QUIET CAMPUS

"Autumn Comes Calling" by M. Slavin

Labor Day marked our first true day of summer weather. We had an open day, so Bill and I rode the M Muni line part way to the stop at San Francisco State. We remembered the tumult in the 1970s when students and faculty went on strike against the Vietnam War and and the college's white-centric admissions pollicies. Those voices raised helped to bring an end to the war, but more long-lasting were the development at SF State of ethnic studies programs such as Black and Native American studies, which helped to open up public four-year colleges across California to non-white and disadvantaged students. We thought about the coverage of the strikes from long ago and how they affected our country and how those decisions to be more inclusive are being reversed now.

We arrived at SF State and walked on campus, not to the uproar of striking students and faculty, but to a surprisingly empty campus. Classes started on August 24, but the holiday had scattered everyone. We came to find the sculptures and murals that dot the campus, but we were surprised by what we found. We saw only two people sitting outside the closed library, and another hunkered down, hoodie over their head, in a corner between two tall buildings. We spotted a crow and two finches, but other than that, the college grounds were strangely quiet. 

Cypress trees tower over the building spread across the park-like setting, reminding us that we were near the coast. In this part of San Francisco, a usual day would be foggy with a brisk wind. On Monday, the sky was clear and the sun shone warm on our shoulders. Yet there was no one lounging on the grass or running briskly through the campus.

We sat in two Adirondack chairs for a while enjoying the sunshine and the surprising quiet. Bill loves to be in crowds and the noise and bustle invigorates him. I love quiet places, which is not always easy to find in a bustling city. We walked by two Beniamino Bufano sculptures and the large "Caring" by Aristides Demetrios, and spied the huge "Buckeyes and Benches," a metal installation created by William Wareham. That was enough for us even though there are murals and other sculptures spread across the campus. We reminded ourselves that we need to eat first before we start exploring or our hunger always wins out over our exploring interests. As we walked back to the M line, we stared at the Cesar Chavez Student Center, a puzzling Brutalist design with what looked like an amphitheater on the rooftop. The center was closed, so we tried to figure out what the rooftop area was used for. A swimming pool on the roof? (Mission Bay UCSF has one). A place for small concerts? A place to get away from the crowds of students who normally filled the spaces all over campus? A place to sunbathe? All of the above?

The area around SF State is one that is familiar to us reaching back to when Bill's family lived in Los Altos and I moved to the Bay Area after college. We would often drive up to the City on 101, cut over to 19th Avenue to reach Golden Gate Park. We might stop at Stern Grove near the college or continue to the larger park with its museums, gardens, buffalo, and band concerts. We never stopped to explore the other areas around SF State.

Bufano's sculptures often represent his ideas about peace.

Back on board the M line, we traveled a short distance past Stonestown, a thriving mall that caters to young people with its offerings of Daiso, JIMS (a Japanese eyewear store), several game stores, Kizuki Ramen and other Asian restaurants, and Potobox, a selfie photo center. We didn't stop there, but waited tell we reached the West Portal stop. West Portal is another small San Francisco village with a Hardware Coffee at one end and an Original Joe's at the other. Lots of small businesses line West Portal Drive where both the M and K Muni lines emerge from underground and cut down the middle of the street.

Looking for a small cafe for lunch, we walked past the packed Original Joe's and Elena's. We noticed the line outside of the eatery Toast across the street. We finally settled into a window seat at Trattoria da Victorio for a simple Italian meal. The sun shone through our window as we watched people pass by and as we assessed another part of San Francisco.

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Read about the student/faculty strike that upended higher education in California:

https://magazine.sfsu.edu/archive/archive/fall_08/strike.html 

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A friend asked me for a link to one of my essays about moving and living in San Francisco. I found the latest one and decided to go back through this year's posts to find others. Here is my list from this year:

December 26, 2025: Five Years Ago

January 23, 2026: View from the Bay

February 13, 2026: Flourishing Diversity

March 6, 2026: People-Friendly Places

March 13, 2026: Spring-Glorious

May 8, 2026: What to Do with Monsters

May 15, 2026: Hills and Stairs

August 7: Living in a Neighborhood

These are all for 2026 so far. You can find them on the Postcards in the Air main page, in the side bar on the right marked Blog Archive. Click on the month, and you will find these essays. 

Now, I'm going back to find all the other ones I've written since we moved to San Francisco in 2023.