Sitting On the Dock Of The Bay

Early in October of this year the crew went on a trip to San Francisco, mainly because we had free tickets anywhere in the continental US that US Airways flew, and this was about as far as we could go from Kentucky.Sandy Kay and I departed out of Bluegrass Field in Lexington, and it was a bit eerie after the tragedy on Com Air earlier this summer.There was a couple from Stanford on that plane and somehow it was on everyones' minds.Nevertheless we had uneventful flights westward, and 4 and one half hours later we were in the golden west, or the land of Lotus Eaters. There is little to draw a parallel with Kentucky,so I quit trying and opened up to a totally new place. We rode the BART from our hotel the first day and quite frankly it was too clean to suit our experiences with the New York Subway. It was quite interesting to go by these communities built precariously on the hillsides , looking like some sort of insect colonies in their boxy, gravity defying existence on these steep mountains. Someone needs to tell these modern cliff-dwellers that San Francisco has been known to have earthquakes . Remember Al Michaels going from Baseball coverage to earthquake coverage from one sentence to another?? Well I do. We went down to Pier 39 and little did we know that Sandy Kay and I crashed a big party called Fleet Week.The Saturday was the most gorgeous that I have ever seen; not a cloud in the sky, and temperatures in the 70's. The water in the Bay(actually an estuary we were told) was deep blue , only broken by Alcatrez Island, and the bridges if you looked left or right from our vantage points on the pier. The harbor was covered with every conceivable form of boat or ship, as we watched Fire boats spraying monstrous archs of water in salute to huge Navy ships coming under the Golden Gate Bridge.I suppose these ships were coming in for Fleet Week. There was also this gargantuan cruise ship in port , with its host of senior citizens clogging the streets and sidewalks as they disembarked from what must have been a terrible cruise. It seems every couple waiting for cabs or courtesy buses was in foul moods , and each was at least eighty years old. It appeared as if the white ship pulled up to the pier and became violently ill and retched these old farts out upon the sidewalk. Lord spare me from any cruise, and spare any cruise from me. Pier 39 has this resident population of sea lions that seem to bark, fight, and defecate all day long. I was told that they came mysteriously after the last earthquake and haven't left. Those ugly things would get on my nerves in a hurry.We took a tour and one leg took us across the Bay to Sausilito(sp?), which could be somewhat of a Shangri La, except for the average cost of housing(6 figures). The guide told us that Odis Redding had sat on the pier and looked toward San Francisco, and was inspired to write his masterpiece Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. Now that got my attention as I remembered being a little pimple-face freshman at EKU around 1968 and listening to that song. I just wish I could whistle the parts . Anyway we went back over The Bridge and a major fog was coming in from the ocean. It was surreal to see only those orange towers coming out of the fog and to hear the deep fog horns warning the ships away, in an otherwise vista of deep blue water and clear blue sky.Later on I watched a poignant moment on the side of Embarcadero as these two young men touched lips together as they departed for the day , each dressed as junior executives or lawyers, their leather backpacks just right and their fashionably styled hair moussed to perfection, little silver tips and all. For a moment I thought I was on the Queer Guy set but Sandy reminded me we were in San Francisco. We went through Haight Ashberry and there was not a hippy in sight.There were no peace signs or demonstrations to be seen . I guess the old hippies had married and had children, who were perhaps gay and kissing down on Embarcadero. The next day was Wine country and then south to Monterrey. Odis said"I left my home in Georgia headin for 'Frisco Bay. ".I saw the same sights as Odis but I couldn't write a masterpiece. Maybe just being there was karma.