Embarcadero Crash and Beautiful Young People

On Saturday morning, there was a crash in front of the Embarcadero Hyatt Regency where Steuart Street makes a left turn and becomes Market Street, San Francisco's perennially grubby version of the Champs Elysees.

An historic streetcar had run into the back of a doubledecker tour bus.

The mild crash blocked bus and car traffic in both directions, and a trio of Muni drivers were standing on a corner talking with each other. "Did somebody try to play chicken with a Muni vehicle?" I asked them, and they all laughed. "That's about right!" one of them replied.

Muni drivers may have the most heroic, difficult jobs in San Francisco, dealing on an hourly basis with crazy streets, passengers, drivers, bicyclists, and now electric scooter riders.

They also get no respect, which at heart reflects San Francisco's longtime institutional racism.

Walking along the Embarcadero waterfront, we tried not to get run over by bicycles, scooters and even a pack of young, nerdy characters on motorized skateboards.

Even dodging all the vehicular traffic, the Embarcadero still knocks me out with its beauty.

We saw a quintet of friends on surfboards at McCovey Cove next to the SF Giants ballpark and what was sublime was that there was no home game that day and they had the place to themselves.

It was amusing to watch them pulling cans of beer out of their swim trunks for an impromptu day drinking session.

After watching all the many people on vehicles staring at digital devices, this group looked paradisiacal in their analog languor.

Further down the Embarcadero we went to our secret cheap waterfront German beer burger joint, that was once fashionable and no longer is so I will not name it, and were soon swarmed by a bachelor/ette party. The bride to be is pictured above.

The woman above explained that the bride-and-groom-to-be shared all the same friends, so they decided to have a bachelor party where both genders were included. "Does this have a name?" I asked them, and they replied, "No." In other words, they were inventing it and I confidently predict there will be a New York Times trends article about bi-gender bachelor/ette parties within the next five years.

The group of about 20 friends were the sweetest, cutest group imaginable, and I asked who the central character might be. "The groom," another woman told me. "The bride to be is a nurse and the groom to be is a chef, and when he invites people to an event, everyone shows up."

As we made our way home dodging all the sidewalk distractions, I predicted that we would run into somebody on an electric scooter walking a pit bull while looking at a mobile device. Instead, we ran into a rollerblader staring at his mobile phone while exercising his pit bull.