It’s been said that everyone has two hometowns: (a) their actual hometown, and (b) San Francisco. For a few years, we were among those fortunate enough to combine those two into one. It was in the City By The Bay that we met, got married, had a son, and founded our theatre company. (As a nonprofit corporation, we’d sometimes receive official correspondence from the office of Attorney General Kamala Harris, a real stickler for detail.) Then we gave up our home there and started touring nationally; and we always looked forward to a chance to return to visit old friends, old haunts and old sights — and some new ones. After taking our final voyage in our RV and dropping it off with some friends in Grass Valley who agreed to sell it for us, we were able to visit our old double-duty hometown once more for the first time since before the plague.

Our friend Roland drove us from Grass Valley to Sacramento and dropped us off at the Greyhound station. And wow, was it ever different from the Greyhound stations in major cities in days of yore. It used to be that anybody could wander in, and everybody did. But this station was far less egalitarian these days; the doors were locked, and you had to show your ticket to a security guard. As a result, the station was cleaner, quieter, more orderly, and far less crowded.

This certainly has its advantages. Such as… well, it’s cleaner, quieter, more orderly, and far less crowded. But it’s also far less colorful without all the “undesirables” (and it might lure travelers into a false sense of security about the rest of the city being equally tranquil and accommodating). And we have to admit that we have a certain appreciation for the messy slice-of-life panoply that bus stations often present, worthy of being captured by an artist somewhere between Norman Rockwell and Hieronymous Bosch.

And the worker in charge behind the counter wielded her authority with an iron fist, sternly barring another woman from booking passage on a bus, even though the would-be passenger apologized for whatever she’d done and said, “Please let me on the bus”. We don’t know what the backstory was, but the employee seemed to us to have an overbearing dictatorial attitude that no doubt was reinforced by the station’s general policy of elitism.

Anyway, we apparently didn’t do anything to ruffle anyone’s feathers, because we were allowed to get on the bus, and we were off, past the California Expo fairgrounds, over the Sacramento River, and into the San Francisco Bay Area. After an hour or so, the bus dropped us off in front of a BART station in Oakland. No bus depot (either pristine or bustling), no bench, nothing; we were just discharged onto a busy street. But at least it was a convenient spot, in that we needed to catch a BART train to San Leandro.

So we went into the BART station and tried to purchase our tickets from the machine, but we quickly discovered that things had changed drastically since our last ride. Rather than feeding cash into a slot, we were instructed to produce something called a Clipper Card.

“What the hell’s a Clipper Card?” Dennis blurted. Whereupon a fellow who overheard came to our rescue and gave us instructions about how to obtain the rechargeable chit, to be used in all future rides.

And so, armed with our brand spanking new handy-dandy Clipper Cards, we boarded a BART train and rode to San Leandro, where we met up with old friends Sue Ellen and Ron, whom we’ve known for decades. In fact, Sue Ellen was responsible for our meeting each other in the first place. A former ballet dancer, she became an excellent theatrical director (and still is). And we met while auditioning for her company in San Francisco back in 1988. We both got the job, and the rest is hysterical. (At one point, this production we auditioned for had us singing and dancing on a billboard in downtown San Francisco. Yes, you read that right. On a billboard.)

So we spent a couple of days at their house and had a great time catching up with them. But… somehow we managed to succeed spectacularly at failing spectacularly to get a single photo of them. The only photo we can find from our time there was a single shot of the two of us working out. Sorry, guys. We accept the hundred lashes with a wet noodle, and will do better next time.

After that, we put our shiny new Clipper Cards to use and caught a train up to Walnut Creek, where we met up with two more friends, Craig and Ann. They took us on an outing across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, to The Presidio. In our day, The Presidio was a long-established army base; and surely it was the most enviable of military billets to be stationed in such a picturesque location, a hilly and forested site with classic architecture overlooking the Bay and the most famous bridge in the world. (You can get glimpses of the base in its active military days in the 1988 movie The Presidio.) Then in 1994 the base closed after being in operation for over 200 years. This left a number of historic buildings empty, which subsequently have been repurposed as museums, offices, and various attractions to lure the public to enjoy the scenic site.

One of these was our destination: The Walt Disney Family Museum, which we’d never seen before. The museum was established in 2009 by Walt’s daughter Diane, who shared her pa’s visionary spirit to an extent. (It’s interesting to note that the organization she founded to run the museum has its own version of the oft-maligned but rarely understood philosophy of broad accessibility known as DEI, which it terms Work, Equity and Inclusivity — WEI.) With its family connections (and others from the clan also live in Northern California), the museum offers an intimate, informative, and unforgettable portrait of the man, his genius, and his legacy.

As expected, there were displays of photos, videos and mementos that we hadn’t seen before. But there were also quite a few surprises. Such as many of the approximately 250 awards he was awarded, including 22 Oscars — more than any other human being who’s ever lived on this planet. And some samples of the “Alice comedies” (Who even knew there was such a thing?) that helped him establish his chops and his reputation early in his career. And the apparatus of Death Star proportions he once used for shooting elements of a scene in layers, giving it an appearance of depth. And a detailed model of Disneyland as it appeared in its inaugural year of 1955.

Once we’d completed our tour of the museum, we grabbed some Indian food (which we always loved even before we went to India) from one of the food trucks in the park outside, then after sitting and enjoying the late lunch and the view, we headed to our friends’ house in Walnut Creek. Along the way, we took a detour through downtown, and what we saw was quite striking. There are always noticeable changes that have taken place in our absence when we go back to visit the city, but this time the changes were definitely not auspicious.

We’d heard that Everyone’s Favorite City had gone downhill in recent months, but that was really driven home when we were driving home, and passed through Union Square. This once vibrant hub of upscale shopping, dining and lodging had storefronts boarded up. And the little park that was the square on the Square, and formerly was full of lounging office workers on a break, tourists, buskers and all manner of humanity, was pretty desolate.

Many explanations have been offered for this decline, including a spike in crime, drugs, and homelessness. But those sound like symptoms more than causes. And we hear that the mayor’s too liberal. And we hear that she’s not liberal enough. And so on. The most plausible explanation seems to be that after the pandemic, many workers moved away and either got new jobs or started working remotely, and haven’t returned. Whatever the factor(s) involved, it’s sad to see Baghdad-by-the-Bay so down on its luck,

Craig and Ann, by the way, are also friends of many decades’ standing. Their son Kyle, who was three at the time, was the ring bearer at our wedding. Craig was on the board of directors of our theatre company from its inception to the bitter end. (He worked for many years as an engineer, and before that he was a naval officer; so he’s a good person to have aboard when you need to make certain you dot those T’s and cross those I’s, or whatever.)

Craig had suggested that while we were in town we try to do some things we hadn’t done before. Which is actually not as difficult as it might sound, even though we’d both lived in San Francisco for quite a while (Dennis for 15 years). Because when you live there, you tend to be too busy surviving to play tourist. We’d never toured Alcatraz, for instance, until after we’d moved away. And, as mentioned, the Disney museum was another place we’d never been too.

Unfortunately, many of the attractions and activities that we might have dropped into our list bucket were closed or not available at the time of year or on the days of the week when we were there this time. But one available option that we decided to avail ourselves of was the Oakland Zoo. We’d been to the San Francisco Zoo a few times years ago, when our son was in a stroller and we lived only a few blocks away. But with that zoological garden in our own back yard, there was no urge for us to trek across the Bay and into the hills to see another one.

The Oakland Zoo turned out to be quite worth seeing. We were especially impressed with its collection of frisky monkeys, who reminded us of some of the countries we’d recently traveled to, where their cousins romped around without being caged. But for a space behind bars, these primates had really an attractive and comfortable-looking home. How does the Oakland Zoo compare to the one in San Francisco? We have no idea, because we don’t remember the latter that well. We just know that we like them both.

We noticed a sign advertising that the Oakland A’s were sponsors of the zoo. (They instead should sponsor the Giants, who need all the help they can get.) And we wonder, now that the team is relocating to Las Vegas — which seems to be a trend among Oakland sports franchises– whether this sponsorship will continue, or the poor critters will become financial orphans.

All told, it was great to be back in our old stomping grounds, and we look forward to the next time we can drop in and catch up with the Bay Area. And we hope that when we do, the shining city on the hills will be on the road to recovery instead of the road to ruin.

8/17-21/2023