So I’ve been enjoying my time as an unemployed man. I spent today flirting with the cute New Yorker working in the Kenneth Cole store, and looking at jackets. It’s been nice. As I was walking down Market St, I saw one of the kiosks had a new ad up. I went over and looked at it.
It had a large quote “we will drive the chinaman from our shores wheter by voting or force” from the late 1800’s. It also mentioned that this spot was where an anti-chinese crowd gathered and started a pogrom against the chinese here in SF, murdering people and burning houses. Needless to say I was shocked. There was something very moving about it. I think it was a good thing. It brought an aspect of forgoten history, not always pleasent, to the foreground. It will be seen by tourists and natives.
I continued walking, not in such a good mood, but in a state of quiet reflection. there are others up around Market st. Ones that talk about various occurances throughout history in SF. Most of them tragic, although a few of them are uplifting. We as a people, americans, have a tendency to give short shift to our past. We have a tendency to gloss over it and ignore it. I’m very happy that my city is doing this.
Philadelphia recently erected a historic marker honoring the birthplace of “American Bandstand.”
Kinda pales in comparison…
I agree with your city too. I think too often we forget. Or worse, we look down on people that do the same horrible things we, as a society, did. I think it is important that we do remember the terrible things people have done in hatred and NEVER do them ourselves. Maybe, this is redundant and everyone already does this, but then why is rascism and hate still in the dictionary?
'Cuz we’ll still be making movies about those two topics for years to come. 
When I was in the 8th grade,we took the customary trip to DC to pay homage to our budding patrotism. My father, who is one of my best friends, is a disabled Vietnam vet, who is alive only because a medic risked his own life to walk into a mine field and patch him up. I knew that the Wall would be emotional for me. I rarely cry, and I NEVER cry in public. I save my emotions for things that really matter. But when I saw hundreds of Bobbys and Billys, floodgates. It was’t the fact that war is bad, that I know. It wasn’t the fact that thousands of people lost their lives for absolutely no political gain. It was the fact that my father, a Jimmy, could have been up there, and I wouldn’t be in exhistance. In that moment, I realised what a gift life is, and what a chaotic and random series of chance meetings and occurances brought me to that location at that time, and how quickly it could all be taken from me. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, and it took me a long time to verbalise it. But that’s what was going on.
And the chaperone walked past and muttered to her equally stupid chaperone: “God, they get so upset when we bring them here. I don’t know why we keep doing it.” The idiot KNEW my dad was a Nam vet, the town only had 200 people.
The moral of the story is that shock value, jolting ads and monuments can do amazing things for people who get it. But there are some people who will always see just a big wall with names on it, and just an old poster. Nice to see you’re not one of them, Scratchy.
Another sad thing was when I walked through a Canadian graveyard from WWII. I thought about my grandpa, who was destined to board a transport to Germany from France. He was held back, however, by postal duty, and his best friend went instead. The transport was hit by a shell, killing everyone onboard. 
I’m crying now, I remember my grandpa walking up to the grave and planting a Canadian Flag, holding back the tears.
My grandpa was a true friend though. He stole a casket to bury that man in, so he wouldn’t spend eternity wrapped in a blanket. The graveyard was filled, though, seemingly endless rows of markers, some sporting the epitath ‘A soldier known only unto God’… I’m really gushing now, I have to stop.
I was watching a documentary tonight on earthquakes, and OF COURSE, the 1906 earthquake/fire was covered. They mentioned dynamite being used to try to contain the fire and create firebreaks. They also said that someone decided unilaterally to explode 60 buildings in Chinatown. Apparently they weren’t even trying to make sure the buildings were evacuated before exploding them. There were discriptions given of buildings exploding with bodies flying out of them all over the place. They considered this their “chance” to rid San Francisco of the Chinese. I was sickened. I’d like to think this was not true, but…
Equally as touching and shocking is the Miramar state concentration camp for the Japanese. It was erected in WWII after Japan’s involvement in the war. It’s located outside of Lone Pine on U.S. 395 in the Sierras.
There isn’t much left of the site, but they’re currently undergoing a renovation and trying to find the old buildings that were sold to locals after the war was over and the camp broken down.
-Sam
I was watching a special on PBS called Lost Liners about the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the Empress of Ireland. On the last part, they talked about a couple who were on board the Empress when it went down, two members of the Salvation Army-a husband and wife-and their grandson was there. He had a letter his grandfather had sent to his family right before the boarding…it was pretty moving. Also, Bob Ballard was on, and he said it was his last visit to a shipwreck. Kind of pales, I guess.
Then there was the time I went to the Johnstown Flood Museum. THAT was pretty sobering. Some 2 thousand people died-all because the rich bastards here in Pittsburgh didn’t want to bother to fix the damn or even open the traps because then their fishing supply wouldn’t get away.
Or watching the A&E biography video I got for Xmas about Nicholas and Alexandra, the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia.
I’m a huge Romanovophile, and towards the end, when they get to the shootings, you hear gunshot, and they just zoom in on pictures of each member of the family. It sort of drives it home…