Independence Day weekend provided a taste of what our community might be like with 5,000 more residents when their cousins from Seattle and friends from California come to visit.
After six years away from San Francisco we were pleased to see all the people. In mid-afternoon on the 4th we walked up to CJ's Beachhouse. There was so much traffic no cars could go faster than the speed limit. And there were only a few problems. We saw a young couple on bikes apparently getting a ticket from a 'cycle deputy sheriff dressed in black. But the other deputies, in their their usual olive drab, were not busy. Deputy Cliff, in his command car with his computer parked by the Blue Fish, agreed it was “controlled chaos.”
Fireworks that started at dusk Saturday evening were filled the sky from north to south. In San Francisco there was always fear that fog would come in to block the action, so we would leave the convenience of our condo roof and go over toward Ghirardelli Square to find a view spot. Now we have a front-row seat on our deck. We are too prudent (tight) to buy fireworks, but we enjoy the show put on by our neighbors and their visitors. These “volunteers” put on a better and longer show than the pros who charge sponsors in big cities tens of thousands of dollars.
In those big cities street cleaners, paid overtime wages, clean up the aftermath mess. In our village volunteers do the cleanup. Organized by Pat Allese, of the C-Shop, and Chair Kathy, of the Steering Committee, some 50 people turned out to pick up 2.17tons of trash on nearby thoroughfares as well as the beaches. When these folks started turning up to sign in, they were surprised to find a note, presumably from condo residents on either side of the Alderson entrance to the beach. They must have been up at dawn to get their beach clean before 9 o'clock.
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