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Penhall seemed a little ungrateful that he even got to be a cadet on CHiPs. CHiPs was the beginning, the end, and the highlight of his entertainment career. After all, what else was he in? Picasso Trigger? That horrible Andy Sidaris film, which I only know, because another local athlete, Dennis Alexio from Vacaville, worked on. In '98, the producers even promoted him to Sergeant, for CHiPs 99.
The haves and have nots. Poor kids learn sports and games that do not cost a lot of money. Boxing. Basketball. Track. Kids from wealthy families get sports and games which do cost a lot of money. Golf. Polo. Speedway motorcycle racing. Really poor kids, like from my neighborhood, practiced running from the police. As a poor kid who grew up in Chinatown, we didn't learn Karate from a strip mall McDojo. We fought on the streets. Sometimes as an adult, who now has taken a step sideways from the cycle of poverty and crime, I forget how fortunate I am.
As I indulge in the world streaming media and watching free videos on YouTube, I have to remind myself that I never stepped foot into a movie theater until I was in my 20's. Why? Lack of discretionary income. My parents just didn't have the extra money to hand me a twenty, back when wages were $1.25 an hour. I had to work my way through school, and money was tight. I didn't have health insurance to cover the cost of Quaaludes. I was a full grown adult, with hair on my face, when a girl took me to see a film.
It wasn't even a new movie. It was an old movie. The kind that plays at those art house theaters. The kind of place that serves beer & wine. She liked to complain and nag about how I only rented video cassettes, and that I never took her to the movies. I made excuses that didn't hold water. I was scared of being groped by strangers. I was afraid of the dark. I didn't trust the "butter flavoring". The floors were dirty. She finally said, "next Friday, we're going, I'll pay, and they even have beer". She knew me too well. I should have married her. She knew that I was cheap, and an alcoholic.
We saw Al Pacino in Cruising.
I was more into classics, romantic comedies, like The Karate Kid. I was speechless. I didn't know what to think. The whole experience was surreal. Was it a murder mystery? Was it a cop film? Was it a love story? Was it action and adventure? Then I felt oddly uneasy. I knew, that as the lights came on after the closing credits, people would be staring at me. Back then, I still rode a bike as my "daily driver". I was wearing the same type of black leather jacket. leg armor, and boots as all of those guys in the movie.
We were not rich when I grew up, but we did get to the movies once in awhile, however, back then it was the drive-in. At least in the beginning, later as a teen my brother and I were able to go to indoor theaters.
One of the things my dad reminds me of is that when we were kids, we rarely ate out. It was simple. Restaurants are expensive, compared to cooking your own meals. The geography of San Francisco neighborhoods put Chinatown next to North Beach (which in other cities is referred to as Little Italy), and The Financial District. Sort of the same way it is in NYC. Little Italy, Chinatown, & Wall Street. San Francisco tends to protect neighborhoods by not allowing large chains to open. It helps the mom & pop stores and restaurants, so that they don't have to compete with McDonald's, Dominos Pizza, etc. In my neighborhood, we literally grew up without McDonald's. To this day, Chinatown & North Beach have everything from 5 star fine dining, to simple pizza slices sold from a window on the sidewalk. But we don't have drive through fast food, Starbucks, 7Eleven, or what you find at a shopping mall food court. Everything is local, made on the premises, and from fresh ingredients. Block after block after block of butchers, produce stands, and fish mongers. People still buy fish, swimming in live tanks. You pick out the chicken, and they slaughter, dress, and butcher it while you wait. Whole pigs and half cows hang on hooks, as the butcher cuts off pieces to order. Bakeries with everything made daily, to be consumed daily. Not something from Krogers with an expiration date 3 weeks out. But bread so fresh, without preservatives, that you know it's day old bread if you tried to eat it the next day. Cakes and pastries that I've never seen at Wal*Mart.
Desserts and pastries were a rare treat when I was a kid. We only got stuff like that on special occasions, like birthdays. Today, my nieces and nephews are spoiled by grandparents. As my dad tells me, he couldn't afford to spend money like that when I was a kid, so now that he has a little pocket change, he spends it on the grandchildren. Thanks dad. He doesn't buy me a cake. Not just him. That whole generation. Everyone he knows, who are his age, buy all the junk food for their grandchildren. So I go with him to pick up treats. We run into all of his old friends from the neighborhood, and assorted relatives. All retired. None of them can even eat that stuff because of their restrictive diets. Doctors' orders. Cakes, pies, cookies, tarts, chocolate truffles, tortes, flan...... Buying all sorts of exotic delicacies for their grandkids.
All of these shops, just like the restaurants that I like eating at, are 2nd & 3rd generations in the same family. Original Joe's has the 4th generation of kids working in the restaurant. I wonder if these little shops will survive another generation.
SF is running out of vaccines. And we don't operate anything the size of Dodger Stadium or Oakland Coliseum. If you can close off a street and set up a tent, and administer 2,000 doses within hours; imagine how many more people could be innoculated if you had the vaccine doses.
A few mass vaccination locations like City College & Moscone Center. A couple of hospitals. Assorted neighborhood clinics. Some smaller operations targeting specific communities. Overall, it could be better. But still better than some parts of the world where people can't get a vaccine.
