all together now

San Francisco, open your golden gate
Don't let a stranger wait outside your door
San Francisco, here is your wandering one
Saying I'll wander no more

Other places only make me love you best
Tell me you're the heart of all the golden west
San Francisco, welcome me home again
I'm coming home to go roaming no more.

it's 6:50 am, and I just watched the sun rise over the bay by the Ferry Building.
Today is the 97th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake. Every year at Lotta's Fountain there's a commemoration service at 5 am, and Eli and I hauled our bleary-eyed selves over there (with the help of a very nice, bleary-eyed cab driver), just in time to miss most of whatever Gavin Newsom had to say.
At 5:12 there was a moment of silence, followed by all the fire engine and police sirens going off for a solid minute. Someone sang "San Francisco" very nicely, and was followed by someone singing it with a kazoo, which was much better. (god, I love this city.) Then the crowd sang it. I always get choked up when I hear it.
There were 10 or 12 survivors of the quake, ranging in age from 103 (born 12/25/00) to 96 (the 96 year old was conceived in a tent the night after the quake. she counts!), and they were fabulous and all had great things to say. The best one was perhaps 8th to get the mike, and she said, "I can't hear very well! what do you want me to do?" but then she told a fabulous story of watching the smoke and the fire with her father, who kept saying, "what a spectacle! what a spectacle!" She was three and a half years old. Willie was pretty unbearable, trying to be witty in between each person speaking, and not really managing it. Alex Fagan (Acting Police Chief) got some hisses. We had a bloody mary, provided by the St. Francis Hook and Ladder Society for a small donation, and hung around watching the antique cars and fire engines get ready to go up to Dolores Park to repaint the Golden Fire Hydrant- the one that saved the Mission.
it's a beautiful day.