I came to live in San Francisco when I got out of the army in the summer of 1965. I had spent a year studying Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey [it changed its name to the Defense Language Institute the year I was there], had spent many weekends in San Francisco, and knew that I wanted to make it my home. It was in San Francisco that I rented my first apartment, got my first job as an adult, supported myself for the first time, and came out as a gay man.
After running through my savings from my army days, I got a job at the French Railroads providing European train tickets to travel agencies from an office which overlooked Union Square. I rode the last stretch of my commute on the cable car up from Powell and Market, which you could do in those days as an automatic transfer, and could often be heard to exclaim that I had died and gone to heaven, which happened to be known locally as San Francisco. I began memorizing all the city's street names and decided at some point that the only job I could imagine better than the one I had would be to drive a cab. I was absolutely in love with the city.
San Francisco had not yet been Manhattanized. It was still a city without a lot of skyscrapers and even the locals still rushed from one hill to another in constant pursuit of a better view. And my self-loathing as a gay man was fast diminishing as I was able to bounce around the periphery of one or another organization devoted to gay civil rights like SIR, the Society for Individual Rights, march in the annual Pride Parades and eventually, in the 70s and 80s, even join two Marches on Washington. Harvey Milk would not arrive and become the unofficial "mayor of Castro Street" for several more years. Support for gay liberation was already building but it still lacked the kind of leadership Harvey - and Dianne Feinstein - would come to provide.
I left for Japan for a few years and by the time I returned, in 1973, Harvey had established himself and I would see him handing out flyers from time to time. I left again for Saudi Arabia in 1976 and by the time I returned a year later, Harvey had finally succeeded in becoming part of the establishment, although it was still an uphill battle against the likes of Anita Bryant and the Briggs Initiative, with the majority of citizens still inclined to believe that gay was just another word for child molester. Briggs wanted to fire all gay teachers, and overnight I became politically active not just as a gay man, but as a teacher who might lose his number one choice of a way to make a living.
When Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk were shot, on November 27, 1978, I was living in Santa Cruz and teaching at UCSC. I came up to the city in a state of shock and despair, mitigated and channeled into sadness by the candlelight march from City Hall to the Castro. I made my way to Harvey's memorial service at Temple Emanu-El on Arguello Street, I think it was the next day or sometime not long afterwards. I am left with two powerful memories from that day. One was the beauty of the Mourner's Kaddish, which brought me to tears and made me wonder if I could convert to Judaism on the spot. The other was of Dianne Feinstein coming down the aisle and taking her seat in the pew directly behind where I was sitting. I couldn't get out of my mind her having stuck her finger in the wound where the bullet had gone through Harvey's flesh. It was all too real, all too cruel.
I was not much of a fan of Dianne Feinstein after she took on the job of mayor. My politics were far to the left of her. I didn't like the fact that she vetoed domestic partner legislation in 1982, and her support for big corporations and for building high rises really rubbed me the wrong way. But that same year she began her life-long campaign to do something about guns killing so many Americans, and in time I came to see her role as a moderate democrat as defensible, if not all I would wish for.
Politicians are not my favorite people in the world. It's easy to come down hard on them when they don't represent your interests, and I've badmouthed Dianne quite a bit over the years. Even recently, as she held on to her job even when she was too ill to do it well. But as I go over the list of her accomplishments and recognize how widely respected she was for her work against guns, for abortion rights, her shift to opposing capital punishment in 2018, her efforts to protect the California coastline and forests from developers, especially her creation of the Death Valley and other National Parks and for dozens of smaller contributions - like opposing Trump's support of moving Israel's capital to Jerusalem, I'm comfortable calling myself a Feinstein fan. One of the decent politicians. One who doesn't always represent your interests - but who does? - but one who does the job she is elected to do.
Damning by faint praise, I realize, is not the best endorsement. But I'm not being fair when I stop at saying she's not one of the worst politicians. Considering what bozos and clowns, ne'er-do-wells and downright blaggards we've had go to Washington on the taxpayer dime, Dianne stands out as way better than "pretty good."
Just as I learned at Stanford that some of the best minds I've ever encountered can be found in female heads, the fact that I live in a place represented by Barbara Lee (representative for Oakland and Berkeley), Senator Barbara Boxer and, until yesterday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, means I've still got reason to believe the American democratic experiment might make it yet.
It's been a great run, these last six decades and more sharing a California identity with the likes of Dianne Feinstein. I wish now I'd sent her a thank-you note while I still had the chance.
photo: screenshot of Dianne Feinstein announcing the assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, November 27, 1978, an image as vivid in my mind today as it was that night when I first took it in.
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