Farther along the waterfront, surfers are out in force off Civil War–era Fort Point, catching the big waves that roll in beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, indifferent to the big rocks along the shoreline, the wicked currents that run through this part of the bay, and the great white sharks that sometimes wander in from the open ocean. Making my way around to the ocean side of the Presidio, I park the car and trundle down the path to Baker Beach, trekking north along the sandy shore until I can see the outer flanks of the Golden Gate Bridge—an offbeat view of the Art Deco icon that doesn’t include a single other man-made object.
I spend the rest of the afternoon in Golden Gate Park, which offers countless ways to amuse oneself. First laid out in the 1870s, the park is old hat for me, the place for Sunday rollerblade dates, back in the days when rollerblading was as cool and new as frozen yogurt. The park yields surprises around almost every corner, like a herd of buffalo grazing contentedly in the middle of the city. Stow Lake is another old favorite, a fairyland of paddleboats, waterfalls, and Chinese pagodas, and an island knoll called Strawberry Hill, crowned by the ruins of a lookout that was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1906. I happily hike to the top, knowing my reward will be a panorama that takes in downtown San Francisco and the needle-like Transamerica Pyramid on one side, and, to the west, the vast Pacific.
Perched at the eastern end of the park is Haight-Ashbury, birthplace of the love-in and psychedelic rock, as well as the onetime home of Janis Joplin (who lived in a four-story Victorian at the corner of Lyon and Oak) and the Grateful Dead (who crashed at 710 Ashbury Street). In the 1980s, when I lived in San Francisco, the area was rundown and largely sapped of its bohemian spirit. But like they say, everything comes around again. And so has the Haight.
It may not be as vibrant as it was during the Summer of Love, but it’s not far off—an edgy inner-city neighborhood where everyday San Franciscans share the sidewalks with the bikers, beatniks, and nouvelle hippies loitering outside tattoo parlors and the local medical-marijuana dispensary. If the number of head shops and anti–Wall Street T-shirts is any indication, the counterculture is alive and well. But so too is capitalism, in the scores of shops scattered up and down the avenue, selling everything from vintage lava lamps and tie-dyed shirts to top-of-the-line snowboards and designer frocks.
The only global franchise that dares set foot in the heart of the Haight is Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Licking a cone stuffed with Cherry Garcia, I sit on the fire hydrant outside the parlor and think about the last few days. This is no longer my father’s San Francisco, and in so many respects it is no longer mine, either. Yet the old mojo lingers. And yes, it’s true. Like heirlooms and houses, you really can pass down a place from generation to generation. But only if it’s Frisco.
