Happy Summer Solstice...and what would you like to do today?
It was a question me and my neighborhood friends David and Barry Hirrell asked
many times. I don't know, what do you want to do? aahhh those long summer days
with adventure stretched out before us..it was almost always determined by one
of us -- either me, my brother or sister, one of the Solis boys up the street
or David and Barry... "LET'S GO TO THE GREENS!" this is where we
always ended up...at some point pretty much every day. it's where we'd meet,
where we'd take our dogs...it was a small grassy area of Golden Gate Park that
was magical to us... transported into a jungle one day and another planet the
next...we used sticks as makeshift swords or walking sticks...the bushes turned
into fortresses and treehouses...we played among the hippies at all the free
concerts and ate free cotton candy and dinners brought in... we pretended the
high school football players were the "enemy" and crept around and
dodged them...
I climbed my favorite tree often where I could see The
Greens stretched out before me...I could watch the guys setting up the stage
for a free concert or dogs and kids running around....at night we brought my
brother's telescope to the Greens and took turns looking at the moon -- you could
actually see craters...and we'd play late into the night with just
flashlights...sometimes they'd set up parades there for the 49er football games,
the Shriner games and the 49ers themselves practiced football out in that field...one
year the Rose Bowl happened right there at Kezar...and we got to weave in and
out among all the floats covered with thousands of roses... you name it. IT
HAPPENED there...
I go to San Francisco frequently and either drive by the
Greens, always glancing over, always remembering... OR I ride by on a street
car (or whatever it's called now) on my way to a ukulele jam in the park...but
I don't stop there. I don't get off the N Judah or the 71 bus...well, tomorrow,
partly in celebration of summer solstice and partly because I need to be there
to represent... (and of course Barry says I should definitely start a rumor
that a buried treasure is still hidden someplace there, and somehow that
doesn't surprise me at all!)...I'm setting out on a journey and heading
straight there... tomorrow is the day that I finally make it back. To the Greens! Now where do you want to go?
Let's go to the Greens! :) maybe if you look hard enough you'll see those
kids...you'll hear the music playing... and you will know where you are.
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| where I grew up - 1217 Second Avenue (the yellow building...door on the right) |
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| THE GREENS |
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