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CROSS_WALK

                                             September 16, 2009

One afternoon, Dangerbaby and I were
walking through the Tenderloin, we see a
man and woman crouching down, talking to a
puffy looking drunk, nearly unconscious,
nose bloodied.  The couple speak to him
earnestly, trying to penetrate his chemical
shield to explain that he needs help.

Dangerbaby speculates that they must be
fresh from the Midwest, with naive
idealism still intact.

My thought was that they might be hip young
Christians associated with some place like
Glide Memorial Church...


         Once I was out with a group of
         friends in a park in a strange
         corner of San Francisco, where       Every day, thousands of
         San Bruno Ave dead-ends against      people barrel past this
         Chavez Street and highway 101.       park in their motorized
                                              cages without knowing that
         This is near the old                 it's there.
         Survival Research Labs
         location, and even further
         back in time, the old
         location of The Farm.

            In recent years this park has been
            re-landscaped, and somewhat
            revitalized with the addition of
            multiple playgrounds, including
            a skate park.

            But in those days, it was nearly
            empty, the haven of a few drunks
            and homeless people (a few, but not
            *that* many... most likely it was      A friend expressed the
            very heavily policed).                 opinion that this park
                                                   would always go nearly
               On the day that we were             unused -- it was too
               there, some Christian               isolated, in too rough
               group was holding a                 a neighborhood.
               barbecue, inviting the
               homeless and the drunks             I agreed, but my take
               to join them.                       was that the problem
                                                   was the heavy car
               One of our group was                traffic on two sides.
               seriously annoyed by
               these people:                          Eveyone always wants
               "goddamn religious                     to be able to drive
               fanatics, why don't                    right to where
               they mind their own                    they're going, but
               business?"                             they don't want
                                                      there to be any
                  It's not often you run              other cars around
                  into more hard-core                 when they get there.
                  atheists than I am,
                  but they're around...              As it turns out, we
                                                     were both wrong:
                  My attitude: surprise              this park is getting
                  at seeing some                     a lot of use from
                  Christians out there               the local kids now.
                  actually walking the               I think that the key
                  walk.                              addition was the
                                                     skate bowl.
                  ON_THE_WALL
                                                       There's a paucity of
                                                       places where skaters
                                                       are allowed to get
                                                       Xtreme, and they're
                                                       willing to put up
                                                       with a somewhat
                              We born-again            rough, grubby
                              New Urbanists            neighborhood with
                              need to watch            traffic noise.
                              out for our
                              dogmatism, too.              They're a logical
                                                           community to use
                                                           as an anchor, to
                                                           increase foot
                                                           traffic to the
                                                           point where other
                                                           kids feel safe.


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