Life's a Beach

The handsome, smiling young man striding across the soccer pitch greets me, "Professor?" One of my former students from Stanford, an all-American tennis player who went on to compete at the highest levels in the world until a devastating shoulder injury ended his career.

Now 28, he is rebuilding his new life in finance in the Valley. I'll see him again soon.

The young Indian woman calling on Skype from Denmark is researching the horrible industrial disaster that obliterated a community of poor people in Bhopal, India 26 years ago. Trying to be helpful, I referred to the work my team and I did to produce The Bhopal Syndrome a few years after the tragedy.

Reclaiming my city block by clock by clock. It is my Japantown, has been since 1971. Prowling the bookstore, the grocery store, the mall, the theater. These places all belong to me and I visit them often, because one of our regular soccer fields sits nearby and I have the time to kill.

Happened on a cute little farmer's market yesterday, but I'd already bought lunch -- spicy tuna roll at the grocery store.

It's my Fillmore Street, site of my first office and second apartment.

It's my Haight. People want me to meet them there all the time, so I'm constantly in the cafes and shops and up and down the streets of that neighborhood, where I lived starting in 1973. Neighborhood belongs to me. They've gone upscale,. especially around Cole Valley, where I nearly bought a house. Whole Foods where the old Cala used to be.

It's my park, every corner of it.

It's my downtown strip -- Market Street. There all the time, into the discount clothes shops and close to where my classroom is located for teaching memoor to seniors, when I am doing that.

It's my ballpark, my waterfront, my Presidio, my Dogpatch, and of course my Mission District. This is my home turf but all the other places I frequent are an extension of this central location.

"That's me in the corner...That's me in the spot-light..."

I'm out so often, day and night, because my tech blog is growing and gaining momentum and there are more people to meet and talk to than one person can do seven days a week. A huge boom is occurring here not only in tech but in other areas I love, like the underground food movement. That is also my area, as are live entertainment venues, lectures, conferences, bookstores, all sports fields, all schools, but absolutely no churches.

I leave the churches for others.

But nothing I have ever given anybody, none of my time, no entree, can devalue the primary claims to space, subject and matter.

Ownership was established a long time ago. And an owner has the right to share but ultimately to take away as well.

Of course, this is folly, fantasy -- no one can own something as large and vibrant and dynamic as a large city. So what is meant is it sometimes becomes necessary to reclaim your turf, block by block, from the shadows that have too long haunted the places you used to go. The best way to do that is to just go there, reclaim it all, and establish a presence where the shadows slink away to where they belong -- on the cold, dark, lonely side of the street.

Besides, there are new, better people to share all of this with, people hungry for your knowledge and history. That history, too, is yours and yours alone to tell. You can write whomever you wish out of your own personal history.

Only those who deserve their place in history get one. The others can dwell endlessly in the shadows, from where they emerged, and to where they've most decidedly returned.

Happy Weekend!

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