Introduction
[1966-67]
I was twenty years old, and we all talked about the “Cat”, at our dojo in St. Paul, Minnesota. Especially during the cold two winters I studied GoJo Kai karate on ‘Cat,’ because of his ‘Cat Stance’. He was a 10th degree black belt in Japan. We all heard about him and our instructor who was a 2nd degree black belt had studied Karate in Japan during his Army tours, as he called them.
I was a green belt back then; –the belts go, white, green, brown, purple and black –or so they did in St. Paul, in San Francisco, there was no such thing as a ‘Purple’, belt. In any case, several times I got thinking and talking to Jim about traveling to San Francisco —-where Gosei Yamaguchi opened up his Karate Studio in the early 60’s. He was the oldest son to Gogen Yamaguchi, the Cat, and was putting together an International, National and regional karate organization at the time I arrived in San Francisco. The Cat was a legend in his own time, and Gosei was like Bruce Lee, 6th degree, and unbeaten, at least in my eyes. We had heard he had beaten Yamamoto, a karate man who had killed a man once, and who had broken the horns off of bulls that challenged him; or maybe it was the other way around. But these were stories, rumors, no one knew for sure, or for that matter, how to sort the truth from the legends.
Chuck Skinner, our instructor had never met either Gosei or Gogen, but he talked about them enough. And the more Jim talked to me about going to San Francisco, the more we both became convinced to go. Finally we came up with a plan, –Jim would go first to San Francisco, with his family, find a job, apartment, and get to know Goesi, and I’d follow a month later, and I could stay with him and we’d both study under Master Yamaguchi. It sounded excellent we shock hands and waited for the day to arrive.
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Romancing San Francisco
Sketches of Life In
San Francisco in the Late Sixties
Chapter One
Sammie’s Bar
The Castro Area
[San Francisco]
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I had many difficulties the first six weeks in San Francisco, my friend from Minnesota wanted me to leave his house because I got poison oak. I went to a hotel, and had run out of money, down to one silver dollar so I ate at the mission. Then Gosei Yamaguchi, my karate instructor offered me to live in the dojo [the dojo being the gym] and so I ended up living there in and teaching in the morning karate to kids, and in the evening being instructed by one of the greatest karate masters in the world, Gosei, –and drinking at night in the Castro district. What I didn’t know was, I would get an unquenchable thirst for this new life I was entering into, and it would be a romance of sorts, but not with any certain person, rather with the city itself, San Francisco.
I had found a bar I liked in particular, about three blocks away from the dojo. After everyone was gone in the evening in the dojo, I’d step out and walk down among the busy district lights, with its overpowering charm, and go into the semi-crowed bar called: “Sammie’s”. It was not much of a bar, a lot of smoke inside, and a few drunks, many men, and a few women; –an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Palace was quite friendly with me. I liked talking to them. I also enjoyed eating the free sandwiches, and chili they always had –couldn’t figure it out, a small dingy bar, with so many people, and two male bartenders, –Ted and Joe. They seem to work well together though. They were quite colorful in their delightful way in managing the bar, and its customers, always so approachable. The people who frequented the bar seem to be for the most part, the same customers each evening, and all quite well mannered, quiet and friendly, even the few drunks that fell to sleep now and then followed this pattern. I never thought it too strange though. Maybe because this was one of the first places that reminded me of home somewhat, even though I was only twenty, I had been drinking in the bars back home for sometime.
Outside the bar was a crowed commercial area; along with a real live cable car up the block. There were also several bars cramped into a square eight block area, a few cloth stores, a small grocery store down the block, and a movie theater: –up the block on Main Street was that street car again [I was talking about] it went downtown, or if going in the other direction, it went under a bridge and out toward the University; –when I was about six, I remember them street-cars in St. Paul, but they had got rid of them since, so this was a novelty for me [I made sure I rode on them purposely], and along side that was the main street that went down town San Francisco, or what I called downtown. I had stayed in the hotel down there, the Freemont for a week, with my poison oak I had acquired across the bay up on some damn hill, while resting one afternoon and absorbing the beautiful sun; — the hotel broke me, it got too be pretty expensive and my money run out, and I lucked out I guess one might say, when I got to stay at the dojo.
At the dojo, I slept on the sofa in the main lobby, and in the back of the building, within the dojo, was a stove and refrigerator, I occasionally used. Gosei would put a five or ten spot [dollar bill] under my pillow about once or twice a week, when he came in early the next morning, I’d be sleeping, but I’d kind of wake up when he’d do that. When I got up, he’d ask, “You eating all right,” and I’d say yes, I didn’t want to complain, I was there on my own free will, yet, I was a little ashamed I had to take the money. But I had also learned a lesson a year earlier, while traveling and living in Seattle for a month. I had run out of money, and had no one to help me with the food thing, consequently, I learned quickly about hunger, and it was not an option not eat, you had to. Therefore, I found a job but it didn’t pay for two weeks, and so I had to beg, borrow and almost stole candy from a boy selling it door to door as a Boy Scout, but I didn’t; I just allowed myself to get more hungry while in Seattle, that is. I did not want to be in that situation again, here in San Francisco.
Goesi would go to his semi-enclosed office behind the tall thin counter; –which was the first thing people saw when they came through the doors, and up the twenty plus steps to reach the top, and there the desk would be, and Lorenzo, whom I got to know quite well, would greet you. He was a light mulatto, and his wife a black woman, a first degree black belt. Lorenzo had been studying karate for some thirteen years when I had met him, yet had no colored belt, he said he never took one but as I got to know him, he was as good as any black belt.
The toilet in the dojo was fine, clean, but no shower, and so I just wiped myself clean daily, although a few of my karate friends were letting me know I was not smelling all that great.
It was summer time and the city was wide open with life, charm, it was a colorful playground for the new generation, the ‘Love Generation’, the ‘Flower People,’ —-life in San Francisco was as if there was a fest going on everywhere. The pulse of the city was going wild; two-hundred beats a minute.
At “Sammie’s” no one seems to get too much out of place, that is, no one caused trouble, I liked it because of that. Furthermore, it seemed like I came to the city just at the right time, summer was warm and the parks were filled with people, and bands were in every big or small park throughout the city. Everyone smoking pot, everyone but me that is, I was drinking. I had been down to Hayed Asbury Street, a week ago, by myself at night with a wine bottle in my hands, and you couldn’t walk: –everyone, everywhere, asking if you wanted a joint or whatever, everyone with white and/or decorative colored shirts, with randomly selected hats of every color and type, — and pants with patches and holes —-more moccasins than shoes where being displayed on the feet of the inhabitants. In some of the more discolored corners of the archways to the buildings as I walked the street, you would get the whispers of whatever you wanted, it was for sale. This was of course a daily thing, meaning, night or day, for I had been there a few times during the day also. Some of the hippies were quite grimy looking, my age. I thought them to be lost at the time in this marvelous Saint Hood of a city. But in a like manner, so was I.
At Sammie’s bar, most of the people didn’t seem to be of the hippie type, or even with the times, more settled in one might say, or for some odd reason that is how I recognized it, even good old Mr. and Mrs. Palace seemed to be content with avoiding the trend and the times of the day; and again, –Joe, the older man [bar tender] always looked at me with a forked-look, as if he had swallowed a frog, and Ted, the thinner of the two, was more business like and said very little to me, or for that matter, spoke only when need be. But my thoughts on the matter were simple, people are different, let it be.
I walked down toward the center of this section of the city [Castro], not too far, yet south of the city was an old church, Dolores street was there also, and the way to the downtown area was a few blocks to the North. Over to the East was where I had started working, a place called Lilli Ann, a dress designer outfit. Adolph Shuman owned the place to my understanding, and had his name on many of the labels attached to the cloths. I had not seen him yet, but I was told he’d show up at the most unexpected times, and was told to just keep out of his way, by my boss Mr. Arthur Blair from England, a dress designer. I think he had a few undesirable run-ins with him. I had soon found out that Lilli Ann was one of the most famous women’s clothing outfits in the world. I’d sometimes have to go down to the fur room, have to bring some furs to the women working, they were beautiful, each time I did this, I seem to have been under a watchful eye until they got to know me better, that is.
The clothing was exceptionally well done, suede, faux mink, other fabrics like mohair wool, etc. I would live to find out, some thirty-five years down the road that Lilli Ann cloths would outlive itself; –and remain world famous. In addition, I would have a dress made for my mother, the women liked me there and so they were kind enough to use their spare time to make the dress for me, and I needed only to buy the fabric. It was worth $85, more than a week’s wages for me. Two other times people asked me to ask the women to make dresses for them, when they found out they did it for me, and they again, made them for me twice more, but then I stopped asking, feeling I was abusing my friends, and the people asking were abusing me. I would also meet Mr. Shuman, the multi-millionaire four times. As I looked back I was always bumping in to history in the making.
It was a warm, friendly and pleasant evening, for the most part I was about to venture downtown but decided to go back to the bar at the last minute. There I walked in, took my jacket off, and sat on one of the stools. It was a long bar, like back in the days of Jessie James, with tables to my back.
“What’re you having again,” asked Ted.
“Tap beer, as usual.”
“You got it…” said Ted.
A woman somewhat drunk at the end of the bar was checking me out, or so it seemed. The beer went down my insides like a cool breeze refreshing my every pore, on this warm evening. The girl was pretty, but she didn’t really seem to be too interest in me, only curious for some odd reason. I smiled, and she returned it, and started talking to one of the men standing by her at the bar. And so, unabated I went on day-dreaming, drinking and smoking.
I sat thinking about how my karate adventure to travel some 2000-miles and meet one of the great masters of karate, one of the best in the world, and possible somewhere along the line I might get to meet his father the ‘Cat’, Gogen Yamaguchi, was a thrill of a lifetime. I ordered another beer, looking at the girl at the end of the bar again –before I fell back into my day-dreaming state.
I thought about San Francisco, how I was getting to know the city, and she was starting to belong to me: –along with this new era, the place and especially this bar. I felt alone at times, yet, not lonely, inasmuch as, anyone might, had they left their home behind them. It pained me to think had I not gone on this venture I might have lost out on a golden opportunity, that is to say, one I might look back at in thirty-five years and say, ‘Yaw, that’s where it all started.’ I had always felt a little lost, but better to be lost than sad.
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I had not made love to a girl yet, –that is, not in the last six weeks I had been here in San Francisco. Maybe I was leading up to it. I had met two girls at the dojo: one Japanese girl called Kikuyu, very pretty, but she had it for Buck I think, my 4th degree black belt friend. Every time he and I were by them she ended up floating on air, not sure if Buck took note of that. And Karen her girlfriend, whom was too bare for me I felt, liked me. Wasn’t that the luck of the draw? I would have liked to have changed girlfriends with Buck, but felt, leave well enough alone. First Buck wasn’t really interested in her, and second, I had learned that when a woman was interested in one person, that was it, he could be with fifty other guys in a naked group, and she’d wait for him to emerge.
As I ate my ham and cheese sandwich, Joe asked me if I wanted to go to a party which he was having in two weeks, writing his address down, he pushed it over towards me on the bar.
“We’re having Oysters,” he said, adding “Ted and Mr. and Mrs. Palace would be there [knowing I liked them], so try to be there.”
“If I can make it Joe, I will … [hum] thanks.” He gave me that look again but this time the look entailed the cat eating the mouse.
I finished my sandwich, drank down my 5th beer, paid the bill and readied myself to leave the bar.
“Thanks again, Joe for the invitation,” I said as I walked out the door, back down the street, taking a right to go up the hill, and another right to go up a second hill. The dojo was in the middle of the second hill, Collingswood.
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