I received the following from a girlfriend, who is a
native San Franciscian going back to the Gold Rush of
1849. I thought it would be a nice follow up to the 1906
Earthquake post. I'm adding (My Note:...) additions to
this article. There were some notable omissions. I was
not born in San Francisco, but my youngest son was. I've
lived here since I was 14, lived "across the bay" before
then.
After traveling around the United States and seeing
many places, I always come home to San Francisco. When I
land at SFO I want to kiss the first Chinese Man I see.
I'm so happy to be home. When the cab rounds the curve
from the airport and the City unfolds like some crazy
pop up book my heart swells. "Good Food!" is the first
thing I can think of. The food in San Francisco is so
varied and all of it is good. From Peruvian home cooked
in the Mission to Dim Sum in the "aves", noodles in
JTown. You can walk around San Francisco just guided by
your nose. I can't pass an Italian Deli in North Beach
without having to stick my head in an take a long wiff
of the cheeses and the sausages. It's said that there's
more bars here in San Francisco than in most cities, but
since I don't drink alcohol all I notice are the
restaurants. The street vendors selling home made
Tamales in the Mission are a treasure. Some of the best
burrittos are found in The Mission. But my favorite is
Dim Sum. Little plates of tastey this and that and don't
go to the fancy places, go to where there's a crowd of
Chinese folks waiting outside: the grand parents with
their grand children, everyone walking out with pink
plastic bags full of delicious Dim Sum.
I've
eaten here, it's right across the street from my
Doctor's office.
I even love the fog during Fourth of July, it's like
an inside joke on the tourists.
I love being a tourist in my own city. I love taking
the cable cars, walking down alleys in China town,
grazing my way around the city by the bay.
++++++
NATIVE SF
Those who are native
SF will appreciate this. Guess we're a dying breed...
If you have spent any time in bookstores lately, you
must have noticed that there are books on San
Francisco's past, present and future; books that tell
you where to eat, where to drink, where to drive, where
to take a bus, where to stay, what to look at and even
how to cook in the San Francisco style, whatever that
is.
But no book tells you how to act like a
native San Franciscan, because it is widely assumed that
the breed, if it ever existed, is extinct.
One
book, "San Francisco Free and Easy," subtitled "The
Native's Guide Book," says on the first page, "San
Franciscans are notorious newcomers.
You'll find
few people here with the sort of roots common to East
Coast cities..."
Another, written by a
carpetbagger named John K. Bailey, is called "The San
Francisco Insider's Guide." It begins, "On my first
visit to San Francisco, 15 years ago..."
Fifteen
years ago? I know a cat who's lived here longer than
that!
A terrible thing has happened to native San
Franciscans. They have become strangers in their own
city. Their whole culture is in danger of being
swallowed up by foreigners from New York, Ohio, New
Hampshire, Denver, and other places Back East. These
newcomers all assume everyone else is a newcomer.
The first thing to go is the language. Despite
everything you've ever
heard, there is a distinctive
San Francisco way of talking and it is important to make
note of it, for the record, before it becomes as dead as
Latin. Here's how to talk like a San Franciscan.
The first lesson - learned at birth - is never to call
it Frisco or San FRANcisco. Most resident tourists have
settled on something that sounds like an Anglicized
version of the Spanish San Francisco, but natives run
the two words together and add a couple of extra sounds,
and it comes out "Sanfencisco."
It may also be
called thecity, which is one word. It is never called
The City, which is two words and tacky.
One way
to tell San Franciscans is the way they run words
together.
Another way is that all native San Franciscans know
something about other native San Franciscans. This
cannot be faked.
The first test comes when a
native San Franciscan is introduced to
someone he
does not know at a party. Sooner or later, one will ask
the other where he or she is from. The correct dialogue
goes like this:
Q: Whereya from?
A: Here.
Q: Oh
yeah ? Whereja go to school?
A: Bal.
Q: Oh yeah?
Doya know (fill in name of acquaintance)?
At once,
the two people realize they are both natives and
doubtless have friends, experiences, and a whole
subculture in common.
There are several keys to
this small bit of conversation.
First, the true
native runs all the words together. He never says,
"Where are you from?" because that is the way they talk
Back East. When he asks where you went to school, he
means high school - not college, not trade school, and
certainly not P.S. 178.
The correct answer is one
of several San Francisco high schools.
"Poly," of course, means Polytechnic High School, which
not only reveals your high school but what district of
the city you came from, and other details.
If,
for example, the answer is "S.I." you know the man went
to St. Ignatius High and was probably raised a Catholic
and is from an upper-middle-class family.
If the
person says "Mission" or "Bal" (for Balboa High) you
know he is from the Mission District, and his father was
probably a member of the working class, called "a workin
man" in the San Francisco dialect.
If he went to
Lowell, he may well be Jewish; if he went to Galileo, he
is probably a North Beach Italian, and not a Mission
District Italian.
(My note: If you went to "Gal",
Galileo High School, you're most likely from China Town.
There were more Chinese students there than Italians
from North Beach or Blacks who were coming from half way
across town from "The Fillmore", graduates of "Ben"
Benjamin Franklin Junior High. I was coming in from "The
Fillmore", living in what I laughingly called "Upper
Filmore Heights" aka: the end of Sutter street by Lyon,
near the old Sears building. My older sister went to
Lowell because she was "stuck up".
OJ Simpson and
Al Cowlings went to "Gal" around the same time I did. In
the year book you can see a picture of them on the
football team, looking as mean as they wanna be.)
One has to be careful, though. Some women, asked
where they went to school, will respond that they "went
to the madams." A tourist will immediately leap to the
conclusion that the poor woman was raised in a
whorehouse, but natives understand immediately what this
woman means:
She attended the Convent of the
Sacred Heart, conducted by a ritzy order of nuns, and is
doubtless fro m a wealthy family. She is not necessarily
a Catholic, however. Diane Feinstein went to the madams.
The next thing to note about this conversation is
that the proper response to a remark is "Yeah?" not "You
don't say so?" or "Is that right?" San Franciscans say
"yeah" a lot, but it doesn't always mean yes.
Now
you are ready for your geography lesson. Oakland,
Berkeley, and all those other places are "across the
Bay." The largest city in Santa Clara County is
"Sannazay," not "San Jose." Sannazay is near
Sannacruise.
To get there, you have to go Down the Peninsula,
past South City, Sammateo, Rewoodcity and a whole buncha
other towns.
The River is the Russian River, and
no other, but the Lake is Lake Tahoe only if your family
was wealthy; otherwise, the lake is Clear Lake. The
Mountain is Tamalpais; Mount Diablo is "Dyeaablo," and
it has no first name.
The town on the river is
called Gurneyville, even though the correct
pronunciation is Gurnville. San Franciscans know the
correct pronunciation but choose not to use it. If
corrected on this, a native will likely say, "If those
guys up there are so smart, what'er they doin' livin'
there? People who live in Gurneyville all year are a
buncha Okies anyway."
It should be noted that being called an Okie - as in
persons from Oklahoma or anywhere south is among the
worst insults a San Franciscan can offer; it means a
person lacks taste or sophistication.
Natives are
often asked for directions, sometimes by tourists and
often by pseudo-natives. A San Franciscan of course, has
no idea where anything across the Bay is, but he knows
all about San Francisco.
To start with, unless a
street is tiny, like Saturn Street or Macrondray Lane,
it is never called by its full name. You never say
"Taraval Street," for example, only "Taraval." When you
direct someone to go "out Geary," by which is meant you
go west. You know, toward the beach. One never goes "in
Mission," or "in Geary." To head in the general
direction of downtown, one goes "down Mission" or "down
Geary."
(My note: When someone says they are
going out to the "aves" that means heading west "down
Geary" to visit someone living in the numbered avenues.
One does not say they are going to the "streets" heading
south to the numbered streets. That's just not done.
Maiden Lane used to house brothels in the pre 1906
says. There was a Hotel Nymphomania back then. The 1906
quake and subsequent fire allowed the corrupt city
fathers to "clean up" the city. They also tried to
remove all Chinese too, not that they were at all
successful in doing that.)
It is "the beach,"
too, not the seashore or the coast. The coast is Down
the Peninsula, near Sharp Park. There are no beaches on
the Bay, despite evidence to the contrary - only on the
ocean.
San Franciscans know there are 30 numbered
streets and 48 avenues; they know Arguello is First
Avenue and Funston is 13th Avenue. They know that First
Street is not the first street, and that Main is not the
main street.
The Richmond district is always
called "The Richmond," and the Sunset District is always
called "The Sunset," but Noe Valley has not article in
front of its name; neither does downtown or North Beach.
No one knows why.
(My Note: North Beach doesn't
have a beach, not since they filled in the bay to build
piers. One can stand high on a hill of original bed rock
and look down to the piers and look down at bay fill,
which will suffer liquifaction in the next big quake.)
Natives do know it is always 24th (pronounced twenny
fourth) and Mission, not Mission and 24th. It's Second
and Clement, not Clement and Second. The Street is not
pronounced "CLEment" but "CleMent."
(My note:
Clement is the new China Town, some of the best Dim Sum
is found on Clement Street. Makes my mouth water just to
type that. Take the Muni (not the bus, it's the MUNI)
and don't drive. Double parked delivery trucks make
driving down Clement a nightmare. San Francisco is a Dog
Loving Town, more dogs than children at last count. On
Clement there's a Dog Friendly Coffee Shop and it's one
of my favorites, the Blue Danube Coffee House. There's
an outside counter where you can sit with your dog.)
There is no need to make a distinction between
Second Street and Second Avenue in this case, since San
Franciscans know that Second Street and Clement do not
intersect. They know several other things, too: that
Alcatraz is not called The Rock, that Yerba Buena Island
is called Goat Island or YBI, that French bread is not
called sourdough bread and never was. The name
"sourdough" for honest bread was invented by advertising
guys from Chicago or someplace.
(My note:
Treasure Island, that is in the middle of the Bay
Bridge, is called T.I. Japan Town is called "J Town" if
you're not Japanese, "Nihon Machi" if you are.)
They know that Italians do not eat pizza. They eat
spaghetti, tagliarini, or some other stuff, mostly in
North Beach, but sometimes in small places in the
Mission or Daly City. Daly City is near the county line.
San Francisco has no city limit.
(My
Note: Check out the Cafe
Trieste in
North Beach. It hasn't changed in a gazillion years. A
friend of mine told me that his father, a doctor from
Italy, ran his business out of the pay phone there
before he had an office. The pay phone would ring and
he'd answer it "Dr. So and So's office". I won't give
the family name because they've since made a bunch of
money, got a big palace in the "Marina" and would likely
sue me, or bust my knee caps. Anyway, The Cafe Trieste
has the best cuppicinos and was serving them before it
became chic. It's near City
Lights Bookstore, where the Beats (Beatniks) used to
hang out.)
San Franciscans call the movie theater "the show,"
as in "I went to the show last week, and jeez, the guy
behind me was coffin all through the pitcher. I couln'n'
hardly stant it." "The theater" (pronounced "thee-ater")
refers to the legitimate stage.
There are San
Francisco threats, too. One of the worst is to act so
irresponsibly that you will be put away, as is "if you
keep actin' like that, you'll end up in Napa," which, of
course, is the local mental hospital. This threat has
lost some of its power lately, since these days half the
people at Powell & Market appear to be deranged
Another threat is the danger of being forsaken by
your family and friends in your old age and sent to
Laguna Honda, the city's old folks' home.
When
San Franciscans read papers, they read the Ex (the
Examiner) or The Chronicle (never called the Chron). Old
guys usta read the Call (as the Call-Bulletin was
called) or the Noos (The San Francisco News, which very
old residents called the Dailynoos). San Franciscans
never, ever read the San Francisco Magazine, which is
written, edited, and produced for tourists.
Television is pretty much a wasteland of standard spoken
English, though there are a few bright spots. Joe
DiMaggio, a native of Martinez who was raised in North
Beach, sometimes appears on behalf of a product he calls
"Mista CAWfee," and it is possible to watch the news on
KPIX, because anchorman Dave McElhatton is suspected of
being a native, or, on KGO, where Van Amburg holds
forth. He went to State, ya know. With any luck, you
might catch Russ Coughlin, also on KGO-TV. He is a
graduate of Mission High, and has the last pure San
Francisco accent on the local airwaves.
As for
the rest, it's pretty hard to hear all these radio and
TV types mispronounce the names we all grew up with
("I'm standing here at the Persiddio" or "at Mare
Island, up by Valley-jo." Or, as I heard last week, "He
was buried on Colima.")
Most of us grew up under
the delusion that everybody was a native San Franciscan.
It was the largest small town in the world, and we
thought it the only city that counted. Occasional
tourists complimented us on the city, but we nev er
dreamed they'd move here and take over. Everywhere else
was far away, and the jet plane hadn't been invented.
I went to high school with a guy who was a direct
descendant of Francisco De Haro, th e first alcalde of
Yerba Buena, and I have a friend whose
great-great-grandfather walked to California from Rabbit
Hash, Ky., in 1844. No big deal.
Once, after she
bought a house in the Richmond, one of her new neighbors
asked her where she was from. "I moved out here six
months ago," she said.
"Oh, from the East or
Midwest?" the neighbor asked. "No," she said, "from
California and Buchanan."
Perhaps you are now thinking of fooling your friends
by pretending to be a native. Don't try. There is only
one way to be a native San Franciscan. You gotta be born
here.
"Anybody," my grandfather used to say, "can
be born in Oakland, or Back East. It's an honor to be
born in Sanfencisco.
++++
Well this is long
enough and I got chores to do, so I best post this. But
if you're ever in San Francisco, don't rent a car, take
cabs or the MUNI, or best yet, start walking from the
end of Market Street at the Embarcadero and walk north
through the Financial District to China Town, cross
Broadway (where the topless dance craze started, but
that's another blog entry), and enter into North Beach,
keep on walking north to Pier 39. On the way you'll pass
Coit Tower. While you do this walk, just stop into the
small restaurants and coffee shops and munch your way to
your view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's one of the
best walking tours and it's one I'd take you on if you
were my friend visiting from somewhere else.
THURSDAY, 20. APRIL 2006, 17:04:39