I was seventeen years old at the time. I was set to attend UC Berkeley in the fall, so I got invited to fly up on a weekend to attend some sort of orientation they were having for incoming students. I honestly have no memory of the orientation itself, but what I remember is the city of San Francisco.

I forget who it was, but just before my trip, someone had mentioned that San Francisco was supposed to be the 3rd most romantic city in the world. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but by the end of that weekend, and over the course of the next four years, I discovered what a truly amazing place San Francisco was in those days.

It’s been 30 years now, so the details are fuzzy, but I remember taking the hour long flight out of LAX into Oakland airport one Saturday afternoon just before the start of summer. It must have been the first time I’d ever flown on my own, and on the flight I happened to notice a girl I’d gone to church with when I was in junior high school. I saw she was alone, and I wondered if she was flying up north for the same reason I was.

From the airport, I took a shuttle to Berkeley and got dropped off at the dorm where I’d be sleeping for the night. I checked in, put my stuff away, and I didn’t know what to do since the orientation itself was on Sunday, so I did what I always did in those days when I didn’t know what to do. I went outside for a smoke.

It was probably around three or four in the afternoon on a beautiful, sunny day as I sat there in the courtyard smoking when the girl from the plane suddenly appeared before me.

“I saw you from the window in my room. Didn’t you go to my church?” she asked.

I nodded and said I recognized her when I saw her on the plane. Then she asked what I planned to do the rest of the day.

“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it,” I said.

“Want to explore the city?” she asked.

Sure, I said, and the next thing I remember is the two of us walking down to the Bart station on Shattuck Boulevard. We took the short ride from Berkeley to Union station, and when we walked out onto Market street, I could feel myself growing excited by the hustle and bustle of the city.

The two of us got tickets for the trolley and waited in line. The trolley took us through the shopping district, and Chinatown, and I remember marveling at all the colorful signs. Eventually, we got off at Fisherman’s Wharf, and the two of us had dinner together at some place that served clam chowder in a bread bowl. Afterward, we walked around a bit. We strolled past souvenir stores, and the seafood vendors, until we decided it was time to head back.

On the trolley ride back, it was getting late, and I remember the two of us sitting beside each other in the packed car as we trundled down the rolling hills. We were just a couple of kids, but I didn’t feel like a kid. The city lights were all around us and it felt so romantic that I considered for a second reaching out and grabbing the girl’s hand. But I managed to resist the urge, the two of us went back to our dorms, and that was that.

That night, I lay there alone in a Berkeley dorm room, excited about the coming school year, and feeling like my life was just getting started.

I suppose in many ways it was.

Categorized in:

POW