History repeating

Having lived in San Francisco for nearly 10 years already (I have no idea how that happened), I think it's safe to consider myself a resident, as opposed to a transient like so many others of my age or younger. One of the many great things about this city is how important its history is to its identity and one of the great things about its identity is how much it defines its residents.

Sure, all the great American cities have their histories, and not having lived in any others for long enough to absorb their own layered pasts I am certainly biased. But San Francisco is fascinating because its tale combines threads you'd recognize from all the others. A happy accident of geography and culture and timing: from pre-Columbian outpost to Spanish mission, from ranchland to overnight metropolis, from the end of the trail to the gateway of the Pacific, war, boom and bust, the Wild West, the exotic Orient, European grandeur, incomparable wealth, working-class poverty, immigration, innovation, tragedy, rebirth.

But for everything San Francisco is known for, perhaps the most significant is The Great Quake. It's a funny thing that people all over the world know of the earthquake and fire that destroyed the city a hundred years ago, despite all the disasters elsewhere through the ages. And that piece of history quite possibly defines the city more than any other even a century later. There are several reasons for this (I'm sure many volumes have been written about it elsewhere), but chief among them I think is the underlying fear that it could or knowledge that it will happen again, that all the greatness around us could be destroyed at any moment.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of the possibility of The Big One. Wherever I go, whatever I'm doing, it's in the back of my head, and I'm scoping out places I could duck into to avoid falling debris, sturdy objects to seek shelter beneath, brick edifices to avoid walking past, electrical lines that could come down should now be the moment. It's not a paralyzing fear, mind you, or even an unhealthy obsession - in fact, most of us go about our day to day under the assumption it won't happen today. But the possibility that it might is all-pervasive.

And so, as the City prepares for the 100th anniversary of the last Big One, I'll join in the fray by writing a little about some of the things I've absorbed over the years and come to feel is part of my own heritage as a resident of this fair city.