Page 194 - People & Places In Time

San Francisco
round the large pool in the middle of the room with a small trio playing Tahitian jazz, while floating on a covered raft in the pool. There are palm frond mats on the walls and ceiling, fish nets and lights in colorful lanterns. Best of all for this young boy, is the periodic lightning, thunder and rain falling from the ceiling into the pool.
Oh, and yes, there was one other stop in the Fairmont with my dad; the men’s room off the lobby. As a young boy growing up in the San Joaquin Valley, I could not expect a black man as an attendant dressed in a crisp white uniform handing me a clean towel to dry my hands. Impressed with such indulgence, it would take a few more years to know this is a so called luxury we can do with- out.
The early years spent on family trips to San Francisco created a bond that will always keep the City, at least in my memory as a second home. We went to Fleishhacker Zoo in Golden Gate park, took Red Line boat tours of
the Bay, and rode the street cars down Powell Street to Fisherman’s Warf. Later, while in high school there were Sunday trips with my dad to Kezar stadium to watch Y.A. Tittle quarterback the 49’s with R.C. Owens and Leo Nomellini; a few years later, it was John Brody and Bernie Casey.
Time to move on
We grow up and move on and the San Francisco trips with family would soon enough become the visits I take with new friends and my own family.
In 1967 my return to the city by the bay was under entirely different circumstances. I found myself temporally stationed on Treasure Island waiting for orders that would eventually send me to Coronado Island then Viet Nam. John Keyes and I had ridden a train and bus to the terminal in San Francisco. Here John took another bus on to the island base.
I was met at the bus station by old family friends, Bert and Velma Voice. Bert had worked in Exeter and Visalia and was by then an executive with the Bank of America in San Francisco. It wasn’t far from the bus terminal to the Palace Hotel, where they treated me to an early dinner beneath the stained-glass dome covering the dining court, before driving me to Treasure Island.
The next three weeks at Treasure Island were uneventful. Occasionally
I would stand guard duty. On one of those occasions I’m walking with a rifle, without bullets, along the far north tip of the island at 3:00 A.M. On this par- ticular night the sky was sparkling clear, filled with stars, I’m standing alone with the bay lapping against the pilings beneath my feet as I look out toward the city lights reflected on the water. This mesmerizing view almost completely encircled me; from Oakland and Berkley to Belvedere, Sausalito the Golden Gate and San Francisco. I’ve not seen the Bay like this anytime since, nor I suppose, will I ever have that opportunity again.
Recently I came accross a post from my niece, Shana Riehl’s Facebook page, that she, with her husband Chad had enjoyed dinner at the Tonga Room at the Fairmont hotel. I had no idea that the place I remembered from childhood existed today.
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The Palace hotel dining room is where Bert and Velma Voice took me for dinner before driving me to Treasure Island . . . Quite an abrupt contrast with in a very short drive.