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Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
David G. Miles, Jr., is the godfather of skate in San Francisco. In this podcast, the founder of the Church of 8 Wheels joins us to share his life story. David came from a multi-ethnic family and grew up in Kansas City. On one side, his grandparents were Irish and Indian, while his dad's family hailed from the South. His single mom, a nurse, raised David and his sisters. The Black baseball legend Satchel Paige lived in their neighborhood. His parents had divorced when David was 6 or 7 and he wasn't close with his dad at all. It was the Sixties and he didn't care much about differences in people. His mom eventually fell in love with her high school sweetheart and moved to San Francisco to marry him when David was 20. "Kansas City is a place you leave," according to David. And so, after a bit of urging from his mom and a brutal winter in Kansas, he saved up bus fare and got a one-way ticket out west. The bus dropped David and the other passengers at Seventh and Market, which was quite the contrast from anything he'd seen before. His new step-dad drove him around town as a welcome to San Francisco. The family lived in Daly City at first and David was infatuated with BART. He recounts his first visit to Golden Gate Park shortly after his arrival here in February 1979. Folks lying on the grass in front of the Conservatory of Flowers didn't impress him much. But what did catch his eye was thousands of roller skaters in the park that day. He was hooked. Roller skating was huge in those days, but there was a growing drumbeat of outrage and bans were being threatened. It was around this time that David met Rose, whom he courted and eventually married.
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Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Hear Kitten on the Keys, our guest on the show this week, play tunes on the piano at Royal Cuckoo Market!
If you missed them, here's Part 1 and Part 2 with Kitten.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Kitten on the Keys's musician dad was born with crossed-eyes. In Part 1, Kitten, a musician in her own right, traces her story back to her parents. Both were born and raised in southeastern Missouri. Her dad made his way out as a traveling musician when he was 14. Her mom took a job after college in Washington, DC. Eventually, the two made their ways back to their shared hometown: East Prairie, MO. They got married and came to the Bay Area because her dad wanted to become a music teacher. Then they moved to Lafayette, where Kitten (née Suzanne) was born. She says her dad worked hard during the week and then gigged hard on the weekends. "He was always gone." Thanks mostly to her mom, Kitten grew up singing in the Lutheran church. In her teen years, she went with the church on several trips to Mexico. She shares a pretty out-there story from those journeys south. She was in a Christian dance troupe called "The Earthen Angels." But the group eventually got shut down because, with the A/C in the church cranked, their leotards were allegedly too revealing. Kitten and her siblings all took music lessons, but she says she was never good at any instruments when she was young. In fact, she says, she's shocked that she's a musician today. Once she able to start choosing her own music (you gotta hear a great story about a switcheroo involving "Bohemian Rhapsody"), she enjoyed playing. We end Part 1 with Kitten sharing stories of her earliest and fondest memories of visiting San Francisco, including taking classes at ACT and meeting all sort of punk kids and seeing some legendary bands.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
One side of Matt Sterling's lineage is a big, Irish Catholic family. In Part 1, the bartender and pub quiz host delves into his family's history in San Francisco. Three generations ago, great-grandparents came here from Ireland, established their roots, and had kids. Matt's maternal grandma was one of them. She grew up in Ingleside and raised seven kids of her own, including Matt's mom. Matt says that on his mom's side, he's got 23 cousins and he knows them all pretty well. Through his mom and his aunts and uncles, Matt shares stories from the neighborhood back in the 1960s. He describes Thanksgiving dinners, first at his grandmother's house and then at his own home, where somewhere around 50 family guests showed up. Matt's dad came to the US from the Philippines when he was 22. He got married and had three kids, but that marriage ended in divorce. Then Matt's parents met when they both worked for the SFPD. His dad was an officer and his mom worked a desk job. The couple had Matt and his sister for a total of five kids. His dad worked many different beats around The City in the thirty-plus years he worked as a cop. As his family started to grow with the arrival of Matt and his sister, his dad found a larger home in Daly City. Matt tells us some of his earliest memories, including going to Catholic school in South San Francisco and later, Sacred Heart in SF. He ran cross country, which helped him get to know San Francisco really well. Matt ends Part 1 talking about various excursions in The City that sealed the fate of his moving here for him.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
This podcast is almost totally about Shizue Seigel's ancestors. In Part 1, the poet and author digs deep into her family's history, which goes back to Japan just two generations ago. Sakuichi Tsutsumi and Umematsu Yokote Tsutsumi were from Kyushu, a large island in the south of Japan. Irene Yoshiko Tsutsumi Saiki, Shizue's mom, was born in Hawaii. Her family moved there to work on sugar plantations, but the conditions were brutal and they weren't able to save money thanks to the sugar companies' "company store" operations. Also, conditions in the cane fields were dangerous. The family went back to Japan. Sakuichi moved to San Luis Obispo on the central coast of California. He and his cousins bought some land and used their knowledge of irrigation to help them grow produce. Thanks to an oil boom in the area, the town of San Luis was growing and its population needed vegetables. Now successful, it was time to send for his wife back in Japan. Shizue shares the incredible story of finding the tiny mountain village and home where Sakuichi's family lived. It's one of those "you have to hear to believe" tales. Shizue's mom, Irene, was born in 1920. Shizue shares many stories of her mother's family and the Japanese community in and around San Luis Obispo where she mostly grew up, notably before World War II. Her dad's family moved from Hiroshima to Hawaii with his two older brothers. Life was tough there for them as well, and so it was decided that her grandfather, Yasaburo, would go ahead to California while her grandmother, Shige Matsuoka, took their children back to Japan. Shige waited for two years with no word back from the US. She left her two kids with in-laws and decided to come over to track her husband down. Her journey east is another amazing tale you just have to hear.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Andrew St. James's birth mom was a tour caterer for the Rolling Stones. In Part 1, the musician traces his lineage back to his being adopted by a young San Francisco couple. Carol moved to San Francisco in 1971. She worked at the Gap and what used to be Live 105 and KMEL. Nathan was born in Brooklyn to Holocaust survivor parents. After his New York marriage fizzled, he hopped on a motorcycle and rode to San Francisco in 1978. Nathan and some friends opened the original Captain Video stores. The two met when Nathan went to buy radio advertising from Carol. The couple lived in Glen Park when they adopted Andrew, then they all moved to the Sunset District, where Andrew was raised. Andrew shares early memories from both neighborhoods. He sang in the San Francisco Boys Choir for a number of years before getting jaded at a young age. He decided to branch out more on his own, and so he bought an organ. He soon began playing rock music with friends roughly his age—12. Andrew got into Urban High School, which he shares the background and philosophy of for us. Andrew says that by the time he entered high school, in the late-2000s, that philosophy had more or less gone by the wayside. 
Photography by Allison Tom
We start with the honeymoon, time away from The City. Jeff and Erin spent two weeks in northern New Mexico, bouncing around between Taos, Santa Fe, and the small town of Dixon (about halfway between Taos and Santa Fe), where old friends of Jeff have some land with a house, a casita, a tiny house, a large garden, and some chickens. Then we back up to start chronicling Thursday, October 14, 2021. Jeff's wedding day started with some rather incredible news: Storied: San Francisco won Best Podcast in 48 Hills/SF Bay Guardian's Best of the Bay 2021!!! The whole point of our recording us talking about the wedding is that we felt it needed to be memorialized. Yes, it was my wedding ... but I have no problem saying that it was fucking epic. Please listen to the podcast for details of the day, but here, shout-outs are in order. As you'll see, many of the folks instrumental in making the day what it was have been on the podcast. Some will be soon. Here they are:
It takes a village, y'all. Check back next week for our first storyteller in almost two months: musician Andrew St. James! We recorded this podcast at Shovels Cocktail and Whiskey Bar in the Tenderloin in November 2021.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Yeva Johnson was born in Detroit by necessity. In Part 1, we welcome Yeva back to the show. We first met her back in 2018 at Working With Death, the show we did that year with Reimagine End of Life. Her family moved from Michigan to Washington, DC, when Yeva was young. She often joined her siblings and parents at various marches in the capital city—for the ERA, peace marches, etc. As a student, Yeva liked to read. She talks about going to DC museums and the Library of Congress ("They had every book—almost!") when she was young. Her parents moved her to a new school, and so she had to adjust to a new environment and make new friends. Music has always been a big part of Yeva's life. She has been playing the piano since she was five and the flute since she was in fourth grade. When she was young, she went to several jazz festivals in the DC area with her mom. She kept playing flute throughout her time in school and in fact, she still plays today. She went to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she immediately got into their medical program. In her third year of college, she spent time in Brazil, which we wrap this episode with. 
Photo by Vince Donovan
The Rev. Dr. Bishop Megan Rohrer's ancestors must've liked the cold. In Part 1, Bishop Megan traces their South Dakota family lineage back to Switzerland, Germany, and Norway. In the new country, they lived in barns and farmed the land. Their great-grandmother carried a bucket of lard with a piece of bread in it when she went to school. Eventually, their family survived the Depression. They discuss the culture in South Dakota as being one where grudges can't be held long. As they put it, "Your neighbor might be the one to pick you up when your car runs off the road and into a ditch." Their mom grew up in a small town in the state and moved to Sioux Falls, where their dad grew up. Dad, a veteran, eventually turned to alcohol. Things got so bad that his restraining order meant he had to move out of state. He chose California—Visalia specifically. On a visit to see their dad, Bishop Megan learned of some half-siblings in California. They also have a full brother and half-sister from back in South Dakota. When it comes to growing up in Sioux Falls, Bishop Megan says the Eastern South Dakota town is more diverse than you might think. They go on to explain the politics and economics of the place, and point to the reason many of us might already know of the town. We also talk about the weather there. After graduating from high school, they moved onto to the college campus in town to work there. Through that job, Bishop Megan got free tuition to college, which they finished in three years. We end Part 1 with Megan's experiences following the death of Matthew Shepard, something that eventually led to their going to religious school.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Mike Evans, Jr., is a funny guy. In Part 1, the young comedian traces his family history back to his parents, who were both born in San Francisco and met here. They raised Mike and his two older sisters in Diamond Heights as long as they could before moving to Vallejo for more space. But the family still commuted back to work in The City and brought their young son with them to go to school here. Mike stayed in San Francisco public schools as long as he could. When his cover of not living in The City was blown, his parents got him into Leadership High School—a charter school focused on social justice. He shares the experience of being young and going through a racial identity crisis around how he talks. But talking ended up being central to Mike's life. He wound up on the speech and debate teams at SF State. Mike talks about various sports he played—baseball, football, and basketball—and how he kept up with baseball to impress a girl he was crushing on. We end Part 1 talking about how Mike got started "performing," something else he owes to his parents. Mike will be one of the comedians at our live event next week: We're Still Here. Details coming soon.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Ed note: I was off-mic for this one, so my part is a little ... quieter. I hope that doesn't take away from Midgett's incredible life story. — Jeff In Part 1, Mary Midgett, the 85-year-old ex-school teacher shares the story of her life with us. It starts in the British West Indies, where Midgett's mom was born. That family moved to Boston, where her mom met her dad. Midgett was the only girl in a family otherwise full of boys. Her mom was a strong woman, but, Midgett feels, overly protective. And so she spent a lot of time with "auntie." She shares stories of her first sexual encounters, her lesbianism another source of strain in her relationship with her mom. After high school, her aunt convinced her to join the U.S. Army. It was there that her preferred name emerged—Midgett. She shares stories from her time as a young, Black lesbian in the service, including her first encounter with prejudice. After a little bit of partying in New York City, the Army sent Midgett to Germany. It was her first time overseas, and through some experiences there, she came to see how good people have things here in the U.S. In the early '60s, Midgett got back to the States and out of the Army. She wanted kids and made that happen. She and the father of her son moved around a bit, then she went out on her own. She married another man and had a daughter, but that didn't work out either. One of her brothers lived in San Francisco, and Midgett saw a way out.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Let's try this again. Back in Season 1, we met our friend Stuart Schuffman, aka, Broke-Ass Stuart, for a recording at The Willows. We have to admit: What we did for the podcast back then is much different than what we do now. Let's just say that the episode is more about Stuart's whacky San Francisco stories than about his total being. Fast-forward to this summer, and we sat down with this affable SF character at The Wooden Nickel to hear his life story.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
The California Central Valley and its agriculture aren't too far from the Bay Area. But, as Marcy Coburn knows well, they're worlds apart. Today, Marcy is the creative director at San Francisco's Pier 70, a mixed-use development just south of Oracle Park. Her mom's family moved west from Oklahoma and her dad migrated to California from his childhood home in Central Florida. The two met at Cal Poly Pomona near LA and moved to Visalia to raise a family. Her folks split up and Marcy lived with her mom, who relocated to Stockton when Marcy was 13. She had dabbled in neon in punk before the move, but the kids in her hometown weren't ready for that. Stockton proved to be a better fit for the teenager. Once they were 16, she and her friends started taking car trips to Berkeley and San Francisco. But Marcy's move to The City took quite a detour first. She and a friend took a bus to New York City and walked across the country on a "peace walk" in solidarity with American Indians whose lands were being used for nuclear testing. That lasted nine months and ended with them at a test site outside of Las Vegas on Shoshone land. It was on that walk that Marcy came out.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Khafre Jay found his power through hip hop. In Part 1, the founder and executive director of Hip Hop for Change shares his life story. His parents met in the Bayview when they were kids. They got together around age 11 or so and have been with each other since. Khafre tries to imagine what his parents went through as a young Black couple struggling to survive and raise a family in San Francisco. Owing to his dad's being a singer and actor, Khafre got started singing in choir at a young age. In his teen years, he was influenced by hip hop artists who were getting bigger and bigger, including some local stars like E-40. He says he saw those artists taking their own power from a broken system. After getting into trouble while at a public high school, Khafre moved to School of the Arts, then located on the campus at SF State. He met other artists and started to get inspired. He also taught the children of ESL students around this time. Then, at an Iraq War protest in 2003, along with several other folks, Khafre got beat up by police. This incident sparked the activist in him, something that continues to this day. 
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
The story of Gus' Discount Tackle begins with skiing in the Alps. In this podcast, Stephanie Scott, the current owner, shares with us the story of her life. Her dad, Gus, escaped his home in Austria when the Nazis began persecuting Jews. He arrived in New York but went west for a restaurant bussing job in San Francisco. Gus met his wife (Stephanie's mom) in The City. She was a Sorbonne-educated lab doctor who immigrated here from Russia. Gus opened a general merchandise shop on Clement Street, but the predatory landlord there kept raising Gus' rent. Through a handshake-type agreement, he got the funding to buy his own place—the spot on Balboa where the shop still exists today, around 60 years later. Stephanie grew up on 17th Avenue on the northern side of the Richmond in the 1950s and '60s. She shares impressions of what San Francisco was like back then—a busy time with Beats, hippies, free-love advocates, and LSD, none of which the more square Stephanie took part in. She met her husband when they were both at SF State. After post-graduate opportunities fizzled out, Stephanie started working in her dad's store. The rest, as she says, is history. She's been there 45 years. Stephanie ends the podcast reflecting on the people she's watched grow up around Gus's, the changes that the store has seen, including transitioning from general merchandise to fishing supplies, and her hopes for the next phase of the only place she's ever lived—San Francisco. We recorded this podcast at Gus' Discount Tackle in the Outer Richmond in June 2021.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Steven Savage came of age in Southern California in the 1960s. In Part 1, the executive director of Blue Bear School of Music shares his life story with us. His first instrument to play was banjo, inspired by his love of folk music. But then he discovered rock 'n' roll, and soon after that, he picked up the drums. He went to college in Ohio, where he met people and starting playing in bands. He came back to California and made his way up to Santa Cruz, playing in various bands along the way. Next was Palo Alto, where Steven lived in a garage and continued playing music. And then a band here in The City needed a drummer and Steven got the call. Those folks he joined up here had already decided to start a music school while they played and worked toward stardom. That school ended up being Blue Bear School of Music. It was June 1971. Then we hear from Tennessee Mowrey, Blue Bear's current Little Bears director. Born and raised in San Francisco, Tennessee traces his story back to his parents' meeting. Raised in a musical family, he took to playing from a very young. But he didn't like lessons. His dad and step mom enrolled Tennessee in Blue Bear. Once in these rock band classes, he started playing several different instruments, and eventually began student teaching.
The Curtis Family C-Notes: Maestro Curtis (Papa C.), Nola Curtis (Mama C.), Nile Curtis, Zahara Curtis, Phoenix Curtis, Isis Curtis, Kiki Curtis
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather The Curtis Family C-Notes' star is on the rise, y'all. In Part 1, the San Francisco family shares their story with us. We dive into Papa C.'s past in Louisiana and San Francisco. Then we learn a little about Mama C.'s time growing up on the Peninsula. Papa C. (Maestro Curtis) can't remember when he started playing musical instruments. He was asked to perform for family members from a very young age. He owes his lifelong work ethic to his growing up, as well. He spent time between Louisiana and San Francisco, but it was out here that he got involved in martial arts and positive social change. After getting into some trouble in his high school years, Papa C. took a scholarship to Grambling State University in Louisiana. Then he spent seven years in the Army. Mama C. (Nola Curtis) grew up a competitive ice skater. She's Tongan and grew up in San Mateo surrounded, essentially, by so many famous professional skaters. Looking back, she enjoyed performing, but not so much competing. Her father passed away when she was 14 and one of the effects of her grief was that she stopped skating. She turned to books, especially reading stuff that wasn't assigned at school. To help her graduate on time, she took a history of jazz course at a community college, and that's where she first heard Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and Billie Holiday. That class and those performers inspired her to start singing. Soon, she was asked to start a band with some folks, but she decided lessons were the first step. Nola met her future husband in this context.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Pam Benjamin has lived in California her entire life. In this podcast, the Mutiny Radio DJ and comedian shares the story of her life. She was born in Livermore and raised in Danville, not fully knowing that her family was well-off because there were always richer kids around. From there, Pam talks about her religious upbringing (a story involving an invisible cat), her eating disorder at a young age, and being a varsity cheerleader ("reverse-stalking"). Pam shares early memories of SF (somehow, a nunnery and her dad's work downtown factor in here). She left Danville for UC San Diego, where she did lots of acid but got good grades, as she attests. Pam lived in Davis after college and taught special ed there. She and her then-husband moved back to San Diego, where Pam started a theater company. Her ex-mother-in-law convinced her to get a corporate job, which she did. But she stopped taking birth control and wrote a novel in six weeks. Pam got a DUI, quit her corporate job, and then had people at Burning Man telling her to move to The City, which she did in 2007. Now in San Francisco and going to SF State grad school, she started doing poetry readings all over SF, and then tried comedy in 2011. At Pirate Cat Radio in 2008, she started reading stories after Common Thread with Diamond Dave Whitaker. In 2011, after the station's manager embezzled from them and the FTC started snooping around, they changed from Pirate Cat to Mutiny. A few years later, the board that ran Mutiny Radio bailed on her, but Pam stayed on and took over. During the pandemic (or, as she refers to it, the "PAMdemic"), she started doing comedy shows in parklets and at Mutiny in the Mission. Pam plans to bring Mutiny's comedy festival back this October 10–16. We end the podcast with Pam's thoughts on where San Francisco goes from here. We recorded this podcast at Mutiny Radio in June 2021.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
So many San Francisco born-and-raised folks' stories go way, way back. That's certainly the case for Joey Yee. Joey begins Part 1 telling us about his maternal grandfather, who was from Isleton and was a pilot in World War II. After he came back from war, he met Joey's grandma, who was born and raised in SF. He charmed his future wife by giving her the biggest tomatoes she'd ever seen. Joey's grandfather wanted to put roots down, and so he bought a building in San Francisco. His dad's dad immigrated to the US from China. Joey's parents met ice skating and dated for eight years before getting married. After living in Daly City a short time, they moved back to the family house, the one his grandfather bought on Nob Hill. Joey was born during this time. When he was 12, the family moved to the Richmond District. Joey regrets that he didn't explore Nob Hill when they lived there, but he goes on to share his early Giants memories and describes games at Candlestick. He tells us about the public schools he went to, eventually ending up at Washington High in the Richmond. It was there that Joey started dabbling in video classes. That's when his love of video, film, and editing began. 
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Tara DeMoulin grew up collecting eucalyptus buttons in the Panhandle with her mom. In Part 1, the singer/songwriter, activist, and filmmaker shares the story of her life. It starts in San Francisco in the late-1980s, travels east to Maine and New York City (where she discovered and became obsessed with Broadway), starts to circle back west with a stop in Texas before scooting over to Southern California. In the early 2000s, after some college, Tara decided to come back to her native home in San Francisco, which we'll get more into in Part 2. The rest of this episode includes some of Tara's thoughts on living in such wildly different places in the U.S.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Jaime Crespo's first drawings were made on the blank pages in a Bible. In Part 1, the cartoonist traces his lineage back to his mom, who was born in northern Mexico and is Yaqui/Yoeme. She came to LA with her brother in the early 20th century. When their mom got deported back to Mexico, she moved up to run a cafe in Sacrament, where she ended up meeting Jaime's dad. But his mom took Jaime to San Francisco when her husband became abusive. The kid was 4. They made their way back to Sacramento to live with Jaime's widowed step-grandad and his new wife, a Black couple from Louisiana. He finished school up there and shortly after that, moved back to The City instead of New York, which he and his friends had dreamed about. In the podcast, Jaime reflects on both stints in San Francisco—when he was 4 and then again when he was around 20. He reminisces about seeing hippies on Muni, his first Giants game and seeing Willie Mays, BBQ joints and bars that are long gone, and how he was moving away from sports like baseball and football, and more toward punk rock music and art. He shares how he got started drawing at a young age with a story that's either charming or blasphemous, depending on how you look at it. Check out more of Jaime's art at his website: corntortillapress.com. And follow Jaime on Instagram @the_real_comixvato.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
So, we're doing something a little different here. Way, way back in Season 1, on Episode 14, we had friend of the show H.P. Mendoza on. Back then, we were all about stories, not necessarily people's stories, like we are today. And so, we asked H.P. to come back on and share his personal history with you. He starts Part 1 with his birth (St. Luke's in the Mission) and his childhood (on La Grande Avenue in the Excelsior). Then he backs up to go into some depth about his paternal grandmother, who taught English and adored H.P., her first grandchild born in the U.S. She had a piano and that's how H.P. learned to play. A tangent leads to H.P. talking about his love of movies from an early age. He credits his brother Joe with that, as well as H.P.'s continued interest in storytelling, video games, cartoons, and more. H.P. shares stories from his school days. Being the first U.S.-born kid in his family, there were higher expectations placed on him. His early curiosity about kids who were different from him and his family led to some pretty funny mischief. His parents pulled him out of public school and sent him to Epiphany Catholic School. After skipping second grade, H.P. experienced ostracism from kids older than him and kids his age. Because of this, he added one year to his age well into his twenties. He ends Part 1 rattling off different obscure, adult-ish movies he was into as a kid.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Wanika King-Stephens' life is full of music and church. In Part 1, Wanika traces her life back to her parents' move to San Francisco from Los Angeles in the 1960s with their four-month-old daughter. Her dad's dad was an evangelist in the Pentecostal Church. It was a strict upbringing where, if her father as a young man wanted to listen to so-called music of the world, country music was the only acceptable genre. Despite that, he grew up loving jazz and, especially, John Coltrane. And he raised his own children in that light. Wanika's little sister sings, and the two were in a band when they were younger called Mystic Youth. Wanika played bass in the group and was the band leader. They wrote their own music but were too young to play clubs at first. Her mother sang jazz and, along with Wanika's dad, joined with Alice Coltrane to help found the Vedantic Center, which was originally in San Francisco. Around this time, the family had moved to Visitacion Valley, a diverse, lively neighborhood that Wanika describes for us. From there, she shares stories of trips around town she took as a young girl. Wanika wraps up Part 1 talking about her high school days in The City. And after that, as she puts it, she "was jammin' pretty hard with Mystic Youth." 
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
In Part 1, Maitri Compassionate Care's Executive Director, Reverend Father Rusty Smith, shares stories of his youth. His very New Mexican mom was a powerful figure in his early life, shaping the liberal world view Rusty espouses to this day. Rusty traces his military family upbringing all over the country and the world. The family eventually settled in Texas for his high school years. After that, Rusty became a priest in the Anglican Church, given that the church allowed openly gay priests. He began his adult life in his mother's home state, doing charitable work in Albuquerque. While living in New Mexico, Rusty and his husband noticed that San Francisco had become a second home for them. When the opening at Maitri happened, they made the move. Then we meet Maitri's Development Director, Tomas Moreno. Tomas shares his story of growing up in the Central Valley and making his way to San Francisco.
Photography by Michelle Kilfeather
Ed. note: This one is special for a couple reasons. First, Larry blew us away with his kindness, energy, and knowledge. Also, we recorded under the BART tracks, so we took pauses when trains passed by overhead. We decided to leave that audio in the final edit because, well, it was part of the experience that day. We hope you enjoy. Larry Dorsey, Jr.'s parents came to the Bay Area from the South and South America. In Part 1, the SF born-and-raised comedian and radio personality shares the story of his parents' migration to San Francisco. His dad played football in the NFL before his move west; Larry's mom, a lawyer, left her home country of Columbia because of political reasons. They arrived in Oakland separately and met at SF State. Larry is their first-born, one of two sons. Larry has vague memories of his first years on Earth, which he shares with us. One is a pretty hilarious (and hilariously cute) playground-type story. Larry tells us what it was like to go to a "hippy" elementary, and then contrasts that with his time at Aptos Junior High. But he also spent many school lunchtimes in the library. His curiosity and pursuit of knowledge was just getting started. He ended up at Lowell, during a time when he started getting into "a lot of trouble." Larry wraps up Part 1 sharing the first time he got in trouble with a cop. |