Re: Firehouses' Decorated

09/07/07 - posted by Nick & Tanya

Yes San Francisco has lost alot of its traditions. We both wonder why that is. We arent from the older generation that remembers the heyday of San Francisco but are instead in our mid 30s. I was lucky to catch the very tail end of some fragment of San Francisco traditions but alas the majority are gone. Wiped "clean" by the wrath of the disease known as "Political Correctness".

Something has been lost in this city and I cant pinpoint what it is, perhaps its a whole lot of something. I wish we could get it back but these days it seems everyone is too busy working overtime just to make ends meet.

I always fondly recall my childhood in the Parkside District and the way the neighborhood was over populated with kids. Every afternoon we would break out an impromptu football game in the street. You could smell the aroma of a hundred dinners cooking in the area as we all anxiously awaited the return of our dads on the L Taraval. I didnt think much of it then and took it for granted but it was a very idyllic Norman Rockwell existence, except for the bellbottoms and bad hair.

Somehow, somewhere we got overly concerned with offending people with such innocent things like saying MERRY CHRISTMAS or lighting the cross on Mt Davidson. For some reason those wonderful things where stricken from our sensibilities as something good. In giving that up we gave up our unity as a nation and as a city.

I miss the old San Francisco and the way things where. My only regret is that we both missed the golden age of the 30s and 40s. Looking at the photos and reading the stories here really punctuates what a special and amazing time that must have been