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From: "Linda Emerson" <>
Subject: Re: [CASANFRA] Native San Franciscan
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 22:01:29 -0700
In-Reply-To: <mailman.122.1160189999.28660.casanfra@rootsweb.com>


Boy... you all missed the most important location of all... "down" the
Peninsula! I always find myself feeling very out of place with my Silicon
Valley associates when I say this but then, of course, none of them can
believe the story about the canneries there so what the heck?

Linda

-----Original Message-----
From: [mailto:]
On Behalf Of
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 7:00 PM
To:
Subject: CASANFRA Digest, Vol 1, Issue 50



Visit SFGenealogy.com!
http://www.sfgenealogy.com

Today's Topics:

1. Re: Native San Franciscan............ (Nancy Crowley)
2. Re: Native San Franciscan............ (Pat)
3. Re: Native San Franciscan............ (James R. Smith)
4. Re: Native San Franciscan............ (Judy Hitzeman)
5. Re: Native San Franciscan............ (Donna Madrid)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 08:13:04 -0700 (PDT)
From: Nancy Crowley <>
Subject: Re: [CASANFRA] Native San Franciscan............
To:
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

I loved this! But I went to St. Rose and she overlooked my alma mater. I
like to joke about my dear late father (a second generation native, graduate
of Star of the Sea, SI and USF) who in the second half of his life, worked
in the travel business. He and my mother went to Europe often, mostly
because my mother loved Paris. However, in my father's words, Paris was no
San Francisco, Lake Tahoe was better than Lake Como and he preferred Lake
Merced to the Three Rings of Kerry.

"James R. Smith" <> wrote: Just received this from my
sister. Thought a few might enjoy it.

Pass the French bread,
Jim

FOR ALL FRIENDS RAISED IN THE CITY

If you have spent any time in bookstores lately, you might have noticed that
there are books on San Francisco's past, present, and future; books that
tell you where to eat, where to drink, where to drive, where to take a bus,
where to stay, what to look at, and even how to cook in the San Francisco
style, whatever that is. But no book tells you how to act like a native San
Franciscan, because it is widely assumed that the breed, if it ever existed,
is extinct.

One book, "San Francisco Free and Easy," subtitled "The Native's Guide
Book," says on the first page, "San Franciscans are notorious newcomers.
You'll find few people here with the sort of roots common to East Coast
cities". Another, written by a carpetbagger named John K. Bailey, is
called "The San Francisco Insider's Guide." It begins, "On! my first visit
to San Francisco, 15 years ago...." Fifteen years ago? I know a cat who's
lived in San Francisco longer than that!

A terrible thing has happened to native San Franciscans. They have become
strangers in their own city. Their whole culture is in danger of being
swallowed up by foreigners from New York, Ohio, New Hampshire, Denver, and
other places Back East -- not to mention Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, the
Philippines, Russia, India, and Mexico. These newcomers all assume everyone
else is a newcomer.

The first thing to go is the language. Despite everything you've ever heard,
there IS a distinctive San Francisco way of talking and it is important to
make note of it, for the record, before it becomes as dead as the Latin they
teach at S.I. Here's how to talk like a San Franciscan.

The first lesson - learned at birth - is never to call it "Frisco" or
"San FRANcisco." Most resident tourists have settled on something that
sounds like an Anglicized version of the Spanish San Francisco, but natives
run the two words together, and it comes out "Sanfrencisco." It may also be
called "thecity," which is one word. It is never called "the city," which
is two words and tacky.

Another way to tell true, native San Franciscans is that all native San
Franciscans know something about other native San Franciscans. This cannot
be faked. The first test comes when a native San Franciscan is introduced
to someone he does not know at a party. Sooner or later, one will ask the
other where he or she is from.

The correct dialogue goes like this:


Q: Whereya from?

A: Here.

Q: Oh yeah? Whereja go to school?

A: S.H.

Q: Oh yeah? D'ya know (fill in name of acquaintance)?

At once, the two people realize they are both natives and doubtless have
friends, experiences, and a whole subculture in common.

There are several keys to this small bit of conversation. First, as I've
already mentioned, the true native runs all the words together. He never
says, "Where are you from?" because that is the way they talk Back
East (which is anything East of Denver.) When he asks where you went
to school, he means high school - not college, not trade school, and
certainly not P.S. 178. The correct answer is one of several San Francisco
high schools. "S.H.," of course, means Sacred Heart High School (now known
as Sacred Heart Cathedral), which not only reveals your high school but
often what district of the city you came from, and other details.

If, for example, the answer is "S.I." you know the guy went to St.
Ignatius High School (or College Preparatory, if after 1969) and was
probably raised a Catholic and is from an upper-middle-class family.

If the answer is "Riordan," you know the guy went to the superior Catholic
"boys-only" school, and is from a family that is not only hard-working and
intelligent, but which also has the finest blend of personality and sense of
humor of all the Catholic institutions.

If the person says "Poly," they probably grew up in the shadow of Kezar
Stadium in Golden Gate Park -- the site of many memorable high school
football games, or in the Haight-Ashbury.

If the response is "Mission" or "Bal" (for Balboa High), you know he is from
the Mission District, and his father was probably a member of the working
class, called "a workinman" in the San Francisco dialect.

If the response is "High on the Hill" you knew they came from the Sunset,
Woods or Richmond and went to Lincoln, the only important thing was winning
"The Bell" game from their cross town rivals, Washington.
They knew were "the Pits" and "the Circle" were.

If he went to Galileo, he is probably a North Beach Italian, and not a
Mission District Italian.

Women, too, can be identified by the school they attended. If they went to
Mercy (on 19th Avenue), they probably grew up in the Sunset or in Daly City,
or maybe even in St. Francis Woods or Forest Hill.

If she responds "Prez," she went to Presentation High School on Masonic, and
may have grown up in the Haight or the Richmond.

One has to be careful, though. Some women, if asked where they went to
school, will respond that they went "to the madams." A tourist will
immediately leap to the conclusion that the poor woman was raised in a
whorehouse, but natives understand immediately what this woman means:
She attended Convent of the Sacred Heart, conducted by a ritzy order of
nuns, and is doubtless from a wealthy family. She is not necessarily a
Catholic, however. Diane Feinstein went to the madams.

The next thing to note about this conversation is that the proper response
to a remark is "Yeah?" not "You don't say so?" or "Is that right?" San
Franciscans say "Yeah" a lot, but it doesn't always mean yes.

Now you are ready for your geography lesson. Oakland, Berkeley, and all
those other places are "across the Bay." The largest city in Santa Clara
County is "Sannazay," not "San Jose." Sannazay is on the way to
Sannacruise. To get there, you have to go down the Peninsula, past South
City, Sammateo, Rewoodcity, Paloalto, and a whole buncha other towns.
"The River" is the Russian River, and no other, but "the Lake" is Lake
Tahoe (if your family was wealthy); otherwise, "the lake" is either
Clear Lake or Lake Berryessa. The town on the river is called
"Gurneyville," even though the correct pronunciation is Gurnville. San
Franciscans know the correct pronunciation, but choose not to use it.
If corrected on this, a native will likely say, "If those guys up there are
so smart, what'er they doin' livin' there? People who live in Gurneyville
all year are a buncha Okies anyway." (It should be noted that being called
an "Okie" - as in persons from Oklahoma or anywhere south -- is among the
worst insults a San Franciscan can offer; it means a person lacks taste or
sophistication.

Natives are often asked for directions, sometimes by tourists and often by
pseudo-natives. A San Franciscan of course, has no idea where anything
across the Bay is, but he knows all about San Francisco.

To start with, unless a street is tiny, like Saturn Street or Macrondray
Lane, it is never called by its full name. You never say "Taraval Street,"
for example, only "Taraval." When you direct someone to go "out Geary," it
means you go West. You know, toward the beach. One never goes "in Mission,"
or "in Geary." To head in the general direction
of downtown, one goes "down Mission" or "down Geary." It is "the
beach," too, not the seashore or the coast. The coast is down the Peninsula,
near Sharp Park. There are no beaches on the Bay, despite evidence to the
contrary - only on the ocean. San Franciscans know there are 30 numbered
streets and 48 avenues; they know Arguello is First Avenue and Funston is
13th Avenue. They know that First Street is not
the first street, and that Main is not the main street. The Richmond
district is always called "The Richmond," and the Sunset District is always
called "The Sunset," but Noe Valley has no article in front of
its name; neither does downtown or North Beach. No one knows why. But
natives do know it is always 24th pronounced "twennyfourth") and Mission,
not Mission and 24th. It's Second and Clement, not Clement and
Second. The street is not pronounced "CLEment" but "CleMENT." There is
no need to make a distinction between Second Street and Second Avenue in
this case, since San Franciscans know that Second Street and Clement do not
intersect.

They know several other things, too: that Alcatraz is not called "The Rock,"
that Yerba Buena Island is called "Goat Island" or "YBI," that French bread
is not called sourdough bread and never was. The name "sourdough" was
invented by advertising guys from Chicago or someplace.
They know that Italians do not eat pizza. They eat spaghetti, tagliarini, or
some other stuff, mostly in North Beach, but sometimes in small places in
the Mission.

Most of us grew up under the delusion that everybody was a native San
Franciscan. [Interjection time: *No* we did not! We assume most people are
foreigners.] It was the largest small town in the world, and we thought it
the only city that counted. Occasional tourists complimented us on the
city, but we never dreamed they'd move here and take over.

One native San Franciscan, after she bought a house in the Richmond, one of
her new neighbors asked her where she was from. "I moved out here six months
ago," she said. "Oh, from the East or Midwest?" the neighbor asked. "No,"
she said, "from California and Buchanan."

There is only one way to be a native San Franciscan. You gotta be
born here. "Anybody," my grandfather used to say, "can be born in
Oakland, or Back East. It's an honor to be born in Sanfrencisco."

--

James R. Smith

Author: San Francisco's Lost Landmarks

ISBN: 1884995446

www.HistorySmith.com



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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 09:37:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Pat <>
Subject: Re: [CASANFRA] Native San Franciscan............
To:
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

I absolutely loved the message submitted by James Smith. I have joked for
forty plus years that " I " am the only person actually born in "thecity".
Everyone else is from somewhere else and moved there.

I lived "out the Mission", otherwise known as the part of Mission St.
beyond Silver (Ave) and closing in on Daly City. The Excelsior had it's own
flavor as did most sections of thecity. Guerrerah is the correct native
pronunciation for Guerrero St. and I suspect that anyone else lucky enough
to be born there know that "flats" are not flat ground but two homes in one,
usually one up and one down.

And now to the purpose of this message, once again I am renewing my plea
for anyone with a yearbook or pictures from St. Rose 1930-1932 or
Presentation circa 1927-1930 to please write to me off list, as I am
desperately searching for pictures of my mother and aunt. And if anyone has
a yearbook for N.D.V. high school 1950. PLEASE WRITE TO ME.

Thanks,

Pat

Nancy Crowley <> wrote:
I loved this! But I went to St. Rose and she overlooked my alma mater. I
like to joke about my dear late father (a second generation native, graduate
of Star of the Sea, SI and USF) who in the second half of his life, worked
in the travel business. He and my mother went to Europe often, mostly
because my mother loved Paris. However, in my father's words, Paris was no
San Francisco, Lake Tahoe was better than Lake Como and he preferred Lake
Merced to the Three Rings of Kerry.

"James R. Smith" wrote: Just received this from my sister. Thought a few
might enjoy it.

Pass the French bread,
Jim

FOR ALL FRIENDS RAISED IN THE CITY



Pat
FLOOR: The place for storing your priceless genealogy records






---------------------------------
Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 06 Oct 2006 09:59:05 -0700
From: "James R. Smith" <>
Subject: Re: [CASANFRA] Native San Franciscan............
To:
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Hi Pat,

The SF History Center at the Main Library has a large collection of city
yearbooks. You can call them & ask.
Jim
http://sfpl.org/librarylocations/sfhistory/sfhistory.htm

Pat wrote:

>I absolutely loved the message submitted by James Smith. I have joked for
forty plus years that " I " am the only person actually born in "thecity".
Everyone else is from somewhere else and moved there.
>
> I lived "out the Mission", otherwise known as the part of Mission St.
beyond Silver (Ave) and closing in on Daly City. The Excelsior had it's own
flavor as did most sections of thecity. Guerrerah is the correct native
pronunciation for Guerrero St. and I suspect that anyone else lucky enough
to be born there know that "flats" are not flat ground but two homes in one,
usually one up and one down.
>
> And now to the purpose of this message, once again I am renewing my plea
for anyone with a yearbook or pictures from St. Rose 1930-1932 or
Presentation circa 1927-1930 to please write to me off list, as I am
desperately searching for pictures of my mother and aunt. And if anyone has
a yearbook for N.D.V. high school 1950. PLEASE WRITE TO ME.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pat
>
>Nancy Crowley <> wrote:
> I loved this! But I went to St. Rose and she overlooked my alma mater. I
like to joke about my dear late father (a second generation native, graduate
of Star of the Sea, SI and USF) who in the second half of his life, worked
in the travel business. He and my mother went to Europe often, mostly
because my mother loved Paris. However, in my father's words, Paris was no
San Francisco, Lake Tahoe was better than Lake Como and he preferred Lake
Merced to the Three Rings of Kerry.
>
>"James R. Smith" wrote: Just received this from my sister. Thought a few
might enjoy it.
>
>Pass the French bread,
>Jim
>
>FOR ALL FRIENDS RAISED IN THE CITY
>
>
>
>Pat
> FLOOR: The place for storing your priceless genealogy records
>
>
>
>
>
>
>---------------------------------
>Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com
>**************************
>Visit SFGenealogy.com!
>http://www.sfgenealogy.com
>-------------------------------
>To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the
>quotes in the subject and the body of the message
>
>
>

--

James R. Smith

Author: San Francisco's Lost Landmarks

ISBN: 1884995446

www.HistorySmith.com <http://www.historysmith.com/>;





------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 13:30:02 -0700 (PDT)
From: Judy Hitzeman <>
Subject: Re: [CASANFRA] Native San Franciscan............
To:
Message-ID: <>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

I've seen that narrative before, and it's pretty much accurate so far as we
natives go (and it made me realize where my speech patterns came from).
However, one inaccuracy was that kids who lived in the Richmond (like me)
went to Lincoln. Not true; Washington was our district school.

Didn't Herb Caen spell it "Sanfrncisco?" That's how I pronounce it.

I now live in Vallejo (that' s "Vuh-lay-oh") due to the fact that we
couldn't afford to buy in "thecity," but work here with a number of natives,
including one from the Mission, with that distinctive accent. And it's
absolutely true, upon encountering another native, the question "where did
you go to school" meant high school.

Fun stuff.

Judy

Pat <> wrote:
I absolutely loved the message submitted by James Smith. I have joked for
forty plus years that " I " am the only person actually born in "thecity".
Everyone else is from somewhere else and moved there.

I lived "out the Mission", otherwise known as the part of Mission St. beyond
Silver (Ave) and closing in on Daly City. The Excelsior had it's own flavor
as did most sections of thecity. Guerrerah is the correct native
pronunciation for Guerrero St. and I suspect that anyone else lucky enough
to be born there know that "flats" are not flat ground but two homes in one,
usually one up and one down.

And now to the purpose of this message, once again I am renewing my plea for
anyone with a yearbook or pictures from St. Rose 1930-1932 or Presentation
circa 1927-1930 to please write to me off list, as I am desperately
searching for pictures of my mother and aunt. And if anyone has a yearbook
for N.D.V. high school 1950. PLEASE WRITE TO ME.

Thanks,

Pat

Nancy Crowley wrote:
I loved this! But I went to St. Rose and she overlooked my alma mater. I
like to joke about my dear late father (a second generation native, graduate
of Star of the Sea, SI and USF) who in the second half of his life, worked
in the travel business. He and my mother went to Europe often, mostly
because my mother loved Paris. However, in my father's words, Paris was no
San Francisco, Lake Tahoe was better than Lake Como and he preferred Lake
Merced to the Three Rings of Kerry.

"James R. Smith" wrote: Just received this from my sister. Thought a few
might enjoy it.

Pass the French bread,
Jim

FOR ALL FRIENDS RAISED IN THE CITY



Pat
FLOOR: The place for storing your priceless genealogy records






---------------------------------
Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com
**************************
Visit SFGenealogy.com!
http://www.sfgenealogy.com
-------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes
in the subject and the body of the message



---------------------------------
All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done
faster.

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 19:59:53 -0700
From: "Donna Madrid" <>
Subject: Re: [CASANFRA] Native San Franciscan............
To: <>
Message-ID: <005a01c6e9bc$a9ddb2c0$>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original

Another little language "note".....I'm a 5th generation San Franciscan, only

lived there until age 3 though and then raised across the Bay. But my
mother is 4th generation, born and raised, and she went to Mission.
Referring to Market Street, she's always pronounced in Mah-ket and Portola
was PORT-ola, not Por-TO-La. As for me, giving SF the respect I think it
deserves, I've always called it "the City", two words but with a capital C!

Donna Madrid


----- Original Message -----
From: "James R. Smith" <>
To: <>; "SF Genealogy" <>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 8:40 PM
Subject: [CASANFRA] Native San Franciscan............


> Just received this from my sister. Thought a few might enjoy it.
>
> Pass the French bread,
> Jim
>
> FOR ALL FRIENDS RAISED IN THE CITY
>
> If you have spent any time in bookstores lately, you might have noticed
> that there are books on San Francisco's past, present, and future; books
> that tell you where to eat, where to drink, where to drive, where to
> take a bus, where to stay, what to look at, and even how to cook in the
> San Francisco style, whatever that is. But no book tells you how to act
> like a native San Franciscan, because it is widely assumed that the
> breed, if it ever existed, is extinct.
>
> One book, "San Francisco Free and Easy," subtitled "The Native's Guide
> Book," says on the first page, "San Franciscans are notorious newcomers.
> You'll find few people here with the sort of roots common to East Coast
> cities". Another, written by a carpetbagger named John K. Bailey, is
> called "The San Francisco Insider's Guide." It begins, "On! my first
> visit to San Francisco, 15 years ago...." Fifteen years ago? I know a
> cat who's lived in San Francisco longer than that!
>
> A terrible thing has happened to native San Franciscans. They have
> become strangers in their own city. Their whole culture is in danger of
> being swallowed up by foreigners from New York, Ohio, New Hampshire,
> Denver, and other places Back East -- not to mention Hong Kong, Taiwan,
> Vietnam, the Philippines, Russia, India, and Mexico. These newcomers all
> assume everyone else is a newcomer.
>
> The first thing to go is the language. Despite everything you've ever
> heard, there IS a distinctive San Francisco way of talking and it is
> important to make note of it, for the record, before it becomes as dead
> as the Latin they teach at S.I. Here's how to talk like a San Franciscan.
>
> The first lesson - learned at birth - is never to call it "Frisco" or
> "San FRANcisco." Most resident tourists have settled on something that
> sounds like an Anglicized version of the Spanish San Francisco, but
> natives run the two words together, and it comes out "Sanfrencisco." It
> may also be called "thecity," which is one word. It is never called
> "the city," which is two words and tacky.
>
> Another way to tell true, native San Franciscans is that all native San
> Franciscans know something about other native San Franciscans. This
> cannot be faked. The first test comes when a native San Franciscan is
> introduced to someone he does not know at a party. Sooner or later, one
> will ask the other where he or she is from.
>
> The correct dialogue goes like this:
>
>
> Q: Whereya from?
>
> A: Here.
>
> Q: Oh yeah? Whereja go to school?
>
> A: S.H.
>
> Q: Oh yeah? D'ya know (fill in name of acquaintance)?
>
> At once, the two people realize they are both natives and doubtless have
> friends, experiences, and a whole subculture in common.
>
> There are several keys to this small bit of conversation. First, as
> I've already mentioned, the true native runs all the words together. He
> never says, "Where are you from?" because that is the way they talk Back
> East (which is anything East of Denver.) When he asks where you went
> to school, he means high school - not college, not trade school, and
> certainly not P.S. 178. The correct answer is one of several San
> Francisco high schools. "S.H.," of course, means Sacred Heart High
> School (now known as Sacred Heart Cathedral), which not only reveals
> your high school but often what district of the city you came from, and
> other details.
>
> If, for example, the answer is "S.I." you know the guy went to St.
> Ignatius High School (or College Preparatory, if after 1969) and was
> probably raised a Catholic and is from an upper-middle-class family.
>
> If the answer is "Riordan," you know the guy went to the superior
> Catholic "boys-only" school, and is from a family that is not only
> hard-working and intelligent, but which also has the finest blend of
> personality and sense of humor of all the Catholic institutions.
>
> If the person says "Poly," they probably grew up in the shadow of Kezar
> Stadium in Golden Gate Park -- the site of many memorable high school
> football games, or in the Haight-Ashbury.
>
> If the response is "Mission" or "Bal" (for Balboa High), you know he is
> from the Mission District, and his father was probably a member of the
> working class, called "a workinman" in the San Francisco dialect.
>
> If the response is "High on the Hill" you knew they came from the
> Sunset, Woods or Richmond and went to Lincoln, the only important thing
> was winning "The Bell" game from their cross town rivals, Washington.
> They knew were "the Pits" and "the Circle" were.
>
> If he went to Galileo, he is probably a North Beach Italian, and not a
> Mission District Italian.
>
> Women, too, can be identified by the school they attended. If they went
> to Mercy (on 19th Avenue), they probably grew up in the Sunset or in
> Daly City, or maybe even in St. Francis Woods or Forest Hill.
>
> If she responds "Prez," she went to Presentation High School on Masonic,
> and may have grown up in the Haight or the Richmond.
>
> One has to be careful, though. Some women, if asked where they went to
> school, will respond that they went "to the madams." A tourist will
> immediately leap to the conclusion that the poor woman was raised in a
> whorehouse, but natives understand immediately what this woman means:
> She attended Convent of the Sacred Heart, conducted by a ritzy order of
> nuns, and is doubtless from a wealthy family. She is not necessarily a
> Catholic, however. Diane Feinstein went to the madams.
>
> The next thing to note about this conversation is that the proper
> response to a remark is "Yeah?" not "You don't say so?" or "Is that
> right?" San Franciscans say "Yeah" a lot, but it doesn't always mean yes.
>
> Now you are ready for your geography lesson. Oakland, Berkeley, and all
> those other places are "across the Bay." The largest city in Santa Clara
> County is "Sannazay," not "San Jose." Sannazay is on the way to
> Sannacruise. To get there, you have to go down the Peninsula, past South
> City, Sammateo, Rewoodcity, Paloalto, and a whole buncha other towns.
> "The River" is the Russian River, and no other, but "the Lake" is Lake
> Tahoe (if your family was wealthy); otherwise, "the lake" is either
> Clear Lake or Lake Berryessa. The town on the river is called
> "Gurneyville," even though the correct pronunciation is Gurnville. San
> Franciscans know the correct pronunciation, but choose not to use it.
> If corrected on this, a native will likely say, "If those guys up there
> are so smart, what'er they doin' livin' there? People who live in
> Gurneyville all year are a buncha Okies anyway." (It should be noted
> that being called an "Okie" - as in persons from Oklahoma or anywhere
> south -- is among the worst insults a San Franciscan can offer; it means
> a person lacks taste or sophistication.
>
> Natives are often asked for directions, sometimes by tourists and often
> by pseudo-natives. A San Franciscan of course, has no idea where
> anything across the Bay is, but he knows all about San Francisco.
>
> To start with, unless a street is tiny, like Saturn Street or Macrondray
> Lane, it is never called by its full name. You never say "Taraval
> Street," for example, only "Taraval." When you direct someone to go
> "out Geary," it means you go West. You know, toward the beach. One
> never goes "in Mission," or "in Geary." To head in the general direction
> of downtown, one goes "down Mission" or "down Geary." It is "the
> beach," too, not the seashore or the coast. The coast is down the
> Peninsula, near Sharp Park. There are no beaches on the Bay, despite
> evidence to the contrary - only on the ocean. San Franciscans know there
> are 30 numbered streets and 48 avenues; they know Arguello is First
> Avenue and Funston is 13th Avenue. They know that First Street is not
> the first street, and that Main is not the main street. The Richmond
> district is always called "The Richmond," and the Sunset District is
> always called "The Sunset," but Noe Valley has no article in front of
> its name; neither does downtown or North Beach. No one knows why. But
> natives do know it is always 24th pronounced "twennyfourth") and
> Mission, not Mission and 24th. It's Second and Clement, not Clement and
> Second. The street is not pronounced "CLEment" but "CleMENT." There is
> no need to make a distinction between Second Street and Second Avenue in
> this case, since San Franciscans know that Second Street and Clement do
> not intersect.
>
> They know several other things, too: that Alcatraz is not called "The
> Rock," that Yerba Buena Island is called "Goat Island" or "YBI," that
> French bread is not called sourdough bread and never was. The name
> "sourdough" was invented by advertising guys from Chicago or someplace.
> They know that Italians do not eat pizza. They eat spaghetti,
> tagliarini, or some other stuff, mostly in North Beach, but sometimes in
> small places in the Mission.
>
> Most of us grew up under the delusion that everybody was a native San
> Franciscan. [Interjection time: *No* we did not! We assume most people
> are foreigners.] It was the largest small town in the world, and we
> thought it the only city that counted. Occasional tourists complimented
> us on the city, but we never dreamed they'd move here and take over.
>
> One native San Franciscan, after she bought a house in the Richmond, one
> of her new neighbors asked her where she was from. "I moved out here six
> months ago," she said. "Oh, from the East or Midwest?" the neighbor
> asked. "No," she said, "from California and Buchanan."
>
> There is only one way to be a native San Franciscan. You gotta be
> born here. "Anybody," my grandfather used to say, "can be born in
> Oakland, or Back East. It's an honor to be born in Sanfrencisco."
>
> --
>
> James R. Smith
>
> Author: San Francisco's Lost Landmarks
>
> ISBN: 1884995446
>
> www.HistorySmith.com <http://www.historysmith.com/>;
>
>
>
> **************************
> Visit SFGenealogy.com!
> http://www.sfgenealogy.com
> -------------------------------
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End of CASANFRA Digest, Vol 1, Issue 50
***************************************


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