the credit for the record. Jeanne Berensmeyer did not the art and community center.  Sloan did, I was there. I was a volunteer.

Spiderwebs and fogbows (photos)

The mad eye of the sun at dawn rising from the mist, wild geese conversing among themselves while grazing on the dew-laden first winter grass of the season.

The field was covered with myriad globe spider webs, drowned in dew, each one unique, the rising sun turned them into a vast crochet fest of dainty handkerchiefs or lace anticamassar prisms on the deep armchairs of the lake reeds. I remember how my aunts would cover their heads with lace hankies before entering the church. Ah, Sunday morning, what tangled webs we weave...

I’m in love with the monstrous globe spiders, such amazing creatures. There were so many webs, I wanted to run amok but I had to stay at right angle to the rising sun in order to see them. Just like rainbows....the closer you get, the more you change their angle, the mor elusive they become.

 I also saw a fog bow, a first. I thought I was imagining things, it was like the intense wings of an angel. I expected to see a vortex of light. Truly a Turneresque moment. No color, but an increased intensity of light. Of course, I searched for the best vantage point, and wherever I went it followed me. I realized that I was my own best vantage point. So I followed it to the old shoreline of the lake until I found what I liked. Truly a metaphor for the rest of my days....

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival 2018

23rd annual Poetry Flash

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

Stand up for the Earth

Saturday, October 13th

from 10 AM to 4:30 PM

at Civic Center Park,

Martin Luther King, Jr. Way 

in Berkeley, California.

watershed@poetryflash.org

Free to the public, bring low chairs, blankets, picnic on the grass.

Strawberry Creek walk hosted by Chris Olander begins at 10AM 

Meet at the corner of Oxford and Center streets. 

Featured readers: Iris Dunkle, Maya Khosla, Joan Gelfand,
plus eco-dance by Sharon Coleman with Barry Ebner on guitar at the grove.

Plus book signings and poetry writing and art events at River Village.

Readings:

We are Nature reading (open mike sign up at noon).

1:15 PM: River of Words youth reading an awards with Robert Hass, 

1:30 PM California Poets in the Schools student reading 

with Maureen Hurley, Brennan DeFrisco, and other CPITS teachers.

2 PM: welcome
Big reading: Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Leanne Sullivan, Maya Khosla, Joan Gelfand, CS Giscombe, Tonga Eisen-Martin, Forrest Gander, Ellery Ackers, Robert Coats, Iris Dunkle, Chris Olander, Gwynn O'Gara, and more.

4:30PM closing ceremonies, grand finale.

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival is a collaboration with Robert Hass, US Poet Laureate, 1995-1997, Poetry Flash, and the Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market, Pegasus Books, Moe's Books, East Bay Express, Poets & Writers, Berkeley Civic Arts  Commission, Zellerbach Family Foundation.

.

What would Boudicca do? (on reading Rebecca Solint’s essay onthe appointment of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court)

She will slay her opponents with a spear and finish them off with a long sword. She will lead a massive uprising against the occupying Roman forces. Then she will ride roughshod over her daughter’s rapists with her chariot. She will fight bravely. She will not be silenced. She will not go down without a fight. She will die for her annexed land to uphold honor and justice. She will die for equality—and the right for a woman to rule her own kingdom. Long live Boudicca, queen of the Iceni. We are what will happen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica

Groundcherries by any other name

CNN posted a slouchy article on the process of genetically modifying groundcherries, a species of tomatillo, for commercial harvesting. I think the headline, Groundcherries, the latest modified fruit scientists want you to try, was designed to get a rise out of readers. Anything for a few hits on Facebook. If the header didn't grab your attention, the synopsis was even lamer: They taste like pineapple, but also like vanilla. They're "tropical" but also a bit like a tomato. A bit like a tomato? they're such close cousins, they're practically Irish twins.

I’d chalk the article up to uninformed journalism, replete with bad headlines, or bad tastebuds, or both. Of course, the CNN journalist Arman Azad might not have had anything to do with the epic headline fail. Could be a wonky editor. I can't answer for their tastebuds. Vanilla? Really?

Of course, most Facebook readers lost their collective minds. If the headline hadn’t read “modified” would all the howling Facebook readers have had such an adverse knee-jerk reaction? One could almost hear all those knees smacking their owners in the chin. Don't knock out all your teeth in the process.

Groundcherries (Physalis peruviana) are not some kind of new frankenfruit. Modified does not mean inter-species spliced GMOs, no foreign fish, or alien fungus genes inserted into your tomatoes or groundcherries. People have been domesticating tomatillo species for millennia. If anything, they should be dubbed heirloom plants—even though they're considered to be weeds the world over.

Cape gooseberries, or Inca berries, Physalis peruviana, take some time to ripen.—Wiki

The CNN article nattered on about the significance of scientific development of a more compact groundcherry bush with larger fruit, and more fruit clusters. Talk about burying the lead sentence! If the CNN journalist had merely called the process “domestication” then there probably would have been no flappy Facebook furor. Talk about the five Ws of journalism gone awry. Never bury the lead.

The real problem is developing a commercially viable crop, so that Physalis peruviana can be harvested and shipped. It's just not commercially viable as is—wild grown. Harvesting, shipping, etc., is problematic, as the big rambling bush likes to flop about and lay down on the ground, and randomly drop its fruit—hence the name—groundcherries.

Cape gooseberries, Inca berries Physalis peruviana, yellow ones are the sweetest.

As to gene manipulation, any food you eat has already been modified. Call it domestication, cultivation, or breeding—whether by natural selection, farmers, monks, or scientists... Everything we eat has been modified, unless it's completely wild.

PETRICHOR

Strange sound on the roof.
First rain of the season.
Acrid odor of petrichor.
Portent of things to come.

10/1/19

Outside cat wanting in

Outside cat knocked at the door wanting in when the rains came. I kid you not. she had many things to say, of which I only understood the feed me now command. She settled in for a nice skritchy pet job, insisting on getting between me and my iPad, then she wanted back out, but balked when she saw that strange stuff was still falling from the sky. I had to toss her out. No 3 AM kitty alarm for me. She ambled off into the night grumbling about the housesitter’s epic failings.

Actually she's quite sweet, but skittish. She was a feral rescue, so she likes the front door to be open at all times. Sugar knocked at the door, as if to say, what was all that strange stuff falling from the sky? Let me in! When she wanted out, she took one look and did an about face, I had to shoo her out. No 3AM kitty wants out potty call for me. Catnapping is such hard work.

Stranded on D St. Epic AAA tow fail

AAA keeps changing the ETA time. I am sitting in the hot sun for an hour, broiling, watching the turkeys cross the road. Hood is up and not one single person has stopped or even slowed down, and I e been sitting here over an hour. Some people have come close to sideswiping me in their hurry to get out of town. Lovely city folk. Finally a guy from Novato A&C towing (contract AAA) hauled me to Nicasio. We stopped at the cheese factory for a pit stop. Loo and food. He’s diabetic, and his blood sugar is off. Mine too, I haven’t eaten all day. Apparently nobody wanted to come out to Petaluma, right on the edge of town. No tips. I mean, really. The turkeys were more sympathetic. I’m stuck in Nicasio, at my cousin’s and need to get it to my mechanic in Oakland today....getting it towed with some fancy AAA finagling. Then we’ll see. Hopefully it’s the distributor cap, or coil.

Bliss Buys remembers (oral history) Sonoma County Stump

Simone Wilson, Bliss Buys & Joe Leary, 1980. Maureen Hurley photo

I ran into former Sonoma County Stump founder and editor, Bliss Buys after a poetry reading, the Petaluma Poetry Walk. Bliss, Simone Wilson and I had lunch at Dempsey’s and reminisced. I am sorry to say that I did not take any notes, it was a whirlwind visit. A blast from the past. Simone and I booth cut our journalism teeth at the Sonoma County Stump. There was so much more catching up to do, as I hadn’t seen Bliss since the Stump folded in 1981, when I was new to writing. I worked at the Stump from 1979-1980 until it folded.

I had a camera, I happened to live near the Sonoma County Stump office, I wandered in once day to see what I could see, and next thing I knew, I was given the centerfold to create a double-truck spread on Sonoma County poetry, and a deadline—and the rest is history. —The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump

Bliss and I met up in Petaluma the next day as she needed to meet up with her clients, to renew ads for a antiques periodical she had founded in 1989. It was so enthralling to trail after her as she visited a plethora of Petaluma antiques stores. The antiques guide went from a small Sonoma County monthly throwaway tabloid newspaper to an annual West Coast guidebook. Bliss was touching base with her clients.

Bliss wrote this synopsis in a Facebook group, Russian River History and Memories, “Our first office was on River Blvd. in Monte Rio where we got flooded. The last one was over the Mexican restaurant in downtown Forestville. At one point, we were located behind the Rio Theater in Monte Rio. We had an office on Hwy. 116 north of Sebastopol (where the late, beloved Joe Leary came onboard), one in Guernewood Park (where we got flooded again). There were two periods when we couldn't afford an office and worked out of my home, once in Pocket Canyon (where my partner was Patrick Lanzing), once on Trenton Rd. in Forestville. I wish I remember the last name of the designer of the masthead...John something. The theme was borrowed from a painting by Joan Miró depicting a tree stump that has one of its roots firmly gripping the axe that did the job. Probably the most complete collection of The Stump that exists, went to the museum at Sonoma State University. It may even include some of the very first editions, when Jack "The Carpenter" Husband started it and I was the typist. Deadlines were typically all-nighters. We typed the text, cut out the columns and pasted them with melted wax on big galley sheets. Those copies might still be there, in some dusty corner of the SSU storeroom. We had a good run—more than ten years. 

What follows is an ad hoc oral folk history interview with Bliss at her son Jay’s house on Pepper Road, Petaluma, reminiscing about the past. As is with most verbatim conversations, it’s sometimes disjointed, but one of the things I’ve learned about collecting oral folklore from my UC Berkeley professor, Dr. Alan Dundes, is to not try and fix syntax, grammar, or timeline. Nor interrupt.... Akkk!

Lost sock

. 

A sock caught in the act, inside out. Nearly got away with it, incognito.

I, who was feeling lost, said, oh look, a lost sock. Wait, that’s MY sock!

Divesting myself of things

Someone asks me, do you know where you’re going? No. I’m into the wind, as they say. I will be housesitting in Sebastopol for a month. I’ve still got a lot of stuff to process. It takes a lot of time to properly decommission a small cabinet, or bookshelf, let alone, a room in a house where I’ve lived for more than 20 years. Baby steps. I take it in small chunks, and then fill my car, and then farm it out. When I get it all processed, and sorted out, then I’ll find a storage space and reunite it. Kitchen, hall closet, and living room are nearly done. So many memories. so much anguish and pain. Baby steps. I never want to see Neil again. Remember to breathe, let it pass through. Do not let it stick to you, I tell myself.

I have a Berkeley couch where I can stay,  midweek when I’m teaching..., I’d love to find another...

Children’s librarian was over the moon to get my signed book, Ring A Ring O’ Roses by legendary storyteller, Rockridge librarian, Gay Ducey, I trained with her a long time ago.

Petaluma Poetry Walk (photos)

Petaluma Poetry Walk. See full Google album here, or here.

Fire on Mt. Barnabe

My biggest nightmare, a wildfire broke out near my family home and I can only watch from afar. Trying to reach my cousins was impossible. No cell service. The cell tower is on the top of Mt. Barnabe is out because of the fire. Surrounded with flames. The small side valley, Arroyo/Barranca Road, where I grew up, could easily become a firetrap. Evacuation began right away as the potential for this wildfire to go rogue was huge. We heard from one cousin, James, who wasn’t home, but not the other, however, we're fairly certain he got out with the dog. Luckily the fire did not turn up Barranca Road, it headed south instead. TG.

It looks like the wildfire came up the shoulder closest to Devil's Gulch, where Sam Taylor's favorite white and only mule, Barnabe, was buried. Then the fire burned all the way up to the lookout, then headed down the mountain on our side of the ridge to the right, which means the Nunes Ranch homesteads was threatened, plus a few newer homes in the trees, as it headed back towards Lagunitas again. Had it burned straight across, along the ridge that separates us from Nicasio, we wouldn't have stood a chance. The wildfire spread so quickly, that within minutes, the entire park side of the mountain was engulfed in flames— one of the evacuees, Dave Cort, said the flames were 100 feet high! Within two hours CalFire said it was 80% contained. Phew.

Virginia Rae interview: Sausalito's Gate 5 Theater & beyond

Vee Rae (Virginia Rae Kane) was an actor friend of my mother's at the Gate Playhouse Theatre in Sausalito during the late 1950s- early 1960s. I was young, still in the single digits, so my memory was sparse. But my first blog pieces in 2007 were on Gate 5, Tiki Junction, and also Juanita, which led to this post.

The photo that started it all. My mother, Kellé Reilly (later it was Kellé Green—

her stage name as there was already an actress, Maureen Hurley in SAG), 

Richard Knablin, Skip Rognlien and Vee Rae, Christmas, 1960. 

(Photo by Chris Gracida, courtesy of Richard Knablin.)

Somehow my mom's friend, Richard "Dik" Knablin stumbled across my blog post in 2009, and contacted me which led me to an email from Vee Rae. He sent me a photo of my mother with him and Vee Rae, and the memories came flooding back. Wow!

So this interview is a decade, or more like a lifetime in the making. Also, my drama teacher from College of Marin, James Dunn just passed away, he was also part of the lively and vibrant theatre scene in Marin. Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.

I was able to glean information on Skip Rognlien and Les Abbot, thanks to Google. I found a few reviews that mention Vee and other actors in the ensemble (Bill Edwards, Jim Holiday, Vickie Frazer, Sharleen Lambert, Diane Santich, John Rose, Jack Brennan and J. W. Cheetham, see newspaper archives at bottom), but nothing in print on my mother who worked so tirelessly behind the scenes with costuming, and she was also in most of the plays as well. I only have a few stills of her.

Letter to Yehiel on leaving Neil

To Yehiel Ben Benyamin        9/5/18, 11:33 PM

Dear Yehiel,

We had a blow up last month because I tried to pay a portion of the rent directly (which I've done in the past), and he lost it and told me I had to move out. No forewarning. And so I did.

End of year CAC reports

Well, that's done—2 California Arts Council final evaluations for John Oliver Simon's residencies I inherited—nearly killed me.

When John died in January, I had no idea that my artistic teaching inheritance would be to administer both of his CAC Artists in Schools grants (without a final, or completed copy of either grant—like how much the actual award was vs the grant request. How much to spend, where).

So administering those grants was like a stressful game of sleuth where I wasn't always sure where the money was coming from, or how much I could spend. Or where. I'd wake up at 3AM in a panic more nights than not. Oh, and John spent some of the grant too, which left a deficit.

Then, I had to match both grants dollar for dollar—not knowing the final amount or what most of the line items even were. Of course, I couldn't ask John. I had to reinvent the grants, find new sites, find new money. Like starting from scratch, but worse.

 And he liked to play fast and loose with the matching dough. Cards held close to his vest. I had a couple of breakthroughs at 3AM, where I matched this pile to that, and then snuggled it up with the CAC match. I swear for a moment there I was channeling John.

After teaching, producing anthologies, readings, managing my co-poets for the project, I was saddled with the final online evaluation process in May....But the CAC didn't have it ready until the end of July. Two months. Not a clue as to what I was supposed to do.

Then, come August, I couldn't get into either CAC account, no final evaluation report was listed with either non-profit funder. I had to generate them. But I needed the contract number. More sleuthing....Holyfuch, John submitted both grants with one funder. No wonder there was no record. After untangling that SNAFU, I was able, with the grant numbers, generate the final evaluation report template.

By this time it was mid August. I was nearly hairless with grief. I've been doing nothing but this freakin evaluation process for two weeks. All day long. Every day. What could go wrong, did, early and often. I sent them both in at noon. One day under the final deadline. Phew. It should not have been this hard. A Sisyphean task.

Is it 5 O'Clock yet? I'm feeling a bit fishy. How was your summer?

My project at Emerson. Photo quality is poor (old camera) as I accidentally drowned my new camera in tea the day I found out John died. I had dreamt his death the night before, so I was doubly spooked.I was originally invited in to teach 6 art classes. I wound up teaching the entire semester. Kids were resentful that John wasn't there, they gave me grief  for weeks. It didn't register that he had died. When I turned over the residency to Sophie for the last 6 weeks, she said the did the same with her....wanting me back. They hung all over me like koala bears when I came back to observe Sophie. Progress was made in the most unlikely of ways.  

I'd rather have a drink!

A funny circle of closure, for sure....right about where i came in, in 1984. Oh, John! Right up to the very end....

Teaching at Emerson ES after school with no teacher support  was so challenging, I very nearly quit several times. I gritted my teeth and held on for dear life. Last time I saw John was in that room. I couldn't let go. But I just wanted Wednesday afternoons to go away. Forever.

We had such a sweet goodbye in Dec, on the solstice. We held each other, and all the past was forgiven. We said I love you, and truly meant it. Then he was gone. I had dreamt his death the night before he died. He came to visit, we had wild on the road adventures, traveling, car stolen (that really happened to us in Merida....). And then he was gone, leaving me to fend for myself. I was stuck in  Lodi again...no way home. He still visits me in dreams.

That City by the bay: by any other name

During a TGIF moment, a woman named Erika posted a whimsical iPhone photo of the Transamerica Building, replete with sunspot bubbles, on Facebook, and called it Frisco. People lost their shit. It was a landslide against. But old monikers die hard. 

One reader said, "frisco, the word that sounds like a brand of lard, sucks. everyone is entitled their opinion. You can be an outlier, but just know that people will make fun of you for it. Sorry not sorry," 

 I get weird connotations too: Frisco/Crisco, Friskies with Crisco.

Another reader tried to establish a quasi terminus post quem by stating that Frisco, Texas was...

So named because part of the Frisco rail line, originally incorporated in 1876, ran nearby. Care to guess which city's name is in the full name of the line? Frisco is in Texas only because it was here first. You do realize that the place in Texas was so named because part of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway a.k.a. the Frisco line ran through the area."

True, Frisco, Texas was named after a railway line, but wasn't named after the city of San Francisco. Frisco, Texas was called Frisco City. And the train system never left the Midwest. Not only that, it was named after another San Francisco landmark, a name of a mountain range that predates the founding of San Francisco. 

That same someone who headed up an unsuccessful campaign to rename the Bay Bridge after Emperor Norton, then tried to call in the race card, saying it was a class system. He said only the cocktail set call it by its full name, while the African Americans in the Divisadero, and the Latinos in the Mission call it Frisco. 

Well, I beg to differ. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Besides, the Mission was Irish, it was not always Latino. That came much later. It is not a class thing, it’s more about old San Francisco vs the influx of outsiders that began arriving during the 1970s.

He said

A 175-plus-year stream of San Franciscans have addressed their city with this term of endearment. What also is true, though, is that the longshoremen of the 1860s and the African-American residents of the Fillmore district, a century later, never were going to have the approval of the cocktail-party set. Antipathy to "Frisco" often has been an index of class snobbery."

Well, speaking of presentism, lifting a theme from today's social milieu and blanketing the past with it—about all we agreed upon that people from outside SF called it Frisco—primarily sailors who didn't live here. A frisco was the place where you got your boat repaired, it was not so much about the city's name. Frisco stems from an old Icelandic term for safe harbor. And equally for 175 years, people have been objecting to outsiders calling it Frisco. Nothing to do with demographics, or cocktail party sets, as he put it. Not class snobbery either. But if it fits his agenda....

He said:

"There are number of theories about the origins of "Frisco." Peter Tamony's little article, "Sailors Called It 'Frisco,'" in the July 1967 number of the journal Western Folklore, is worth checking out. No agenda here. It's fine that many have been schooled to have a distaste for "Frisco." But, they should be honest enough to admit that it is, in fact, an issue of taste. When they step into language policing, to say that it is objectively wrong to say "Frisco," they are out of their depth."

So you know I looked it up, only to find, he lifted it out of context from an article. Tamnony was merely strengthening the sailor reference. How folklore works, is what's passed down. More people grew up with the full name vs. using the moniker Frisco. It had nothing to do with working class vs the hobnob set. It's not a matter of taste, status, or even language policing, it's a subcultural trait. And it's not cut and dry either.

JL said:

To the contrary, Mo, it is precisely BECAUSE preferences about the name of the City are "passed down generationally" that these preferences become, and are, a matter of taste, status and language policing. I don't challenge the point that "more people grew up with the full name vs. the moniker Frisco." I simply am saying that THAT FACT, such as it may be, does not give those who weren't trained to tolerate "Frisco" the right to badger those who do use "Frisco" into some kind of submission, as though the "Frisco" crowd is "doing it wrong."

So, according to JL, those who say Frisco are allowed free reign, and a pat on the back because they feel justified in calling it Frisco, but those of us who learned it as San Francisco must stay mum because he says so? De gustibus non est disputandem; call it what you will, but expect a reaction.

I pointed out that there are 14 place names called Frisco, or Frisco Station, or Friscoville, none of them were originally called San Francisco, then shortened to Frisco, and they're named after a St. Louis, Missouri train route that didn't even go to San Francisco. Ever. "Despite its name, it never came close to San Francisco." It never even left the Midwest.

For the record, there's a town called Frisco, aka Fresco, in Alabama, Frisco, Arkansas (no train), Frisco is a Colorado mining town, as was Frisco, Idaho (no train), Illinois, Friscoville, Louisiana, Missouri (trains), Frisco, North Carolina on Hattaras Island (too watery for trains), Oklahoma, Pennsylvania (no train), Texas (train), Tennessee, Utah, a  mining town named after Frisco Peak in the San Francisco Mountains, named BEFORE San Francisco was founded, I might add; and Frisco, Virginia.

Yes, dahling, calling San Francisco Frisco is a bit problematic. It could refer to some place completely different. If you want to live in Frisco, consider moving to one of those states. Then it won't be an issue.

JL went on to say:

"The narrative that San Francisco natives and residents never have, or don't, call their city Frisco is both tired and false. The term has a long, storied history here dating back before 1850."

I repeated: The only problem with your train story, is that it never came to SF. And not once did I say that San Francisco natives and residents never have called their city Frisco. I said, it wasn't a class issue, that was too cut and dry, because many working class people, my own family included, never called it Frisco.

Many of those Frisco place names were derived from other places: In 1629, Spanish friars founded a mission at Oraibi, a Hopi village, in honor of St. Francis, 65 miles from the San Francisco Peaks. The Franciscans gave the name San Francisco to the peaks to honor St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of their order.

The San Francisco Peaks, and the San Francisco Mountains both lent their names to several hamlets. Frisco Mountain, Washington, got its name from a mining camp, as did Frisco, CO, UT, etc. Frisco Coloradans are quick to defend their town's name, saying it's NOT named after San Francisco, CA, but that it's an acronym.

"Frisco, CO, wasn’t named after San Francisco. The name Frisco is desired from the letters associated with the St Louis- San Francisco Railway company. You have the FR from Francisco, IS from St Louis and CO from Company!" Frisco Colorado History Facts

So, the point is that the moniker, Frisco, did not originate in San Francisco. It's an exogamic term. Accretion. Like those barnacles on the ships.

The name of our city, San Francisco (est. 1769), was derived from the Latin, San Franciscus—full name: Mission San Francisco de Asis (1774), which was later dubbed, Mission Dolores. And it brought much sorrow for the Ohlone and Coast Miwok tribes.

Saint Francis of Assisi was a Frenchman. Frank, France, or Francis means a "free man." Oui! San Francisco's first European name was Yerba Buena. Good herbs. The island we now call Yerba Buena was called Goat Island. What, goats?San Francisco was also called The Golden City, after John C. Frémont dubbed it Chrysopylae in 1846, before the Gold Rush. It was also called The Golden City, or The City, probably because nobody could pronounce Chrysopylae. The Yelamu Ohlone names are lost. One candidate is Ahwaste, "place at the bay."

San Francisco was also called the Barbary Coast, and coined Bagdhad-by-the-Bay by Herb Caen. Though we refer to SF as a she, and Francisco may be a masculine name, in the City, gender is fluid. 

Herb Caen, the Pulitzer Prize–winning San Francisco Chronicle columnist, was adamant that no one call his "fair city by such a sliced-up moniker." Herb Caen, "the voice of San Francisco," wrote a a sequel to his 1949 loveletter to his multicultural adopted city, Baghdad-by-the-Bay, entitled Don't Call it Frisco in 1953, "named after a local judge's 1918 rebuke to an out-of-town petitioner ("No one refers to San Francisco by that title except people from Los Angeles")‍." He said “the F word” as “a salty nickname, redolent of the days when we had a bustling waterfront.”

Caen's column appeared in the SF Chronicle for nearly sixty years (with a brief defection to The San Francisco Examiner). Everyone turned to his page first, then, read the news. "Herb Caen" (archive) was the longest-running newspaper column in the country, until Caen's death in 1998.

Caen also coined, or popularized the terms Beatnik, hippie, and Beserkeley. A thousand words a day with Caen's trademark ellipses "three-dot journalism banged out on his "Loyal Royal", defined our city. June 14, 1996, was designated Herb Caen Day. He had that much influence. He didn't call it Frisco.

Herb Caen articulated it best.

You don't call New York, York do you? Nor do you say Kong. Or Angeles. Or Diego. Maybe Moscow should just be 'Cow. And while we're at it, let's cheapen St. Louis to just Louis. Why should San Francisco be shortened?

For the most part, only people from out of state, the recently arrived, or the tragically hip call it 'Frisco. There are exceptions. But it still draws ire. And it's also an old saw. There's even a sitcom called Don't Call it Frisco.

You also need that apostrophe BTW, as 'Frisco is a contraction. Otherwise it could refer to those 14 other cities legally called Frisco.

I found this 2006 story by Sean C., a frequent contributor to Trip Advisor:

"The city is named for Saint Francis, one of the most loved Catholic saints. Apparently, that word was shortened to "frisco" and was used by sailors to refer to a place where a sailing ship could be scraped, repaired, and refitted. The Court of Historical Review convened to decide if such a nickname was acceptable. The court ruled that the name of the city was San Francisco and that no nickname should be tolerated."

LOL it's the law!

Pancho (or Paco, Chico, Cisco,) is a diminutive Spanish baby name for Francisco. But Ess Eff is not a baby. Then, by way of parallel structure, in English, we oughta be calling The City St. Frankie, San Pancho, but not 'Frisco.  Just don't call it San Poncho, or San Pacho! SF may be free and easy, but nothing is ever truly free. One way or another, there's always a price to be paid, la mordida. Absurdum infinitem.

Can you imagine Tony Bennett singing, "I left my heart in Frisco"?

Me neither.

The West Coast is burning

Oh great, I was sitting outside during a red alert. The West Coast is burning. Ashes from as far north as British Columbia, where there are 560 wildfires, as well as wildfires from WA, Or, and N. CA, were falling on my Mac screen. And now my eyes sting. My throat is raw. All that unshed grief and death of trees playing out in real time.

Mae the Moonshiner and the Revinoors

Mae Sullivan Crean probably made that entire outfit including the hat.

My great-great aunt Mae, was a Sullivan from Gort-na-Screena, a farm in Drimoleague, on the Bantry peninsula, She married Ed Forbes in San Francisco, by way of Home Ranch in Nevada. But he died in the great flu epidemic, along with their young daughter, leaving the widow alone, in a foreign country, if I'm remembering the story right.

During the Prohibition, Great Aunt Mae (my grandmother always called her mother's sister Great Aunt Mae, though she was technically my grandmother's aunt, thus conflating my mother's generation with mine own...unless, of course, Mae was just great anyway, which is more likely the case. She was one of those women who broke the mold.

Anyway, Mae made some mighty fine bathtub booze. There was always a steady stream of customers, San Francisco's finest coppers, firemen and priests paid their due respects at the house. Not a dry eye in the Forbes house. She did right well, indeed.

They got an early wind, a small bird uttered a warning that a raid was eminent. May and her nieces hid the coil and still, dumped the mash down the toilet but very nearly got caught by the Revinoors when the mash plugged up the plumbing and the toilet backed up, hiccuping potent 30-proof burps.

They manage to dump most of the stash, except for one jug, so she lay down on the bed with the baby, the jug between the baby and and her rather ample breasts, and feigned sleep.

When the Revinoors came into the bedroom, seeing her in disarray, with her hair tumbling from her chignon like wildfire, stepped back, She let out a proper banshee screech, the bebé began wailing in earnest. The coppers were most apologetic and slowly backed out of the bedroom like dumb draft horses without continuing their search, saying Sorry to disturb you, ma'am. Sorry, Sorry.

Great-great Aunt Mae with her nephew, a young Daniel Sullivan
The two girls in the back, Julia and Kitty, are Mae's nieces.
I love the fake car and the painted backdrop.

Ten years a blogging

Today is an anniversary of sorts. Not only is it my grandmother's birthday, it's also the birthday of my blog. True, I've been on Blogger since January 2007. That's when I created this blog. But I let it lay fallow for more than a year. I was terrified of committing to prose and so, the blank page stayed blank. However, I didn't begin actually begin blogging until August 20, 2008, on my grandmother's birthday—as a way to honor her—because I had stories to tell, after all. It began with the family stories. The crazy family tree. The stuff under the rug you don't want to talk about. And then it branched out to include stories that interested me. From memoir to journalism, with a hefty poetry garnish. What a long, wild ride its been. I still don't know where I'm going with all this, but I do know where I've been. I'm up to 3000 blog entries. Wow. (I have more than 3 dozen fallow drafts in the wings which I need to liberate. I can now add a slew of travel journal entries, now that John Oliver Simon's gone.) Ten years a blogging. Who knew? Happy anniversary, dear Blog, mine own timelne. A chronicle of a life lived. One way or another. Not the life I necessarily wanted. But it's done. In the past. Will I even get another ten years of blogging under my belt? Neither of my parents made it to 70. Where will it go? What format will it take? Only time, that great bogarter, will tell.

See the backstory at Cybernalia and LITERRATA or Veritas and the art of Memoir if you must... or When This Blog Really Began—Aug 2008

A gang of bushtits

Is there a bird more ridiculous than the bushtit? A gang landed en masse on the fennel looking for seeds, nearly knocking it askew, sounding like chew toys as it swayed like a boat in the harbour. Meanwhile the bees carry on, following the dance of branches.

This is a FB orphan I ment to post but forgot...

Ca 8/20/ 18?

Pupfish sightings

Ash Meadows, Amargosa Valley

My first introduction to desert pupfish was in the early 1970s when I wandered across the saltflats from Badwater, Death Valley, following a dry salt stream, when I got to the other side of the saltflats, beneath Telescope Peak, there was a nascent aster-choked stream, Salt Creek, with tiny minnow-like fish. But some were as blue as peacock feathers, they were busy attacking my toes. So I had to know what they were. 

For years, I thought there was only one species of pupfish. Cyprinodon salinus. Ya seen one, ya seen 'em all. Was I ever wrong. There are actually two subspecies in Death Valley, once the pluvial bed of Lake Manly, Cyprinodon salinus salinus, and the northern subspecies, Cyprinodon salinus milleri.

Devil's Hole, Amargosa Valley

The Mojave Desert (SoCal & SW NV) is home to at least five species of pupfish, maybe more: Death Valley pupfish, Cyprinodon salinus, Cyprinodon nevadensis, Armagosa pupfish,  Devil's Hole pupfish Cyprinodon diabolis.  Owens pupfish, Cyprinodon radiosus, and on the other side of the Sierras, Desert pupfish (Cyprinodon macularis).

You're probably wondering, what the heck is a pupfish? A pupfish is a relic species from another epoch, left over from the Pleistocene era when the greater American Southwest was lush, and vast lakes and wetlands dominated the landscape. When the waters began to recede, leaving behind what we now call the Mojave desert, the pupfish survived by retreating into fossil water seeps and springs, many of which are saline hot springs.