Oh to be here.

California and life with a smile. Three roommates and college only a few years behind. Well, the university campus more exciting but more work, too. Too many term papers and half the classes such a bore.

But finished. A job at the library and a hope for a better one. But all right now, endless books to borrow and some to buy when they have a book sale. A spot in the back yard for a planter filled with flowers and the beach down the street.

San Francisco more exciting but no. Used to one place and not wanting to change. Enough changes already and only one place to be in San Francisco and that with a lot of stairs. Everything one could afford two flights up. Better somewhere without much excitement but no stairs.

All right all week. Enough saved up for a ticket to something every other month and the occasional drink. Tons of gentlemen and a date with a new one every other weekend. What else could a girl want? Well, a husband and children, yes, but that for later.

Church on Sundays at the parish on the corner and dinner at Grandmother’s with all the little cousins cantering around the palm trees in the back. Everything saved. Old the house is from the beginning of the city and no one having moved since. Fun to look through, it is. Far more fun than moving what with having to throw things out.

The little cousins getting tired and a bit of time to sit on the glider and poke through the old photographs from the last shelf in the library. Pot luck they are, with no one bothering to write much of anything on the back.

But a nice one at the bottom of the pile. The hospital that great grandfather ran, it must be. Cars that have that carriage look form when cars were new and the thing as bright as a new penny without a ripped awning or smudge mark anywhere.

Not like that for long . . .no . . .down in one of the earthquakes and Grandmother ending up marrying and moving away . . . .but no one knew that then . . .no . . . .a new job, a new hospital, and a new beginning . . . if you knew how it all ended up, you’d never start.