Louise Mariani LaMuth: Growing Up in the Avenues

I was born on a cool summer day on Aug. 12, 1914 in the Sunset District of San Francisco. The foghorns had not yet been heard bellowing out their mournful warnings when my mother said she felt the tell-tale signs of labor.

As I was two months premature, this was a great surprise. The doctor, H.B. Casey, immediately left his office, only six blocks from our home, to help my mother give birth to a three-pound baby girl. Casey told my mother that I was very delicate and that she was not to handle me unless necessary. He placed me in a temporary crib, a pillow in a wash basket, and left.

I had a sister two years older named Katherine. I found that name long and confusing as a child and called her Kahe instead. An adventurous soul with boundless energy and a joyous disposition, she was completely fearless. Kahe was entrusted with looking over me - her quiet, shy baby sister. Her usual child-monitoring technique was to take a tight grip of my hand and pull me away from whatever I was doing. Many adventures were launched in this spontaneous matter. It helped that she never let go of my hand.

"The Sheik"
When we were growing up, much of the Sunset was undeveloped. The neighborhood was covered by large areas of sand dunes we called "the sand hills," or "the dunes."

When I was six years old, Kahe took me on a wonderful adventure. She had her usual iron grip on my hand as we climbed up big hills of sand. The warm sand seeped into our shoes as we made our way, Lewis-and-Clark style, through the endless sandy terrain. I soon got tired of trying to keep up with her long strides and wanted to go home.

But Kahe led me forward with her tight grip. I was getting ready to cry when I heard laughter in the distance. The sound excited me and I wanted to discover its origin. The more I climbed through the dunes, the louder the laughter became.

Finally, we came to a large expanse of flat sand. I looked around and thought I was in another world. I saw great big walls of metal shimmering in the sunlight and a gigantic tent with horses tethered up beside it. I saw a funny-looking chair with crossed legs and people standing around wearing funny-looking clothes laughing and talking as if they were at a birthday party. It felt like I had came upon an oasis.

A nice-looking man walked up to us wearing long white bloomers and a scarf on his head. He smiled to display beautiful white teeth, just like my dad had. I didn't want to smile back because my two front teeth were missing but I did anyway. I thought he was going to say something but suddenly Kahe jerked me away and off we went. I felt exhilarated by our discovery as we ran through the dunes back home.

I recounted our adventure to my mother. She told me that our neighbor, Mrs. O'Connell, had told her that a group of motion picture people from Hollywood were filming a movie out in the dunes. It was called "The Sheik" and starred one of the most famous movie stars of the time, Rudolph Valentino.

Many times I have wondered if the nice-looking man with the beautiful teeth who smiled at me was the famous sex symbol.

Tennis and Tate
One summer day, when I was 11, one of the neighborhood dads set up a tennis net on the avenue and handed out rackets to the children. The net had big holes in it - so big a tennis ball could pass through it. We didn't know how to score a tennis game and couldn't paint lines on a city street so we created our own rules. The player who hit the ball over the net the most times won.

After a few days of playing "tennis," I gave up on my dreams of becoming the next Helen Wills - a female tennis star who had grown up in Berkeley and went on to win eight Wimbledon championships. I almost always lost. There was a problem with how we played tennis: the net was placed in the middle of the street so that no automobiles or buses could get by while we played.

Tate was the driver of the big, rumbling #1 bus that lumbered up the avenue like a giant whale. If we couldn't take our net down fast enough he'd wait for us and then smile broadly and wave at us as he passed. Then we would watch him continue his drive around the corner to Judah Street, at the end of the No. 1 bus line at 35th Avenue.

Tate was a gentleman to our mothers. They would always put on their best clothing before going shopping downtown, wearing long coats, hats, walking shoes and gloves. They'd wait in front of their homes with their nickel fare in hand to give Tate. He would pick them up and drop them off right at their homes. If it was too cold or foggy to wait outside, he would wait as our mothers ran down the stairs of their homes to catch his bus.

On the return trip, Tate would be kind enough to hold their packages while they stepped down from his bus to the sidewalk. He was a very nice man who wore his uniform with pride.

The Green Rocket
During the summer of 1924 the girls on the avenue decided to build a super coaster that could carry three passengers. It was like a go-cart. A man building a home down the road gave us a big board that we could use.

To build our super coaster, our friend Ruby took two wheels off of her little brother's tricycle. We had already found two skate wheels. We spent the next few days building our super coaster and painting it green, with "The Green Rocket" painted on its side.

We were very excited to launch the Green Rocket on its maiden voyage. Ruby sat in the driver's seat holding the steering rope and two other girls sat behind her. We were all cheering when I gave them a push down the hill. It went fast. We were still cheering when the two tricycle wheels went flying off. The Green Rocket kept going and I could hear the scraping of wood on the sidewalk. I yelled to Ruby to use the emergency break I had nailed on but she said it had fallen off.

Then I saw six legs stretch out on the sidewalk looking like a giant spider. The Green Rocket came to a halt at the end of its first and final voyage. The last I saw of the Green Rocket was when it was in the back of the horse-drawn wagon that picked up rags, bottles and sacks.

I watched the horse take the super coaster away and wondered if somebody might ride it again in the future.

Louise Mariani LaMuth is a long-time Sunset District resident.