Memoir Monday, Jan 8, 1966

I was only hours away from going back to Arizona but this was a special day and a cherished memory.  I was to return to the city by the bay several times in the next decade or two under a variety of circumstances but this was the first visit. and I was very impressed!

Jan 8, 1966

I left my heart in San Francisco! No, it is actually still with the Circle Cross but I won’t ever forget the Golden Gate City. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful trip. We left about 9:00 armed with a lunch and assorted other goodies. The Sacramento Valley is broad and lushly green, the rolling green California mountains are lovely too. My first view of the ocean was on a street that we crossed on a toll bridge. It looked gray and stormy. I saw San Francisco first through broken fog. It looked like a toy city, like a Mediterranean city flung on the hillsides hanging above the ocean, a fairy island in the fog, --like San Francisco. We drove all over it, so to speak,. The hills are fantastic. The houses are painted in wild pastels and built wall to wall. most two or three stories. San Francisco is a high rise city almost entirely. We ate at a Chinese restaurant; it was good food but almost too much. We drove along the ocean. It was gray and stormy and the waves were battering and tossing against the beach. The ocean would make me restless and lonely. I don’t think I’d like to live on the shore. We drove across the two big bridges, went through the museum etc. and then went up the coast.

We came home by Napa and Petaluma. At Napa we stopped to eat at a pancake house. Law enforcement people kept drifting in and out. One deputy sheriff took my breath away because he looked so much like Dusty. I really could have dropped my teeth or something. We stopped by Davis on our way back to visit Steve. He had a girl friend there who was drinking beer and she had a panic and escaped. We tidied the place a bit and left about 10:20 or so. Got home finally at midnight. I had a letter from Judy at Grace and Ruth’s and one from Charlie Mike at Roxie’s. It was a doozy. It upset me some but I tried to calm down.. I made some preliminary stabs at packing and finally washed up and fell into bed at 1:00 with frantic swirls of the days’ events and impressions spinning in my head. I had to will myself firmly to relax and go to sleep but sleep was still restless/ Too much food and to little exercise and too many worries mostly. That is enough to bother even a husky character, I guess. And although I have gained considerable weight I am still  not too husky!

One thing--I’m a little late this time--so far and I was a little short last time. Well, I won’t worry. But I have gained so much weight so fast and all it rather makes me wonder just a bit. Wouldn’t it be weird if I go back and then I am PG? But I think it is unlikely. If I were, I’ll just go ahead and work as if I was okay until it shows. I’ve made my ever lovin’ mind on that. I’d have Dusty’s baby just like I promised. There is no going back on that, not ever.

By now I had heard once from Dusty and he advised me to stay and go to college and warned that things would not be better if I came back. I knew that was true but as I tried to explain to him, it was just something an inner sense told me I had to do. So he was not surprised when I was back before long. He bawled me out but was also very glad to see me. I think he'd felt when he put me on that train that he might never see me again. And we had discussed earlier that I would never consider not having his child if I did become pregnant. He was not in favor of that happening when we were not able to do it the right way,  but I promised him no child of mine--or his--would ever be "gotten rid of." It was considerably later that I learned any pregnancy was a very unlikely event for me.

I laugh--we took food along but stopped and ate at least twice. The Morgan "girls" were rather foodaholics, I think, and their plumpness proved that.  That last letter from Charlie Mike gave me second thoughts but I still 'knew' I had to go back. What would happen would happen. I had to do it. The next day I caught the eastbound SF Chief mid-afternoon at Stockton. 

 A few very poor photos that I took about this time. The apartment at Davis where Larry and Steve lived. A view from Golden Gate Park, one side of the big museum building. The ocean--just a gray rolling span that blurred into the clouds. And a ship at the Port Of Sacramento. Moderate ocean-going ships came up the river to there from the coast.