Painted Ladies

They said that the Painted Ladies is one of the “must see” sites in San Francisco. So we thought why should we miss it when we were so close to it.

These Victorian era structures got their nickname because of the number of colours used to decorate their exteriors. Frankly speaking I was not taken in by what I saw.

I found the surroundings more interesting. Like the park in front of it. Liked this water fountain with spouts at different levels to suit all age groups.

This guy in the park was engrossed in his creative work.

He chose this spot as he had a good view of the city.

There were these dog walkers who were enjoying a sun bath while the dogs basked and frolicked with each other.

One of them decided to take a stroll all by himself. He too (like me) was not impressed by the “painted Ladies” as he was walking in the opposite direction.

We were back on the main road.

While we waited for the “Big Bus”, the change over conductor (who was also waiting for the bus) gave us some tips about how to travel in the Hop on Hop off Bus.

Graffities on the wall break the monotony of the plain walls.

Some 45 RPM records in a shop window. About four decades ago this area thrived when the Hippie culture was in full swing.

Noticed this eating joint

And a few shops next to it was another one.

Lombardia Street had some lovely houses.

The tiles on the roof of the house. Even though they were decorative, they reflected the light well to give a good contrast against the green leaves.

I found these combination standpipes at the entrance of many buildings. These standpipe systems are designed to deliver a prescribed amount of water at a prescribed pressure to the top most outlet. This one was well polished.

Ending this post with this lovely house which I managed to frame and click when the vehicle stopped momentorily.

The Hippie Culture

When I was in school, I used to get these “hand me down” text books from Mr M. (Don’t confuse this M with the one in James Bond movies)

Probably this was a measure taken to cut corners at home but I used to envy the other students who used to have clean new books. The advantage of the hand me downs was that you get to read the next year’s books as soon as the school closed, while others had to wait till the school opened. I used to finish all the stories from the English text book.(Maths text book goes into hiding) The only problem was that there used to be a lot of markings in them. Underlined sentences, important questions, smiley faces !! most of them marked in ink or pencil. So my first task was to rub off everything that was in pencil. Aha so much cleaner.

Then one fine year the hand me downs stopped. Reason ? Mr M stopped going to school. Why? He turned into a Hippie!! “Wow long live the hippie culture”

Later on I met him one day. What a transformation ! Long hair, ragged clothes, bathroom slippers, and the worst part was he smelled and looked dirty. One day I asked him “don’t you have bath?” His explanation “see when you don’t take bath, there is a layer of dirt formed on your skin. This layer prevents germs and disease from entering your skin”

I didn’t know what to make out of it. I mean when you are a school going child you would like to skip a bath may be two or three in a row, but I reasoned that if this is going be the end result then I better have nothing to do with the hippies. I wonder what Mr M is doing now. I know his full name but don’t want to pen it down here, in case he is reading this. (school drop outs too read blogs – ask Peter Jackson)
These thoughts came back to me when I stumbled upon this cartoon by R K Laxman.

One of you is my son and I want him to come with me home