S.F. bookworm marks his place for 30 years

Avid reader, 82, a fixture outside Opera Plaza store, yet he remains a mystery

Practically every day for the past 30 years, Eric Tee has rolled his wheelchair up to a tree in front of the bookstore at Opera Plaza in San Francisco. He reaches into a plastic bag hanging from the chair handle and picks out a book. Mysteries are a favorite. Or history.

Then, for the next eight hours, Tee, or “ETee” as he’s known to his friends, sits there and reads. He looks up now and then to call out a cheery “good afternoon” or “good morning.” Occasionally, someone stops to chat about the weather, politics — or, of course, books.

But mostly, he passes the hours turning pages. The other day was filled with Scott Turow’s “The Last Trial.” As he reads, ETee rocks slightly,

“As a Black man from Africa, I am particularly interested in stories of Black history or life.”

ETee, who came to San Francisco in 1989

“Way back when, they had Emperor Norton. Today, we’ve got Eric.”

chortling or grimacing at the narratives. When he’s done, he rolls his chair back to wherever he came from.

Which to most people is a mystery.

ETee is 82 years old with a thick gray beard, and he’s been at that wideleafed tristania tree in front of the bookstore so long that all but the few who know him best think he’s homeless. After all, he does carry his things in a plastic bag. His clothes are neat but often badly worn, the contours of his face reflect years of hard wear. And he’s sitting outside on the sidewalk all day, though he never asks for help or donations.

But ETee doesn’t share much of his past, or where he lives, or what he does other than read. So all most folks know is that he’s the guy who reads in front of whatever bookstore has been in that spot for 30 years, which since 2006 has been Books Inc.

People bring him lunch and books and conversation. In return, he brightens their day with a smile and gives an unusual sense of constancy in a world where touchstones are too often fleeting.

“He is always friendly, dignified, and the entire neighborhood looks out for him,” said Books Inc. salesman David Marshall, who’s given ETee surplus books for a decade. “He goes through two or three books a week, and shoot, if someone wants to read that much, I will always support it.”

At that rate and accounting for days away now and then, ETee has read at least 3,000 books beneath his tree on Van Ness Avenue.

“Eric is just a cool guy,” said Marshall, one of several Opera Plaza workers and residents who have taken a shine to

Mike Housh, historian

ETee. “And him being out there so long, like that, is really touching.”

Mike Housh, a historian at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission across the street, stops to banter with ETee on his way to work every day and calls him “part of San Francisco, its history, its character, and we love him.”

“Way back when, they had Emperor Norton,” Housh said. “Today, we’ve got Eric.”

The other morning, he jibed ETee about how he forgot to bring his pet wild turkey, Which of course, he doesn’t have. “I’ll bring it with my guard rabbit tomorrow,” ETee said. “Yessir, you do that, and I’ll bring it lunch,” Housh said.

Then it was back to Turow. Which was quickly followed by “The Kalahari Typing School for Men,” a novel set in Botswana.

“As a Black man from Africa, I am particularly interested in stories of Black history or life,” ETee said. “But I’m also partial to Clive Cussler and Dean Koontz.” He winked. “Well, the truth is, I believe I like to read just about anything.”

From Africa. It’s one of the few shreds of biography ETee readily shares.

He says he emigrated with his mother from Algeria at 7, grew up in Southern California and came to San Francisco as a construction worker in 1989. Somewhere along the way, he says, he lost whatever birth certificate and other identification he might have had, so he always had to work under the table.

Around 1990, he started selling the Street Sheet homeless newspaper and reckoned sitting in front of the Opera Plaza bookstore was a good place for that. He never stopped. He’s still selling the Street Sheet, at $2 a pop — though he never pushes it. People have to ask him for it.

Also somewhere along the way, there was a wife, ETee says, but they didn’t live together much and she’s been dead for many years. There’s also a daughter named Anne Dee or Held — he’s not quite sure which — who lives in Central California and visits him once a year, he says. But he says he has no way of getting a hold of her, so she just comes and finds him at the tree.

He was indeed homeless off and on for a couple of decades when he couldn’t find work — and then when he got too old to swing a hammer. But for the past several years, ETee has been living in a cityfunded residential hotel for formerly homeless people. And he doesn’t need the wheelchair for mobility — he can walk slowly with a cane. But rolling a chair is a lot easier than carrying one, so that’s what he does. He’s on his 12th chair now — this one is a pushable walker with a seat — because the others were stolen.

“Look, I never get bored here,” ETee said. “I have my books. If people want to buy the Street Sheet, that’s great, I can use the money. And sometimes people just give me money or food, though I never ask for it.

“But really, I’m just here because this is a beautiful place to sit, and the people are so nice,” he said. “And here’s my take on life: My mama said, ‘Boy, I got one thing to say, if I ever catch you downbeat, I’m coming out of the grave to knock you upside the head.’ So I take that to heart. You have to be upbeat to help people up out of what’s bothering them. And it helps me too.”

Lynn Davis lives in the Opera Plaza apartments, and years ago took it upon herself to try to figure out ETee’s story so she could help him. In 2013 while walking home, he was beaten in the head, police records show, which put him in a hospital for several weeks. Davis made an extra effort then to find his family.

Without ID to steer her, she relied on ETee’s fuzzy memory. The daughter’s name didn’t show up anywhere she looked. He said his mother’s maiden name began with a T, which is why he is called ETee, but that was also a dry hole. And in hospital records and other filings, ETee’s name turned up as John “Eric” Held, Prad, Pradd and Pratt. ETee simply calls himself Eric ETee.

Eventually, with ETee housed, she dropped it. He’s a beloved institution in the neighborhood, she said, seems to be doing OK, and that’s good enough for her.

“Eric has phenomenal resilience,” Davis said. “It’s like he’s got his tree there, and it’s his home. And he is part of our community.”

Mark Harmon, a paralegal who works nearby, often brings ETee lunch. One day last week it was a Whopper from Burger King. ETee complained that it had onions.

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Harmon said with mock seriousness.

“Eric’s always good for a laugh, such an upbeat guy,” Harmon said. “I try to give him clothes, pillows, a bag to carry his stuff in, but he won’t take it.” He turned to ETee and patted him on the shoulder.

“You’re an amazing guy,” Harmon said. “How did you get to be 82? I thought you were 65.”

ETee stared back with a slight grin. “I don’t do drugs, I don’t do women,” he said. “I pretty much just read. That’s how I got to be 82 years old.”

Not everyone has always been thrilled to have him around, though. ETee sometimes leaves a food wrapper or a coffee cup at the tree when he leaves. And his presence, though benign, has rankled some who didn’t like the idea of a guy sitting on the sidewalk all day.

Deidra O’Merde has run the Rosebowl Florist and Wine Shop at Opera Plaza since well before ETee showed up, and said, “It used to really piss me off that he was there.” But gradually even she came around. “When he was gone, the people who hung out there instead were worse,” O’Merde said. “He’s nice enough.”

Jennifer Friedenbach, who’s known ETee for at least 15 years, said she also tried to dredge up files to help ETee. No luck.

“I don’t think any of us actually knows who he truly is,” said Friedenbach, director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “There’s not a record of who he is that matches . ... But in the end it doesn’t matter. He can be whoever he wants to be, like any of us. The system needed to embrace him and stabilize him, and it did — and I have to say the success of that probably has to do with his enormous personal charm. He’s just a really nice guy.”

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron

Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle Eric Tee sits near the corner of Turk Street and Van Ness Avenue and chats with his friend Mark Harmon, who works nearby and often brings him lunch.