THE SONGS OF A NIGHTINGAIL

  Fisherman’s Wharf on Jefferson Street in San Francisco and Alioto’s Restaurant where the seafood was wonderful.   My time frame for the nightlife on Fisherman’s Wharf was basically in the 1960s. I liked to sit where we could overlook the harbor and watch the seals frolicking about. Ghirardelli Square on the Wharf was always fun to peruse – day or night. But A. Sabela’s Capri Room on the Wharf was my favorite where I used to go dinner-dancing with a boyfriend.   Sometimes we went to the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill on Mason Street. The Tonga Room was a South Pacific styled restaurant situated around the old swimming pool.  Dining tables ran along the sides of the pool with a dance floor at one end, while the band, seated on a tiki ‘barge’ played while floating up & down the pool.  And at several points during the evening there would be a tropical ‘storm’.  Fun place.  For whatever reason, I don’t believe the Tonga Room is still there.  If so, what a shame. On Jac

My very first job was with H.M. Newhall & Co. insurance agency on Market Street just off of First Street in San Francisco.  I went to a map and a surface street picture.  The building where I worked is still there, but it’s much changed from when I worked there and looks nothing like it did 65 years ago, so I opted for no picture for that one. Across Market Street First Street becomes Battery Street and after a block, Battery Street crosses Pine Street and 160 Pine Street on the corner of Pine & Battery seen in this picture is where I worked for Continental Insurance Company.  Actually, when I first started working for them the name was a combination of two different insurance companies: Loyalty Group and America Fore, and the name of the newly formed company was America Fore Loyalty Group which sounded rather patriotic.  The name Loyalty Group was especially significant because my Mom & Dad had worked and met while working for Loyalty Group in the late 1930s, and here I wa

229 Carmel Avenue, El Cerrito, Calif. Most of my growing years were spent on Carmel Avenue peddling my little red trike, riding my flexie and scooter and skating on this street – well on the sidewalk.  I did play football with the boy up the block on  the street, however, and rode my bike on it as well. And then I moved into my own apartment on Brighton Avenue in Albany, CA.  #7 upstairs. And here’s Brighton Avenue with my apartment building on the left.  Up ahead is the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) overhead rail.  It was not there when I lived in my apartment.  It was just beginning to be built when I married and moved out of the area.  At that time the only tracks there were the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks with trains running one way and then the other every two hours.  It was noisy – especially with the wigwag signals ding, ding, dinging every time a train went through preceded by a long blast on the train’s horn as it approached the street crossing.  But I got used to it and

I didn't and don't do much recreational shopping on rainy days.  Rainy days are only for necessary shopping.  But over my lifetime, I have done my fair share of shopping - rain or shine. :) It all began when I was around 7 or 8 when Mom would give me a few coins with which to buy her and Dad something for their birthdays or Christmas such as nails for Dad, and bobby-pins for Mom which I bought at the local dime store on Fairmont Avenue a couple of blocks from home. This picture only shows one end of the building where the dime store was located.  This end of the small complex building housed the local drug store which had a small counter where one could get coffee or tea, sodas, milkshakes, ice cream cones, sandwiches, and pie or cake.  There was another shop of some kind between the drug store and the dime store which was kind of in the middle of the complex with another store of some sort on the other end of the dime store.  On the other side of the street was a grocery s