Unfinished Story by Bob Kaster, June, 2025
I guess I still love San Francisco. Sort of. I’m not sure if it’s actually getting better, or if I’m just becoming more tolerant in my old age.
I go back a long way with “the city.” When I was in elementary school, my family lived for a few years in King City, a small agricultural town in the Salinas Valley, a little bigger than Yreka in population. San Francisco was about 150 miles north, up Highway 101. That was in the 50’s, a time when San Francisco was vibrant, glamorous and exciting. Union Square had become a hub of wealth and fashionable stores. A trip to San Francisco was like going to Mecca; something you dressed up for.
In the mid 1960’s, I lived in San Francisco for three years while attending law school at what was once called Hastings College of Law. Don’t get me started on that. The school is now called UC College of the Law, San Francisco, after allegations surfaced that the school’s founder, Serranus Clinton Hastings, a former California Supreme Court Justice, had funded and supported militias that attacked and killed Yuki Indians in the 1850’s and 1860’s. I didn’t like the name change, and still don’t. I sent a letter to the dean urging him and the chancellors not to do it. I never got a response.
During those three years of law school, the city was in the national limelight, but I think it may also have been the beginning of its downhill spiral. The fame culminated with the “Summer of Love” in 1967, when the city became the hippie epicenter of the world, and produced internationally known music from the likes of The Grateful Dead, The Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin. Unfortunately, the ideas and values of the Summer of Love began to give way to drug use, poverty, and crime. Ann and I were newlyweds during that time, and we were beginning to see the darker side of the city. Our 1966 Ford Mustang, a wedding gift from her parents, was stolen and wrecked while we lived in San Francisco; not a good sign.
Since then, and especially during the last decade or so, the city has been much maligned and trashed by the media, probably righteously so for many reasons including but not limited to its high cost of living, homeless population, issues related to drug use, especially fentanyl, and increased crime.
But my fond memories persist. And, I’ve been a fan of the San Francisco Giants since they moved to the city in 1958. So, my friend Mike Grifantini and I decided to take a road trip. We would spend a few days in San Francisco and take in a Giants game.
We began our road trip to San Francisco on Monday, June 16th, stopping at Red Bluff and then Granzella’s in Williams along the way. Why Red Bluff? That was Mike’s idea, and a good one. Its historic downtown, Victorian-era buildings, and Sacramento River waterfront are worth a visit. Most people don’t realize Red Bluff’s historical significance. During the gold rush era it was a busy port for paddlewheel steamboats traveling from San Francisco up the Sacramento River. This continued until after the turn of the century.
Our destination was the Luma Hotel, in the south-of-Market Mission Bay neighborhood a couple of blocks from the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park. I was skeptical at first, because, to me, south of Market always represented the industrial and often seedier down-and-out area in San Francisco. I was wrong. That area was full of new development, chock full of things to do and see.
The Luma Hotel was something else! Welcome, Yreka country boy, to high tech! We checked in and entered the elevator, headed to our 6th floor room. Before the elevator door closed, this thing scooted in and joined us, ultimately to scoot back out on the third floor. It was Lucie, one of three robots that performed several services in the hotel, including making room service deliveries. About three and a half feet tall, Lucie and her fellow robots, Lumi and Henry, roamed around the hotel pretty much at will.
We had a corner room on the 6th floor with a great view. Looking east we could see Pier 50 and the bay; looking west, the Sutro Tower. Looking down at the intersection below we could see the Waymos, the self-driving taxis, zipping around the neighborhood, with their high-tech sensors on the roof and fenders spinning around and flashing. This Yreka boy, who has had the good fortune to do a lot of international traveling over the years, had never seen anything like that before.
The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay
The glory that was Rome is of another day
I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan
I’m going home to my city by the Bay
I left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars
The morning fog may chill the air, I don’t care
My love waits there in San Francisco
Above the blue and windy sea
When I come home to you, San Francisco
Your golden sun will shine for me
When I come home to you, San Francisco
Your golden sun will shine for me
Songwriters: Douglass Cross, George C. Jr Cory. For non-commercial use only.
Bob Kaster 