I am sure that I have mentioned that I travel BART four days a week into San Francisco to UCHastings. It is pretty much a different route than the one to the Oakland Coliseum. Short of the distance, it is the start of the route to the San Francisco Airport and Civc Center is a stop past the one where I exit at Powell to take the shuttle to the SFVA.
I meet the most interesting people on BART. This morning there were two:
The first was a gentleman older than me who was on his way to his office near the 12th Street Oakland BART station. He was already on the train when I boarded at North Berkeley. Kindly, he said he would offer me a seat, but that he really couldn’t stand well for the duration of his voyage. Sitting there, smiling and quite stooped in his suit and hat, I had him pegged as a lawyer even before he confirmed my opinion. He is now doing briefs and depositions one-two days a week. He had cut back his practice several years ago during his late wife’s loosing battle with cancer and chemo. We had a short discussion about curls vs straight hair and return growth that wasn’t all that amenable to cosmetic coloring. He acknowledged that he had long hair during his youth but cut it at the point where it became a bit easier to conform.
We said good bye at the 12th street station and I wished him the best on his upcoming 90th birthday.
I quietly sat in his vacated seat from 12th Street through to my stop at Civic Center. The train conductor had been making cheerful comment on the area around each BART station. Montgomery as “Wall Street West;” Powell as the start of the Trolley Car Line. I made the off hand remark to the guy next to me when Civic Center was referred to as “the heart of the Tenderloin” that they had missed the point because the lawyers probably outnumbered the homeless. He laughed and said that he and his wife worked for one of the local homeless organizations. She worked on housing families, his background in engineering and repair meant that he was doing a lot of maintenance in order to have facilities at least marginally acceptable and safe. We talked about the weather and the attraction of San Francisco for the homeless (compared to New England – where he was from, or Minnesota for me). The services here make a difference, but then, with the cost of living compared to the minimum wage, there have to be support services.
The rest of my day should be interesting – morning class in Constitutional Law (working on individual privacies related to the 1st Amendment) followed by a discussion of class conflicts in time for next semester, followed by a lunch seminar on how to survive finals (bribe – food was provided). I have yet to get through my afternoon Health Law Class and then the final class on Legal Writing. Oral Presentation due.
I am planning on George being responsible for dinner.
and I am trying to remember why I am doing this to myself….