Tork Visits Non DelMarVa Places! S.F.

Today's episode of the above title involves San Francisco, the Hippiest Place On Earth!

My dad works for the railroad and is active in it's union. Every few years, the union has a meeting in a city somewhere in the country. In 1992 or 1993 during June when I was 11-12, my family all went to San Francisco. It was for six days and it's the farthest west I've traveled from Maryland.

We had to take a plane, and this was the second time I've done so. The first time my parents took me to Louisiana to visit a relative. On the plane the stewardess gave my sister and me free headphones. Before the flight movie was shown I ended up listening to an all Henry Mancini channel, mostly just for the Pink Panther theme. The cartoon before the movie was the one where Bugs and Elmer sing opera. The movie was "Defending Your Life", which was about a guy who dies and finds out that he has to go to court and prove he didn't live a scared life.

My sister and I fought over the window seat, naturally. Those Rocky Mountains were pretty...rocky. Yeah. That was the most memorable part of what I saw outside. Anyway, I enjoyed just standing up during the flight and noting how weird it felt.

We finally reached San Francisco and was able to take a bus to the Hilton Hotel. This building was pretty huge, as we soon found out. We spent 6 days there and our parents decided that we should keep journals of the whole events. I remember that most of my journal poined out where we ate. Except for one pizza delivered to us, we walked to nearby fast food restaurants.

One of the places we went to everyday was Jack In The Box. We didn't have such a place in our area and I didn't hear about it's bad reputation until afterwards. It was a two story place. We did eat at a McDonald's on one day, but I can't remember where else.

Anyway, one of the things that you'll notice about San Francisco is that you have to wear a jacket all the time in Summer. It's foggy most of the time. My mom was especially a fan of the weather. It's also very hilly. It would be fun to just ride a wagon down the streets if there was no traffic. Sadly, we didn't get to see the famous crooked rode.

Another thing that stood out: There were bums everywhere. I see some standing in the islands at intersections from time to time, but I've never seen that many bums. There were always several next to the place where the public goes to watch the trolly stop and be turned around so it could start it's journey again.

One of our favorite places was the F.A.O. Schwartz toy store. It was a large three-story place with many elaborate toy themes. I think there was a lego display where you could control a camera to zoom in on the little people. There were more Hello Kitty there then I've ever seen. On the third floor was several video games, and I played Sonic the Hedgehog, even though I already had the game. I also played Punch-Out!!! on that NES controller thingie where you wave your hands around and it's suppose to capture your motions but it doesn't really work. Whatever it's called. I think we went there two or three times and we looked back to that place fondly many years later.

During the week we went to a big party held in a large room. This contained games for kids and my sister and I won a few crappy prizes. I forget most of the games, but one included a pop gun. I won a plush football with the Miami Dolphins logo on it for some reason. At one poin Chubby Checkers was on stage singing a couple songs. He is one of two celebrities I've seen from afar.

My dad also brought my sister and me to another party, but this was in a really loud room with a few video game arcade machines. The problem was that the games were free, and I could never get to any of them. I remember a baseball game and Berserk. I think the loud sounds just annoyed me and I wanted to get out.

My sister and I went to a pool during one day. It was the only time we went to a heated pool, which was a different experience for us. We were always used to going to pools at Delaware in the Summer. I think we made friends with some other kid but I don't remember.

My mom, my sister and I went on a bus trip around the city. My dad was suppose to go with us but he was at the wrong place. The driver was nice and told many interesting and funny stories. While we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge he told us about the suicides, including one person who was suicidal after a failed attempt, which led to his friends tossing him over later on. "True story," he would tell us. He also told a story about some bus getting stuck on the crooked rode. I think this was the poin where we got some S.F. spoons and a tshirt that said I was property of an Alcatraz swim team. I also got to stick my feet in the Pacific, so I could say I had touched two oceans.

On the last day we were able to take a bus on another tour, this time with dad. This bus dropped you off at wherever you wanted to go, and we opted to go to the area where the Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum was. Our bus actually broke down at one poin, and we had to wait for a second. Finally we made the trip and went to the museum. The place was interesting, but the part I'll remember most was a trick. Early on there's a few monitors telling the story of some guy who could stretch his lip over his face. The monitors encourage guests to look in a mirror and try the same. It's only later on in the museum where you realize that the mirror is a trick one, and there's a whole gathering of people laughing at the poor suckers. I was one of those suckers.

That was actually the last day we were there, and we had to go on a late flight that night. We wanted to go on the trolley to get back to the hotel, but the line was unbelievably long. We instead had to hop on a shuttle bus back to the hotel. The flight was so late that I fell asleep.