My Quest

About a week after I moved up here, an old friend of mine from the city picked me up on the way to Reno. The Reno Experience is a subject for another post, alas. Or perhaps not alas, as it's a fine town populated by many fine folks and friends of mine.

To many SF residents, the mere word "Marin" evokes a certain Range-Roverly stereotype. Except for (see supra) day trips in and out of this sunny belly of the Cultural Beast, they tend not to want much to do with it. Particularly living there.

We had stopped at the In-and-Out right off 101 for lunch. As we walked through the parking lot, Haj (he's a Japanese fellow who's lived in SF for the past ten years or so) finally dropped The Question, the one that I was to get time and time again during the first several months of my residency here.

"So, what's it really like living up here?" came the innocent query between slurps of a chocolate shake. I myself was a bit shaken, not being prepared for this zinger, particularly the tone of voice in which it had been delivered.

Thus came my unscripted reply: "Well, Haj, it's really nice. But every once and a while I look around and think to myself, 'Gee, am I one of these rich white people now?'"

As soon as it left my lips, I began reflecting on that thought. And fiercely denying it. I made a commitment that--Mercedes or no--I wouldn't succumb to the Bay Club Syndrome. I would live here, yes, and I would be white and relatively well-off, but I would find that legendary Old Marin that one hears so much about and yet the uppity-bobo-SOMA residents seem never to be able to locate. And I'd cast myself into it.

Thus began the quest.