San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Regular heroes got us through year
Each weekday, Michael Torres zips his little green van through the streets of San Francisco, dropping 84 meals with 42 seniors in isolation as the pandemic rages.
Most of the recipients, clients of the On Lok senior center, have him leave the food at their front door, too frightened of the coronavirus to take the packages directly. But not Jose Garcia. The 69yearold retiree, who uses a wheelchair, invites Torres into his apartment every day for a masked and socially distanced chat.
The men banter about their Mexican heritage. About their favorite boxer, Canelo Álvarez. About lowriders. About the 49ers. About old movies. About their families. About growing up in San Francisco — Torres thinks the city has gotten worse because it’s too crowded, but Garcia thinks it’s gotten better because people don’t call him racist names anymore.
They joke and laugh and end their time with an elbow bump and their Spanglish farewell, “See ya mañana!” And then Garcia waits until the next day and the next visit.
The friendship doesn’t seem remarkable, but in this dreadful year marked by uncertainty, misery and isolation, it is. And it’s a reminder that as our politicians, public health officials and celebrities consume the headlines, it’s regular people
like Torres, with his van and his food and his cheeriness, that keep our city running.
And so for this final column of 2020, let’s celebrate the everyday San Franciscans who’ve stepped up for the rest of us in this disastrous year. The health care workers. The grocery store staff. The postal workers. The childcare workers. And so many more — including those bringing food to people who can’t leave their homes.
“We call each other brother from another mother,” Torres, 58, said of Garcia. “That guy loves talking. I could talk to him all day.”
Garcia has two daughters and grandchildren who visit regularly, but many days he sees nobody but Torres, who drives one of nine routes managed by On Lok, providing two meals apiece to a total of about 350 homebound San Franciscans every weekday.
Asked how he’s felt during 2020, Garcia said, “Stuck — a whole lot of stuck. I have my TV. That keeps me entertained.”
He lives in a little apartment in Diamond Heights with a stunning view of the bay and the city that has changed incredibly since his family moved from Mexico when he was 4. The selfdescribed “jack of all trades, master of none” worked as a bartender, pipe fitter and airport customs staffer.
Torres, a native of the city, worked for 35 years at Safeway before retiring and now holds three jobs: packing produce at a different grocery store, ushering at Oracle Park and delivering food for On Lok.
“We’re a lot alike,” Garcia said. “He uplifts me.”
And can’t we all use that this year? The comment got me thinking about other everyday San Franciscans who’ve used their talents to make this year better, and I checked in with a few I’ve written about this year.
Perhaps my favorite person I met on the job in 2020 was Hal Wilkes, the bagpiper who played on the roof of his Castro district apartment building at sundown for 111 straight evenings. He started the first night of shelter in place, hoping, as most of us did back then, it would be a short blip.
He gave up the nightly routine when it became clear our new reality wasn’t ending anytime soon, but he continues to play every Sunday at sunset. It’s a neighborhood ritual, and people lean out their windows or go on their roofs to listen to Wilkes’ music. At the end of each performance, he hears shouts of appreciation and “We love you!”
He always raises his glass of whiskey and hollers back “Cheers!”
That’s the highlight of his week. The rest is grim. He makes his living as a salesman of burial vaults, and business is sadly booming, especially in the Central Valley and Southern California.
“The grim reaper is just whizzing that blade,” he said. “It’s awful.”
He promised to play the Sunday sunset serenades through mid-March, to mark the first anniversary of the city’s shelter in place orders, and hopes life will be better by then.
Another favorite column subject this year was also a creative type: poet Kevin Dublin. He wrote a poem called “Such Great Heights” to read to his girlfriend, Katie Lewin, just before proposing to her on the Sky Star Observation Wheel in Golden Gate Park in early October. To nobody’s surprise, she said yes.
Life since then has gotten worse in San Francisco, with a new coronavirus surge shutting down most of the city — including the giant Ferris wheel.
“I’m so happy the fates aligned to make that happen,” Dublin said of the wheel spinning long enough for him to propose.
Dublin and Lewin hope to marry next year in the Presidio but aren’t making any firm plans until the pandemic subsides. The couple worthy of a romcom are celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by exchanging gifts for 12 days in a row underneath their Christmas tree. Dublin is writing new poems for a handmade chapbook to give Lewin as one of the gifts. All together now, “Awww!”
One last person I wanted to check in on used her voice to speak truth to power. Kristin Urquiza lost her dad, Mark, to COVID19 over the summer and founded Marked by COVID, a national advocacy group for people who’ve lost loved ones to the virus. She’s been staying with her mother in Arizona for a couple of months to campaign in the leadup to the election and then to go through all of her dad’s belongings.
She’s developed a policy platform for Marked by COVID, which calls for a National COVID Memorial Day in early March, the creation of a national panel modeled after the 9/ 11 Commission and financial restitution for people who’ve lost relatives or who suffer longterm symptoms after recovering from the disease.
“We need to attempt to make right the egregious wrongs that have been done over the course of the last year,” she said.
On Christmas, she and her mother plan to order Chinese takeout and eat it in a park where they used to walk regularly with her dad.
Back at Garcia’s apartment building, Torres explained that he loves delivering meals to seniors — and he brushes off the notion it’s anything special.
“I’ve got people yelling at me on the streets,” he said. “I always think, ‘ What did I do?’ They go, ‘ Thank you for your job and your duty!’ I go, ‘ Oh, OK, I thought I cut them off.’ ”
Seeing Garcia is the favorite part of his route. “This is my guy right here!” he said when his buddy answered the door.
They talked animatedly about nothing much. The old sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes,” the Gold Rush, pool hustlers and Carol Doda all came up.
“He makes my day,” Garcia said.
“It’s true,” Torres said. “For me, too.”
And then it was time for Torres to continue on his route. Elbow bump. See ya mañana! Until next time.