On the Road: San Francisco, California

Click on Thumbnail to see MapNote:  First published on Blogger on October 2, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Sal has reached his initial destination, Littourati! We are now in San Francisco. Of course, this isn't the end of his travels On the Road, and we'll continue to follow him. As always, a click on the image will get you to the map.

Book Quote

"...I was rudely jolted in the bus station at Market and Fourth into the memory of the fact that I was three thousand two hundred miles from my aunt's house in Paterson, New Jersey. I wandered out like a haggard ghost, and there she was, Frisco -- long, bleak streets with trolley wires all shrouded in fog and whiteness. I stumbled around a few blocks. Weird bums (Mission and Third) asked me for dimes in the dawn. I heard music somewhere."

On the Road, Chapter 11

San Francisco, California

First of all, a warning to anyone heading to San Francisco. Jack and Sal obviously didn't know this little tidbit, but it's true. Native San Franciscans (I know, are there really any? But believe me, there are. One of my best friends is a native!), native San Franciscans HATE the word "Frisco," which Sal and Jack use with abandon in the novel. It's always "San Francisco." Using the word "Frisco" or even "San Fran" marks you as a tourist.

When I lived in San Antonio, natives there felt the same way about the words "San Antone." The words "San Antonio", spoken with a slight inflection of Spanish, carried the rich and vibrant history of the majority Hispanic dwellers there. "San Antone" was an anglicized-Texanized creation that seemed to some to cheapen all that. It's the same with San Francisco -- the name itself rolls musically off the tongue and conveys the history and meaning of California's Spanish past in a way that makes "Frisco" seem almost rough, rude and vulgar. It's funny that there seems to be something about the given name of a place that makes people who live there very protective of its sanctity, much as we individuals get somewhat defensive when someone springs a new and unwelcome nickname on us.

That being said, San Francisco was the largest big city close to where I grew up. It is one of my favorite cities on all the earth, and I consider it one of the few truly unique American cities. My friend who lives in the city has taken me for extensive walks around it, and therefore I've seen the length and breadth of the place. The whole city remains mysterious to me, and no matter how much I walk or ride through it, it yields new mysteries. It's people are friendly, but reserved and often seeking self-enlightenment or empowerment. It always seemed to me like a place where it would be difficult to make friends. But there are so many non-human things to see and do. Situated on the end of a peninsula at the entrance to a beautiful bay, surrounded and penetrated by hills and mountains, it is a nature lover's paradise. San Francisco's quirkiness, from the environmental to the political to the social, never ceases to amaze.

Jack hints at what he will later find in more extensive visits into the city, describing the "weird bums" he encounters in the downtown. Usually one would not describe bums, just call them bums. But Jack has Sal describe them as "weird." Even the panhandlers, so common in cities around the country and I assume in Jack's and Sal's experience in New York, have something different about them in San Francisco.

The fog is another thing that Jack has Sal mention. It is one of the things I love about San Francisco, though the fog can be a point of contention. In summers, the fog shows up usually in the afternoon, pulled into the city by warm air to the east in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. When my wife's brother lived on a hill in the Mission District, we used to watch the fog slowly envelop Twin Peaks like a giant claw, spilling over the top and down the slopes like beer suds over the lip of a glass. Sometimes it would only come halfway into the city, leaving the eastern half bathed in a muted sunlight. Other times, it would envelop the whole city, dulling the colors of the buildings and muffling the city sounds. My friend, who lives in the Sunset District close to the Pacific, absolutely hates the month of August, where he might go the entire month without seeing the sun. But for me, the fog is a magical, almost living thing in itself and I feel strangely comfortable within its grasp.

San Francisco is also one of the true melting pot cities. I love the myriads of different types of food you can find there, testifying to all the ethnicities that have made it home. This melting pot does not just extend to ethnicities, however. San Francisco seems to be the place where everyone who feels a little different and a little left out of mainstream America ends up. There are almost as many causes and belief systems as there are people in San Francisco.

Most recently, my wife and I spent part of an afternoon in the North Beach area, where Jack hung out a lot in his visits there. The sun was shining, and as we sat in a little bar and ate sandwiches off a park, I looked out at the extensive numbers of people hanging out in the park despite the fact it was a work day. I'd like to think that the area hasn't changed much since Jack was there. Perhaps the young men are as interested in their skateboards now as in the young women in the park, and now everyone is outfitted with a cell phone, but otherwise, I'm pretty sure that Jack would feel right at home there today. I think that this nature of the city, it's strangeness, eclecticness, and insularity but also its elements that are seemingly impervious to change, are some of the reasons why Jack stayed there so long, and made it the first goal of the main character of his novel. The Beats thrived in San Francisco, and their voices became stronger, more pronounced, and recognizable in the city's unique environment. Later of course, other voices would emerge from San Francisco, but in 1947, this mysterious place must have seemed as alien and exciting to Jack and Sal as any place they had ever been.

If you want to know more about San Francisco

A Beat Tour through San Francisco
The Beat Museum in North Beach
Google Map of Neal Cassady's House in North Beach where Jack stayed briefly
North Beach
San Francisco's Historic North Beach
San Francisco Magazine
SFGate
SFGov
Wikipedia: San Francisco

Next up: Mill City (Mill Valley)

On the Road: Oakland Bay Bridge

Click on Thumbnail for Map

Note: First published on Blogger on September 30, 2006

Unfolding the Map

We are bridging the gap between Sal and San Francisco as we hit the Oakland Bay Bridge, with the lights of San Francisco in our sights. Click on the image if you want to see the map!

Book Quote

"...into the hills again; up, down; and suddenly the vast expanse of a bay (it was just before dawn) with the sleepy lights of Frisco festooned across. Over the Oakland Bay Bridge I slept soundly for the first time since Denver..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Oakland Bay Bridge

The Oakland Bay Bridge is one of eight large toll bridges in the Bay Area, the others being the Golden Gate, the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, the Dumbarton Bridge, the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, the Carquinez Bridge, the Benicia-Martinez Bridge, and the Antioch Bridge. Of these bridges, the Antioch is the oldest with the original structure completed in 1926. It is followed by the Dumbarton (1927), the Carquinez (1927), the Oakland Bay (1936), the Golden Gate (1937), the Richmond-San Rafael (1956), the Benicia (1962) and the San Mateo-Hayward (1967).

The Golden Gate is probably the gifted, shining, magnificent middle child of the bridges, gathering the most attention, plastered all over millions of photo albums and books, star of countless home and studio movies, and darling of the press worldwide. Of all the bridges, the Golden Gate is considered an architectural and cultural icon and is the one that most people worry about: Can it survive the big earthquake? Will terrorists strike it? Which is ironic, considering that during the last big earthquake in the 1980s the Oakland Bay Bridge sustained the most damage to its structure out of all the bridges.

None of the other bridges comes really close to the Golden Gate's star power, though the Oakland Bay Bridge has appeared in its share of movies. Dustin Hoffman drives over it in The Graduate toward Berkeley, though the movie shows him actually driving toward San Francisco, and it appears in the Hitchcock thriller Vertigo. Of the other bridges, I vaguely remember a 90s movie called Sneakers in which a character is kidnapped, thrown into a car trunk and taken to an evil guy's headquarters, and his computer genius buddies help him figure out where the evil guy's headquarters are by reconstructing sounds along the route. One of the sounds he identifies is the sound of the car's tires hitting concrete sections, and they are able to determine that he was traveling at 55 miles per hour over either the Dumbarton or San Mateo-Hayward Bridge (I can't exactly remember which one).

However, despite its name, the Golden Gate is oriented in the wrong direction to be considered the true gateway to San Francisco for people traveling by car or bus like Sal or Jack. Especially in modern times, as travel by ship is almost non-existent, replaced by vehicles and aircraft, people either enter into San Francisco by the south from the airport, or across the Oakland Bay Bridge on Interstate 80. Most of the people who use the Golden Gate Bridge are commuters to and from their homes in the North Bay. For the traveler driving, the Oakland Bay Bridge more often provides the first view of San Francisco.

I have been on most of the bridges of the Bay Area, and I love them. I still refer to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge as the "roller coaster" bridge because of its two dramatic rises and falls over the shipping lanes. I love driving the Golden Gate on a clear day, and seeing clear out to the Farallon Islands in the distance, and the Presidio and Marina District stretched out on my right. However, the view of the San Francisco skyline on the Oakland Bay Bridge after one passes through Yerba Buena Island is unparalleled anwhere that I've been. The bridge enters San Francisco just to the south of the famed waterfront, and the whole of the downtown is laid out to your right as you just marvel. The closest I've come to this type of view is on the Brooklyn Bridge, and to really get a similar perspective there, you must walk it. But on the Oakland Bay Bridge, you can marvel in your car as you drive into the heart of San Francisco. We last drove across this bridge from the Oakland Airport this past summer, and I was struck again with the beauty of the skyline going into San Francisco.

My parents, always very timid city drivers, once found themselves on the onramp to the Oakland Bay Bridge with no escape -- it wasn't where they wanted to go, they were late for an appointment and it meant at least a half-hour of driving time to go across the bridge and come back. As they got to the toll booths, my father explained the situation to the toll collector. In a testament to the community spirit and kindness of a time past, the toll attendant offered to help them. He strode out into traffic and stopped the cars coming the other way in order to allow my father to make a u-turn into the other lanes and get back on the right course. My father always thought that he was the only one to ever stop traffic (other than a traffic jam) on the Oakland Bay Bridge and told that story with pride. I doubt that something similar would happen today.

So, does the bridge make an impression on Sal? True to form and befitting its second wheel status, Sal pays no attention to the poor Oakland Bay Bridge. He sleeps while his bus drives into the heart of San Francisco.

If you want to know more about the bridges of the Bay Area

Bay Area Toll Authority
Bridges in the United States and Canada
Bridging the Bay Department of Transportation: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District
San Francisco Museum: Archival construction photos of the Golden Gate and SF-Oakland Bay Bridge
Wikipedia: Golden Gate Bridge
Wikipedia: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

Next stop: San Francisco!

On the Road: Sacramento, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote:  First published on Blogger on September 24, 2006

We've hit the central valley, Littourati, and are almost within sight of San Francisco. But first, something about California's capitol. Click on the image to see our progress.

Book Quote

"...then down the hills to the flats of Sacramento. I suddenly realized I was in California. Warm, palmy air -- air you can kiss -- and palms. Along the storied Sacramento River on a superhighway..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capitol of my home state, and a city I really don't know much about, even though my sister currently lives and works there. Why is this? I think that part of it was my upbringing in rural northern California. One thing that becomes apparent upon a visit to California is that the length of the state allows for very different experiences of environment and cultures wherever you are. You can find urban California, rural California, even redneck California. I grew up in "its sometimes scary where you walk in the woods because some bearded solitary pot grower will shoot you" California. And it becomes apparent when you talk to Californians that they live in their own little microcosms.

Besides that, Sacramento is probably the least flashy of California's urban areas. The downtown is nice but not very impressive. It doesn't have the chic- and plasticness of Los Angeles, nor does it have the countercultural flair of San Francisco. Sacramento is probably California's plainest city, almost perfect to house the massive state bureaucracy. It is very uninteresting to those used to more high-profile California places; even the governor, Schwarzenegger, only goes there when he has to.

However, Sacramento, from the reports of my sister, has a lively music scene, and a laid-back kind of urban atmosphere. The heat in the summer, often triple digits, means that there are few venturing outdoors, but in the winters when the temperatures are cooler (and providing it isn't raining cats and dogs) one will see a cross section of California. It is home to Sacramento State University, a large campus that draws from around the state.

Of course, Sacramento does have a storied tradition about it. It grew up in the gold rush, starting at Sutter's Fort, and was the often the first major stop for those who happened to make it across the Sierra Nevada and into the Golden State. During the gold rush, miners spread out from the city into the streams where they hoped to make a big strike. They built Sacramento by spending money there, enriching Sacramento's coffers as they bought supplies for their expeditions.

In the late 1940s, when Sal passes through in On the Road, Sacramento was much smaller, and probably had a kind of big-small town feeling about it. Of course Sal didn't stop, his eyes firmly fixed on San Francisco, and I'm not sure what he would have found there if he did.

My own experiences in Sacramento have been mostly benign affairs. I usually hang out with my sister in her little downtown apartment. Occasionally we go to some of her favorite places to eat. Unfortunately, she's never taken me to her favorite clubs to see her favorite local bands, but that's mostly been because of my schedule. Like Sal and Jack, when I get to Sacramento, my eyes are usually fixed on some other goal -- like getting to my family's house on the coast, or going down to meet some friends in San Francisco. That has left little time and motivation to explore Sacramento myself.

In a sense, that's the history of Sacramento -- individuals who live there who know and value its secrets and are perfectly willing to let others, their eyes fixed on some other goal, pass through unaware of what they may be missing.

If you want to know more about Sacramento

City of Sacramento
Sacramento's Music History
Sacramento State University
Sutter's Fort
Virtual Museum of Sutter's Fort
Wikipedia: Sacramento
Wikipedia: Sacramento River

Next stop: Oakland Bay Bridge

On the Road: Truckee, California

Click on Thumbnail for Map

Note:  First published on Blogger on September 10, 2006

Unfolding the Map

We've just entered the state of California, after climbing out of Nevada into the Sierra Nevada range, and Sal is almost to the ocean and San Francisco! But first he has to get a little bit of that mountain air. If you want to see the map, I shouldn't have to tell you what to do with the image. You already know that trivial piece of information. Go on...do it!

Book Quote

"...then up the Sierra Nevada, pines, stars, mountain lodges signifying Frisco romances-a little girl in the back seat, crying to her mother, 'Mama when do we get home to Truckee?' And Truckee itself, homey Truckee..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Truckee, California

When I was young, up to age 4, my family used to make a regular winter trip up to Lake Tahoe. I don't remember much about these trips, other than that it involved a long car ride and car sickness on my part. When we would get there, my family would do various forms of snowplay, such as sledding, but I would usually complain that my feet and nose were cold. At night, my mom and dad liked to go to the shows occasionally, leaving me with a babysitter.

After I was 4, my family never really made trips up there any more, and I didn't really remember much about it. It wasn't until I was in college that I actually got back to the Lake Tahoe area. My girlfriend and I, with a number of other college friends, went camping. We were woefully unprepared, it started raining, and well...we got very wet.

Truckee is near the place where the Donner Party took refuge that cold winter in 1846. I was always told that my mother's family had a connection to the Donner party -- something about a baby that was being brought along with the expedition to be reunited with her parents. The baby wasn't eaten, and actually survived the trip. This baby was related to us somehow, but I could never get the particulars and often wonder if it was just some family legend with a loose connection, if any, to fact.

One memory I keep about the area is the fresh, clean smell of the alpine environment. I really treasure that smell, especially if the day is cool and crisp. I don't often have a chance to get in such a place, though the Sandia Mountains outside Albuquerque where I live is one place where I find it occasionally. We took a trip to Telluride, Colorado two years ago and I was able to scratch my itch there. My sister got married a year and a half ago in Lake Tahoe in October, and I looked forward to being immersed in that scent again, but forest fires in the region left a pall of smoke over everything.

I wonder if Jack, coming through Truckee, took a deep breath of the air? Sal says nothing except to call Truckee "homey," and he alludes to Bay Area folk having trysts in mountain lodges. I know that the air, the mountains, the place would make anyone feel alive and virile. I wonder if Jack felt the same way in the briskness of the mountain air, and the clean and fresh scent, and reveled in it?

If you want to know more about Truckee and the Lake Tahoe area

Town of Truckee
Truckee Donner Chamber of Commerce
Wikipedia: Truckee

Facts about Lake Tahoe
Wikipedia: Lake Tahoe

The American Experience: The Donner Party
The Donner Party (including logs)
Wikipedia: The Donner Party

Next up: Sacramento, California

On the Road: Reno, Nevada

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on September 5, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Sal doesn't stop, and Jack doesn't mention much, and I've never been there so we're taking a gamble with Reno. But in the spirit of Jack, we should gamble as much as possible. As always, click on the image to see the map.

Book Quote

"...then out to Nevada in the hot sun, Reno by nightfall, its twinkling Chinese streets..."

On the Road, Chapter 11

Littourari Intersection

Blue Highways: Reno, Nevada

Reno, Nevada

Okay, I've never been to Reno and the only real thing I know about it comes from reruns of Reno 911, which I'm supposing doesn't give a very accurate picture of the place. Sal doesn't stop there but passes through on the bus and uses a very strange phrase to describe Reno. I'm not sure what the heck he means by "its twinkling Chinese streets." But an interesting thing occurs when you type "twinkling Chinese Streets" as a quotation into Google -- underneath the young kid from Reno on MySpace who uses it in his profile (and proclaims "I'm not afraid of you and I will beat your ass" in capital letters), and underneath the woman who seems to have posted On The Road in its entirety on her site, you come across a whole bunch of sites that also appear to be postings of various parts of On the Road, until you click them and are taken right to a porn site. Then, if you look closely, you will see intersposed in Jack's words on the Google page various X-rated words. Somehow, I don't think Jack would have minded that too much.

I have one story about Reno, however, that has come through my family. My mother and father got married there. Not only did they get married in Reno, but they eloped there, with the the California state police alerted to pick them up.

Here is the way that I heard the story. My mom wanted a church wedding (Catholic) but my father didn't. They agreed to elope. My mom was supposed to take care of her sister's children while she and her husband went out on a date. She called her brother's wife to come over and take care of the kids on some pretext. My father drove up, she got in, and off they went to Reno. All hell broke loose when my mother's family found that she was gone. After all, even though she was out of high school and legal, it was the 50s. Police were called, and an alert was sent out over radio. Somehow, my parents eluded the trap and made it to Reno, where they were married in one of those quickie wedding chapels. They then called back to my mom's family. Allegedly, my mom's brothers threatened to kill my father when he showed his face at home, but that all seems more bluster and custom than for real, because they were all friends otherwise. So as far as I know, my father never got a beating at the hands of my uncles. And I'm sure the honeymoon was spent taking in shows, throwing money away at the casinos, and doing what couples do on honeymoons.

That's all the connection I have to Reno. And Jack's was just as slight, it seems. A bus ride past the Chinese streets, and on to California.

If you want to know more about Reno

City of Reno
Reno.com
Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority
Reno Gazette-Journal
Reno Wedding Chapels
University of Nevada-Reno
Wikipedia: Reno

Next up: Truckee, California