Music stops as bagpiper takes final bows
When Hal Wilkes first pledged to play his bagpipes on his Castro district rooftop every night at sunset as long as San Franciscans were instructed to stay home, he didn’t know what he was getting himself into.
He figured our strange shelterinplace reality would last a month. Thirty performances? No problem.
But as our weird purgatory between staying almost entirely at home and reentering seminormal life drags on, Wilkes had to call it quits. He’d run out of new songs to play. And any good performer knows when it’s time to leave the stage — especially when you’re playing the bagpipes.
On Sunday, Wilkes donned a red plaid kilt, and due to his rooftop perch and the windy evening, the appropriate undergarments. Usually, he plays in jeans and a sweater, but this was an important night. It would be Sunset Serenade No. 111 — his final show.
“I’ve never played more consistently in my entire life,”
Wilkes explained. “You just feel like it’s kind of time. You don’t want it to go on and on and on. But no one said ‘Shut up!’ It’s been so nice.”
There’s plenty to be anxious and depressed about these days, and Wilkes acknowledged he’s been “horrified” by the spike in coronavirus cases
around the country and many of our fellow Americans’ refusal to wear masks and avoid crowded bars, restaurants and gyms.
But kindhearted, generous San Franciscans like Wilkes have made our harrowing spring and summer a little easier to take. He’s one of several artists and musicians who’ve donated their time and talent to entertain and console us. They’ve reminded us that COVID19 can snatch away so much, but it can’t rob of us music, art, love or community.
In fact, Wilkes’ neighbors near 18th and Sanchez Streets are exponentially more neighborly than they were before March 17, the first night the Pied Piper of the Castro played for them, his music carrying from the valley in which his apartment building sits to the hills all around it.
Before the pandemic, his neighbors in this typically bustling city barely even said hello. Now that time has slowed and there are few places to be but home, they’ve become fast friends.
They’ve held socially distanced rooftop and backyard potlucks. They share a text chain and always ask if anybody needs anything when they head to the grocery store. They wrap homemade cookies, cakes and bread in aluminum foil and toss it to each other “deck to deck,” Wilkes said.
Bethany Fisher moved into the building nine months ago and knew nobody before the nightly piping performances.
“I didn’t even know we had a roof deck!” she said with a laugh.
“We live on the first floor,” explained her partner, Boston Nyer. “We got to meet all these really great people, and that will last.”
The piper even knows his neighbors farther afield now, too.
Like the 6yearold girl with curly red hair who lives in the purple house a couple of blocks away. Her mother wrote him a note about how the little girl loves his bagpipes. On her birthday, Wilkes piped “Happy Birthday,” and the girl’s mother sent him a picture of her daughter’s beaming smile in response.
Other neighbors have left bottles of whiskey, his drink of choice, on his front step. Flowers. Notes of thanks.
After this column featured Wilkes in March, he received calls from journalists around the Bay Area and even in Europe. He was featured in numerous papers and news shows, and a documentary filmmaker recorded him using a drone.
“People are looking for little bit of light, something positive,” he said.
And so he kept playing. He’s played so many nights in a row that when he started March 17, sunset occurred at 7:19 pm., and when he stopped July 5, the sun set at 8:35 pm. He played in the damp mist. He played in the cold. He played in seemingly galeforce winds that nearly knocked him over. He played so long, a whole new city icon, the illuminated pink triangle on Twin Peaks, was added to his nightly backdrop.
One night, he admitted, he thought the pink lights looked like a man’s sixpack abs.
“Starving people think of food,” he said with a wink.
He thought about stopping at Sunset Serenade No. 100, but he really wanted to pipe “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on the Fourth of July. He realized July 5 would mark show No. 111, and that was that.
His good friend and neighbor, Ruth Nott, let the whole neighborhood know Sunday would be the final show via a Nextdoor post. Neighbors responded in big numbers.
One wrote, “I have heard those pipes several times at 17th and Church. This is another example of why I love this city. Imperfections and all.” Another wrote, “It’s part of what makes S.F. the unique place we cherish.” And another wrote, “Thanks for your service. We needed it.”
And so just before sunset on Sunday, Wilkes walked up his back wooden steps to his roof.
“It’s weird. A little strange,” he said before he played. “I like routines. I feel a little melancholy.”
Usually he played just one song. But on this night, it was four, played back to back in one long melody. He played “Farewell to Oban,” a traditional piping song. And then “Teddy O’Neill,” an Irish song. And then “Amazing Grace” to honor those who’ve died of the virus and their loved ones. And finally “Auld Lang Syne” to remember better years gone by and to hope for a happier tomorrow.
Unseen neighbors in farflung homes cheered loudly and hollered their thanks, the noise surprisingly loud.
“That’s it! That’s it!” he hollered back, clearly choking up. “Take care of yourself! Stay safe! Stay healthy!”
He raised his whiskey glass to a few neighbors gathered on the rooftop to listen.
“I want to make a toast,” he said. “To everyone’s health and wisdom. One without the other cannot work.”
Wilkes, who’s in his 50s, has played the pipes professionally since he was a teenager. He has played for the British royal family. For politicians and celebrities. At weddings and parties. A few performances have even included rides in helicopters and on yachts.
But his simple sunset serenades played for free to delight his sheltering neighbors will always stand out in his mind.
“This will probably be the most meaningful,” he said. “I call it the paycheck of the heart.”