Day 50- Welcome to San Francisco

Glide Memorial Church

Mileage: 6,082

Well, after some crazy times on I-80, I finally made it to San Francisco.  For the second time on this trip, I'm staying in a hotel that's a little nicer than I had planned on, but as Pastor Thurman told me back in Baltimore: It's okay to enjoy it.  As I am within walking distance of both Glide and The Haight, this is the ideal location, and it's nice to have a bed again.  I'm where I am thanks to a generous contribution from the Bank of Mom and Dad, and I'm not taking these accommodations for granted.  Initially, I had hoped to stay with a friend out in Berkeley, but now that I've seen what traffic is like coming into the city, I'm incredibly relieved that plan got jettisoned.  Besides, I'd much rather be in San Francisco than in Berkeley anyway.  Take away the traffic and the smog, and this city is pretty cool.

New Approach to Fact-Finding

After doing Resurrection, New Life, and Mars Hill back to back to back, I’m a little disoriented.  Those were three churches that required a lot of writing and lot of research, and now I’ve splashed down into the City by the Bay without a life preserver.  Even though I’ve signed up to serve breakfast tomorrow morning at Glide, I haven’t even gotten to peruse the church’s website at length yet, let alone read their pastor’s book (No Hiding Place by Cecil Williams), so I’m really sort of going on what people have told me at this point.  That being said, this sounds like a good time to try out an experiment I’ve been wanting to do for a while now: asking people on the street.

After checking into my hotel, I walked around downtown San Francisco for a while to get the lay of the land.  In fact, I even allowed myself to get a little lost.  The city is a swarm of activity right now because of Pride Week, and the people walking around the downtown hotels, shops, and restaurants seemed like mostly tourists.  I heard a lot of different languages being spoken: German, French, Spanish, various eastern Asian dialects, and one man on a street corner yelling at no one in particular in a tongue only he seemed able to understand.  The neighborhood around Glide seems very diverse-- dingy-looking storefronts and rundown hotels within blocks of ritzy shopping districts.  I roamed around the streets and took in the sea of large buildings populated by endless schools of people.  Passing by a large mall with a number of higher end clothing stores, I realized that I was starting to get a little hungry.  Perhaps it was time to find some food.

That’s when I bumped into Ringo (not his real name, but I’ve grown fond of pseudonyms at this point).  If you took Grigori Rasputin and put him in a weathered hoodie, baggy jeans, and a Spider-Man beanie, you’d have Ringo.  He had owl-like, silvery eyes, and his matted beard was only a few shades darker.  Behind the beard, Ringo’s visible face was very gaunt and wrinkled.  His hair and hands were both fairly grimy with a lot of dirt caked up under his fingernails.  Most of his body was cloaked by his long beard and baggy garments, only further obscured by the large suitcase at his side.  Hunched and wearied, he had the look of an old man who could have very well been any age, and while his sad face could inspire pity in the hardest hearts, what really got my attention the most was his sign.  Written in black sharpie on a scrap of plain brown cardboard, it read:

“Will take verbal abuse for food.”

I sat down next to him and asked, “Dude, do people really take you up on that?”  Breaking out of his pathos-inspiring character, Ringo smiled and answered enthusiastically, “Hell yeah, man!  You’d be surprised.  I mean, most of the time they just give me a playful little ‘f**k you, motherf**ker’ and toss me a couple of bucks, but some people see it and just let loose, and those are the people who typically don’t even give me money afterward!  They just storm off!  Still, I figure folks need to let it all out, so it’s actually a pretty nice little business venture I’ve got going on here.”  Wow, Ringo may very well be the most honest beggar I’ve ever encountered.  No story.  No props.  No nothing.  Just an incredibly clever sign.  Won over by his openness, I asked, “Got time for a break to go grab lunch?  I’m buying.”  Ringo immediately agreed, and with his big suitcase in tow, we walked up the street to a Burger King.

As we ordered our food and sat down, we introduced ourselves, and I told Ringo a little about my journey.  In response, he shared with me that, while he was from San Francisco originally, he had only moved back to town about twelve years ago.  His mother still lived here, but he wasn’t really in touch with her, and he was now on the street without a job or a home.  I asked if there were any decent shelters in the area.  “Yeah, but I don’t stay there,” Ringo answered with a note of disdain in between mouthfuls of ketchup-covered fries.  I don’t blame him.  Even the nicer emergency shelters I’ve seen have still been cramped environments with plenty of rules and regulations that sometimes make it easier just to sleep outside (weather permitting).  Emergency shelters are a good last resort, but I don’t blame Ringo at all for wanting to stay any other place first.  “Is there at least a good place to grab a free hot meal?” I asked.  Ringo responded, “There are a few soup kitchens here and there, but I really try to avoid those too if I can.”  Again, I couldn’t fault him since part of the soup kitchen mentality is trying to make a little food go a long way, and if you’re a proficient enough panhandler to pay for fast food (which Ringo seems to be), then the motivation to go to a soup kitchen is pretty low.

“Ringo, I know I’m asking you a ton of questions, and I swear I’m going to let you get in two consecutive bites at some point, but what do you know about Glide Church?”  Ringo began picking the onions off of his burger as he talked, “It’s a good place.  Right up the street from here.  Been there a time or two.  Actually, the First Lady was there not too long ago with some big philanthropy group.  She likes to take up little causes like that.  Got the place some good publicity.”  Ringo took a big bite of his burger, and a little sauce dribbled into his beard.  He dabbed it with his napkin and continued, “I know they serve a couple of meals a day.  Big line usually.  You can also get your ID renewed there, vouchers, and I’m not sure what all else.  Hey, you said you were a student, right?”  “Yeah.”  “Ever heard of Youth With A Mission?”  “YWAM?  Yeah, I’ve heard of it.”  “Well, they’ve got an office right across the street from the church.  Good program.  I figure peer pressure’s a big deal with kids, so might as well make it pressure to do something good instead of pressure to mess around and be stupid.”  Remembering how organizations like YWAM and Young Life sometimes provide an alternative to inner city gang activity, I asked Ringo about gangs in the San Francisco area.  “Yeah, we got ‘em, but it’s not like Bloods and Crips and that stuff you’re used to.  It’s mostly gangs from Mexico.  A lot of people move up here from Mexico and bring their gang shit with ‘em.  Makes me sick.”  Yeah, gangs make me sick too, Ringo.

We talked a little more, mostly about general life stuff, and prepared to part ways as we took up our trash.  “Good luck, Tom, and stay safe,” Ringo told me as he shook my hand again.  I replied, “Thanks, man, and thanks for all the info on Glide.  Don’t take too much crap out there, okay?”  Ringo brandished his sign proudly, gave me a wink, and headed back to his preferred street corner, while I headed back up the street in the direction of my hotel.  Time to do some online research and then get a little firsthand experience tomorrow morning.

Peace and Blessings,

Tom