Dear Jim,
It was a great Christmas. I was surprised I stayed three nights at Sis II´s. They really are happy. I wish I was.
There was a lot of great food – lasagna, croissants, pork. I did not overeat and I did not get a headache. Usually when I go down, the intense Bay Area sun gives me a headache, but this time, even though it was sunny a lot, there were also clouds to give me a reprieve.
We took a great walk along the main drag – a mile in each direction. We started at 4:00 and stayed out until after sunset. You should see all the expensive yuppie restaurants. It made me ill and envious at the same time.
What do you do when you are rich? Go to a fancy place every night?
Sis and I went through a lot of family photos. What we don´t keep we´ll dump. I kept two. One of mom and gramps coming out of their flat. It wasn´t a pose. Somebody caught them as they were hurrying fretfully away.
The other was of our uncle with our Ecuadorean aunt. I never thought of him or her as handsome or pretty, but they were in that picture. Their cigarettes made them look glamorous. The grain in the photo was incredible, like something Ansel Adams did.
There were a lot of good photos of you. You were the most photogenic of us. The one I want Sis to make a copy of is of you sitting at your desk at work smiling, with the entire empty corridor behind you. You look confident and happy. I thought you hated the place?
For Christmas, Sis received a book about walks you can take in San Francisco. There are old and new photos to go along with each walk, as well as historical blurbs.
The blurb which caught my attention said that prior to the earthquake, San Francisco was the palm tree capitol of California. The earthquake destroyed most of them,
then L. A. became the palm tree capitol.
I love palm trees. They are a great thing about living in Sacramento. They also make the Embarcadero a lot prettier than it was when the incompleted freeway was there. They tore the freeway down after the ´89 earthquake, but I don´t think they could have gotten the palm trees planted before you died.
Anyway, the Embarcadero looks great. After I got off Cal Trains from Sis´, I took one of the 1948 tourist streetcars up to Harrison, then stood for almost an hour looking at the bay towards Oakland. All the huge multi-colored freight ship containers looked neat sitting on the docks there.
Remember when we went to see the Christmas Revels at the old theater in Oakland near Lake Merritt – ¨Dance, dance, wherever you may be, for I am the Lord of the Dance said he…¨?
It was resounding. It made us tremble. The chorus went on and on.
Have you looked down to see how the 49ers are doing? They were 0-8, now they are 5-10. Last week they upset a division champion. Sunday they play the Rams in L. A. The Rams have won the division. If the Niners win, it will be five in a row. Their new quarterback is good.
That´s if for now.
Happy New Year.
Love,
Dave
Copyright © 2021 by David Vaszko
The Writings of David Vaszko 