Idylls and Rambles by Father James Schall

Author:Father James Schall [Schall, Father James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898704563
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2011-08-12T05:00:00+00:00

29

Being There

As I had not been in San Francisco in the Spring since 1956, I had not realized the beauty of the spectacular display of rhododendrons that appear in Golden Gate Park in late April and early May—a sort of superabundance of beauty, symbolic, I think, of the real mystery of our lot, namely, that we be given so much, not so little. This was 1984, and I walked to the Rhododendron Dell from Irving Street along Ninth Avenue. On the way, I watched an inning or so of a high school baseball game on Graham Field. Then I went over behind the California Academy of Science building to the Dell. In the Dell, there were signs all over, warning: “Don’t Pick the Flowers”.

Toward me came a young mother giving her nine-year-old son the devil. The boy was sheepishly, yet defiantly, carrying a sprig of just-picked red rhododendron. I was reminded that Saint Augustine’s story about stealing the pears for no reason other than because it was forbidden may still be pertinent, even in Golden Gate Park.

I walked out of the Park at Sixth Avenue, over to Cabrillo to return to the University of San Francisco. I crossed Arguello to where Cabrillo makes a jog and becomes McAllister. At the corner of Willard and McAllister, there is a rather steep incline coming down from Fulton Street. I was not paying too much attention to anything, just walking.

On my left, however, coming up Willard toward Fulton was a Pepsi-Cola truck, and on McAllister going about twenty-five miles an hour toward Arguello was a red Volkswagen station wagon. Suddenly, I heard an odd noise coming down the hill. While it happened, I stood there paralyzed in horror.

A young Chinese boy, about fifteen, on a fast skateboard was zipping down Willard just as the Volkswagen went through the intersection. The boy on the skateboard hit the back of the Volkswagen on the other side of the car from my vision, so I did not exactly see what happened. But as he hit the Volkswagen, which had screeched to a stop, I was sure I could see blood and broken life, as the boy seemed to have hit the back of the car head-on.

The terrified young man driving the Volkswagen jumped out and ran to the boy, as did I. Much to our mutual relief, the boy simply got up off the pavement and nonchalantly began to look for the back wheels of his skateboard, which had been knocked off. “Are you all right?” “Yeah, I’m all right.”

Well, when we were both sort of relieved that the boy must have managed somehow to stop in time—he was a wiry, agile kid—we both began simultaneously to give him absolute hell for coming so fast on a skateboard into a blind, intersection. The driver, in disbelief, asked the boy again if he was all right. The boy, meanwhile, having found the wheels, picked up his skateboard and continued on foot down Willard toward Geary.

The black driver

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