THE JO-TEL … illegal blog downfield

Call me Shark. A few days ago– never mind how long precisely– having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on Russian Hill, I thought I would walk about a little at the festive trailing leg of Bay to Breakers. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my vitriol get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off– then, I account it high time to get to Bay to Breakers as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the keg-bearing shopping cart and cut-off Never-Nude jeans. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the Bay to Breakers as me.

There now is your insular city of the San Franciscans, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs– commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is Ocean Beach, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Bisect the city on a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Emabarcadero to Outer Sunset, and from thence, by Presidio, northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of drunken men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the mobile strip tease floats; some seated upon the beer cart; some looking over the bulwarks of cougar dumpster transports; some high, aloft in the rigging of a Trojan Horse, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of weekdays pent up in offices and cars- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder windmill will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling. And there they stand– miles of them– naked leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite.

-Shark