Scenes Along Telegraph

Echoes of what happened before in what happens now...

In drear December, my weekend folk and roots music radio programs tempt me to stay indoors and enjoy my prescription cookie. Music is never so felicitous as it is then. But the Christmas street fair goes down those days on a Telegraph Avenue closed to traffic. So eventually off I go, not to shop for holiday gifts but just to take it all in--fanciful crafts, joyful kids, locals out from their cocoons, street music, a huge walking tree costume. By the time I reach Dwight Way I am always a bit cheered and I have usually had enough of it.
Last year as I moved slowly through the midway, I felt a slight leaning against my leg. I assumed a kid had just brushed by. Actually I didn't pay attention until a wee hand clutched my pant leg and I looked down next to me.
"You think I'm your daddy," I said to the startled little girl. "What color jacket does he have?" I tried. Within seconds the father had found her again. He seemed angry at her as if it's only ever the child's fault if they get separated, for not obeying.
I felt sympathy for her and relief that my nightmarish imaginings had not come to pass-- a woman shrieking,"That man tried to walk off with a little girl!" along with fragmentary lynching scenes from films like Frankenstein and M.

Earlier this Spring, I walked up Telegraph returning from Peet's coffee house. I was full of coffee, so my talk-to-strangers threshold was low. I remarked to a young fellow that he had the spiffiest banjo case I'd ever seen. "Back in my day we folkies carried our banjos in a gunny sack." "Where can I get one?" he laughed. We came up to the sidewalk outside Rasputin's entrance where young African-Americans sell mix-tapes. One of them asked the banjo-player what it was he had on his back.
"A banjo? Oh man, I'm from the South, we don't have banjos down there." Fully caffeinated, I chimed in, "What you mean?... it comes from the South...haven't you ever heard, "I'm goin' to Louisiana/with a banjo on my knee," I sang with extra honky twang. He gave it up, physically dodging the sound of "Oh Susanna".
"That white music hurt yo' ears!" I observed.
He agreed with me as general hilarity ensued.

I was up at Willard park with a couple of harmonicas. A bench along Hillegas facing out on a view from Mount Tamalpais to downtown San Francisco offered inspiration. Cozy rooftops and trees, and the lively park with its great redwoods made up the foreground. But, as happens, I ran out of steam for solo music-making and quit.
Willard (known for a time as Ho Chi Minh park) is located a block up from Telegraph and I started home along that way. I passed the cottage behind the super market where Ted Kasinski, better known today as the Unabomber, once resided. Wonder if he left any artifacts?
As I came up to the incredibly fragrant Lhasa Karnak herb shop next door to Moe's, I paused to listen to two bluegrass players. The girl playing mandolin was competent, but the guy playing fiddle was extraordinary. He played sweet leisurely runs with just the right touch--no excited over-playing. I listen to this kind of music year-round on the radio, and every year at the three-day free extravaganza in Golden Gate park known as "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass". I don't mistake talent and authenticity like his.
I listened for a while, threw a coin into their case and, before too long, asked them if I could join in. They may have suspected I was trying to chisel in on their take but that wasn't it at all. We took off. When I later called the tune I asked for "House of the Risin' Sun" and ended-up singing it while the guy played like a Byron Berline in overalls. A young cat passing by stopped and said "wow." He may not have heard music made by real instruments without electricity before that moment. Except for some occasional over-amped "christian" music, street music has always enhanced the area.
We attracted other listeners and were having the proverbial time of our lives when a couple of rare beat cops showed up. They seemed to want to encourage us to quit--there was a lot of lip service about clearing the avenue of malingerers at the time. Caring little for this sort of philistinism, we quit of our own accord soon enough afterward.
Johnny was the fiddler, a recent arrival from Kentucky or Tennessee. He came from a family of traditional music players including some professionals. As a new comrade in music, he pleaded with me for the good turn cannabis-lovers everywhere depend on. There was bluegrass on the radio as we hit my pad for tea--he knew who it was right away. I think I had some enhanced caramels I might have let them try. He went on to tell me about a serious health problem he had. He did have a job and this caring girlfriend. He had also had a recent family tragedy and seemed like someone who was trying to keep his head up while in flux. I admire people like that and try to help when I can. I encouraged him to look into the California medical marijuana program. I spoke of the comfort of being legal with it, the ease of obtaining a high quality supply.

I saw Johnny again some weeks later in People's Park. I was hurrying on my way to five o'clock Mass at a chapel off of College avenue. He was elated to tell me that he had an appointment later that afternoon with my medical cannabis doctor. He then produced a healthy-sized joint and invited me along with himself and a friend. I declined. I was headed to Mass and I have never gone to Mass stoned in my life. I want the highest high in its purest form.
Walking home from Mass, of course, may be another story.