Goodbye to Hampshire Street

Today was finally the bittersweet day that my kids removed the last of my things from the two-bedroom flat in the Mission District where I've lived since the summer of 2003. The very last possession to go was my Patty Hearst painting.

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In 2003, I moved in at a very different moment in my life. The previous fall I'd started teaching journalism at Stanford. That October my mother had died at age 87. I also was sad that my marriage was failing; that my three youngest children, as had been the case for my three oldest, would grow up without having parents in an intact marriage.

For the kids I focused on the good news. "Now you will have two homes!" They were 8, 7 and 4. Another piece of happy news -- there was a corner store and I would let them go there to buy treats. There also was a big backyard where we would hang a hammock, install a basketball court, and where they would play a game called "sour grass airport."

There was a large apple tree and a large plum tree. There were aging, sagging wood fences on every side. Over the years the boys -- Aidan and Dylan -- would shoot their BB guns back there.

You could see the sunsets from the back porch.

I had the front bedroom; they shared the back one. The boys had a bunkbed and Julia had her own bed.

On the nights they stayed with me, usually Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, I'd make them ridiculously large lunches for the next day. Then I'd drive them to school in the morning. We were never late.

We'd rent movies on Fridays nights and I'd order pizzas. We called it "Dad's Friday Night Pizza Night." Sometimes they would have sleepovers with friends in the living room.

Around that flat the neighborhood was slowly evolving. From a borderline slum where almost everyone spoke Spanish, it became a hot neighborhood for techies. The rents went through the roof.

But my landlady played by the rules. For years the rent stayed at $1650/month. Then she gradually raised it most years until it topped out at $1966.50. This month was the last one I paid the rent.

The kids grew up and moved away. Today they are 25, soon to be 24 and 21. We celebrated 17 years of birthdays there.

For the first time in my life I really learned to cook a few basic meals -- spaghetti and meat sauce, steak strips and mashed potatoes, baked chicken and vegetables, spicy Chinese soups. Every day on Tuesdays and Fridays when I brought her home from school, Julia had cucumbers and other vegetables and hummus -- I always arranged it on her "special plate."

My girlfriends joined our family -- a few. They added a special presence, not the least of which was that Julia was no longer outnumbered by males, 3-1. She cried when I told her the last one had left

I adapted to being a single Dad, even thrived in the role. I attended virtually every Little League, soccer, and basketball game and their school footraces. My voice was among the loudest cheering from the sideline.

They are all on their own now, forming relationships, finishing college, starting jobs and emerging as socially conscious adults.

Our time on Hampshire Street is over. I'm on my own now too.

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