SAN FRANCISCO TRIP by Military Transport
NEW ORLEANS/SAN FRANCISCO TRIP, June 22 - July 7, 1959
MONDAY, JUNE 22. By the time I dress and finish packing, it's time to call the cab and sign out and get down to Aberdeen bus stop. Wait, and 5:30 and 5:45 pass and ticket office not open. At 6 am, Air Force fellow stops and asks if I want a ride, which I accept. He says that Bolling is dying, I should go to Andrews AFB, where he takes me. OK. Sign in at 8 am and settle down with "Charterhouse of Parma." Eat breakfast at 11:30, when hunger pangs get too harsh. Eat lunch at 4:30, when there seems to be no hope of getting out. Sit through to 8:30 pm, talking only occasionally with my fellow waiters, looking at the quality of some of the Operations personnel, and getting quite disgusted. Try to call Dave, but get no results. Just about to get on bus to DC when they announce a station wagon to the BOQ's. I hop on, grab a rather nice room, and get to bed at 10.
TUESDAY, JUNE 23. Up at 7 and wash and dress and call transportation to get over to the hated waiting room again. "Nothing in sight; no, sir, just sit and wait." So I wait. Breakfast at 11:30 and I finish "Circus in the Attic," by Robert Penn Warren. Lunch at 3 and finally get news of a flight, which makes the wait till 4:30 bearable. Take off in a heavy plane toward Brookley AFB, in Alabama. Flying is glorious, going from clear to cloudy to the dark tossing of a storm to clouds and a sunset and darkness of the twisting rivers and the gnarled farmlands. Land at 7:30 and grab a cab to the bus lines and ride to the Greyhound depot in Mobile. Buy a ticket to New Orleans at 11:15, and wander around the rustic town for the next two hours, supping on waffles and iced tea. Changed from uniform to casual clothes, which feel good in hot night. Ride four hours to New Orleans, next to a tossing Negro that I ousted an astonished, indignant white to seat. See the Gulf and the Mississippi go by and get to the station at 3:30. Cab to the Y, which is filled, and get a room at the Seaman's Town House for $3 a night. Get to bed.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24. Wake up to sun and dirt and noise and heat. Look through a musty Confederate museum and eat breakfast through the greater part of the AM shower. Out at 11:30 to wander to Canal Street in shower and take the trolley out to the 4000 block and back, looking at great funeral homes and tombs all above ground and the absinthed old ladies and the white porched houses with the green trim. Out to walk through black sections worse than NYC and stop at French Coffee Shop for donuts and milk and tour St. Peter's Cathedral (oldest) and wander through Louisiana State Museum looking at the river and the absolutely fantastic costumes of the Krewes of Comus. By this time it's 2 and I get down to the ship for a tour of the docks and wharves and the ships in the port of New Orleans. See the packing houses and the bridges and the seasides in a long, hot, rather worthless tour of the Mississippi River where it's only a half-mile across. Off at 5 and walk to Walgreens for supper and get to Chaplin's "Gold Rush." Back to wash and change for the evening and wander down Royal Street for a truly stunning look at the Vieux Carre. Into and out of a few of the bars, but not really worth anything. Down Bourbon Street, of strippers and joints, and pay $2.55 and $1.75 for two seven and seven's to see three strippers and dancers, and Lili St. Cyr, who had both age and style. Talked to two very talkable fellows---what a chance to make friends! Out and wander some more and get back to Seaman's at 1, after talking with a very unpleasant person on the street.
THURSDAY, JUNE 25. Up at 6:30 and wash and pack and dress in civvies and cab to the bus station to get a ticket to Biloxi and Kessler AFB. Wait and wait and leave at 9:45 on an 8:45 scheduled bus. Watch Gulf Coast pass luxuriously by and learn all about the bees and the bees and get into Biloxi at 12. Catch a cheeseburger and a milkshake for the first (and only) food of the day. Cab out to the base and take an hour to find operations. Nothing, but nothing goes out and I wait till 4:30 to get schedule for next day: nothing. Maxwell is 7 hours by bus and nothing in prospect. Disgusted, my spirits hit a new low before a lieutenant says he's going to Rucker and so I get walked to parachute and climb into 1-20 Beaver for a two hour flight to Rucker. Major Jones schedules up and hops me to Maxwell from 7:30 to 9, and what with time changes and all, I get to a nice BOQ at 11, after being told I've got good chances.
FRIDAY, JUNE 26. Up at 4:30, 5 and 6 and shower and uniform and sign in at 7. Breakfast very heartily and back to start on Moravia's "Two Women." Wait till 10:30 when I hear of a definite flight at 9:35 tomorrow to Travis in SF. Wait some more until at 11 am Colonel Savage wants to start to Denver, and I and three others decide to go with him. He coaxes us up to the front where we literally drip sweat for thirty minutes until we take off at 12. Eat the box lunch and observe the pilots and then rebel and go to the back for a fantastic cloud-bound, sliding flight over Arkansas and Oklahoma. Stop at Tulsa and go on to Colorado Springs, as terrain changes from green rivers to flat farms and just plain scrub land. See Pike's Peak in distance and fly on to Denver, getting there at 9:30. Lug bag to BOQ office but because of a Reserve convention, there's no room there or at the guest house. Start walking to bus and get a ride to Peterson Hospital, which is also full to the brim. They get me a room at a $4.50 hotel and I start walking, but bag gets heavy and I stop at rather nice SOS motel for $5. Tear off clothes and plunk into bed at 11.
SATURDAY, JUNE 27. Up at 6:30 to baby cry, cough, and cat and take a $1.70 cab to the field. Wait in visitor's lounge, reading magazines, meet the stupid clerk who is persuaded to make a manifest for Long Beach. Wait for 45 minutes for transportation which never comes and we lug bags over to Base Operations. At 11:30 we find there's ALREADY a manifest for the flight, so for the rest of the afternoon, interrupted by two sandwiches and a milkshake at 1:30, I read "Two Women" and talk to people and look glumly at Dispatcher. Wait until 5:30, and just ready to leave, when they announce a flight at 9 to Ogden, Utah. I go walking to the Officer's Club for steak and salad and wine, etc, for $3 and wander to read magazines and over at 8 to wait for plane. Take off on jump seat of C119 and enjoy a great sight of jeweled Denver and then fly over absolutely bleak Rockies, can't see a thing, darn it. Flight bumpy and thrilling anyway, and go to Held AFB at 12:30. Sign in and ride to BOQ and get room and flop into bed at 1.
SUNDAY, JUNE 28. Up at 6, but hearing no flights out, I lay until 8 and get over to office at 9. Give up a flight for a Private and read along until 11. Read papers and write letters and write junk in notebook until 1:30, when I'm over to snack bar for two sandwiches and a malted and buy "Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard, which I find interesting enough to read until 5:30, when I find there's a flight at 10 the next AM to McClellan AFB. Say OK and get over to the BOQ again to find I'm too late for the Officer's mess, so I undress and get into bed at 7. Toss and turn and hear someone playing decent radio, so I listen to all-Tchaikovsky program of "Romeo and Juliet Overture," Symphony #4, "Overture 1812." This ends at 8 pm and I fall asleep soon after.
MONDAY, JUNE 29. Roused by knocks at 5:15, there's a flight and I have fifteen minutes to make it. Jump into clothes, unwashed and unshaved, and sign out in a flurry. Grab cab to Air Freight and get referred to a plane on field. Dash out in time and catch crew going in and strap in with many West Point cadets. Talk quite a bit with Bill Danforth next to me and take off at 6:15. Clouds at first, and then the Cascades and Sierras make very interesting viewing of the trees, pines, clear pools and snowy crags and dim smoky canyons. Get outside of Sacramento at 9 and find we missed a bus, so we're over to breakfast at 9:30 and back to a cab to the gate. Make a motley crew waiting in hot sun for the bus, and get on and ride to Sacramento, where I walk three blocks and stand in line fifteen minutes to get a ticket to SF on Greyhound. Up to john to change clothes, with great relief and down to stand in line talking with Bill until 12:15 but through rather typical California scenery: green and brown hills. Note two girls: one pretty and smart, other dull and stupid. Into SF at 2:30, enjoying view of city from Oakland Bridge. Grab a cab three blocks to YMCA hotel and am pleasantly surprised at $2 per night rate. Unpack and get everything in a proper place at 4 and get out to shave and shower, meeting sunbather who looks and feels, etc. and asks to see my room. He sits and talks and strokes and finally we get on bed and he does me rather pleasantly, and then gets himself, too, almost perfect, except that he wasn't very sexy. Dress in suit at 5 and walk down Market to Grant and shop, buying stuff too, in Chinatown. Pass a movie at 6 and go in on impulse, then rather odd production. Out at 8:30 and eat poorly at Lotus Bowl. Try to find Dan Timbo to no avail, and walk down---and I mean DOWN Broadway, to Finnochio's for two hours of womanly men and funny too, and then to Gordon's at 1, which is completely dead. Stay till 2 and walk all way back Market to Y, picking up Vogue on way and get to bed at 3, after reading Vogue and eating popcorn.
TUESDAY, JUNE 30. Up at 9:30 and write four days in here till 10:10. Dress too scantily and catch bus out to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, wandering through its galleries of inferior painting and Rodins until 1. Out of back and walk across gold course to sea, ignoring "No Trespassing" signs. Clamber up and down cliffs, and stand on rocks watching waves washing in. Clunk shin on rock and limp for day. Around at 4 to Sutro's Baths and pay way to get in and spend nothing inside, which made a rather worthless visit. Look at Cliff Tea House and Museum and scan ocean from Cliff House and Seal Rocks. Over to Playland by the Beach for a hot dog and French fries, first food of day. Look at everyone and everything and catch a bus back to Y, where I put on new clothes. Ride the Cable Car, inside, to Fisherman's Wharf, and scout about it, and wander into the tent theater. Out to grab a hamburger and back to talk with the usherette about Art and California, and then see quite a pleasant production (though awfully amateurish) of "The Tempest" with Jean Arnold. Out at 11 and wait in frightful cold for the trolley back to the Y, where I get to bed at 12 am, ready to tackle the new day afresh.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 1. Up at 9 and out at 10 to take bus down to Golden Gate Park, warmly dressed this time. See the Steinhart Aquarium, and the rather placid set of displays at the Museum of Natural History. Wander out to the de Young Museum, for early Americans, and then into the Japanese Tea Garden, to wander in the moist quietness for about an hour. Then to the conservatory for breathtaking beauty and smell of the florid California flowers. Bus again down to the Portals of the Past, of which only one is standing. Back to the bus and down to the Playland and walk up cliff streets to Sutro's Gardens. Marvel at his choice for a fortress and back down through the Playland again to the Swedish windmill, without the pinwheel. See the Bijou and then the VFW Beach Chalet. Walk down to the surf and watch the waves as I walk down to the Dutch windmill, truly huge. Catch a bus to the end and eat supper in mass-production restaurant, then walk to the ferry building and a positively enormous diorama of the entire state of California. Out at 6 and from 6 to 9 completely cover Telegraph Hill, mapping out the streets and cliffs and gawking at the picture-windowed apartments. Climb hills and down to also chart presence of bars. Finally end up at Gordon's and get to talking with kind fellow who gives me list of places to go. I leave at 10 and down to Purple Onion to comic singing and comedienne Phyllis Diller. Out at 12 and walk across to the Hideaway, where I see Don and listen to his adventures and look over rather pleasant crowd. Stay till 1:30 and decide nothing's going to happen, so I have a toasted English and get back to the Y at 2.
THURSDAY, JULY 2. Up at 11, feeling great, and after a breakfast of an omelet get down to the San Francisco Museum of Art, with a fairly good display of four modern artists. Stay there till 1 and then catch a bus down to Mission Delores, paying a donation of 25 cents to look around 1776 church and very nice cemetery (if cemeteries CAN be nice). On another bus trip down to the SF Zoological Park, a very large and variously populated place in the natural, huge rocked theme. Wander through eating peanuts and watching the monkeys jump and then down to Fleishhacker Pool, to see the 16-18 year old humans jump into what certainly must be the largest pool in the world. Down to the beach again, for a while, and then a bus back to the trolley and back to the beatnik jungle, stopping in at the Bagel to watch the begging and the dope-taking and the love attempts and the bootless talk and the wild looks of the conforming non-conformists. Up to the Paper Doll to wait for a table and talk with Bob, and after I eat we talk some more and I try to get with him and he says no, but finally we talk in his room and we get together from 11 to 2 for a very, very pleasant and peaceful and passionate session. We're both quite pleased and we doze off and wake up and snuggle a bit and doze off and wake up and finally get up in earnest at 9.
FRIDAY, JULY 3. Dress and talk and get down for donuts and he goes off for a short while. I'm back to the Y to shower and get uniform and eat breakfast and dress and meet him at the Fox, where we turn about and go back to the Paramount for a free "Hercules," a showoff if there ever was one, but no great shakes as a show. Out at 2 and I go to the bus and walk to the Palace of Fine Arts, getting into a truly magnificent ruined center court by a hole in the fence. Quite a spectacular set of ruins. Walk across the Marina and the yacht basin to the Marine Museum and look around there for a half hour and get onto a trolley which is promptly derailed. Walk to Bob's and we talk and get out to La Rinata for a dinner of Fritos, Refritos, Tacos, Enchiladas, Flauta, Arroz and Chile Relleno. Grab a cab, after paying $5 for meal, to the movies of George Broughton, some just plain stupid and others very good. Out at 10:30 and down to the Handlebar to meet Bob, meet Court instead and talk for a bit and up to his place, where he turns out to be rather pathetically nice, unfortunately too late. Back to Handlebar in his convertible and look about for Bob until 1. Out to Nob Hill, which is nothing, and then walk twenty blocks back to look for Bob and end up at Jean's, which is a coffee gay bar, and that's that. Out at 3:15 for toasted Danish and to bed.
SATURDAY, JULY 4. Up at 10 and wash and pack and check out at 12. Cab to bus and wait till 1:15 for bus to Hamilton, while I chatter with fairly knowing lady. Get to Hamilton AFB at 2:30 and get to Base Operations to find nothing scheduled (likewise for Moffett and Travis) and the next flight to San Antonio Monday AM. That's something, anyhow, but hope for tomorrow. Wander up to Cabana to eat at 3, but so bewildered with the multitude of swimmers that I go back to bedroom to peruse Virginia Woolf's "The Common Reader," a most uncommon authoress and book. Up the hill at 5:30 in suit to a baby beef en brochette supper with all the trimmings and a self-serve salad. Back at 7 to lounge about and finish with Miss Woolf. Feel very lazy so I rest between 8 and 10:30 and then go to bed officially, only getting awake at 8 and up at 9:30.
SUNDAY, JULY 5. Finish "Hidden Persuaders" right off the bat and get started on The Koran, by God via Mohammed and Daward. Dress in uniform at 12 to sign a half-full manifest for the flight tomorrow, after making sure there's nothing else east. Eat lunch of two cheeseburgers, milkshake and pie in the PX, drooling at the marvelous California custom that makes between the ages of 10 and 23 wear tight blue jeans all the time. Back to shift reading to Nietsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." Read on till 6, when I again suit up and get up to the Officer's Club for a huge supper of ham and corn and salad and sundae and such. Back down full to the top at 7:30, and read steadily on to 9:30, when I finish with the tract of the Superman. Write this up to date until 9:45, and then take a shower and get to bed fairly early.
MONDAY, JULY 6. Get called at 6:30 and dress and pay bill and get over to base at 7. Wait around a bit and look at map and drink hot chocolate to pick up flight lunch and get on plane at 8, taking off for San Antonio soon after. Stare out window as we pass over Oakland and San Francisco and Salinas and on down coast over Sierras. This changes to rolling, dry desert on into Texas. Fly and fly and eat part of box lunch and feel just a bit ill, so I lay back and ignore rest of flight. Get in at 5 and see plane in and jump to find it going to Bolling tomorrow AM. Lug to lounge and find myself well down on list. Scheme with Navy lieutenant and make an ass of myself in front of Major Baxter by asking literally if we could sneak onto the plane. Eat supper and back to the decent lounge to talk some more, leaving at 8:30 for BOQ. I shower and get set for the morrow and go to bed at 9:30, and toss and turn and think about all sorts of things.
TUESDAY, JULY 7. Get up and in a sort of hot desperation jerk off, but even that doesn't lull me to sleep, with thought of missing the flight, Bell and Marshall, and my trip flying through my head. See 11:30 and 12:30, and finally doze off, to get up at 1:30 and 2:15. Phone buzzes at 5:30 and my sleepy arms almost can't get the strength to answer. Over to agonized hour's wait and turn up 12 on a list of 12. Get on the plane and sleep from takeoff at 8:45 until 11:30, and then eat a bit of lunch and start gabbing with the Naval Lieutenant about nothing much. Fly over Memphis and land for a half hour at Lexington and take off again and snooze and look out the window and talk and finally get into Bolling at 7:30. Call Dave and go there to change and call bus depot to find that best bus leaves at 8:30. Dave drives me and I say I'll see him Friday and off I go, reading the Koran. Get into Aberdeen at 10:30 and get a dish of ice cream to celebrate and catch a cab to sign in at 11 pm, only one hour to go. Back to the stuffy barracks and unpack absolutely everything, take a late shower, and get to bed at 12:15.