WHERE THE CABLE CARS CLIMB AND THEN DESCEND

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WHERE THE CABLE CARS CLIMB AND THEN DESCEND

Most walks in this Town take place on a pronounced slope, one way or the other. Our morning began with a brisk promenade, straight-up and then side-up, to our place of breakfast, a down home cosy nook in the wall. That we had to queue up was a promising sign of food satisfaction to come. After a ten minute wait in the entrance, under a sign with the admonition, defense de fumer, no translation, in-joke, we were ushered to an oblong table for four, of olden wood. I sat at one of the two near-antique, straight-backed chairs, on the one side. Penelope squeezed and slid into her piece of a soft seated bench, along and against the wall, on the other side.

My fare was freshly squeezed orange juice in a beer glass, accompanied by a three-stack arrangement of buckwheat pancakes, accented with ginger and cinnamon, completely covering a dinner plate. Beef sausages and maple syrup were at the side. Penelope’s choice was of lamb sausages, fennel herbed, in an omelette of goat cheese, peppers, mushrooms and spinach. Sourdough bread, with a trace of dill, brought some balance to her plate. Residents pursue a lot of physical activity in these parts; that is evident at every turn, but they are also quite serious about their meals.

Breakfast done, we were off to an enterprising day, stopping first to mingle with an endearing flock of accommodating pigeons, before boarding the cable car for a stirring adventure upon which every visitor to this fair burgh should embark; way up-hill and down, daringly down-dale, under the control, barely, of an operator who manipulates two levers, a third at the ready; the first, a brake, quite important, the second, to grip the cables for forward, really upward, movement, the third, red in colour, for emergency, thankfully never needed on our trip.

Our cable car took us on an exciting and informative tour of neighbourhoods, from Union Square, through Nob Hill and Russian Hill, by China Town, past Lombard Street, the most crazily crooked in the world; and then to an un-paralleled, breathtaking view of Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz, down-precipice, with the operator lying flat on his back on the floor, as he pulled the brake lever flush to his stomach , and claimed traffic right of way, though I swear he could not see the way, at stop signs, green lights, amber and red lights, but somehow kept us from catapulting out of downward control, and instead, safely berthed us, breathless, at the terminal across the street , mid-hill, next to a peaceful little piece of grassland, patrolled by a lady park ranger on a horse.

Our cable car exploits ended, the day’s excursion continued as a leisurely stroll along the waterfront, from Pier number fifty-three to Pier number one-half. For a start, we absorbed a full appreciation of the various species of crabs that usually inhabit these waters, as many lay supine in steaming pots and warming trays; then, we got into reading plaques that record the history of the piers in gripping exploits of early residents of the waterfront.

The commanding presence of the Bay and its active horizon were always to the left, and the entrancing, ever changing city skyline continually adorned our vista on the right. In all of this, we tarried but once; to sit and to gaze at the Bay and the Bridge, sailing vessels floating by; and to teach a grateful bartender and his bemused server how blueberry tea is made, essentially from one cup of green tea, in which is immersed two shots of liquor, sweet and strong. Good for the dampness and an incipient cold.

V. Ernest Ainsley
09.12.09

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