Audio: (click arrow to listen) 1968 was the year Eldridge Cleaver published Soul on Ice. He and his wife Kathleen, who had the most immense head of hair I'd ever laid eyes on, banked at my teller window. It was the year of the Yippies, Black Panthers, and the SDS, the year Martin Luther King was … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2015
Sweeney’s Penny Candy
On Haight and Belvedere, tightly wedged between my father’s dime store and Superba Market, was Sweeney’s. The Sweeneys were a sweet, white-haired old couple who lived in the flat above their penny candy shop. Actually, now that I think about it, Mr. Sweeney was on the crusty side, a big man, balding … [Read more...]
A Confused Heart and a White Train
October 7, 1967 • San Francisco, California On a crisp October day, my father escorted me down the carpeted aisle of Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, our parish in the Sunset. I looked like a fairy princess, dressed in the white wedding dress my stepsister wore when she married. It fit me like … [Read more...]