The Coldest Summer

The week before I left Fresno for what is likely, the final time, the temperature hit 108 degrees.  Weathermen, trying to put a positive spin on the god-awful conditions, talked about “plenty of sunshine for rest of the week.”  Sure, there is melting asphalt and the city setting up cooling centers for the elderly so they don’t die in their homes, but at least we have plenty of light.  When it’s beat-down hot like that I often think of the part of The Grapes of Wrath where Tom Joad is thinking of a single tree where he can stop and sit in the shade for a moment on his long walk home, but when he gets there finds the spot is already taken by another man.  The preacher I think.  Something like that can make you curse the heavens, and stalk TV weathermen with extreme malice.

 I’ve gotta tell you, those killer temperatures didn’t make it difficult for me to move to a City where the fog routinely sneaks over the hills to invade the streets and wade around the buildings, in July.  On my forth day it did just that.  The window behind my cubicle looks down on Highway 80 where the traffic ramps up for the final push to get on the Bay Bridge to head to the East Bay, and that window also looks over at a hill full of buildings stacked up like stadium patrons, where I couldn’t name a single one, but collectively convey what could be described as the San Francisco look.  That morning those buildings sat in fog like cardboard boxes sitting in water in a flooded basement.  I didn’t check the weather in Fresno that day; that would have just been cruel.  Mark Twain probably never said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” but it’s still a quality line.  After a lifetime of triple digit summers (and springs lately), bring it on.

                The building I currently work in is a big, grey, flat-faced and has been the San Francisco Hall of Justice since the early sixties, and frankly has all the charm of a Soviet DMV office.  It is the County Jail, headquarters for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, Courts, the California Highway Patrol San Francisco headquarters, but most importantly to me the San Francisco Police Department headquarters.  My current employer.  Surrounding it are bail bonds offices, tow yards, and parking lots that look like they might hold 10 small cars but usually “fit” about 100.  It’s not the cleanest part of the city but it’s a short walk to the train station I use for my commute, and there are cops of different flavors everywhere.

                I’ll work in this building until the new San Francisco Public Safety Building is completed in July, November, December, well it will be completed someday.  When it is there will be new cubicles, in new offices, with a view of new apartments and million dollar condos in the Mission Bay part of San Francisco.  I won’t see the old buildings marching up the hills but I’ll still see that fog sneaking over those hills into the City. 

            I’ve finished two weeks at the new digs now and so far so good.  I’ve spent some pretty cold winters but cold summers are new to me.  I no longer have to worry if I’ll find someone else in the shade of that single tree on that long hot road.  The preacher can have it.

*Photo is from my cell phone of San Francisco on June 25th.