I was in San Francisco today, guiding a friend’s two young, teen-age sons on a mini-tour. After the Red Bull Soapbox Race at Dolores Park, Tom, the younger, wanted to go to Chinatown. We took BART to Montgomery Street and started in the general direction of Grant Avenue. After a block or two, I decided to double-check my bearings and asked a matronly lady next to me if we were going in the right direction.
She glanced at me and quickly shifted her gaze to my young charges. "Don’t let them out of your sight," she warned. "Oh, of course not," I said, "Can you tell me if Grant Avenue is up this way?"
Apparently it was and she reassured me with a recitation of the street names and a finger pointed up the hill. As I started to thank her, she repeated her warning: "I mean it; be very careful. It’s dangerous here." "Here?" I emphasized. We were in the Financial District, a block off Market Street. "Right here?"
"Oh, the whole city; it’s very un-American!" she asserted. My interest sufficiently piqued, I turned to her, trying quickly to form a question devoid of reaction, cynicism or assumptions. It was then that I saw her big McCain/Palin button. "Thank you," I said as I turned toward the hill.
I thought of her later as I stood outside a Chinese variety store as the boys dug through the kitsch and T-shirts inside. The owner had his radio blasting Norteño (Mexican) music out the front door and I smiled at the concept of "melting pot." Poor old bat, I thought. She probably got up happy this morning and her day was ruined when she tried to make a phone call and had to "press '1' for English."