Not one but two interviews today! And lots of getting lost. I swear, by the time this book is written, I will know every BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station in the Bay Area.
Our first interview was at 1 p.m., with Kathryn, who was the woman who roped Alison and me into doing Book 3 of the Lamplighter History. We swore we were finished with writing about The Lamplighters way back in 1988 when our second book was published. But no, here we are doing it all over again...and even enjoying ourselves again, as we begin to get serious about working on it.
To do these interviews, I drive down from Davis (about 80 miles, give or take a few, depending on where the interviews are being held). Alison comes up from Hayward on BART. I pick her up at a BART station and we have our mini-meeting in the car before our interview or meeting or whatever we are going to.
Today since our first interview was in Daly City (slightly south of San Francisco--the town Melvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" was written about), I suggested that I pick her up at the Daly City BART station and we could go together the last few miles to Kathryn's house.
She pointed out that we could meet at any BART station, but I don't know where all the San Francisco stations are and I knew exactly where the Daly City station was because I passed by it all the time drive through on the freeway. Daly City would be perfect.
Only it is one thing to know where a place is, and quite another to know how to get there. Anybody remember my entry about "losing" Ikea, though I could see it from the freeway. I just couldn't get to it.
This was like that. I have driven by the Daly City BART station for years. I knew it was right off John Daly Blvd. So I got off and tried to get to it but there were no signs. I drove and drove and drove until I finally saw one sign for a BART station. I called Alison to tell her I was almost there. Then I kept driving and driving until I finally stopped to ask where BART was. I was only 2 blocks away. From the COLMA BART station...Colma (the "city of the dead") was the next town down.
I got back on the freeway and drove back to John Daly Blvd. Getting off going in this direction was better because I could SEE The BART station. Right there in front of me. Signage and all. I even drove up to it, turned toward it, and couldn't find out how to get INTO it. I decided I must have to drive around it, so I drove past it, turned right and found myself back on the freeway. The next offramp was about 2 miles away so I had to drive 2 more miles. I got off the freeway again, turned around, drove back to John Daly Blvd. and finally got to the station, but still had a hell of a time getting TO the station. But I did find Alison, finally, and we headed to Kathryn's house. And we were only two minutes late!
We had a lovely lunch at Kathryn's, who must have thought we were bringing an army of minions with us because she fixed so much food, but everything was delicious. And we had a good interview. Kathryn is someone who is new to us and new to the Lamplighters in the last 25 years but she joined the company when her daughter joined the young people's program and then when her daughter went off to college, Kathryn just stayed around as a sort of piratical maid of all work and obviously has a great love for the company and desire to help out as much as she can.
I guess we were with her nearly 2 hours. Then we got on the freeway at 3:30 p.m., expecting to find lots of rush hour traffic, but it was clear sailing in to Alameda, where our next interview was scheduled for 6 p.m. I took a wrong turn off the freeway and had to kind of grope my way around the docks for a bit, but I knew where I was headed and was able to find it without too much trouble.
Alison's son and his wife (who are expecting their first baby) live in Alameda and so to kill time we stopped by their house and ended up eating dinner with them at the restaurant across the street. Then on to Jonathan's house.
We arrived at Jonathan's about 2 minutes late too (after a very minor "getting lost" period...though at least I am pretty familiar with this part of Alameda, so it was mainly a result of not being able to read street signs in the dark). There was apparently a mix-up about the time. I thought we were scheduled for 6 p.m., he thought we were scheduled for 8 p.m., but it all worked out anyway.
I dearly love Jonathan. He's talented, intelligent, and tells a good story. We chatted and reminisced about mutual experiences (such as our travel with The Lamplighters to Buxton, England, back in 1995--he even has pictures of my mother, who accompanied us on that trip). At the end of the interview, I also got Jonathan to share what it's like to be a contestant on Jeopardy (we watched him win his first game and lose the second), when I spied a photo of Jonathan and Alex Trebeck on display.
Leaving Jonathan's house, I was going to drop Alison off at the Fruitridge BART station. I knew exactly where it was because I used to take my friend Olivia there when she lived in Alameda. Only I took the wrong first turn and ended up wandering around the not very nice section of Oakland for a long time until we finally found it.
Tomorrow we are doing yet another interview in San Francisco. I will have to leave here at 8 a.m. to pick Alison up at the Richmond BART station. Should be no problem tomorrow. I know exactly where that BART station is.
I think.
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