Port Tack to Adventure: San Francisco and the Bay Area- the last of the Vacation

The word China is derived from Ch'in, the first dynasty to unify the country by conquering the warring feudal states and took the title first august emperor in 221. During short his reign over China, the Ch’in Dynasty also introduced several reforms: currency, weights and measures were standardized, and a better system of writing was established. He also did some terrible things; an attempt to purge all traces of the old dynasties led to the infamous burning of books and burying of scholars incident. Two of the key things that he did was to standardize the Chinese language by having all writing be the same; south and north china may sound different but they can communicate in the same writing. The second thing that he did was to standardize the length of the wagons wheel base. Chinese roads were grooved to different size axels and one wagon could not go into a different region because of the different wheel base. Simple things like that is what made modern china possible. (Although my major in college was engineering my minor was in Chinese history.)

But when it comes to standardization, Emperor Ch’in had nothing over the U.S. We have Fast food everywhere (McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s, etc) and we also have standard shopping centers with Kohl's, Target, WalMart,; standard gas stations, standard roads and road signs, standard dress and modes of behavior (except for Mt Shasta, CA where the 1960 Berkley hippies retired) and standard evolution of our language. One of my frustrations is that no one responds “You’re welcome” to the expression “Thank you.” Everywhere you go in the country the new standard response to “Thank You,” from everyone one under 40, is “No Problem.” To me that is not an expression acknowledging the fact that the person saying “thank you” is grateful for your kindness. It is more of an expression of “Yeah, I know I did something good for somebody, I did not mean to, and it was no problem to me to take some casual effort from my busy life to casually help out a destitute.” I feel like I’m being left behind in this language evolution, but nonetheless, I will continue to use the response “You’re welcome” when someone says thank you.

OK, back to the travel summary: we spent our last week as standard tourists in San Francisco and the Bay area, reliving my years at Stanford University and taking side trips to Monterrey and Carmel, Muir Woods and the beaches south of San Francisco. It was almost like being home again. I got to visit my old office in the southwest corner of the Stanford Quad, bought a few T-shirts at the book store and showed Adrian where he might go to school if he got all “A” and aced his college exams – in one ear and out the other.

I took advantage of the San Francisco, Monterey and Sausalito Wharfs to consume my favorite food – Dungeness Crab. Took the standard tourist trip around Carmel with the 17-mile drive; a chance to see how the other side lives. I got the feeling that just looking at the players on Pebble Beach golf course was a violation of their wealth domain. But the scenery was nice, although it would have been nicer if we did not have the constant low-hanging clouds (or high-hanging fog). Even the Golden Gate Bridge could not be fully seen because of the fog, but we did see, only briefly, one the training runs for the boats competing for the America’s Cup – for a sailor like me, that was a real treat! Sanford has not changed (maybe a couple of new buildings here and there) but it seemed like time has stood still and I was back in 1975. Even the cumquat tree outside my window in the office I had as a graduate student and teaching assistant - where I made plans to jump out and climb if I ever felt an earthquake - was still there exactly as it was 35 years ago. It was good to revisit the Bay area, the weather is perfect, and the people seemed more relaxed. In a way I wished I had stayed here, but in 1979 I had Washington DC in my eye, and that is where I wanted to work.

San Francisco