My first job was at Dog 'n Suds, Sunnyslope's very own drive-in restaurant, dead center on the corner of Central Ave. and Dunlap.  The logo was Route 66ish art work showing a poodle dressed as a high-end carhop, complete with tux and bow tie. The beloved mascot was en route to a red Corvette, balancing a hot dog and frosty mug of  Dog 'n Suds root beer on his silver tray. 

I'm still unclear as to why a company would choose to depict a pooch serving up one of its own for an tasty snack—but hey, nobody at Dog 'n Suds has ever solicited my opinion, then nor now. 

Anyway, Dog 'n Suds was the worst place I'd ever worked—this being my first job and all.  The owners, Marie and Al, were the nastiest people on the face of the Earth, ready with a screamfest at any little thing you did "wrong."  

But then, I did so many things wrong.  

I soon found out it was nothing personal.  They even yelled at the customers.  If someone happened to venture through the "Employees Only" door,  Marie would scream, "Can't you read?  If the Health Department saw you coming through that door, they would close us down!"  

One day, a lady ordered a couple of hamburgers and an orange drink for her little girl.  I'd just put the orange drink on the counter and was waiting for the burgers to be dressed when the lady came up and said, "My little girl's so thirsty. Do you mind if I get her drink?"  Before I could answer, she already had the drink in her hot little fist and was on her way to her table.  

Then Marie said real loud and nasty-like, "Don't come behind the counter! If the Health Department saw you doing that, they would close us down!"  

Hmm.  Sense a reoccurring theme here? 

So then the lady says, real sarcastic like, "Well, sorry, but I actually possess a health certificate!"

"Well, it's not on my wall!" Marie screamed back.

Marie's entire life was motivated by not getting closed down by the Heath Department.  Which was curious, given the state of the French fry machine.  And the fact that Dog 'n Suds did, in fact, eventually got closed down by the Heath Department. 

Plus, Marie and Al were really cheap.  They taught us to fill the big frosty mugs right to the brim with ice and then pour in the Pepsi so it looked like the customer was getting a whole lot of soda when what they were really getting was a whole lot of ice.   Then they'd charge 15¢ for it.  

Except, get this.  One day, a customer asked me for a glass of water.  (Marie wouldn't give you water unless you ask for it.)  Well, I filled the mug right to the brim with ice like I was taught to do with the Pepsi.  And then Marie—aka "the old bag"—says to me, "You don't have to put that much ice in it. Just enough to cool the water."  

Unbelievable!  They were using ice to save on Pepsi.  And then using water to save on ice.  And don't go asking for an extra Ketchup or anything like that or you'll get your head chewed off. 
 

I worked seventeen hours every week for six months. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 5:00 to 10:30.  Every week, same schedule. Same seventeen hours.  Now you'd think I'd get paid the same, right? 

But, nooooo.  

Sometimes, I got $8, sometimes $7, sometimes $6. And nobody could tell me why.  When I asked Al, he'd just hand me some baloney about Social Security and how they'd explain it all to me when I got to be 65. 

I'm 16!  Seriously? I have to wait five decades to confirm that you're screwing me?????

Finally, I just couldn't take another day of it.  My friend, Josie, had quit a couple of weeks before and my other friend, Carole, would have quit too except she really needed the 35¢ an hour.  

When Josie gave two weeks notice, Marie and Al were even nastier to her than usual.  She worked the two weeks, then waited two more weeks for her paycheck since they paid us two weeks late.  And then when she came in to get it, Marie and Al told her they weren't paying her because she had dropped some stuff.  

I guess Marie and Al thought nobody would find out.  But Josie went to Sunnyslope so I found out. And Carole went to Sunnyslope too, so she also found out.  The three of us had a big pow-wow in the cafeteria, ironically over hot dogs of all things.  Right then and there, I decided, no way was what happened to Josie going to happen to me.  I'd already worked overtime one Sunday and never gotten paid for that.  Still, I knew that even if I quit that very day, Al and Marie would have gotten three free days out of me.  

Well, there was nothing I could do about that.  But at least I would  make sure they would get no more.

When I told Carole and Josie I was quitting, it went something like this. 

Me: I'm going to quit. 

Carole: Are you?

Josie: Good girl. 

Me: Should I quit today or tomorrow?

Carole: Quit tomorrow. 

Me: Shut up, Carole.  Josie, what do you think?

Josie: Quit today. 

Me: Josie, you are absolutely right. I'm so glad I asked. 

 
The next day, I was supposed to be at work at 5:00, but I decided to go to a movie instead.  But then Gidget Goes Hawaiian came on TV so I decided to stay home and just not answer the phone.  Right around 5:00, the telephone started ringing. Of course, it had to be the old bag, so of course I didn't answer.  And since I was home all alone, nobody else answered either.  

Then about 6:30, I couldn't stand it any longer. The phone had been ringing steadily the whole time.  I decided to run next door and ask my friend Julie to come over and answer and tell the old bag I wasn't there.  

Except Julie's house was on fire!  

Well, I ran and grabbed the garden hose and tried to put it out, as any good neighbor would do.  John from across the street tried to help me but his hose wouldn't reach, and by the time he got three hoses connected together, the fire department had showed up.  Julie's older brother, Teddy, had been burned pretty bad and he was rolling around on the lawn, trying to put himself out. 

It turned out Teddy was siphoning gas out of a loaner car because he didn't want to take it back with of fuel in it—gas being 22¢ a gallon and all—so instead, he set himself on fire.  Well, he didn't mean to, but note to self, never siphon gas out of a car too close to the pilot light of a clothes dryer.  Teddy got second degree burns on his arms and legs, and his face was so scarred, he never looked the same.  For weeks afterward, the poor guy cried whenever anyone touched him.  

I was initially in a whole lot of trouble because the old bag had called Mom at the office and chewed her out. Finally, Mom just hung up on her, a far more logical course than the one I had taken. 

Then, Mom tried calling me. When I wasn't home—a.k.a. not answering—she figured I just died or something.  
I really should have been in a whole lot of trouble for (a) quitting without proper notice, and (b) not answering the phone, but my ace in the hole was saving Teddy's life.  (Okay, not really but it sure sounds good.)  Not only was Teddy still among the living but the insurance company Dad worked for didn't have to make a colossal payout like they would have had to if Teddy and his house had burned down.  I was the closest thing to Block Hero for several years running.   
​
There's a lesson in here somewhere. I'm just not sure what it is. 

“WANNA DO IT?” asked The Quarterback.  We were parked out past Thunderbird Road, the lights of far-off Phoenix blazing across the floor of the empty desert.  To the east, whirling dust devils hopped across the barren landscape, touching down, popping back up and then splintering off into dust. The air was soft and warm and his biceps were bulging beneath his crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt.  

Well, this was going rather well, I thought.  A year ago, the popular senior/football captain/royal prom court hottie would never even have asked a sophomore nobody like me out.  I wasn’t sure what changed, but I wasn’t asking any questions.   A couple more of these romantic dinner-less dates and I'd officially become Girlfriend of the Quarterback: gateway to Prom Princess.  

The Quarterback pulled a bottle of Tequila from beneath the Mustang’s seat, yanked his tie around to release his thick brown, vein-popping throat and took a swig.  

 “Want some?” he asked, shaking the bottle to make sure there was enough for us both. 

 “No thanks. Not thirsty.” 

I couldn’t believe this was happening.  This was exactly what I was going for in life.  Excitement! Adventure! Romance! Okay, a series of romances, if truth be told.  Leading up to The One, my own true love, whom I'd finally marry—some day far off in the future when I was worn out from all the excitement and adventure and romances I intended to have in the meantime.   

The fact that my father let me go out with The Quarterback at all was a miracle right up there with Jesus walking on water.  And that’s because I was born a teetotaling virgin.  Okay, let’s face it, we all were.  The difference was I was expected to stay that way until the day I married the piano player at church—whoever that happened to be when I turned 21—and toasted my nuptials with sparkling cider along with my parents and 300 of their closest right-wing, fundamentalist, born-again Christian friends.  

“We doin’ it, or what?” asked The Quarterback, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief.   
    
“Huh?”  I’d almost forgotten him, I was so busy figuring out how to get my dad to let me marry him. 

“Well, toots?” 

And what is this “It” of which you speak?—I did not ask.  I knew it couldn’t possibly be The It because nobody in high school did That It. There must be some other It I didn’t know about.  Of course, I couldn’t admit I'd never heard of This Other It, what with The Quarterback being a sophisticated senior and all.  So instead, I asked, “I donno. Do you?”  

The Quarterback assured me he did. 

“So, you safe?" 

Yet another puzzling question.  I thought on this first of many dates, we might talk about football or something else I wasn't remotely interested in. But, nooooo.  Instead we were talking about something I had no idea what we were talking about.  And I was fairly certain it wasn’t about rats in my beehive because I was wearing my hair in a flip that night. 

Rattlers?  Scorpions? Gila monsters? Jackalopes? Nah, those weren’t even real.  

Flying saucers?  Okay, sure they were known to show up in remote locations such as Phoenix, Arizona, circa 1965.  But why didn’t The Quarterback just check the sky for himself?  What an odd fellow my future boyfriend was.  

Oh, duh!  The Hook Guy!  

The true story went like this:  There’s this couple out parking when they hear on the radio there’s a one-armed loony headed for Lover’s Lane.  The girl freaks out and wants to go home. The boy wants to stay and have an orgasm. The boy gets ticked off and peels out.  And then when he goes to let her out, there’s a bloody hook hanging from the door handle. 

Eeeekkkkk!!!!

I checked to make sure there were no hook guys about.  

“Clear!” I announced, gaily.  

Aside from a few more perplexing questions, The Quarterback wasn't much of a talker.  I was a little disappointed about no meal and no movie, but I figured this might even be better.  We’d’d have a little chat, maybe a bit of above-the-neck necking if we ran out of things to chat about--

“Anytime you wanna stop, we’ll stop.”  

“Huh?”

“C’mon, work with me here!  I'm meeting the guys behind Pedro's for a fight at ten.”  

“Anytime I wanna stop, we'll stop?”  

“That's the deal, Pussycat.”

Well, who could say no to that?  I figured I'd just wait around to see what the It turned out to be. Then I could yay or nay, depending.  Meanwhile, anytime I wanted to stop, we’d stop.  

That settled, The Quarterback took off his tie. 

Okay, that made some sense because it was a tad warm out here in the desert, after all. 

Then he took off his shirt.  

Okay, not THAT warm.   

Off came his shoes.  His socks.  

Meanwhile, what was I taking off?  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Not so much as an earring.  And my clip-ons were killing me.  
Then I heard it.  

Zzzzzzip!!!!!!!!!

“Stoooop!!!!!!!!!”


UNFORTUNATELY, The Quarterback out to be very anti-groovy about the whole stopping thing.  He peeled out faster than a couple with the Hook Guy hanging from the door handle.
   
The next day, I passed the quarterback in the breezeway. He pointed at me and started faux-yanking his ding-dong while his pals dissolved in laughter.  And that's how I found out The Quarterback was going around saying we’d done It. 

Yup, The Real It.  Because, as it turns out, there is no other It.

It took six weeks for me to formulate my revenge.   Back then, Fry’s Food Store employed cute high school boys to follow the ladies out and unload their groceries. The Quarterback was one of those guys.  One afternoon, I became one of those ladies.  When we reached my parents’ Rambler station wagon, I dropped the bombshell.  

“I’m pregnant.” 

Ka-boom!  The Quarterback looked like he’d been hit by a linebacker.  

“You can’t be,” he stammered. “I never touched you.”  

“Well, I know that, and you know that.  But there’s all those people—”   

In 1965, a good Catholic boy getting a girl pregnant meant one thing: a wedding where firearms were involved.  And although The Quarterback knew the baby couldn’t possibly be his, with DNA testing not yet invented, what’s a poor bag boy to do?  

Take back the bragging, is what.  Which was exactly what The Quarterback did.  And then, he spent the rest of the school year waiting for my water to break.  

Anarchists.  That’s what the San Francisco Chronicle called them.  Officially — if anything is official about a group that refuses to admit they have leaders.  In fact, they are a motley crew of bicyclists who gather at Justin Herman Plaza the last Friday of every month to muck up the traffic via a never-to-be-announced route. 

​The point is to protest the lack of bike routes, or the lack of bike riders, or some other oversight by society.  It’s hard to establish a point when you have no leader. 

As for me, I just like to ride a bike. 

I had tried to be an anarchists once before.  I got to the plaza at 6:05 and found the other anarchists had already fled the scene.  If there’s one thing I learned about anarchists that night, it was that they always leave on schedule. 

This night, the last Friday coincided with the opening of Pacific Bell Park.  A lady on a Miata was handing out maps of the route while a thousand people milled around, slowly peddling in circles, waiting to anarch.  Sloppily dressed environmental types.  Women without makeup.  Everybody but me in a snappy helmet.  Some joker had on a canary Harpo wig and another had dressed himself up like George Washington.

Six o’clock came and still we waited for instructions.  The second thing I learned about anarchists:  They need instructions. 

The route said we were to head up Market Street to Drumm to Washington to Sansome, then take the Embarcadero past Fisherman’s Wharf to Fort Mason, head back down Chestnut Street, south on Van Ness to Pacific, right to Scott, ending up at Alta Plaza Park for a “Party at the Playground.”

It turned out the map was for the cops. 

Market Street to Drumm to Washington  to Sansome went well.  Then, when a guy with a boom box peddled straight across Broadway, some anarchists behind him revolted and turned left, taking with him the rest of the group.  Up they went through the center of the North Beach strip joints toward the Broadway Tunnel. 

I waited with the boom-box guy but soon even he had to acknowledge the mutiny.  Reluctantly, we turned around and followed the thousands of slowly turning wheels through the traffic, pedestrians and tourists. 

Our group stopped for nothing.  Not cars.  Not cops.  We spit at red lights.  We whopped.  We hollered. I felt like I was in the Bolshevik Revolution.

In the Broadway Tunnel, now devoid of cars, I let out my first full-throttle scream. It was lost in the echo of the others.  Such power!  Fifteen across, bikes as far ahead as you could see and backed up all the way down to Battery.  I had no idea where we were going and I didn’t care.  I was a rebel without a cause, an anarchists without a map. 

We were within sight of the end of the tunnel when we got the first hint of trouble ahead.  We’d come to a standstill and the crowd got quiet and anxious.  One biker turned around and - in a panic, it seemed - raced back through us. 

Was it the cops?  Were they going to mow us  down?  Arrest us all?  More pictures of the Bolshevik Revolution danced through my head.  It wasn’t a particularly successful revolution, as I recalled. 

Should I flee with my cowardly comrade?  I hadn’t thought to bring along identification, only my ATM card.  Wold the paddy wagon make a stop at the Versateller on the way to the slammer?

It turned out there were no cops at all, just a bit of indecision on the part of our head mutineer.  Our non-leading leader lifted his bank over the median and zoomed back toward North Beach.  Like sheep, we all followed. 

More whooping.  More hollering.  There is nothing like a tunnel to bring out the whooping and hollering in you. 

“Pac Bell Park!: someone yelled.  “Yeah!  Pac Bell Park!”  One giant mass turned onto Columbus and coasted toward South of Market.  

The night was balmy, in the mid-70s.  Everyone was out, half of them headed toward Pac Bell Park.  Our group - which had moments before flown through the tunnel- was now hopelessly clogged in Columbus.  Cars attempted to cross at their green lights but we swarmed them, forcing them to a standstill.  

Obviously, they didn’t know the rules.  Our rules. 

At Second Street, a couple of anarchist-leader types pulled their bikes into the middle of Howard so that we could flow through without interruption.  This was the first time I saw any cops, as well as the first time I saw any of them take any action.  I sped through the red light, hopeful that I’d be lost in our numbers.  I left my leaders to pay the fines or scatter the wrong way down Howard to escape arrest. 

Anarchists, as it turns out, are not particularly loyal. 

Pac Bell loomed ahead in all its opening-night glory.  About a thousand of us dead-ended into 40,000 fans who were clamoring to get in.  Obviously, nobody had put much thought into what to do next.  Then somebody turned left and we all headed toward the Embarcadero.  

But after mucking up the biggest game in town, the serenity of the waterfront just wouldn’t do.  We turned around and meandered back toward Pac Bell.

Baseball sucks!” one of us shouted.

“You suck!” someone shouted back.

“Get a life!” another of theirs yelled.

“This is it…” I offered weakly.

We headed down King Street, twenty across and moving nicely at last.  But if you know the neighborhood like I do, you know there’s nowhere to go on King except up onto the freeway on-ramp.  Mercifully, four cops on motorcycles with blue lights blazing kept that bad idea from happening.  

But now the group was no longer whole but wandering around in lost little splinter groups.  One turned left and dead-ended on a lonesome road that ran parallel to China Basin canal.

Reluctantly, we turned back toward the ballpark.  Then, at Fourth Street, someone yelled to go right.  I had my doubts, but being a good little anarchist, I followed over the bridge toward Hunters Point.  When I saw that only about ten of us had been that stupid, I turned back to join the others.

I can’t say the Giants fans were cheerful about seeing us again.  Had they had baseballs, surely they would have thrown them at us.  Helmet-less and head down, I peddled past, keeping my whooping and hollering to a minimum.  

Onto the Embarcadero, sweet and warm and as wide open as Wyoming in late spring.  Before me, the Ferry Building’s clock tower rose luminous in the warm night sky.  It was 7:20 and I was still in shorts and a T-shirt.  An incredible San Francisco night that happens maybe five times a year.

By now, there were only about a hundred of us and not a leader in the group. Somebody pulled out a cell phone and got word that the main pack was headed up Market Street.  We should all turn around, it was determined.  Not me.  I was facing home and I kept going in that direction.  I left the others and continued solo.

Or so I thought. Behind me, about a dozen bicyclists continued along the Embarcadero, toward Pier 39 and beyond.  It was a while before I realized they were following me.  That they didn’t know I was going home and they thought I had come cosmic sense of where the route was supposed to be.

Eventually, I had no choice but to stop and shoo them away.  They had that sad look my dog used to get when he tried to follow me to school. 

So, was it worth it?  Well, if the point was to have fun while getting somewhere, then it had all the appropriate ingredients except that we didn’t actually get anywhere.  Except Pac Bell Park.  We went there three times.

Okay, I’ll admit it.  I’ve got a big crush on Lassie.  I wound’t want Annie to know, of course, because I really like going over to Annie’s house, getting slobber all over her and then rolling around in the dirt.  I wouldn’t want anything to interfere with that, but hey, I am a guy, after all.  Annie looks like that shaggy dog on TV, except she’s nowhere near as clean.  Annie’s a looker, all right, but let’s face it, she’s no Lassie. 
Anyway, speaking of TV, I was watching one morning and there was Lassie down at the Marina Green, with the sign above her that said, “Live.”  Even Mom got all excited and stopped one eyebrow short of a face to rush us both down to the place we saw on the television.
​
Lassie’s dad was talking to some guys with big cameras so we waited patiently for our turn.  I was on my best behavior, not even doing what Mom usually takes me to the Marina Green to do, even though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, and I don’t mind doing it, no matter who’s watching. 

    Anyway, Lassie was even more fetching than Annie, if that’s possible.  She was so clean and furry and perfectly formed, and right then I started slobbering, thinking about how much fun it would be to get Lassie all gooey and roll around in the dirt with her.  I hoped we wouldn’t end up on TV because then Annie would find out, but honestly, I swear I would have done it anyway and then told Annie I was framed or something.

“Beans,” said Mom, leaning down to talk to me all quiet-like.  “I want you to go over there and make nice with Lassie.  Then when everybody sees how cute you are, we’ll be off to Hollywood where you’ll become a big star and Mommy won’t have to work any more.”  Mom’s been on this kick since she got me from Animal Control.  The first time we met, I distinctively heard her say, “You’re my ticket out of this hell-hole.”
We were there quite a while because Lassie had to show off a lot. First, a bunch of the normal stuff and then jumping over her dad’s back while everybody clapped and clapped.  I jump over stuff all the time at home — sofa, chair, the cat — and nobody claps and claps.  I’m lucky if I don’t get the penny can thrown at me. 
​
Anyway, once Lassie finished, we went over to give her a get-acquainted sniff and before you could say, “Beans No!” (my full name), Lassie’s dad pushed her into his car, snarled something at Mom and gave me a funny look.  He didn’t look at all like he wanted to take us to Hollywood, even though there must have been a lot of room in that big black car with enough room for six doors.  
“What an ego,” muttered Mom, as they drove off, and to this day I don’t know if she was talking about Lassie or the dad.  Still, I got a good look at Lassie’s sniff spot when she jumped in the car and “she’s” not half the girl-dog Annie is, if you get my drift.