An Oscar in the Pawn Shop: The Mission as a Diamond in the Rough

The Oscar in the Pawn Shop: The Mission as a Diamond in the Rough

            Mission Jewelry, a shop located on 19^th and Mission Street under an obnoxious bright green banner, is full of stories. The store is cramped, the aisles narrow and crammed with curios that range from diamond rings, to handcuffs, to dusty children’s toys that look up at shoppers dolefully through painted plastic eyes. Overhead hang a multitude of musical instruments, chiefly guitars of all shapes and sizes. Tiny ones made for children hang next to gleaming electric ones that are parti-colored and sparkly and those hang next to a roughed up acoustic guitar with Willie Nelson’s signature scrawled on it in permanent marker.

There are such a huge variety of little treasures in this hoard that it is not an enormous stretch of the imagination to believe the shop once housed and Academy award.

Pawnbroker, Scott Schlesinger, is eager to tell that story and the countless others that lie hidden in the shop’s artifacts. Schlesinger, from his spot behind the glass counter says with pretend non-chalance “we’ve had some very interesting things pawned over the years,” then he almost mumbles “like an academy award.” Upon seeing the excited gleam in the listener’s eye, Schlesinger can’t help but smile back before launching into his story.

The Oscar in question belonged to author, William Saroyan, who won the statuette in 1944 for his original story, The Human Comedy. According to Schlesinger, some time in the late 80’s, a few years after Saroyan’s death, a family friend brought the Oscar to the shop.

Schlesinger assumed that the Oscar was being brought into the shop because
“the people taking care of him (Saroyan) were owed money.” “ They brought it in and took a loan against it,” says Schlesinger who is careful to add, “ they didn’t even try to sell it, they just wanted a loan.” After writing a loan on the Oscar the people never came back to claim it.

Schlesinger and the other employees at the time dealt with the situation with the sense of humor necessary to comprehend that someone could leave such precious memorabilia in a grungy pawnshop in the Mission. “We put it in the window and put a little note on it that said ‘would original owner please redeem.”

This handwritten sign caught the attention of journalist and other media and was written and talked about all over town. Eventually “everyone in the world” came from all over to look at the little pawnshop that housed the big award. Finally the shop owners, relatives of Schlesinger, donated the Oscar to a museum in the author’s hometown of Salinas. Schlesinger chuckles slightly at the retelling of this story saying that it’s stories like that that reaffirm his belief that everyone “ from the rich to the poor, from the famous to the infamous” has been in this pawnshop.

Schlesinger himself has been at Mission Jewelry since its opening in 1972. He says he’s worked there for forty years, barring a hiatus when he went out after high school to pursue other jobs in other states including one he calls “the offer you can’t refuse” , a detail he never revisits even when pressed. As someone who has been in the same shop in the same neighborhood for so long, Schlesinger has an acute impression of how the Mission has changed over time.

The self-described “grocer’s son” says that he’s been able to see the affects of gentrification on this neighborhood. “The corner grocery stores we used to go to are disappearing,” he says shaking his head. Still Schlesinger and Mission Jewelry have managed to undercut big companies and carve out a niche in the Mission.

That niche is music. After realizing that though the Mission was home to many artists and aspiring artists there was no music store nearby Schlesinger started stocking the shop with instruments and accessories. The community thus far seems to appreciate it. One Yelp.com reviewer had this to say about how Mission Jewelry stacks up against its competition, “Would I prefer to have a full-service instrument store closer to the hood? I would, but a lot of those holes get filled here at this place. Not only is it one of the few independent, family-owned pawn shops left in SF, but over the years I’ve gotten some great bargains on vintage equipment here.” His review goes on to employ the nickname “Retard Center” to describe the big name competitor to the tiny music store.

“It’s sad that music is being cut out of schools,” Schlesinger remarks, returning to the interview after a brief intermission wherein he had to help a customer fix an amp so that it wouldn’t blare loudly through the whole store. “That’s why I love it when people come here to buy their first instrument.” He says he’s had more than one instance “where the mom will come in and buy a little starter guitar and years later she’ll come and tell me her son plays in a band, or teaches music, or plays for the church,” he grins “It’s great, man.”

One such newcomer is Victor Anaya who comes to the store at least once a month to buy strings for his guitar. The push for music intensified for Anaya two months ago in response to “a broken heart” which inspired him to play guitar “straight for two months.” Anaya calls the music he’s been making “the only thing that fulfills me.” As soon as Anaya walks into the shop he is greeted by Schlesinger and the other employees, one of whom claps him on the back and asks how he’s been enjoying a film camera he recently purchased from the store. “I love the store, it’s so crowded,” Anaya says, hefting his guitar case farther up his shoulder to make room for an employee to squeeze behind him.

As crammed as it is with objects the shop is also crammed with sound. In a corner, Amin Wisner bangs out Nirvana’s  “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” on a white electric guitar. The sound reverberates loudly through the store and Schlesinger is sent over to the corner by his boss to ask Wiser to tone it down. Wisner, who was testing out the guitar he hopes to buy for his birthday leaves the shop in a bad mood.  The self proclaimed multimedia artist and resident of the Outer Mission says that though he loves the shop’s huge selection of instruments,” That was an asshole move.”

Still, Wisner also appreciates the store’s thrust against gentrification. In regards to the shop’s big competition Wisner says slyly “ I only ever steal from Guitar Center. I can’t stand when ultimate capitalism takes over mom and pop stores like this where everyone gets a piece of the pie.”  The gentrification of the Mission, has “a couple angles” according to Wisner, a recent transplant to the neighborhood after living downtown for several years. On the one hand gentrification can bring “a lot of opportunities for not for profits, and it clears up some of the drug stuff.” “At the same time,” he adds, “It’s sometimes way too hard for an artist to get by in. Plus there’s a whole new attitude that comes with these kind of things.”

The shop stays resolute, even on slow afternoons where Schlesinger says, “there’s more inspiration than sales here.” Among the stores other hidden treasures is a prosthetic arm and leg towards the back of the shop. Schlesinger explains that these artifacts came to the shop separately. The arm belonged to a customer who would “take it off every time he came in to make a deal.” According to Schlesinger, one day the man left without it. Schlesinger and his staff spent days trying to track the man down only to see him on the street a few days later with a replacement arm. Schlesinger says that years later the man’s wife returned to the shop and gave them a prosthetic leg, “ she wanted us to be able to say we cost someone an arm and a leg,” Schlesinger chuckles.

Squinting through a loupe at a somewhat tarnished silvery platter, Schlesinger explains that often times customers find unexpectedly valuable things in the shop. “Once it was a real Cartier ring in there, we almost missed it,” he says “ there are things of real value here.”

The same could be said of the Mission itself. The neighborhood bears a lot of similarities to the tiny pawnshop. Both are crammed with many different things, murals, dogs, burritos, and haute cuisine. Everybody comes there, children, musicians, mothers, the occasional sex worker; all of them leave their mark on the neighborhood. Though like the shop the Mission can look somewhat shabby on the outside, inside it houses people who create and live and thrive.

There are things of real value here.

Mission Possible

Even having lived in San Francisco for two years, I feel like I never really saw it until this year.

I’ve always compared my relationship to the city to a love affair, as cheesy as it sounds. When we met I saw all the pretty bits, the famous bits. I saw the wharf, the bridge, Union square, I was infatuated. The next year  I saw the lesser known bits, the Castro, parts of the Excelsior, my beloved Dolores Park and our relationship grew.

This year, I met the parents. I learned about my city’s history with racism ( thanks Professor Azocar!) and about it’s other history. I learned that even within my beautiful city, bad things were happening. Things like prostitution and robberies and houses so expensive everyone had to kow tow to the boss.

But finding the Mission made it all worth it.

I remember going to the Mission my sophomore year. It was night time at 16th and Mission Bart stop. I was on my way to a play in a tiny theatre on Capp st. Being a product of suburban upbringing where the closest we ever got to a homeless person was Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street re-runs, I was scared shitless. I remember clutching my purse, keeping my eyes on the pavement, and hoping to god I wasn’t about to be the intro to a CSI episode.

Now I walk the streets with my eyes wide open and my head on a swivel. I lean in doorways and talk to buskers, requesting songs. I smile at people and look them in the eyes. If a guy cat calls me, I walk over and introduce myself. I drink beer and play games and give fist bumps to dudes at Dolores Park. I joke with taqueria workers, telling them to pile on the onions because I don’t have a novio. I give tourists directions.

 

In short, once I was encouraged to look, I saw.

Ralph Waldo Emmerson once called himself a “transparent eyeball” that could absorb the nature around him.

He was talking about trees and babbling brooks and wild things.

I hope to be that for painted alleys,sparkling streets, and air that smells like carnitas.

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Prostitution on Capp Street: A Community Discusses

A mother pushes her stroller down the Capp Street corridor, stopping every now and then to shake off the used condoms that become lodged in the wheels. A precocious child points and laughs down at the litter, wondering aloud where all the “balloons” came from.

A resurgence of prostitution on Capp Street, first reported on MissionLoc@l .com on Apr. 18, has made some Mission residents consider the street unlivable and has sparked a heated discussion within the community.

“I’ve lived here for 45 years,” says Monique Moro, “and this is the first time I’ve ever wanted to leave.”

Moro lives on Capp and 20^th.  The noise of prostitutes and their clients outside her apartment window wakes her up repeatedly in the wee hours of the night and early morning. “They’re always there, even when it’s raining,” she said “I guess they’re good employees!”

Greg Dicum, a 12 year resident of Capp Street who organized over 200 community members to write a letter to the police captain to be read at the monthly community meeting, thinks the solutions lies in having a uniformed officer constantly patrolling the area. “You could even use a scarecrow, we just need something,” Dicum jokes.

Moro concurs. “As soon as they hear the police coming, I hear them (the sex workers) clopping away on their high heels.”

Mission Station police captain, Robert Moser who fielded concerns of Capp Street residents and activists during a community meeting held April 23^rd, says he understands the effect the presence of prostitutes is having on the neighborhood. Unfortunately, there isn’t much he can do. “We’re losing personnel,” he says “we’re having to do more with less people.”

According to a recent San Francisco Examiner article, The San Francisco Police Department’s budget has been cut 10-20 percent and officers have “to sacrifice $14.5 million in pay raises.”

“We’re having to be creative in our solutions,”explains Moser who also says that the police rely on citizen’s reporting of crimes in lieu of an officer constantly stationed on the corridor.

Moser is also quick to point out that there have been 80 arrests of sex workers on Capp Street and The Mission as a whole within the past months. “I want to double that,” he says.

Stephany Ashley, a 6-year resident of Capp Street, wonders if arresting the sex workers is the cure-all the neighborhood needs. As an employee of St. James Infirmary, a public health care clinic that specializes in providing care for sex workers in The Mission, Ashley believes that the solution lies in “advocating sex worker’s rights.”

She advocates forming a better relationship between sex workers and police, even to the point of offering amnesty. She says that more often than not, sex workers are afraid to report violent crimes such as rape and assault to law enforcement. “It creates barriers within reporting.”

“Victims are treated like victims,” Moser says, going on to say that he and his squad are careful to always take reported crimes seriously, no matter who reported them. One community member confronted him by saying that she didn’t think all officers felt this way and that some do not consider the problems of sex workers to be worth investigating. “The most I can do,” Moser countered, “Is be responsible for my own actions.”

Citizens are concerned that the presence of sex workers and their clients in the neighborhood will lead to other crimes. “Violent people target hookers,” says Ashley who along with other residents voiced concern that violent crimes would increase in correlation with the resurgence of sex workers on the street. According to Moser, violent crimes in The Mission as a whole are down 70%.

Starchild, a sex worker and self proclaimed “community disorganizer”, thinks that the problems in the neighborhood could be solved by reaching out to the sex workers themselves. “If the neighbors had a non-confrontational approach, maybe putting up signs asking for a little less noise, they’d probably get a good response,” he says. “Hospitality is an old principle I know,” he says but insists that if the neighbors give respect, the sex workers will respond in kind. Starchild even went so far as to hand Moro his business card, offering to follow her home and start a dialogue with the sex workers outside her apartment.

“There are no street workers here tonight,” Starchild says. Chuckling, he adds “maybe because we’re in a police station.”

Starchild himself does not work on Capp Street but rather does “indoor work,” at another location.  To him, removing the stigma of sex work, as well as legalizing and regulating prostitution, are important next steps for the city. He also encourages community members to not be so quick to stereotype sex workers. In his experience he has found some of them to be “ really wonderful, sweet, people.”

By way of concluding a community meeting that went well over its scheduled end time, Moser says that prostitution “is a global problem and it’s not something we solve here today.”

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A neighborhood in Progress

This gallery contains 7 photos.

Secret Studios and Duality in The Mission

( Hey guys, I decided to go a different direction with my profile. This post contains content that was in my previous post “Secret Muses of The Mission” with a lot of content added. Enjoy!)

Secrets Within: New Gallery Open in The Mission

            The duality of Secret Studios starts with the logo.

At first it appears to be just a pair of S-es facing each other, printed in austere black ink. But a closer second glance reveals hidden surprises. Scrupulous viewers can see a heart where the two letters meet and those with eyes specially trained to scout out cuteness can see the nose and smiling mouth of a kitten. “For all those reasons, we stuck with it,” explains co-founder Stella Ortega at the studio’s first exhibition this February.

Secret Studios, the brainchild of two local artists, is demure from the outside. Its white paneled storefront is easy to miss, barely a blip compared to the color soaked streets of the Mission. It gives very little clues about the secrets inside .Yet through the large front window a glimpse of dramatic black tiles, just a glimpse, peeks out like the flash of a garter under a skirt.

It’s furtive yet enticing.

The dramatic whiteness of the interior particularly struck co-founder, Stella Ortega. “I can’t really picture these walls sitting here without art on them,” she says.

Secret Twins

            It is only fitting given the binary nature of the studio itself that one of the first art pieces to grace those walls were portraits in and exhibit called “Secret Twinism.”

The exhibit featured portraits of a single woman reflected twice, one reflection representing the good twin one representing the bad/secret twin.  Ortega and co-founder Marina Hudgens shot the photos themselves and see them as a way of representing the duality of the city they live in.

“Most people don’t know this, but San Francisco is a Gemini,” says Hudgens to visitors of the studio, grinning as she fills her paper cup with celebratory white wine. “It has twin bridges, and a very flirty, outgoing, eccentric, personality.” she explains, “It really resonated with me.”

Ortega and Hudgens brought their inspiration to The Mission when they founded Secret Studios in October 2011.

“Our plan is to have monthly, maybe quarterly shows,” says Ortega. “This is what we do for fun,” adds Hudgens “to get our creative spirit out.”

Secret Muses

By night Secret Studios is a vibrant, fledgling art gallery. By day Ortega and Hudgens use the space to specialize in Boudoir Photography. This is what Ortega refers to as the studio’s “bread and butter.”

“It’s intimate portraiture,” explains Hudgens. She goes on to explain that women from the community come to the studio to have their pictures taken. But these portraits are a far cry from the stiff, posed, ones usually taken at department stores.  The goal of Boudoir photography, as described by the Secret Studios website, is “creating a space in which one can explore intimacy with the self while feeling relaxed and beautiful and essential”.

The portraits are sensuous. All of them include women, made voluptuous by lighting and sumptuous backgrounds of silky beds and frothy curtains.

Most of the women are clad in lingerie. Some face the cameras in a head on “come hither,” while others look down demurely.

“We have a formula,” says Ortega. “We have studied and practice poses that are flattering for all women or men for that matter. We use a lot of light and positive reinforcement to keep our clients feeling confident.”

After being struck first by the beauty of these portraits the viewer is struck by the realness of the women they depict. The women are not chiseled by airbrush; they have freckles, and dimples on their legs, and moles. They are women easily recognizable from the streets of the neighborhood and their relatability is not ignored but cherished.

One such cherished woman is Lea Camille. The 39-year-old aspiring chef went into Secret Studios this February to have portraits taken to celebrate her upcoming milestone birthday. She says she wanted to remember, “How I looked before the big 4-0!”

“I was a nervous wreck!” says Camille of her feelings before the shoot. “I had planned on being heavily medicated!” She admits in hindsight that she would have liked to have smoked a joint to calm down.

Her pre-shoot jitters are utterly lost on anyone who looks at the photographs from that day which depicts her smiling coquettishly in a black and white frilly apron and thigh high striped stockings, lounging among bright yellow lemons.

“I never felt so pretty, glamorous, or sensual,” Camille says. “I trusted them (Hudgens and Ortega) and in that trust I think I look at ease.”

Camille is not the only woman to be let in on the secret of the photographers at the studio. Their profile on Yelp.com in inundated by women from the community of The Mission and beyond who were made to feel beautiful inside it’s walls.

“I was seven months pregnant at the time and they made me feel and look like a fashion model,” a reviewer called Juniper E. says.

“It’s our way of staying in touch with the community,” explains Ortega who views it as the studio’s duty to share its beautiful space with the people around it.

The pair agrees that the Mission is ideal for art and artists. “Cheap rent and accessibility helps,” says Hudgens. “It’s the Greenwich Village of San Francisco,” she continues, “it’s very fresh and new. Artists can have spaces and make new art here.”

The studio plans to host their next art show on April 15 with help from Mission Open Studios.

In the meantime, the secrets of Secret Studios are safe with The Mission.

“There is so many amazing styles and unique shops that we get utilize as though it was our own wardrobe the size of The Mission,”says Ortega

“It’s an up-and-coming neighborhood,” Hudgens says “I’m really excited about The Mission.”

Hidden Muses In The Mission :New Art Studio Transforms Women In Mission Neighborhood

Inside a small white studio on Folsom Street, ordinary women are transformed into art.

Secret Studios, the brainchild of two local artists, is demure from the outside. It’s white paneled store front is easy to miss, barely a blip compared to the color soaked streets of the Mission. Yet through the large front window a glimpse of dramatic black tiles, just a glimpse peeks out, like the flash of a garter under a skirt. It’s furtive yet enticing.

The dramatic whiteness of the interior particularly struck co- founder, Stella Ortega. “I can’t really picture these walls sitting here without art on them,” she says.

Ortega and Marina Hudgens, partners in business and in art opened the gallery this October. Though they envision it as a gallery where local artists like themselves can showcase their art, the pair mostly use the space as a backdrop for their specialty: Boudoir photography.

“It’s intimate portraiture,” explains Hudgens. She goes on to explain that women from the community come to the studio to have their pictures taken. But these portraits are a far cry from the stiff, posed, ones usually taken at department stores.  The goal of Boudoir photography, as described by the Secret Studios website, is “creating a space in which one can explore intimacy with the self while feeling relaxed and beautiful and essential”.

The portraits are sensuous. All of them include women, made voluptuous by lighting and sumptuous backgrounds of silky beds and frothy curtains.

Most of the women are clad in lingerie. Some face the cameras in a head on “come hither,” while others look down demurely.

After being struck first by the beauty of these portraits the viewer is struck by the realness of the women they depict. The women are not chiseled by airbrush; they have freckles, and dimples on their legs, and moles. They are women easily recognizable from the streets of the neighborhood and their relatability is not ignored but cherished.

One such cherished woman is Lea Camille. The 39-year-old aspiring chef went into Secret Studios this February to have portraits taken to celebrate her upcoming milestone birthday. She says she wanted to remember, “How I looked before the big 4-0!”

“I was a nervous wreck!” says Camille of her feelings before the shoot. “I had planned on being heavily medicated!” She admits in hindsight that she would have liked to have smoked a joint to calm down.

Her pre-shoot jitters are utterly lost on anyone who looks at the photographs from that day which depicts her smiling coquettishly in a black and white frilly apron and thigh high striped stockings, lounging among bright yellow lemons.

“I never felt so pretty, glamourous, or sensual,” Camille says. “I trusted them (Hudgens and Ortega) and in that trust I think I look at ease.”

Miss Connie’s Last Stand

Miss Connie’s Last Stand

The monthly meeting of the Mission Police station is in full swing. Twenty residents, ranging vastly in age, volume, and number of pre-meeting cookies consumed, pose their questions and concerns to police captain, Robert Moser.

One voice breaks the buzz as a middle-aged woman with dark hair and a thick east coast accent berates Moser for the problem of homelessness. “I don’t understand why you don’t just drive a paddy wagon down the street and throw them in the back!” she screetches, pointing a finger to emphasize her point.

In the very last row, perched atop a folding stool, Connie Ramirez Weber leans over to the person sitting next to her. “I hate when she does that,” she whispers conspiratorially, adding” She drives me crazy every meeting.”

Weber, 91, has some context behind her commentary. She’s been to every community meeting in The Mission since she moved to the neighborhood from North Beach in 1931. “I think I’ve just about met every captain,” she says leaning heavily on the umbrella she uses for a cane. She pulls back her raincoat sleeve to reveal a watch with the SFPD logo on it’s face, “One of the officers gave this to me a few years back,” she says proudly.

After more than a decade of largely uninterrupted meeting attendance, Weber says that this meeting, February 27, will be her last. Though she says an officer usually drives home from the meetings, the commute on foot from her apartment on Shotwell Avenue has gotten to be too much in her old age. “I hope somebody takes over when I quit,” she chuckles.

The officers on the beat take notice of Weber; officer Matthew Friedman calls her “A great person who has a lot of history living in The Mission District”.

“It was so nice, this Mission,” Weber reminisces, thinking of her first impression of the neighborhood. She moved to the Mission with her family during World War two, and later worked for Mission High School doing security work for 18 years. Weber has seen the ebb and flow of the neighborhood’s population over time.

“After the war it started going down, then it started picking up, and now there are a lot of young people,” she says.

She also speaks to the problem of crime in the neighborhood. The neighborhood she says has “gotten a little better about guns, I guess they moved somewhere else!”

This is ironic considering the stabbing that occurred on Julian Street a few blocks away from Shot well, a subject discussed at length at the meeting.

Still Weber says in spite of the “troubling” crimes she loves The Mission and San Francisco. Though this will likely be her last appearance at the community meeting she still plans to “watch carefully over the block.”

My favorite website!

I’ll admit it right here in front of everyone.

I haven’t been to my neighborhood in a week.

I usually go every friday, I don’t have school that day and don’t have to go to work until five. That is usually just enough time to  squeeze in a decent adventure.

This friday it was all I could do to squeeze in a shower and wipe the goop from my eyes because I was studying for midterms and just generally running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

Not cute, not cute at all.

So I took a week off from the Mission, and I’m already feeling it. I miss the sights, the sounds, and mostly the food here in my tiny gray apartment where the most delicious thing is a stale girl scout cookie I found in the back of my freezer.

So when planning my reentry to the Mission this friday I turned to my favorite website,  http://sf.funcheap.com/

I’ve been using this little beauty since freshman year, when I was more broke than I am today.

It is the best online resource for the fun little oddities that can be found in every nook and cranny of this city.

The last good event in my neighborhood that I found on this site was a gallery opening at Secret Studios. The photographs were interesting, the people were chatty, and the wine was free!

Check out your neighborhood on this website and I promise you’ll find something fun!

Talking to strangers in Dolores Park

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If San Francisco is the city I’m in love with, Dolores Park is a cute little freckle on its tush. In other words, it’s my ever-endearing favorite part.

I discovered this freckle a little later into my love affair with the city, after I had seen the things that everyone sees, the Wharf, the Bridge, Downtown (which sounds inexcusably dirty given this extended metaphor).

I first wandered to Dolores Park a year ago in the spring. From the second my mermaid beach towel hit the grass, the sound of drums, and dogs, and baby giggles hit my ears and I knew that I was onto something special.

The park was my reason for covering The Mission. It’s my favorites spot. I love the sheer variety of people you can see there. I love the babies, and the puppies, and the music.

Dolores Park remind me of what reporting is all about, people! A few weeks ago I went there on a reporting trip. I was pretty bummed because I had been a few places in the neighborhood without plucking up the nerve to talk to anyone. I felt engulfed in shyness and thought maybe I could salvage the rest of the day by sitting alone and reading my book in the grass.

But instead of settling, I wandered. I walked with my head up and on a swivel, eyes wide, looking as if I was trying to see everything. I must have had a touristy look, rather than the wide eyed ethereal teen novel heroine I was going for, because as I passed a group of people one guy called out”, Are you French?”

I pivoted to look at him.

He was in his late twenties, stubbly, with a backwards baseball cap on his head and a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon in his hand.

“No,” I said, a bit startled.

“Oh, I just thought, because you were looking around so much.”

Then my smart Alec side got the better than me and I said,” Just kidding I am French!”

His eyes lit up and he smacked his nearest friend. “I thought so!”

“Oui j’suit la jon vie,” I babbled extending a hand.

After a bit I revealed that I was full of shit and we had a good laugh over it.

Then these complete strangers offered me a beer and a game of washers.

Girls are always taught not to speak to strange men, we’re taught that even eye contact can sometimes be a very clear “ please molest me!” signal and is best avoided.

Yet here I was swilling cold beer and sharing congratulatory fist bumps with a group of 4 strangers. And absolutely loving it.

Washers, in case you’re interested is a very fun game. It involves two wooden frames with a cup in the middle of each. Teams of two stand facing each other and try to throw heavy washers into the opposite box. There are certain points you can get for making the washer either in the box or in the cup.

I had a great afternoon and though one of the guys told me I was “ super cute” we parted ways with a mere hug. No pushy asking for phone number, no lingering touches or leers. Just a simple embrace and a beer for the road.

It got me thinking about how we treat each other. We walk through life with a destination in mind, looking ahead but never around, looking down but never up at other people.

I’m not saying we should run to dark corners and seek out new friends in the dead of night, but a little more talking to strangers might just do us some good.

Lurking in Alleys

So many people in our class keep asking ” how do I find people to talk to? How can I find people to interview? Why is Molly so damn attractive all the time?”

Now there are good solid answers to all of those questions,” go to community meetings, Talk to police officers, she drinks the tears of virgins daily,” but none of those solid answers are how I got most of my interviews on my last trip.

I chose instead to lurk in an alley and ambush passersby.

Whenever I go out to report I always have a full hour of just wandering around timidly. To be fair my neighborhood is intimidating. As a 18 year resident of a sleepy suburb where the only homeless people I knew were were Harpo Marx characters, the Mission is a whole new world. I become a sort of city transcendentalist, a transparent eyeball, soaking up the surroundings.

Also I’m super shy.

Reporting so goes against everything girls are taught growing up,” Don’t talk to strangers, Don’t bother people, Blogging is the devil’s newspaper.” It’s hard to go against that kind of teaching.

So I lurked in an alley.

While walking past