I Only Came for the Spaghetti

by Beatrice M. Hogg

On the snowy morning of February 2, 1988, I left Pittsburgh International Airport bound for San Francisco. Puxatawney Phil had just seen his shadow, and I wasn't about to stick around for six more weeks of winter. I boarded a plane heading west to a land that I had never seen before. As the USAir plane lifted from the runway, I watched the snow covered Pennsylvania hills recede from view. My emotions oscillated between sadness, excitement and apprehension. I was leaving behind my friends and family and everything that I had ever known. I was going to California to start a new life.

California. I had heard and read about that mystical place since I was a child. San Francisco was a wacky, original city where the hippies had thrived and where sexual and artistic preferences weren't issues. It had the reputation of being an open, freethinking place. It was just what I needed after three decades in conservative, small town Pennsylvania.

I was 31, leaving home for new experiences and adventures. I was moving to San Francisco with two suitcases, $300, and a return ticket dated a month from today. I knew no one there. But the fear of never leaving Western Pennsylvania was greater than my fear of the unknown. After seven years as a welfare worker, I was leaving behind a caseload of senior citizens that had never ventured further than the West Virginia border, which was only twenty-five miles away. As I observed their lives, I could see my future. Unless I took the initiative, I would spend the next forty years just like them, growing old in the same area where I was raised, never exploring the world or realizing my dreams.

Katie's story was the final straw. Katie's face loomed in my memory like Marley's ghost. At the welfare office, Katie was a "lifer." She had been a caseworker for over thirty years. Other old timers used to mention that once she had been a good-looking woman. Now she was in her mid-fifties, with lines that creased her sad, sallow face. Her full, fleshy body sagged with the weight of her work. One day, Katie and I were among the workers that put in overtime until 9 P.M. As she left that evening, Katie was complaining that she still had cases to approve. Katie always worried about her clients, and went out of her way to help the most needy families. That night, Katie died of a heart attack. At work the next day, I watched as her belongings were boxed up, her cases were redistributed and all traces of her existence were wiped away. It took less than thirty minutes. And all that her beloved clients wanted to know was whether her death would affect their check date.

I did not want to become another kind of welfare casualty. So I turned my back on my "good government job" to seek my fortune elsewhere. Like the prospectors of old, I was hoping to find my personal motherlode.

The five-hour flight was a moving geography lesson. The plane passed over places that I remembered studying about in grade school textbooks. The Mississippi River. Iowa. The Rocky Mountains. Colorado. Yosemite. I saw the shadow of the plane as we crossed over some of the country's highest peaks. The mountains looked close. Too close. The pilot helpfully pointed out landmarks as well as dutifully announcing the altitude. I was vividly reminded of how much I hated to fly and my fear of crashing.

When the seat belt sign came back on and the plane prepared for landing, my heart was pounding. I looked out the window and saw green hills, a welcome sight after leaving Groundhog Country. I searched in vain for the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the few San Francisco landmarks that I knew. I heard the landing wheels come out and I looked out the window at-water.

Now I was really nervous. The green had disappeared, only to be replaced by a blue watery mass that I deduced was the San Francisco Bay. I tried in vain to remember what the flight attendant had said about what to do in case of a water landing. I had never learned to swim. I couldn't believe that I had traveled all this way only to drown in the San Francisco Bay. I looked around, but no one else seemed to be disturbed. The plane continued to descend as I looked out of the window in horror. At what seemed like the last possible moment, I saw a small jut of runway appear to come out of the water to meet the descending plane. One of the things that my guidebooks didn't tell me was that the runway at SFO extended into the Bay. My stomach returned to its proper place once I felt the wheels connect with the California concrete.

San Francisco International Airport was truly international. I had never seen people of so many different colors and nationalities in an American airport. The airport reminded me of my landing at Heathrow three years earlier. I couldn't wait to get to the city. In the shuttle from the airport, I tried to act as blasé as the other passengers. But the sights that filled the windows were as foreign to me as London had been. There were people and buildings everywhere. My head bounced from side to side as if I was watching a tennis match. I had never lived in a city before, and I wondered if I would be able to survive in this strange environment.

I was the last passenger in the van. The driver told me that the Pine Street rooming house where I had a reservation was in something called the Financial District. He assured me that it was a safe neighborhood and he wished me luck. When I walked into the dark lobby and saw what I thought was a woman in a gaudy, sparkly dress, I knew that I would need luck. I felt like Dorothy in Oz.

I stood in the back of the elevator as a grizzled older man manually closed the elevator cage. I deduced that most of the hotel's residents were single men. As I walked down the dark hall to my room, I was invaded by the faint smell of urine. The room did not have a bathroom, only a small sink. Was that the reason for the hotel's distinctive odor? I did not look forward to sharing facilities with my new neighbors, some of who reminded me of my former welfare clients. If the shower was not appealing, at least I could wash up in the sink.

As soon as I shed my Pennsylvania winter wardrobe, I went outside to explore my new neighborhood. The temperature was in the 60's, which was balmy compared to the cold and snow that I had experienced only six hours ago. I took a deep breath. The air was a mixture of grease and auto exhaust. It was then that I noticed a McDonald's three doors away. When I walked to the corner, I discovered a Mrs. Fields cookie place. At least I wouldn't starve. I wondered how long I could live on Big Macs and chocolate chip cookies. I gazed in awe of the vertical streets and buildings that rose to the sky. I stole glances at the homeless people that lined the streets.

On my first full day, I took a bus to Fisherman's Wharf, the only other landmark besides the Grateful Dead house that I remembered from my guidebook. I got off the bus at Pier 39, and walked toward the water's edge to look at Alcatraz Island. The bay was a postcard come to life. The whole scene was surreal: the hazy sky, the shining water, and the crowds of people buying overpriced trinkets. I went into a bakery to get my first taste of sourdough bread. I opted for a piece of bread slathered with cheese. The sourness of the bread filled my mouth. It had a strange but appealing taste. Strange but appealing, just like San Francisco.

After finishing the bread, I walked down the street, taking in my new surroundings. The area was teeming with tourists, but I tried to act as if I were just a local out on an afternoon excursion. There was a young blonde woman sitting at a table on the sidewalk near Fisherman's Wharf. At first, I thought that she was another street vendor, but the only thing on the table were flyers and brochures. As I passed the table, she caught my eye.

"Hi! How are you today?" Her perky, bubbly tone was a welcome surprise. I hadn't talked to anyone except the dour Temple Hotel desk clerk since my arrival.

"Fine. How are you?" I glanced at the literature on the table.

"Just wonderful!" She extended her hand. "My name is Sandi. What is your name?"

I shook hands. "Beatrice." I wondered why she had stopped me.

She eyed my clothes. "Where are you from?"

I looked down at my jeans and jacket. Did it show that I was from somewhere else? "I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," I answered. I wasn't really from Pittsburgh, but it was the nearest big city. No one would have heard of Washington or Hills Station.

She smiled and handed me a flyer. "How long have you been in San Francisco?"

I smiled back. "This is my first full day. I just arrived yesterday."

Her smile broadened. "Great! Welcome to California! Let me tell you about our organization." She brushed her long hair away from her face as she told me about the great group that she belonged to.

As she talked, I looked at the flyer more closely. The name of the organization had something to do with unification. The name seemed familiar, but I couldn't remember where I had heard it before. I just nodded my head and let her words float away on the bay breezes. But then she said something that caught my attention. I looked up from the table into her blue eyes. "What did you just say?"

"I said that we are having a spaghetti dinner this evening. Why don't you meet me back here at five? Then you can ride up to the house with me. We will eat and then have a short presentation about our group. Maybe you will want to join. After the meeting, I'll be happy to take you back to your apartment."

I hadn't had any pasta for awhile, especially free pasta. "Okay," I agreed. Sandi seemed genuinely happy that I was coming to the meeting. I was looking forward to the spaghetti, since my only nourishment so far that day had been an Egg McMuffin and the sourdough bread.

I spent the rest of the day exploring the area around Pier 39. There were a lot of fancy shops in Ghirardelli Square. I sniffed the chocolate in the air, mixed with the fishy scents from the bay. I felt like I was in a Rice-A-Roni commercial as I watched people get on and off the cable cars. The city was so different from rural Pennsylvania. It was wonderful to be walking in warm sunshine at the beginning of February. I wondered what my friends were doing back home, a place that seemed a million miles away.

At five, I met Sandi and her friends. They all echoed her welcoming smile, introducing themselves and shaking my hand. They were the friendliest people that I had met so far. We all piled into a waiting van. They had recruited a few other people for the dinner/meeting, and I sat in the back with my fellow novices. The van bounded up the hill over the cable car tracks, which reminded me of Pittsburgh's trolley tracks. In a few minutes, we pulled up to a large Victorian house. I admired the hardwood floors. At the top of the creaky stairs, I met more friendly faces.

After a few minutes, I started to notice a sameness to my new friends. Everyone was friendly, but their friendliness seemed artificial and rehearsed. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the story of Jim Jones entered my mind. Now I listened intently whenever someone started to tell me about the group. I was invited to join the group at their retreat in Napa.

The spaghetti dinner was good, though. After the dinner, everyone went into the living room to view a slide show about the group and its activities. The slides showed more happy, smiling people like the ones that surrounded me in the dark. The narrator talked about the wonderful Napa retreat in glowing terms and urged everyone to go.

But one slide was hurriedly passed over. The slide showed a middle-aged Asian man. "And that is our leader, Rev. Sun Myung Moon," the narrator said quickly. The next slide was back to more happy faces at the retreat.

The slide of the man remained frozen in my mind's screen. I knew who he was. Now I recalled why the name "reunification" had sounded familiar to me. Moonies! I had been in San Francisco for only one day, and already the Moonies had picked me up. Fear jostled for position with the spaghetti in my stomach. So all of the stories that I had heard about California were true. I was being recruited for a cult. I had seen cults on television back in Pennsylvania, and I was intrigued to be at a cult headquarters. I wondered if they had put anything in the spaghetti. My father had always warned me about taking food from strangers. I could see him rolling over in his grave. Before I left home, my friend Jackie had told me about the funny beverages that she had drunk in San Francisco in the sixties. But I didn't feel funny, though. At least not yet. I resolved to escape if they tried to detain me. I didn't know where I was, but I was sure that I could find my way back to Pine Street.

After the slide show, I was ready to leave. I had seen enough. My new friend from the Wharf drove me back to my rooming house.

"Thank you for dinner," I said in my most polite voice. My mother would have been proud.

Sandi displayed what I now knew was a smile of indoctrination. "I am so glad that we met, Beatrice. You will have to come back to our house for dinner again. Keep in touch."

I tried to smile back, but the corners of my mouth shook. It wasn't easy to maintain a fake smile without brainwashing.

"I will. Thanks again."

She wasn't ready to let me go yet. I wondered if she had a quota that she had to meet. "We will be going up to Napa in a few weeks. You must come with us. It will be so much fun!"

I didn't know where Napa was and I wasn't in any hurry to find out. "I'll think about it," I answered in a sincere voice. I walked quickly to the door of the hotel. Not even the urine smell bothered me tonight. I breathed a sigh of relief as I closed the door to my room. I went to bed glad that they had not drugged me and held me captive in the basement of that big house.

But it had never occurred to me not to let them know where I was staying.

When I came back from exploring the city the next day, the hotel manager informed me that my "friends" had been by looking for me. Sure enough, a few hours later, my new friend Sandi came to visit me and give me a flower. I was afraid to sniff the flower. I had seen "Star Trek" episodes like this. But I thanked her, and begged off visiting their house for another great dinner. I was hungry, but not that hungry. I had McDonald's down the street, and I knew that Ronald McDonald would not try to coerce me to any Burgerland retreat.

As the days passed, my money dwindled and my hopes lessened. I applied for a job in West Oakland as a door to door canvasser, but eight hours of effort only yielded five dollars. I wasn't very adept at convincing strangers to part with their money. But I had to find something soon, because that experience showed me that I would not last too long as a homeless person.

I enjoyed roaming around the city. I found the Haight to be fun and funky, with a lot of overpriced stores and restaurants. Golden Gate Park was a good place to spend a day people watching. It was a green oasis from another time. I tried to imagine what the park had been like during the sixties. I looked in vain for glimpses of Jerry, Bobby or Phil, not knowing that they had all left the Haight years ago to move into mansions in Marin County and points elsewhere.

I walked through Chinatown, with its strange signs and the smell of unknown spices and fragrances. The streets were filled with double-parked cars and the sidewalks were filled with people carrying plastic shopping bags. Each time that I stopped to look at a storefront window, I collided into busy seniors on their way to finish the day's shopping. Everyone was on their way somewhere, except for the tourists, who stood around staring and pointing. I felt like I had entered a world where I did not belong.

A short walk down the hill to Union Square transported me to yet another city. Instead of indecipherable Chinese characters, the signs in this city read "Neiman Marcus," "Gucci" and "Louis Vuitton." The luxury items in those stores were as foreign to me as the herbs in the stores of Chinatown. I sat in the small park and watched well-dressed people mingle fleetingly with homeless people. I gazed enviously at well-dressed women clutching designer handbags. With only a few dollars in my pocket, I had more in common with the homeless woman on the bench than I did with any designer doyenne toting a Vuitton satchel.

One day, I decided to save on bus fare and walk from Japantown back to my rooming house, since I was already on Pine Street. I walked up and down hills for what seemed like forever. Nineteen blocks and several hours later, I discovered that distances look a lot smaller on a map. The next day, my legs ached so badly that I could hardly move. Thankfully, that wasn't a day when my new Moonie friends came over to try to intercept me.

My first month in San Francisco passed quickly, and on Leap Year Day, I found my first California job, in some place called "Foster City." Even though I did not know how I would get from San Francisco to Foster City on a daily basis, I accepted. It was only two days before the date that I was return to Pennsylvania and I was determined not to use that ticket.

On March 3, I moved to San Mateo with my new roommate Paula, who turned out to be the first in a series of roommates from hell. As I sat on the floor of my new unfurnished bedroom, I reviewed my first month in California. I had learned a lot. Don't come to San Francisco with only $300. Don't catch BART in West Oakland at midnight. The cutest guys are probably not straight. Sourdough bread and string cheese can make a filling meal. And don't take spaghetti from strangers.