The most interesting people

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….

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
This entry was posted in Travel. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.