Pacific Ocean Healing

On the sweltering afternoon of Friday September the fifth, the University of California cut and destroyed the lives of all but a handful of the trees at Memorial Grove. In an upcoming entry, I'll write the story of my sojourn there the Sunday following. Now I want to remember the intervening Saturday and an escape to the seaside...

The September heatwave ensued and I saw my escape plan beckoning from the back deck---San Francisco under clear skies. Ever the noirish gentleman, I was dressed nattily in an l.l.bean long-sleeved blue striped cotton shirt, boxer shorts, black cargo shorts worn with black cotton socks and blundstone boots, black sunglasses and a black beret. I brought with me my city lights canvas book-bag, with water, some raisins, prescription cookies, and an extra whole foods bag to carry the boots on the beach. That's it--all rations and gear accounted for.
I intended to wait until I was aboard a street car headed for the ocean before I devoured my almond shortbread cookie. It was created with butter containing the active ingredient from quite high grade cannabis. But to keep travel fun until then I had a few quick puffs of a blend of four or five different varietals before leaving. My lovely radio program, "Thistle and Shamrock" hosted by the endearing Fiona Ritchie, had just commenced at 2 PM when I plunged out into the heat. High 80s.
The students had recently repopulated, young people were everywhere--generally not wearing much clothing. Down the chute through campus, and into the downtown BART station. A busy and slightly cheerful Saturday crowd fills the train to San Francisco. I spied a friend among the standees across the car. He is an Oakland poet, thirties, sort of patrician Irish-American background, from Massachusetts like me, we were both friends of the late Beat Surrealist poet Philip Lamantia. Despite his doctorate in English from UC Berkeley, he still has his long thick mane and he reports on hip hop for the institutional local alternative free-weekly. Tall and good-looking, he reminds me of the young John Wayne. Leaning up by the door, he was reading a book entitled The White Tomb.
He got off at Embarcadero, my stop, so I was able to catch up to him. I had decided that the extra half cookie I had brought with me would go to him. I told him that he was looking too serious otherwise--don't forget that the White Tomb is where we are going to put McCain. It was a enjoyable moment before we hurried off on our separate ways. He was headed to work, poor lad.

In a moment I was down at the Muni platform waiting on a train. I impetuously hopped aboard a present "N-Judah" rather than wait a few minutes more for the "L" train to the Zoo. But that was not to be. The driver somehow forgot what train he was driving and followed the tracks for the "L" rather than the "N." In short order the local crowd sounded alarm when they realized this.
The driver stopped at the next station and most got out and dashed over to the other side for a return to the "N" line. The driver just looked flummoxed and didn't really have advice or even an announcement for the remaining crowd. Just the "L" arrived and before much longer the purported "N" slid off. I packed myself into the cannery of a crowded car for a hot ride, now standing up. I had begun my cookie before the mishap and it was happening before the long ride ended.

I relish touring the wind-worn precincts along the neighborhoods approaching Ocean Beach. I look for remnants of the 20th century in architecture and in the nostalgic signs of the out-lying neighborhoods of old San Francisco. From the West Portal with its tidy branch library, the Philosopher's Bench bar, the enticingly-named "Squat and Gobble" eatery. The forlorn pet stores that serve a largely Asian clientele; the "Irish Home Care" service for the dear old inhabitants of the neat quiet cottages one sees passing by; the look of the locals in this part of town, I see all, I notice all, on this long ride culminating in quietude at the ocean and the zoo.

The "L" to the Zoo stop is a convenient conveyance to the beach. As far as the managery itself is concerned, I have not visited it or any other zoo in decades. I hold animals too dearly to enjoy seeing them imprisoned. Even knowing that it is the only way I will see the esteemed lemur face to face, I can not indulge myself at the animal's expense. That said, I am not above, and I was not this day above, going to the open fence by the entrance where one can see some of the captive animals ranging across a hillside. As I walked over finishing the shortbread I spoke to a young black boy who was sitting next to me at Embarcadero station. "You came all the way to see the animals?" He dug it when I said I loved them too. I told to enjoy himself and went to see the cheapskate's view of the zoo.
Off in the distance I did see a young giraffe move past, but mainly I observed various Ibex resting in sort of a kneeling position with horns ten feet in the air, some somnolent storks, and some restless ostriches all fairly close by. Best of all was a glorious zebra who stood at the closest point looking back at me. He seemed glad to see me and to respond pleasurably to me, swiveling his ears to my sweet talk:"What a nice zebra! You're nice!" Of course most animal pleasure in one's company is intimately connected to their expectation that one may have food to give to them.

The San Francisco Zoo gained new infamy last Christmas day. Three wannabe gangstas taunted a Siberian tiger to the extent that it leapt from it's enclosure and attacked them. They had stood on a railing while yelling and waving their arms in a primate danger display that is beyond archetypal all the way to instinctual. And the tiger responded out of instinct to their threat at the threshold of its meager domain. The two older brothers, hostile ne'er-do-wells apparently, had lived. When rescued they had been cowering outside the snack bar where the tiger had stalked them. They had induced an under-age friend to join them for intoxicated animal-baiting on Christmas. When the boy's father reached them by phone they denied knowing his whereabouts. He did not survive the attack. Nor did the exquisite female tiger, one of only 500 left in the world, survive the police.
I happened to have been at the Cliff House a few miles from there when it happened. At 5 PM that day as the zoo was closing, I watched the sun set turn the windy cold sky blood red. In contemplation of a wildly faint possibility, I say, as I have always said, I would forgive a great beast such as the tiger if ever circumstances compelled it to devour me.

I continued to the beach, negotiating the pent-up lanes of traffic of the "great highway." Fully be-cookied by this point, the sheer exhilaration of the ocean vista of glorious breakers made my heart feel too large for my chest. From Mount Tamalpais and the headlands of Marin to the mysterious and dim southern coast all the land and sea was shining in the bright daylight.

Doffing my boots to skim the wet sand, I began my northward walk. A sizable crowd flocked around the immediate vicinity but began to thin as I covered ground. Delighted children danced around my gait in time with the sea's ebb and flow. Not just surfers but a good many swimmers were off on the wet side of me. Despite the absence of life-guards, going myself began to seem a lot safer with so many around who might see me if I was snatched by the waves. I watched a guy with a big belly rolling in the breakers and decided if he could endure it I could as well. Careful readers may recall that I had not brought with me a swimming outfit-- but I was to be undeterred.
I walked on until the inevitable fishing poles were planted and fewer people were encamped. Just a nearby group of young men incessantly throwing a football, catching it while falling in the water, fairly oblivious to the people nearby. I sat on the edge of a small wall and let a little time pass. Then, after determining no one was observing me, I took off my walking shorts and headed for the water in navy and gray-striped boxer shorts.
My feet and calves had met the cold saltwater but all the more cold-sensitive parts of my body needed to be introduced. Having grown up on the Atlantic I have been an ocean swimmer all my life--I have the idea of how to enter cold water without inducing a heart seizure. This involves quickly leaning over and splashing water on one's chest, the back of one's neck, and finally over ones head. Then you must dive in full-length as soon as possible. All this I did in rapid order--and it felt like being born. A transitional return to the original primordial soup from where all life came. Instantly I evolved into a renewed version of the organism I used to be.
While this was happening--as I sprung back to my feet recovering from a situation in which my undershorts gave into the persuasion of the waters--I noticed one of the fisherman, a middle-aged Chinese guy, was gaping at me in a mild show of disbelief. Let's see him try to do it--then he may form his opinion of my behavior. Another plunge and that was enough for me, I walked back to my spot on the wall--my circulation thundering, the inside of my head chilled and resplendent.
More people moved into the area and the fisherman, ostensibly unsuccessful, gave up the turf. People might have noticed what I had done--but sincerely, on both sides, who cares? I waited to drip-dry a while (no towel recall) then put my shirt over my lower half and lowered the wet boxers. The walking shorts were soon back on all was beyond criticism.
I stayed for hours smiling the whole time at the children, at the beach-walkers and the humorous dogs. A beach patrol vehicle pulled up to the young athletes and began to address them over a rooftop megaphone. Two other security figures waited nearby on cartoonish beach motorcycles--these days there is always plenty of funding for security. They drove off and after a few minutes I went over to one of the young men to ask what they had said. "Haven't the slightest idea...couldn't hear 'em." He sounded like he was Irish. The entire time I was there, the four of them were in an ecstatic world of constant motion on a sparkling beach in their youthful health. It was a place I could only gaze at in appreciation and vaguely recall.
I climbed the rough dirty "dune" in search of a discrete leak then stayed up high to gaze endlessly at the sea and at the frivolity. A lady on a fairly distant blanket saw me up there smiling. She kept looking and seemed to show a little concern, nudging her male companion.
As fetching as her green plaid bathing-suit bottom was, she need not have worried. I'd seen it before plenty. They lost interest in me soon enough and I skied back down the cascading sand.
So, hours drifted past, the waves got closer to me, and I knew I should resume my beach walk and go home. I headed North to catch a "N" train at Judah street. As I walked on past the section of the beach where the concrete wall and the highway are visible, to where dunes get bonny and the beach is busy again, I noticed a family of surfers having dinner wearing wet suits--father, mother, older sister, kids playing catch in little wet suits half-peeled-off.
My stride was a source of pride as I glided through innumerable scenes. Sweet little sandpipers combed the vacant stretches; a translucent jellyfish fell from outer space; a naked little boy ran by me giggling; pretty girls looked innocently aware of admiring eyes; a squadron of pelicans crossed the sunlight on the sea out where the surfers hung. I smiled and the world seemed to smile back.