Sausalito is an eight mile stretch of poetry in California’s Marin County, off the coast of San Francisco Bay near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. The city served as a shipbuilding center in World War II but has since grown a reputation for art, music and houseboats, or “floating homes” as they’re called today. Otis Redding was laying out on a houseboat when he first began to pen the lyrics to The Dock of the Bay just after the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. The first line he wrote was “Watching the ships come in and then I watch ‘em roll away again.” You can still do that today if you’re willing to consider the ferries which float in and out of town all the livelong day.
The name “Sausalito” means “willow grove” in Spanish, although there are none in the city. What there are plenty of are magnificent views of the Big Red Bridge and hazy San Francisco, ‘cross the bay. It’s like an incredible floor-to-ceiling piece of art hanging in your living room, impossible to ignore while you go about your business. We stayed in the ages-old Sausalito Hotel, a stone’s throw from the ferry dock and the bustling little downtown area of the city. The owners call it a “boutique hotel,” which apparently means you’re on your own while residing there. Of course, you can always call Michael, who pogos back and forth from the Sausalito to another hostelry just down the street. He can make it back in two minutes if there’s a crisis or the thermostat doesn’t work. Fortunately, there wasn’t and it did and we only saw the slippery Michael occasionally in passing. We liked everything about the Sausalito Hotel, including its reasonable-for-Marin-County rates and its lackadaisical elevator. Why hurry when the days are long and the company is delightful?
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| We got trouble, right here in Sausalito. Outlaws Patricia McKennee, aka Patti Walker, and Bob Follett (the Oakland Kid) discuss lawbreaking tactics with Generalissimo Killeen. |
On Having A Barrel House Of Fun
Almost two years ago, ex-girlfriend Patti Walker tracked down Bill on Facebook and requested an audience. At the time, she lived in San Quentin---the town, not the prison, or so we’re told---a mere ten minutes drive from Sausalito. The two had not seen one another since 1969, when Patti left Gainesville under curious circumstances. Rumors of a Lady Godiva-type ride through the streets of town were circulated but denied by the defendant. Gainesville police refused to comment after Miss Walker left town under the cover of darkness.
Meanwhile, back in Oakland, Bob Follett had been corresponding with Bill since the 1960s when both were college humor magazine editors. In all the years since, they had never met. It was decided that a great feast should be prepared in Sausalito’s bayside Barrel House restaurant and Bob would ferry in to join Patti, Bill and Siobhan for dinner. Worked like a charm. Patti showed up appropriately clothed, the ferry wasn’t late, the dinner was first-rate and a bounding good time was had by all. Everybody left promising to do it all over again in another 60 years. Next time, we’re inviting Otis.
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| (Top) Unruly snoggers yuk it up at the Barrel House; photo by Flash McKennee. (Bottom) Waiting for dinner at the accommodating Trident. Nice table, huh? |
“Are You Going To San Francisco?”
Of course, but first there’s breakfast to be had at Josh’s place, which is called Fred’s Coffee Shop. We don’t know who Fred is but Josh does all the heavy lifting, which includes whipping up the eggs, delivering the plates, washing the dishes and flirting with old Mrs. McFuddle at table number seven. We’d like to report that the food is scrumptious, the orange juice fresh-squeezed and the coffee to die for but the truth is that Fred’s is the only place open at 7 o’clock. Josh serves a mean egg but the OJ arrives in bottles and the coffee could use a little work. Nonetheless, the morning regulars, the tourists and the jolly coterie of Sausalito’s finest arrive daily, share a few laughs and linger, swapping war stories. And why not---nothing opens until eleven in San Francisco.
On Haight Street, That Great Street….
I just want to say, they do things they don’t do on Broadway. Although the recent San Francisco bum displacement has swept clean the area around Fisherman’s Wharf, the lowbrow contingent on Haight Street is still singing the old spiritual hymn, “We shall not, we shall not be moved!” They are not particularly aggressive, however, and let’s face it---The Haight has never been known for haute couture and rampant sophistication. We moved about easily, buying ridiculous sox and a spiffy new Keep On Truckin’ shirt, then eating vegan at a quiet Indian restaurant. I hate to be one to exaggerate spiciness so I’ll just say it was fortunate they kept fire extinguishers on the wall so Siobhan could hose me down when the meal was over.
Believe it or not, we actually found a parking space high on a hill in the Castro area after days of circling. Siobhan bought brilliant succulents which she promptly Fedexed to Florida for in excess of a c-note, then we had tea. Asian people would rather you come in and have a celebration of tea than order an $80 meal. It’s all a big production. We even got our own teapots, which was very exciting to Siobhan. Being an uncultured lummox, I failed to see the magnificence, but as always, I was a good sport. When we left, our hosts bowed goodbye and I thought I saw a tear slowly slide down the waiter’s cheek. I can’t imagine the brouhaha which would have occurred if we’d stayed for seconds.
We marched around Chinatown for awhile, arguing about which direction to go in. We finally found Grant Avenue, got the cameras out and started shooting. Early on, we walked into a store filled with gigantic ceramic, wooden and metal household ornaments. Siobhan was quite taken with one of them, drawing the interest of the proprietor. Interested, Miss? “I don’t think so,” she said. “This thing must cost ten thousand dollars.” The man smiled the tiniest smile and moved on. I peeked at the pricetag…an eye-popping 78-grand. Does someone ever pop into a store, eyeball a $78,000 metal dragon and say, “I’ll take it. Have your man dolly it out to my SUV?” I’ll bet they don’t take checks.
Chooglin’ down the street as instructed by Creedence, we came upon a waif sitting at a small card table inking her drawings of the local scene. Her name was Ke Li and she was just a few years removed from kindergarten. We shuffled through her prints and picked one out for a criminally insufficient ten dollars. Naturally, I asked the artist to pose for a photo with me, putting my hand on her shoulder. Siobhan promptly advised me that certain people may not like to be touched by strangers. “Are you going to freak out over this?” I asked Ke Li. She assured me she would not. “Because I don’t want to leave here and find out tomorrow that you threw yourself in front of a bus in shame.” No, it’s really okay, she assured. We departed slowly, but I kept an eye on her until she was out of sight. I made sure to check the papers the next day for Chinatown suicides but they only told of an aged man who jumped from a roof. There was no suspicion he’d been touched by a Floridian.
The Coit Rollercoaster
Whoever said “Getting there is half the fun” was not talking about San Francisco’s landmark Coit Tower atop Telegraph Hill, allegedly the city’s highest point. The travel brochures tell you “Public transportation is recommended for your trip to Coit Tower,” and now we know why. On the way, your little automobile grinds to the tippity-top of a pointy hill in the manner of an old wooden rollercoaster, slowly and with great concern. When you reach the top of the coaster hill, the drop is so steep you can’t even see the bottom. Welcome to the Coit Tower highway.
Siobhan looked at the scary 10 MPH warning sign and said, “Let’s not go this way.” Hmmn. Let’s check our options: (1) proceed ahead, or (2) back down the steepest hill in town. We skrunched down the hill riding the brake all the way, then climbed another rise, arriving safely. I had been up to the Coit before, but never went inside to see the lobby frescos of more than 30 local artists, including Diego Rivera. After a brief elevator wait, we zoomed to the top for splendiferous 360-degree views of the city.
You can take your own pictures up there, of course, or you can submit to the whims of the Photo Nazi, a lively little old lady who will tell you where to stand, how to pose and where to put the tip. No backtalk. No discussion at all of what you want or it’s “No pictures for YOU, bub!” and she moves on quickly to the next candidate. As usual, the proof is in the pudding and the old girl managed to whip up an exemplary dessert, as you can see above. Now all we had to do is figure out a way to get back to sea level.
Open Up That Golden Gate
In 1923, mountaineer George Mallory answered a New York Times reporter with three words when asked why he felt the need to climb Mount Everest: “Because it’s there.” In 2021, Bill Killeen answered in similar manner when Siobhan Ellison posed the same question about his requisite double-crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge. This made no sense to Siobhan, but she went anyway, perhaps fearful of all the kinds of trouble an 80-year-old might get himself into on the excursion.
As Snoopy might say, it was a cold and windy day with consistent gusts of 30 mph. At first, I thought to keep my hat from taking flight by turning it around, but that didn’t work. A few minutes later, I was carrying my cap and glasses in one hand and taking pictures with the other as we ambled the 1.7 miles of the eastward crossing from Sausalito in a leisurely 45 minutes. The views of San Francisco from the span were spectacular but cell phone cameras can’t yet manage the subtleties of faroff fog and haze. At the terminus in the national monument park, we sat and rested, had lunch and turned our collars up to head back. “Whatever happened to that George Mallory?” Siobhan wanted to know.
“He disappeared with his climbing partner high on the mountain’s northeast ridge, very close to the summit,” I told her. “They finally found his body 75 years later.” Siobhan quickly adopted her smug I-told-you-so demeanor. “Well, you can’t win ‘em all,” I muttered. “Before that, he was batting .758.”
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| (Above) Littlest mermaid sittin' on the rock of the bay; (Below) Street artist Ke Li hauling in a customer in Chinatown. |
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
