Thursday, December 17, 2020

Seeing SF Makes Watching "The Princess Diaries" Worthwhile

Yesterday  I  saw "The Princess Diaries" just to look at the SF scenes.  Willie Brown makes a guest appearance.  A young girl has that era's equivalent of a podcast and calls it "Shut Up and Listen."  


https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/california/articles/a-princess-diaries-guide-to-san-francisco/



The San Francisco Experience on Chesa Boudin


I found  Jim Herlihy's podcast on Chesa Boudin very interesting, but I have a couple of questions.


He doesn't pronounce his last name the way it looks in French, right?  He pronounces it BouDEEN.  

I'm glad Jim Herlihy clarified that he doesn't really think that "the sins of the fathers are visited on the children,." a quote he uses.

I heard a podcast with Chesa Boudin--either Heather Knight or Joe Garofoli was doing the interviewing. The interviewer said that some police officers were telling people that there was no need to file a report because Chesa Boudin wouldn't prosecute,  and he said that he prosecuted 80% of the cases that were brought to him, if I remember correctly.  I think the DA's office was one of Jim's sources.  I wonder whether he found that statistic.

Fascinating that there's now an app to navigate piles of feces!


Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Looking Back at Shehla's Clever Write Up of a Girls Day Out

 I am so happy to let you know that the stars of Ocean's 3, the long running prequel to Ocean's 8, were recently sighted at Yerba Gardens!  Fans saw them at a food heist at the Samovar in honor of one of the 3 stars, Shehla.  The 3 ladies walked the concrete carpet to the Yerba Buena Gardens and had delicious tea and tidbits. Shehla was presented with lovely momentos to remember her birthday.  Beth and Tina then had a private showing of the movie Ocean's 8 at a very comfortable and cozy theater nearby and all 3 were seen smiling after they left the theater.  Shehla was overheard exclaiming how thrilled she was at everything that she had experienced that day and wanted to thank her lovely costars for a wonderful, memorable day!  Her fans recall similar group events throughout the past years and wish all three stars a lasting friendship!!

Monday, December 14, 2020

King Tides in San Francisco

 I'd read about the king tides (John King and Sam Whiting) and then this morning learned that the Cliff House was closing, so I walked 10.5 miles from home to Ocean Beach and then up to the Cliff House and Golden Gate Park . Beauty everywhere, but I'll just share the king tides in this post. I hope I've included the birds. There was also a little girl with a sand pail and a shovel scooping up foam! In some places it looked like too much detergent had been put in the wash, and in other place it looked like mashed potatoes. But in most places it just looked spectacular.











Sunday, December 13, 2020

In Search of the Groundhog on the Hidden Garden Steps





Yesterday I walked on a mission to find the groundhog we heard about on the second leg of the Crosstown Trail (Glen Park to Mountain Lake) with guide Karen Rhodes, who was kind enough to fill me in on some details I missed: Sherry Boschert, who was one of the neighbors involved in the Hidden Garden Steps (16th Ave. at Kirkham St.) tiling project, said that the artists, Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr, acknowledged the many donors to the project by firing stairway tiles with their names. However, they began learning, one by one, of misspellings. So, one by one, they would re-do them. They joked that this felt like the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day," so they fired a tile with a groundhog and placed it on one of the bottom risers.
 

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Jim Herlihy's podcast The San Francisco Experience Now Has a Website


 Here's the link for Jim Herlihy's podcast The San Francisco Experience along with my message to him, now an open letter!

Https://www.thesanfranciscoexperiencepodcast.com

Hi, Jim!

I've been meaning to tell you that I noticed the new square representing the San Francisco Experience podcast, but until I looked at your website just now, I didn't know that you had a visual for each podcast.

I've been listening with interest.  

Your website looks good, and I think it will be good to add an interview, as you did when you interviewed a friend who'd written a book and then yourself.  Have you thought of interviewing Gary Kamiya and Paul Madonna?

I'm surprised you still haven't done a podcast about the Crosstown Trail or the SF Chronicle's New 49-mile anything but Drive Trail or Walking SF's 49-Mile Drive.  I'd like to hear about your own trails too!

Are you going to have something on celebrating the holidays during the pandemic?  Or on the parklets?  I'm representing Mothers Out Front on the Voices for Public Transportation, and someone  was commenting that even though people can't dine on the parklets during this lockdown, at least the cars aren't there.  Today's newspaper reports that emissions have dropped 7% during the pandemic, the biggest drop ever.

Today after I write more thank you letters, I'm going to walk from West Portal to Kirkham and 16th to see the groundhog in the bottom step there at the Hidden Garden Steps.  Do you know why the artists put the groundhog there?  It's a funny story!

Tina  

Friday, December 11, 2020

Who Charlie Sava of the Charlie Sava Pool Should Be Remembered


I had the vague recollection that Charlie Sava, whose eponymous pool is across the street from me, was a coach, and I finally got around to looking this up.

He was a coach, all right, and what a coach!


 https://ishof.org/charlie-sava.html

CHARLIE SAVA (USA)

1970 Honor Coach

FOR THE RECORD: Coached 10 straight US women's swimming team titles; Swimmers won 42 individual national titles and 9 relays during period of 1944-1948; His Olympic swimmer Ann Curtis won 35 national championships.

Charlie Sava was the honor coach of champion swimmers from Ann Curtis to Lynn Vidali.  From 1944 through 1948, Sava's San Francisco Crystal Plunge Swim Club won 10 National AAU Women's swimming team titles in a row.  During this record "splash", Charlie's girls won 42 individual national titles and 9 relays.  Sava's greatest swimmer, Ann Curtis, won 35 National Championship gold medals.

 

Sava and his swimmers never had the money to fly or take the train.  Their cross-country auto trips to national championships were rugged but fun.  The swimmers' routine on these trips was two workouts a day, two restaurant meals, and all the raw vegetables you can eat.  Among Sava's pupils on these trips was Marion Olsen, now Marion Olsen Kane, the reigning all-time most successful coach in synchronized swimming.

 

Sava attended the first Red Cross Aquatic School in 1925 with Hall of Famer Commodore Longfellow, and he helped Hall of Famer Beth Kaufman iron the kinks out of early age-group swimming with rules and practices that have required few changes.

 

Sava used interval training "repeats" as early as 1949 and he is generally credited with freeing the freestyle kick form the knee to the hip.  He took Hall of Famer Vickie Draves to her first Nationals after helping her break a West Coast discrimination problem against Orientals.

 

For his total domination of women's swimming over a five-year period, as a dedicated water man for 50 years, and for helping to turn champion swimmers into champion women, the International Swimming Hall of Fame honors Charlie Sava.

Ground Hog Tile for a Too-Oft Repeated Correction

 The Crosstown Trail from Glen Park to Mountain Lake, led by Karen Rhodes, took us last Christmas up and down quite a few (hundred) steps.  The most intriguing story I heard about the beautiful tiles steps was that they had to correct errors in the spellings of the people they were honoring so often that they felt they were in the story of Ground Hog Day.  

I wondered about that tile, which doesn't appear in any of my photos, so I asked Karen Rhodes, and this is what she said:


Here is the story, as I recall it from Sherry Boschert, who was one of the neighbors involved in the Hidden Garden Steps (15th Ave. at Kirkham St.) tiling project. The artists, Colette Crutcher and Aileen Barr, acknowledged the many donors to the project by firing stairway tiles with their names. However, they began learning, one by one, of misspellings. So, one by one, they would re-do them. They joked that this felt like the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, so they fired a tile with a groundhog and placed it on one of the bottom risers.

Thursday, December 3, 2020

Why I Love My Dentist

 For my 75th birthday instead of having a super-spreader party I'm writing 75 thank you letters to people who have enriched my life.  Would you believe that my dentist is one?    I actually look forward to and enjoy my dental appointments even when she isn't wearing a giants smock as she was today.  Shawna has retired and Uni was the new assistant, but Dr. Jee is still there.  She's warm, caring, and fun to talk to--or listen to.  She's compassionate not only towards her dental clients but towards the world at large.  She was telling me that she thought it would be good to write thank you letters to the people who've gotten us through this pandemic.


I'll write one of my 75 to her!.  



Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Chinatown Murals

 Erika and I met in Chinatown to see the murals and remember Juliette, her beautiful little dog no longer with her. Milou's presence was a comfort. We walked along a very deserted Grant Avenue and a not-deserted-enough Stockton, and then revisted Joice Street and Dashiell Hammett, finally coming back through Union Square. These photos show some Chinatown murals as well as deserted Grant Avenue. The first photo is my favorite!








The December 9th Meeting of the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee to Postpoine Closing Homeless Hotels

 Here's the info on Facebook:


The Board of Supervisors budget committee will be holding a hearing on legislation, sponsored by Supervisor Haney, that will mandate that the hotels stay open and remain housing people until an adequate plan with real housing options is developed.

Watch the Board meeting with us and give public comment supporting the legislation and let the Mayor know that the dismantling of the hotels during a corona virus surge must stop.
Watch at sfgovtv.org
To join our zoom watch session, register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/.../tZUpf-6ppzMoG9dKBULePrTDd...
PUBLIC COMMENT CALL-IN
1 (415) 655-0001 / Meeting ID: 146 622 0460 # #
The meeting starts at 10:30 am, but the time of the item is not certain, so stay tuned for updates about when the SIP hotel hearing will begin.

Saturday, November 28, 2020

Police Contracts and Police Reform in San Francisco

 I like the tone of this letter.  My response follows it.

Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors,


Please do not approve the Police Officers Association contract without requiring real departmental reform as a condition of its acceptance.  As of March of this year the SFPD has only implemented 40 of the 272 reforms outlined by the Department of Justice. 


We urge you to consult with legal counsel in the City Attorney's office regarding the role and responsibility of the Board of Supervisors in the Collective Bargaining process. We also urge you to review the successes of other municipal governments in this country that have negotiated significant Police Reform through Collective Bargaining.


We believe Collective Bargaining is one of the pillars of economic democracy and workers rights, and we support the right of police officers and other public-sector employees to be represented by unions (or associations) that negotiate fair and equitable wages and benefits, hours and work schedules, and safe, healthy working conditions.


As the governing body of our city, the Board of Supervisors has a moral and fiduciary role to play in Collective Bargaining. We support police officers and related personnel--like other public-sector employees--receiving collectively bargained fair and equitable wages and having reasonable working hours and safe, healthy working conditions. We believe the Board of Supervisors has a moral responsibility and the authority under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (MMBA) and pertinent statutes to effect significant Police Reform through the Collective Bargaining process.  And the people demand justice.


We believe additional reform will result from legislative and court victories--and millions of people in the streets demanding police accountability and an end to systemic racism.  The time is now to demand reform.  Too many lives are at stake for us to pass on this opportunity.


Respectfully,


Peter Miller, SFTWA

Frank Martin Del Campo, SF LCLAA

Rodger Scott, AFT 2121

Ruach Graffis, SFTWA

Barry Taranto, SFTWA

Allan Fisher, AFT 2121

Karl Kramer, SF LCLAA

Edward Escobar, AIW

Alice Lindstrom


This looks like a really good letter.  I'm curious about this part:

"SFPD has only implemented 40 of the 272 reforms outlined by the Department of Justice." What are the 40? What are the 272?

I really appreciate the fact that you're speaking of police reform rather than the incendiary "police defunding"--especially after seeing that 56% of the Black people in Oakland (I realize this is SF) say they want more police in their neighborhoods. I've read that nationally it's 81% of Black Americans who want the same or more police presence in their communities.

Tina Martin

Sunday, November 22, 2020

More Parklets

 


I'm so impressed by how restaurant workers manage in this pandemic, so I always over-tip. (Let's give them $20 bills instead of adding it to the tab so we can be sure they get it!) Once again we have that parking meter but table and food where cars used to be. I was especially happy to have Jonathan at the table--masked and unmasked!


Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Parklets in San Francisco



 Signs of the Times! I celebrated with Vilma in the morning and Beth and Shehla in the early evening--both at parklets. The first place, Brenda's on Divisadero, did everything by scanning--no touching of menus. Beth, Shehla, and I had a parking meter at our table, but we didn't have to feed it--just ourselves! Delicious food, wonderful friends both places--and very brave people doing their best to stay in business during these hard times.




Saturday, November 14, 2020

Stern Grove after 4:00 PM

 During this pandemic period, I've walked through Stern Grove to and around Pine Lake several times, at different times of day.

Thursday, we limited our walk to an hour so I could attend a Zoom meeting for Voices of Public Transportation at 5:00.

Here's how Stern Grove looked--and there were even people doing the salsa on stage--not professionals but people who just wanted to dance and had found the perfect open space outdoors--couples keeping their social distance from other couples!







Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Following Portals of the Past to Caselli and Douglas: Nobby Clarke Mansion


 Tuesday morning Maxine and I had a beautiful walk to the 45-room Nobby Clarke Mansion that Gary Kamiya wrote about in Portals of the Past. There's a fascinating story behind this house, and the route from Noe and 26th to Douglas and Caselli is a beautiful one. I'm so grateful that my house is much less grand. Imagine cleaning that place! On the other hand, it would have ample space for all my clutter!


https://www.sfchronicle.com/chronicle_vault/article/It-s-one-of-S-F-s-strangest-houses-Its-15689883.php

Sunday, November 8, 2020

A French Friend Asks for Feed Back from Us Bay Area Folks

After hearing the good news that Biden was the predicted winner of the presidential race, a good French friend, Annie,  sent a message to three of us Americans and two French friends living in the Bay Area, where Annie and her family lived between 1999 and 2003 or so.  Here's her message and my response:


 Finally!!! 
> I want to share your relief and rejoice with you, mostly for your new gorgeous vice president!! 
> 😉👍😍🙏😀💐😊💕😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘


So nice to celebrate with you, Annie, and the others included in this message!  Hours before the election, I'd gotten good wishes from Jutta in Germany and Daan in the Netherlands--two friends I've known since 1963, when Jutta was my penpal, and 1972, when I met Daan in Amsterdam on my way to Madrid.  They said they hoped the Democrats would win and that there wouldn't be violence.  

I got the good news from Jonathan, who texted our little family in the Bay Area at 8:49 am PST yesterday.  What a relief!  I was on my way to a rally called, aptly, "Count Every Vote" at the Embarcadero and wanted to take a walk before joining the rally.  I feel that we've gone from Attila the Hun to Mr. Rogers, but of course Trump has not gone yet and continues making threats.

Not to dampen spirits, but some of the Senate and House races have been disappointing, as have some of the state propositions.  Poor Biden!  He's going to have a recalcitrant Senate to work with, and even though the Democrats flipped two house seats,  the Republicans flipped four.  (If this has changed, I think Nicole can fill us in.)  There are still more Democrats in the House than in the Senate, but it's a narrower margin

Prop 15, the one so many of us worked on for so long, did not pass.  It would have brought the schools and communities $11 billion by closing the loophole in Prop 13 from 1978 that helps the richest commercial property owners not pay their share of taxes.  Those opposing it used scare tactics that were dishonest and misleading. 

Prop 16, to make it lawful to bring back affirmative action, was voted down.  I think it was from the NYTimes podcast that I heard people wondering, "What's happened to California, which was once so progressive?"  But San Francisco voters once again voted to tax ourselves in several different ways to support the public good.  

I was campaigning for Anita Martinez for CCSF Board of Trustees (still too close to call), and a man saw the sign I was carrying.  He said, "I wouldn't vote for any of those damn people!  I have to pay $449 in four parcel taxes on top of the $4000 I pay for my house taxes.  Damn them."

I thought, "Oh, how grateful I am that I have a roof over my head and even own it.  I'm so glad that I am in a position to pay parcel taxes."   Of course, parcel taxes aren't really the solution.  We should have income taxes that are really fair, but unfortunately Americans have been trained to think of taxes as an infringement on human rights.  

Anyway, I appreciate your asking, Annie, and it's nice to be joined together  with Debora, Nicole, Francoise, and Christiane--like (well, not quite like ) old times!

Love to you all and hope for the world and our nations.

Tina

Downtown San Francisco for "Count Every Vote," but Took in Joice Street and the Embarcadero

 









Saturday, November 7, 2020

How Jim Herlihy's novel "Deceit and Dirty Money" Relates to My Son's Change of Jobs and Cities

 I miss my every other day workouts at the Stonestown YMCA--the people as well as the exercise!  I was lucky to have two good conversationalists --Jerry on my left, Jim on my right.  


One of the things Jim mentioned to me on one of those mornings before March 16, 2020 was a novel he'd written that was published in 2000.  Since the Y closed, Jim has started a podcast--The San Francisco Experiment---which I've listened to scores of times, and now I'm reading his book Deceit and Dirty Money.  It's a page-turner, and it's especially fun to be reading it now because one of the characters, Chris Callen, is changing jobs and moving from New York City back to San Francisco at the same time  my son is doing that!

 "He had a lot to do before leaving...First the run:  one last time through Central Park...."


My son lived a block from Central Park and went running there too--an important part of his life.

Strangely enough, Chris Callens hasn't given notice on his apartment, and he has a car he has to ship.  But when he gets to San Francisco, he says, "Slow down.  I want to remember this moment.  My return to San Francisco...I love this town and now I'm back."  


I used to visit my son in NYC in September, so I couldn't resist writing a reference to this in the book over the sentences describing May as "one of the few times of the year New York's climate is pleasant."



Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Hoping for a Positive Outcome Peaceful Election

 This morning I got a message all the way from Germany, where my penpal from 1963 lives.  She and her husband were concerned about our election and expressed


Add caption




hope that the Democrats "may come to the White House  without dangerous protestations in the street."

I told her that that was our hope too.

Ready, Get Set, Go!

As an editorial in this Monday's SF Chronicle pointed out, "Our election preparations have become considerably less distinguishable from our disaster preparation."

There's an open letter that, for some reason, we're supposed to keep confidential, so I'm not identifying it, but it's asking our city, county, and state leaders what they plan to do to assure a fair election if the Trump people turn violent.  I pointed out that it's not just the Trump people.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Punches-thrown-as-left-wing-protesters-show-up-at-15655621.php#photo-20124414

My comment:  Please add my name.  


I was listening to a podcast in which several people were being interviewed.  It was quite apparent that the Right-Wing fears violence from the Left, too, and 46% of the new gun owners are people who've never before bought a gun.  

I'm so glad that this open letter specifies "non-violent action."

I think it was in Sunday's  SFChronicle that this observation was made:  

"Our election preparations have become considerably less distinguishable from our disaster preparation."

  
Tina Martin

I don't think this is the kind of community-provided bench the SF Chronicle was talking about today in its article https://www.sfchronic...