I have this problem. Tell me about the latest social ill, particularly one affecting me, and I will set out down a long road toward righting the wrong…. (Voice recognition uncannily misinterpreted “righting” as “writing.”) I tend to embark on writing projects, as though I am not disabled and will live forever. Trust me, there is substantial, verifiable information suggesting that mortality is a real thing and, yes, a bullet high in the spinal cord will, if it doesn’t kill you, limit your office productivity.

I had gotten on the phone to someone at Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living, a redoubtable disabled self-help organization where I worked 50 years ago…to donate a wheelchair. I expected a routine chat with an uninformed person. But no. I got Morgan. Who knew almost everything one can casually know about the dire state of motorized wheelchairs. For they are a sort of business. And retail wheelchairs happen to comprise a moral low ground, only slightly above fentanyl trafficking. Which spurred me to grandiose speculation about writing an article for the San Francisco Chronicle. A bubble that Morgan punctured by mentioning a fairly recent feature on the scandal of wheelchairs in Mother Jones magazine. Thank God. There’s nothing wrong with being a reader. And on the brink of 77 years old, one needs to leverage waning assets ever so carefully.

Besides, it was time for lunch. And damned if there wasn’t someone at the bus stop besides me. I somehow take it for granted that I am the lone patron of the #36 bus stop, 200 feet from my front door. If we’re not careful, San Francisco will acquire the suburban culture most of us eschew. In its heyday, pre-COVID-19, Muni, a.k.a., San Francisco Municipal Railway, carried almost as many riders as the city’s population. How is that possible? Well, many arrived in San Francisco then boarded city transit for the last part of their commute. But, yes, this is a transit town. Watch buses stopping outside the opera house as the orchestra inside warms up. City.

Anyway, there are now two of us getting on the bus. And the second passenger is using the back door, as passengers are encouraged to do. But he is a black guy, and this pushes buttons, using the back door. Still, here we are, and a seat needs to be folded up to accommodate my wheelchair, and a girl (who is probably in her mid 20s…I am an old guy) makes a move to tilt the bench up and out of my way. I smile. She doesn’t make eye contact. I thank her profusely, adding the observation that, unlike many passengers, she actually knows where the release is under the bench seat. She ignores this remark too. I am an old man, potentially a dirty old man…at best, grandfatherly, at worst, a pervert. 

It’s a short bus ride down to Mission Street. I could almost walk it. I mean roll it. And this raises certain problems of distance. How far is it really? I mean really. There is the conventional cartographic distance, maybe half a mile. And there is the relief map distance, which includes a descent of several hundred feet. Then there is the sidewalk-crack/sidewalk-tilt distance, which includes the number and degree of irregularities that force the wheelchair user to swerve slightly. And this is particularly fatiguing, because one ignores these anomalies at one’s peril. The wheelchair driver gets knocked about…or worse, gets the drag bolt on the bottom of the wheelchair caught on a crack…which sometimes requires help from passersby…an unpleasant reminder of helplessness. And all these factors must be correlated, the weather factored in (very nice today)…plus the orthopedics du jour, low-grade aches and pains coming and going. Anyway, it’s not very far. Yet it is. Which is why I am on the bus.

But I’m not on the bus now. I have stopped. Mission Street. And a roll up the hill and search of El Buen Comer. I have been here before. I rolled inside on a day two years ago that was dark and cloudy. But may actually have been quite sunny, thus the somberness of COVID-19. I was the only person in the restaurant. Again, this may not be exactly true. It felt like it was true. And I ordered something innovative but unwise.

Fortunately, a brighter day has dawned. This time the pandemic seems to be receding. And I am meeting Stephen, opera composer and Mexican food fan. And after careful study, I ordered the right thing this time. A sope, one of those tiny, thick and concave tortillas that contain stuff. I opt for chorizo and potato. I order what I imagine will be corn on the cob grilled with chili powder. But this turns out to be corn off the cob and in a sort of soup, accompanied by a bit of mayonnaise…oddly wonderful. Stephen assures me this combination is perfectly normal. He has had the corn soup/mayonnaise concoction before. 

But for me this is a pioneering moment…for there is something else happening. Businesses are open, up and down Mission Street. People are open. Masks are off. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I’m giving thanks right now. For the city. For friends like Stephen. And even for the rude Muni driver who barks at me on the way home.