My plan for the day was to go to the S.F. Public Library Main Branch downtown in the Civic Center to look up some names in the Reverse Telephone Directory. I prefer going downtown on public transit, since there are too many automobiles clogging up the streets, but it is a long way from my house near the beach. I asked my husband to drive me to Castro Street so we could look at Hattie Street, where Bill remembered visiting someone whose name I wanted to find at the Library. From there I thought it would be fun to take one of the vintage cars on top of Market Street instead of going underground for the more rapid transit system. It would bring back memories of when I traveled downtown in the '50's and '60's first on the old trolley's with outdoor seating änd "cow catchers" and then on the new green "stream-liners."
A green vintage car was about to leave Castro and Market, so I ran to catch it. Evidently, these street cars don't hurry like the Muni cars below. I just had to slowly board the train, find the machine to swipe my Clipper card and then quietly find a seat. This vintage car was maybe made in Italy, since I saw a sign which said "Italian" on the window. It was very clean with shiny, polished wooden benches lined up against the large windows. There were little dividers to mark off seating areas. I sat down in the middle of the front area of the car and looked around. There were several people already on board--a couple of men reading newspapers and a retired-looking couple who could have been tourists.
More people boarded, some from the back. Then a very unkempt man with an unsteady gait boarded in the front scrambling for some money to put into the fare box as he tried pulling up his falling pants. The driver waited patiently 'til he succeeded. I figured he was one of our homeless residents in the city and I thought to myself with dread, Ï hope he doesn't sit near me." I couldn't bring myself to move further back, and sure enough, he sat right next to me with the little divider between us. He reeked with so many noxious smells--cigarettes and alcohol mixed with sweaty foul odors. I wanted to avoid him, but at the same time, I had to sneak a look as he sat talking to himself and looking at a newspaper with football scores lamenting about a bet he should have made. His body was very thin and his skin heavily parched and dry. A little cigarette butt stuck out of his teeth. His clothes didn't look so bad--a nice heavy leather jacket, newish jeans and a blue baseball-type cap with straight, stringy, oily, blunt-cut light-brown hair falling to his shoulders from his cap. Since his hair wasn't gray, I figure he had to be about 50 years old but looked much older than me. I felt sorry for him and wished I could send him somewhere for a bath. I heard him say out loud that he was trying to get to Sixth Street--that's where a lot of the itinerant, homeless folks live. But I could not wait til I could get off at Civic Center."
Another, tall, young man, with a back-pack boarded the car after the homeless guy and walked straight back without stopping to give a fare. The little driver got out of his seat with his arm on his hip and said loudly "Proof of Fare--you need proof of Fare." The kid came back, fumbling with his back pack, saying he didn't have any change. I thought there was going to be some kind of altercation and I thought of giving the guy some change for the fare, but he walked back to the middle of the car, scrambled through his belongings and came up with some dollar bills. He then went back to fill the fare box while the conductor stood firmly waiting for him the pay. I felt some relief when the car started up, rattling down the street slowly passing all the fancy shops that have sprung up in the lower Market Area. Finally, my destination was nearing. An elderly Asian lady with a large black-plastic bag bulging with some undefined items had boarded and when she got close, I gave up my seat. When I was about to disembark the train, I looked back at her, and she seemed very content. I then quickly got off at my stop and headed for the Library. I thought to myself, "taking Muni is always an adventure of sorts--it's not only a means of transportation--it's a trip thru the cross-section of life in the Big City.
