San Francisco is My Home

13
Mar

Where we came from, where we’re going

Author: kris, Category: Museums

As a city, we define ourselves by our disasters and our idealism. People date things by the Great Fire and the Loma Prieta earthquake, by the Summer of Love and the time when the Beats held court. No one seems to be dating things by the recent oil spill yet, but I have high hopes we’re not going to just forget about that, all evidence to the contrary.

I’m thinking about this today because I’m reading Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile which is set, surprise, in Egypt.

” ‘If there were only any peace in Egypt I should like it better,’ said Mrs. Allerton. ‘But you can never be alone anywhere — some one is always pestering you for money, or offering you donkeys, or beads, or expeditions to native villages, or duck shooting.’ ”

The book was written in 1937, and accurately describes the experience my fellow had in Egypt in 2004. (Except the duck shooting, I don’t know what that’s about.) In this one aspect, at least (the relationship between Egyptians and tourists), Cairo hasn’t changed, and that’s interesting. Do they define themselves by their unchanging-ness, as we define ourselves by our changes? Then again, perhaps someone who visited our Pier 39 in 1937 would find it familiar today as well. I wonder.

It is because I wonder that I plan to visit the San Francisco History Center. It’s full of old photos and documents dealing with our past, and, well, I’m curious. If you, too, are curious as to what, if any, progress we’ve made as a city, you should check this out. It’s located in the Main Library, but the hours of the photo collection are kind of weird, so check before you go.