A rare breed is the San Francisco native. They rarely exist. They rarely leave. Seemingly everybody there is not from there. I am a perfect example of the 21st century San Franciscan. Born and raised in <a href="
New York, I never thought I would leave. Then at the age of 18, I got an enormous orange detour sign in the mail in the form of a large envelope. Red letters were found in the return address corner. The term detour could be a misnomer because I never got back on that NY-bound route.
That revised route led me as a young man to baseball and the broadcast booth for both my alma mater and a short-season A affiliate of a bay area big club. That was a true detour in and of itself because I returned to the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-90’s. There was another gold rush on and it had more to offer than ‘the booth’ was offering at the time.
The Bay Area is going through a serious transformation today. It held up despite the downturn in the economy at the end of last year and beginning of this, but signs may be emerging, as least according to a Forbes article titled ‘America’s Abandoned Cities‘ that the second Gold Rush is indeed over. Lower pay and fewer jobs mean more people are realizing that there is more to life than fog, sourdough bread, fog, steamed beer, views of the Golden Gate, and more fog.
Living On Tulsa Time
‘Beth’ left San Francisco’s Excelsior neighborhood six years ago. Home to oft-forgotten McLaren Park, the Excelsior is in the southeast corner of the city about 10 Willie Mays home runs due west of Candlestick.
She lived all over the City (as it’s known): North Beach (Joe DiMaggio’s old haunt – the Italian section), the Avenues (a perfect grid of numbered streets between the ocean and the park), and Hayes Valley (near the Painted Ladies and another seven Barry Bonds home runs from the corner from Haight/Ashbury).
However, when the rising tide of free money and skyrocketing home values hit San Francisco (read: when I bought a house) Beth decided she wanted to do the same thing. Against the advice and desire of her brother and sister she did indeed do the same thing. In Tulsa. OK?
Trampling Out The Vintage
Over the past three years states such as Nevada, Michigan, and Virginia launched major handbill-type advertising campaigns in California promoting cheaper land, lower taxes, and a better quality of life in an effort to tilt the country back to east and filter out some of California’s loose business sediment into their own bottles. To an extent is has worked, benefitting the bordering states more than more distant ones, but the attraction to California is still fairly magnetic.
For Beth, the City was worn out and cramped and a place like Tulsa, Oklahoma offered her more space, a slower pace, and a smidge more opportunity. Oklahoma did not heavily market there and she did not do extensive research on where to go. She “just picked” Tulsa.
While at the Drillers game I overheard her talking in the row behind me about the new ballpark being built for the team Tulsa. She was comparing the excitement of new digs to what San Francisco (the town and team) went through moving into AT&T Park. Drillers Stadium is past its prime within the Tulsa Sate Fairgrounds and many avoid it because of its location and condition. It is a great place to watch a baseball game as the stands sit above the sunken diamond for that “on top” feel. The corrugated metal flooring and wooden overhang roof allow for some pretty good stompin’ when the Drillers are rallying. But many of the people I talked to felt attendance was down because people are in anticipation mode. There’s no other way to explain it being 2/3 full on Kids’ Night (a Friday) for a first place team. Unless of course – ‘It’s the economy’, stupid.
Get Your Kicks
Beth sees the changes even hitting a place where the oil business has buoyed the town so much over the last few years. Working part time in the event planning/catering business she is looking for more to do. Business is coming her way, but it is difficult to predict because it is usually smaller in scope than it used to be and it is more spur-of-the-moment.
Other types of recreation are being impacted as well. She has seen a large spike to the positive at her regular Wednesday movie matinee. The empty theatres for the cheap showing now fill to 3/4 capacity and the demographic is younger. Our speculation led us to the same natural conclusion – those out of work were taking a break from blogging – but then again I was 15 years old the last time I paid $3 for a movie.
Beth does not go to many baseball games, but with the new stadium in place next season she and her neighbors will be there in full force. I asked her if she would ever re-join me as a neighbor in San Francisco – and although the lack of good food and warmth in the winter gets her down, there is enough to keep her there in Tulsa.
While I do not think it is fair to call Beth’s migration ‘reverse-Okie‘ to its core, there are certainly some elements to it. She is actually more like a ‘New Sooner‘. Oddly enough there were billboards in west-central Kansas offering free land for both residential and industrial/agricultural purposes. Some people this century are migrating. We are making a mistake if we ignore the echoes of The Depression.
Given where I am these days, I often wonder the same thing about San Francisco. That’s one of the reasons why I took this trip.
I don’t really know. It’s just stuff I’ve been thinking about.
In other news – The Arkansas Travelers sent 14 men to the plate T1 and scored nine times en route to a 12-4 victory over the Tulsa Drillers. A helicopter landed on the field during the pre-game ceremonies delivering a local news personality and one of the three first pitch baseballs.
View the video here.
Quote attributes: Grapes of Wrath, Battle Hymn of the Republic, Route 66, Jason Friedman/LSJUMB
THe KTUL News Chopper. No one was hurt in the filming of this footage.
