I sit here housesitting in the peace and quiet of a neighborhood I have never spent time in nor thought to. I’ve been in the Bay Area since 1980. I have driven by this part of San Francisco hundreds (maybe thousands?) of times and seen it as I peer south when driving on highway 280 just as it veers off from highway 101 south after the Cesar Chavez exit. I always thought: “Look at all of those houses out there all lined up in perfect rows from hillside to hillside.” It never occurred to me to pull off and look around.
It’s completely residential here and the houses are quite unique though they don’t look that way from the freeway. It’s a working class neighborhood where many of the homes have been handed down through generations of families and THAT must be why it’s so clean around here. As I have walked around the past couple of mornings, I realize that people care for their sidewalks and upkeep and it’s really tidy in front of the homes and in the streets. Not so in the neighborhood I live in where the techies have taken over just a couple of miles north of here. This neighborhood is the Mission Terrace. And it’s oh, so quiet.
One of the big benefits of this home is having Balboa High School across the street which is NOT in session right now, so I’m sure it’s quite different around here when the teens travel to and fro in their quotidian school lives en route to classes, the library, gymnasium, tennis matches, football games, etc. It’s a HUGE high school with a MASSIVE California Mission style classroom building that is grand and beautiful. The wiki states 1400 students and 63 teachers. Founded in 1928. Then I read these lines: “Balboa is a comprehensive school located in an urban working class district. It educates a greater proportion of the city’s disadvantaged and minority students relative to other city high schools…In the last decade, Balboa has experienced a turnaround and has improved its reputation and academic performance.[6] The school achieved placement on Newsweek‘s “America’s Top Public High Schools” list in 2007 and 2008.[7]” Fantastic!
Yesterday, my friend Hugh and I traveled 3 miles northwest to the Alemany Farmer’s Market to pick up food items to cook up for lunch. I learned that the Alemany Farmers’ Market was founded in San Francisco on August 12, 1943. It was the first farmers’ market in California. We had a great time buzzing about tasting various things to add to our veggie smorgasbord and meeting some delightful people in the seller’s stalls. Saturdays from 6a – 3p. Check it out.
Anyway, the home is swell and quiet. The cats are mellow and easy.
I could be anywhere…
But I’m enjoying a nice staycation here in a home filled with books. Joyous that.
danajae33 