I've been going to Fishermans Wharf since I was a little kid. You'd think the blush would have been off the rose long ago, but it isn't.
I had an interveiw as a wardrobe assistant for "Menopause: The Musical" on Pier 39 yesterday. I parked over by Northpoint (free) and was lucky enough to find a space under a tree. This is good, the God's are smiling already.
There were people everywhere...little kids swimming, people sprawled all over the lawn at Maritime Park...cameras snapping....the whole typical Fisherman's Wharf summer day.
I just started smiling like a lunatic because I realized that of all the places I had been in my life and all the places I've seen, this is my favorite place in the world!
I stopped and loked around and remembered all the great things that had happened to me here. My first school field trip in 3rd. grade, the place where our family brought my aunt and uncle from Nebraska to try cracked crab for the first time when I was 11, countless romantic first dates (I always wanted to come here...it screams romance) drinking Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista after "A Chorus Line" in 1985, my sister and I bringing my kids here when they were little (now they're grown, but they still remember),bringing my husband here for the first time when we moved here from back east. We had bought a bag of salt water taffy and ate it till we were literally sick to our stomachs. We had kissed under this restaurant marquee and all of a sudden this beautiful music started playing out of nowhere. It was like being in some corny love movie!
I started walking, no bopping down the wharf. Past the vendors, past robot man, past the gold and silver guys, I heard insane asylum man yelling out his act over by the cable car station at the foot of Hyde, I heard the 3 piece group belting out tunes under the Fisherman's Wharf sign, everything was just amplified. And as many times as I've seen and heard all of this, I never get tired of it! Any of it. It's like everytime I see it, I'm seeing it through the eyes of a tourist who is seeing it for the first time!
Sometimes I get hung up on all the petty crap that goes on everyday, but yesterday it was staring me in the eye. I was a lucky, lucky person!
I had a great job working at the Purple Onion with a show I really beleived in, I was on my way to another fabulous opportunity with another great show, I was finally working on my stand-up career, for just this one minute everyone I loved was healthy and happy, and I lived in a place where I had constant access to this most astounding city of San Francisco, and most of all, this most magical place, Fisherman's Wharf.
The interview went great, and as I walked back to my car I am almost positive I saw Chris Isaak roller blading by the water. I mean how many people have that nose? And if it wasn't him, then he has a twin. Whether he was or wasn't, maybe a tourist saw him and thought it really was him and for the rest of their lives they'll be able to tell people "I saw that singer Chris Isaak roller blading in Fisherman's Wharf. Now that was something!"
Does anyone else feel this stongly about a place, or am I the only sentimental idiot?