Today I wax nostalgic over my youthful days in San Francisco.
I recall days when the cable car was the chosen transportation from Market Street up the steepness of Powell St. to the S.F. State extension center where I took extra classes.
We would wend our way past the tourists and the huge, well-lighted Powell Street Book store, the frequent date night destination for ageless San Franciscans.
The car clattered up the otherwise calf-building hill to the dirty brown brick stucture hastily refurbished to accommodate the college overflow. I recall no new friends made, but I do remember the nights I by-passed my destination and kept riding the cable car.
The soy-sauce infused air of China Town often perked my appetite for greasy noodles. I eagerly tramped down thirty five stairs to reach Foy Goy Loys. Three bucks bought a great Chinese dinner with very rude service and memories I cherish even today. Back then, if the service in a Chinese restaruant wasn't rude, it wasn't an authentic Chinese restaraunt. I'd leave the cable car knowing another would be available for my return trip.
On especially adventuresome nights, I'd keep riding. Those were the days (evenings) when the occasional cable car driver would make a stop at the tiny, and as yet undiscovered, Swenson's Ice Cream shop. A brakeman would jump off to pick up the order of carmel fudge and the best darned vanilla the city had to offer. The lines streaked out the door, and the cable car waited. Not out of courtesy, but out of eagerness to enjoy the cones without danger of dropping the creamy delights onto the cables.
At the end of the line was what Herb Caen (if you don't know Herb Caen, you don't know SF) called 'the longest no-host cocktail party in the city;' the Buena Vista Cafe. Renowned for popularizing, if not inventing, the Irish Coffee, the views and rudeness of the waitresses were always worth the wait. Home made hash, crispy sourdough bread and a few Irish coffees were pure heaven on a Saturday morning.
The San Francisco I knew and loved no longer exists. The time when a naive college kid could live in an old victorian overlooking Mr. Parnasus and the UC Medical center...furnished by the owners with odd bits of oak antiques, is long gone. I paid $85 including utilities for my third floor walk up which I shared with my soon to be very hippie friend, Sharon. I was completely self supporting and found public transportation convenient, safe and cheap.
Free entertainment, and some of the best low cost excitement Bill Graham and the Filmore could conger seemed our right. We selflessly gave birth to an era made glorious by clouded memory.
Drugs were not yet ruining lives and Aids had not reared its leathal head. It was a time of ideas, challenges to the accepted and the profound sense that anything was possible. The popularity of late night bookstores and record vendors and head shops spoke volumes about who we were. I carry that city that no longer is as part of my identity. And strangely, those days are one of the reasons I love Seattle.
When I came to Seattle in the 80's I believed her to be a kinder, gentler San Francisco. SF had become expensive, dangerous and incredibly self conscious. Public transportation was no longer safe, and that college kid who played her recorder in a tree attracting children in Golden Gate Park would have been mugged or worse.
San Francisco became a poor imitation of herself, proud of her past in her own image. Her yellowing pearl, Haight Street, featured barred windows and strung out junkies sleeping in doorways. It had not yet become the tourist attraction it is today. And finally, she became so expensive, the only people who could afford to live there, already did.
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Photo courtesy Ron Howell, CEO WRF Capital
Seattle was a small town with exquisite vistas. There were no cable cars, but there was parking. Traffic was light and Seattle was often mentioned in out-of-state media as the most polite city in which to drive. Most of the people I met were Seattle natives, proud of their city and eager to share it.
The Smith Tower was the tallest building downtown and parking at Pike Place Market was $2. Paul and Bill pondered how to finance their next big product release with no collateral (Software as collateral?) and were advised to develop real estate to get financing. I watched as the first Microsoft-owned building was erected; concrete and glass that no one could imagine as anything other than another small software company. New excellent restaurants blossomed every week with prices half that of SF and no hour-long waits. Seattle streets were safe to walk and people went out of their way to greet passers by.
High tech was just gaining traction and we did business as any small town does; we helped one another. As one of two recruiters in town with any technology background (I was a Silicon Valley refugee by then), I gained access to the founders, the hiring authorities, the investors and board members. More than once, the very charming and accessible Jeremy Jaech, still creating new products at Aldus (now Adobe), joined me for lunch at the Dahlia Lounge and the always gracious Mike Brochu still struggled to make video games a household word at Sierra On-line. Paul Allen's Asymetrics hadn't yet found its way and early signs of success for David Guiliani's power toothbrush hadn't yet materialized as Sonicare.
It was a time when Seattle startups used the founders' money and produced revenue. WRQ made public their decision to earn money for expansion and growth from sales, not investments and Voyager capital was not yet a gleam in Bill McAleer's eye.
Could those companies and connections be created so easily today? I wonder. The trust and sense of adventure in those days built great teams and created strong bonds. We knew we were doing something remarkable and valued one another for our part.
I am nostalgic for Seattle's tech-focused past and the spirit we were all in it together. Just as I lament the passing of the San Francisco I once knew, I wax nostalgic for the Seattle that no longer is. Instead, I relish the bonds I created then because they enrich my business life today...so many years later. They are held especially dear knowing they would be very hard to forge, today.
In spite of the high-rises, unemployment and muffled cries of underfunded startups, Seattle continues to be a small town. As one very smart VC once said to me, "At the end of the day, we all have the same Rolodex." My kind of town.
And in the words of Fraiser Crane, that ersatz Seattle resident. "We love you Seattle."
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