Notes from the Road - Day 19

2/17/04 9:30pm San Francisco, CA

I managed to get up early this morning, but my hopes for sunshine were quickly dashed. It wasn’t raining, but it looked like it might at any minute. I got breakfast at the hostel, then walked up the steep hill behind the building to get some good photos. I decided to make a walking day of it, since San Francisco is not a city friendly to cars. Parking is extremely limited, and it’s not cheap. In fact, I’m paying as much for the parking for two nights as I am for the room. At any rate, the hostel is centrally located so I went east to the docks, then followed them north and around to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. It was a good hike but well worth it. By the time lunch rolled around, my feet were getting pretty sore, but thankfully no blisters.

Pier 39 is kind of an open air mall with an aquarium and lots of California-themed shops, but the real attraction is the sea lions. As I walked up and down the wood steps, I thought I heard seals, but the sounds weren’t coming from the direction of the aquarium. Finally, I came around a bend to see a crowd of people gathered next to a railing. Out in the water, maybe a dozen wooden platforms floated in the harbor, apparently anchored between the piers, and on them rested about 100 sea lions, barking, crawling over one another, play-fighting, and sleeping. Some of them were arching their heads up into the sky like they were sunning themselves, even though the sky was completely overcast. On one raft, they were three deep until the one on the bottom started complaining and neatly slid out from under the others. On another raft, there was just one sea lion and some seagulls.

Several placards had been placed on a wall facing the action to explain things. They told how the animals started appearing after the 1989 earthquake, and their numbers have occasionally swollen to as many as a thousand. They’re all males, even though some have the “bumps”, or ridges, on their heads and some don’t. This is because they don’t develop until the sea lions are five years old. They feed on herring in the bay, and it’s thought that they don’t have to worry about predators there because sharks don’t like the fresher water, but not enough is really known to be sure. Apparently, most animals that are billed as “trained seals” are actually sea lions. Real seals have very small flippers and different ears, as well as different colored fur.

I ran across a couple street cars on my walk, but at first I thought they were all modern now, and the old ones must’ve been retired. It turns out the older ones are still in use for tours of the city, and I almost booked one until I saw they mostly just covered streets I’d already seen, and others near enough to the hostel I could walk to them. Instead, I got a ferry ride to Alcatraz Island.

You can see the island clearly from any of the docks, since it’s only 1.5 miles away from shore. It has a very eclectic history. In the 1800’s, it was established as a fort, and made up one of three gun concentrations for defending the city from the Confederates. They used military prisoners and others as labor to build the prison they were eventually housed in. In 1906, it was decommissioned and in the 1930’s the main cellblock building was opened. It operated into the 1960’s, but was never entirely full. It could have housed 360 inmates, but never had more than around 300 at one time. It was conceived of as a prison for the “incorrigible” inmates other prisons didn’t want. Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, and the so-called “Birdman of Alcatraz” all did time there. The Bird Doctor of Leavenworth, as he was actually called, never actually had any birds during his stay at Alcatraz, but he did get a college-level education from the 15,000-book prison library and became fluent in 3 languages. There were actually only a very few famous names on the list of inmates, and interestingly, it’s not known what cell Capone was even in, though they hazard a guess.

According to the tour, Alcatraz got a somewhat undeserved reputation for harshness to prisoners, when in fact they got three meals a day, a bed and toilet at all times, even solitary confinement, and as social norms changed in the 50’s and 60’s they could have musical instruments, jobs, and exercise in the yard. The first warden broke the rules and left the lights off for those in solitary, but subsequent wardens didn’t. The food was universally praised. When headset plugs were installed in the cells, the prisoners had two channels, music or sports.

Even with all that, it was no picnic. All mail in and out and visitation conversations were closely monitored and censored. The prisoners were not beaten or tortured, according to the tour, but the inmates could get no news of the outside world.

The cells were about 5’ by 9’, and the effect of the saltwater and howling wind was to quickly deteriorate the building and facilities, so after only a decade the place started falling apart. Part of the mystique came from the media blackout, under which the authorities refused to reveal any information about the prison to the public. There were 14 escape attempts, one resulting in a prison riot and the death of two guards, another which was possibly successful involving four inmates, three of whom were never recovered and are still listed as fugitives. The other one chickened out or intentionally turned back and bragged to authorities that he had been the mastermind behind it.

In 1969, a few years after the government shut the prison down, a group of Native American students occupied the island, drawing worldwide attention and thousands of people to their cause for 19 months. This event is now regarded as the beginning of the Native American civil rights and cultural reclamation movement, and amazingly never resulted in bloodshed.

Due to all the development over hundreds of years, the island now supports a wide array of bird and plant life it didn’t have to begin with, and is the sight of many field trips. The Boy Scouts even spend a weekend in the cells once a year. The prison facilities are in the middle of a $4 million structural renovation at the moment, but most of it is still open and the self-guided walking tour was very evocative and informative about life on “the Rock”. It started pouring shortly before it was time to board, and the wind was so strong it blew my umbrella inside out and almost knocked me down.

When I got back from that, I grabbed some pizza, talked to Carl a bit in the dining hall, then took in a showing of The Triplets of Belleville, preceded by an animated short film collaboration between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney. Both were excellent. Tomorrow, sunny L.A.!