History: San Francisco as seen by U. Grant

The Christmas season is in addition to being our very holy event a time of family and reminiscing. So I thought I’d turn to the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, former general and President of the United States, for some of his own words about what life was like in the USA during his time.

Early in his Army career, he was stationed in many places in the US, including in what were the frontier areas, including what was known as the “Wild West,” and many other places. Here is what he observed about the city of San Francisco when he first arrived there in 1852.

By the last of August the cholera had so abated that it was deemed safe to start. The disease did not break out again on the way to California, and we reached San Francisco early in September.
San Francisco at that day was a lively place. Gold, or placer digging as it was called, was at its height. Steamers plied daily between San Francisco and both Stockton and Sacramento. Passengers and gold from the southern mines came by the Stockton boat; from the northern mines by Sacramento. In the evening when these boats arrived, Long Wharf-there was but one wharf in San Francisco in 1852-was alive with people crowding to meet the minders as they came down to sell their “dust” and to “have a time.” Of these some were runners for hotels, boarding houses or restaurants; others belonged to a class of impecunious adventurers, of good manners and good presence, who were ever on the alert to make the acquaintance of people with some ready means, in the hope of being asked to take a meal at a restaurant. Many were young men of good family, good education and gentlemanly instincts. Their parents had been able to support them during their minority, and to give them good educations, but not to maintain them afterwards. From 1849 to 1853 there was a rush of people to the Pacific coast, of the class described. All thought that fortunes were to be picked up, without effort, in the gold fields on the Pacific. Some realized more than their most sanguine expectations; but for one such there were hundreds disappointed, many of whom now fill unknown graved; others died wrecks of their former selves, and many, without a vicious instinct, became criminals and outcasts. Many of the real scenes in early California life exceed in strangeness and interest any of the mere products of the brain of the novelist.

Grant was stationed in various places along the Pacific coast until a year later he returned to San Francisco in order to catch a boat to go to Humboldt Bay in order to assume a new command to which he had been promoted (company captain).

There was no way of reaching Humboldt at that time except to take passage on a San Francisco sailing vessel going after lumber. Red wood, a species of cedar, which on the Pacific coast take the place filled by white pine on the East, then abounded on the banks of Humboldt Bay. There were extensive saw-mills engaged in preparing this lumber for the San Francisco market, and sailing vessels, used in getting it to market, furnished the only means of communication between Humboldt and the balance of the world.

I was obliged to remain in San Francisco for several days before I found a vessel. This gave me a good opportunity of comparing the San Francisco of 1852 with that of 1853. As before stated, there had been but one wharf in front of the city in 1852-Long Wharf. In 1853 the town had grown out into the bay beyond what was the end of the wharf when I first saw it. Streets and houses had been built out on piles where the year before the largest vessels visiting the port lay at anchor or tied to the wharf. There was no filling under the streets or houses. San Francisco presented the same general appearance as the year before; that is, eating, drinking and gambling houses were conspicuous for their number and publicity. They were on the first floor, with doors wide open. At all hours of the day and night in walking the streets, the eye was regaled, on every block near the water front, by the sight of players at faro. Often broken places were found in the street, large enough to let a man down into the water below. I have but little doubt that many of the people who went to the Pacific coast in the early days of the gold excitement, and have never been heard from since, or who were heard from for a time and then ceased to write, found watery graves beneath the houses or streets built over San Francisco Bay.

Besides the gambling in cards there was gambling on a larger scale in the city lots. These were sold “On Change,” much as stocks are now sold on Wall Street. Cash, at the time of purchase, was always paid by the broker; but the purchaser had only to put up his margin. He was charged at the rate of two or three cent, a month on the difference, besides commissions. The sand hills, some of them almost inaccessible to foot-passengers, were surveyed off and mapped into fifty vara lots-a vara being a Spanish yard. These were sold at first at very low prices, but were sold and resold for higher prices until they went up to many thousands of dollars. The brokers did a fine business, and so did many such purchasers as were sharp enough to quit purchasing before the final crash came. As the city grew, the sand hills back of the town furnished material for filling up the bay under the houses and streets, and still further out. The temporary houses, first built over the water in the harbor, soon gave way to more solid structures. The main business part of the city now is on solid ground, made where vessels of the largest class lay at anchor in the early days. I was in San Francisco again in 1854. Gambling house had disappeared from public view. The city had become staid and orderly.

My family, all this while, was at the East. It consisted now of a wife and two children. I saw no chance of supporting them on the Pacific coast out of my pay as an army officer. I concluded, therefore, to resign, and in March applied for a leave of absence until the end of the July following, tendering my resignation to take effect at the end of that time. I left the Pacific coast very much attached to it, and with the full expectation of making it my future home. That expectation and that hope remained uppermost in my mind until the Lieutenant-Generalcy bill was introduced into Congress in the winter of 1863-4. The passage of that bill and my promotion, blasted my last hope of ever becoming a citizen of the further West.
In the late summer of 1854 I rejoined my family, to find in it a son whom I had never seen, born while I was on the Isthmus of Panama. I was now to commence, at the age of thirty-two, a new struggle for our support.

As I’ve commented before, I think the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is a national treasure, not only for his details of his meetings with Lincoln and of his part in restoring union in the Civil War, but for his very interesting recounting of the details of life as it was lived one hundred and fifty years ago. I hope that you have found this excerpt interesting. It gives perspective of how cities evolve, which is interesting to urban planners, no?

Another exercise in clarity of thought

As always, I have especially the young people in mind, although also those who are older who have suffered at the hands of very poor educational and spiritual formulators in their personal lives and who are trying to correct those deficiencies and errors.

Today I had a thought in which I used the word "fateful" correctly. And so I realized this would be a good time to correct the misconceptions that have arisen over the years around two words and their associated concepts: "destiny" and "fate."

The concepts of destiny and fate are ancient and come from pre-religious and pagan human societies and their effort to understand what hidden powers and forces control all or parts of their lives. Destiny implied a predestination of an entire life, from start to finish. Fate implied a foregone conclusion to a particular event. They have slightly different meanings, therefore. A person would be viewed as having a "destiny" that describes their entire life, while "fate" is like a momentous conclusion to an event or chapter of life which may or may not be the end of the person's life.

Two things ought to have changed human beings' views of so-called destiny and fate. One is that better understanding of science, biology, society and the consequences of freedom of choice have taken the mystery out of ordinary life events. For example, remember that early humans did not understand the origins of many diseases. Now instead of thinking a certain person was "destined" to die young, people understand that a person may have contracted a terminal disease or develop a condition with no cure. People ascribed to "destiny" all sorts of things they did not understand, like hygiene, undetectable medical conditions, droughts and famines, etc.

The second thing that has in fact also improved human debunking of so-called destiny and faith are the understanding of a benevolent one God, who only wishes well for humans and gives them freedom of choice along with guidance. The faithful came to understand that while God knows all and knows what choices humans will make, and what future conditions (such as the weather) will bring, God is not treating humans like pre-programmed game pieces.

In this secular and occult infested modern society, however, I noticed that the old and inappropriate definitions of destiny and fate have crept into common thinking. Sadly, the words are also the tools of those who push anti-religious agendas and who seek to mislead people through pseudo-"spirituality." So this is why I want to help people to understand the origins of the concepts, the reason they should be debunked, and also how one can correctly use the terms (after all, I'm not saying it's "word banning" time!)

One can safely and correctly use the word "destiny" when describing a human laid plan for another human, but you must at the same time recognize how rarely it comes true. See, throughout history people have used the words "destiny" and "fate" not in in the beginning of a human's life, but looking "back" and applying such a label to a life lived to its conclusion. So people would write books and say that someone was "destined" or "fated," but they are "Monday morning quarterbacking" by looking back on what has already occurred and choosing those labels! In truth you can rarely say in advance that someone is "destined" or "fated" to anything at all! Here is an obvious example.

One could say that The Prince of Wales is "destined" to be King of England. He is the heir and his mother, the Queen, will not live forever (though God grant her many years, I hope). So one could safely say that the Prince of Wales is destined to be the King of England as that is his accepted position and those are the "rules." But can you actually say that even in this most obvious and safest of examples of the use of the word and concept "destiny?" Actually, no. In recent years the media has speculated about all sorts of scenarios where that might not actually take place. Life is simply unpredictable (and only God knows for sure what will happen) that even the most obvious human example of "destiny" is dubious at best! So I actually advise against using the word "destiny" simply because it no longer (if it ever did) measure up in the reality based world.

You cannot even say that someone is "destined" to starve to death in Darfur. After all, many agencies and people of good will fight to prevent that from happening. So perhaps a hundred years ago someone unknown (but to God) and obscure in a remote area might be "destined" to starve simply because there were no real alternatives. But now reporters and agencies have a presence everywhere and anything is indeed possible, if only humans put their minds to it. "Destiny" is a bad word, in my opinion, because it saps humans of their God given will power to work hard for the better alternatives to the dire situation someone may be forced to endure.

"Fate" is a safer word if someone uses it properly. Here's how I view it. I never use the word "fate" because of the same objections and reality of freedom of will and choice that humans have. However I do occasionally use the word "fateful" when I express solidarity with a human who has had a momentous consequence or outcome to a routine action or choice. I do so only in that I marvel at how a fullness of effect has occurred, but this by no means indicates that the "fateful outcome" was inevitable.

I was reading the excellent www.latimes.com coverage of the tragic collision of trains north of Los Angeles city and they have a section with basic information and memorials for each identified deceased victim. All of them are so sad, and we all mourn the pointlessness of an accident or tragedy that should not have happened, and pray for the survivors' strength and recovery, and the identification of further safety measures to eliminate at least more of the risk from whatever was the cause. It was while I was reading one of the victim's information that I thought, "How fateful!"

By that I meant I was deeply moved by the routine actions and decisions that resulted in that person being on that train, in that car, and suffering fatal wounds. And so the culmination of all the routine and totally justifiable daily actions of that person culminated in such a fateful outcome. This does not mean that this was the person's "destiny" or "fate!" What it means is that this particular person's life just converged with a separate uncontrollable and unforeseeable event that is fateful in magnitude.

Think of a person's life as being a line that extends into the distance. Another person, and their analogous line of life, intersects. If it is a routine intersection (say you both go to work for the same employer and meet each other for the first time on the job) that is simply "life." Life is the intersection of many individuals and events, day in and day out. But when there is a momentous conclusion, either good or dire, one can marvel and say "how fateful" as a way to describe how momentous that intersection was, as in this train collision. Most strongly, though, you must remind yourself that this is not "fate at work" or "destiny." No one "has to die" or is "fated to die" because someone else misses a red light signal or equipment breaks down. But one can honestly wonder and shake one's head at the fatefulness of the intersection when it does take place with such a momentous outcome.

My deceased cousin's wife was once complaining to me, while my cousin was still alive, how unfair it was that she missed out on a big company downsizing payout. (Turns out she already had tons of money I didn't know about, so I dealt with her complaint with sympathy since I didn't know she was just being greedy for more on top of what she already had). I told her and my cousin that just because she didn't get that check does not mean she should obsess about "injustice." I asked, "What if you got run over by a car on the way to the bank to cash that check?" When I said that I was reminding her that there is no "A" or "B" series of events in one's life. It is all a complexity of realistic possibilities. There is no "safe" or "guaranteed" thread of destiny or fate to detect and follow. All events are both fraught with meaning (because they all contribute to life) and are at the same time insignificant, in the sense that there are not "sliding doors" where if one goes one way your whole life is different than if you went another. That is "stinking occult thinking."

Here's an example. When writing about the train accident the news media routinely reports on other recent California train accidents. The most recent one before this past week's is that guy who decided to suicide by parking his car on the train tracks. So here is an example of where one might think, ah, this guy chooses to suicide, and so he is "selecting that sliding door" (A) instead of (B) which is "not suiciding." But what happens? Um, (Z). He chickens out to not suicide (not A) but is not (B) because guess what? He leaves the car there so that the train rams into it and something like eleven passengers are killed. He's in prison. So there was no (A) or (B) sliding door because people and life are complex, messy and more robust than people give life credit for. Life is not so delicate that it hinges on a series of (A) or (B) choices. That's how you get a (Z) out of an (A) or (B) decision. This guy soaked his car in fuel, left it there on the tracks, ran away and did not try to warn people, maybe he was addicted and under influence or withdrawal at the time he "planned," etc etc... and so there is a sequence of events that are not "foreordained" or "fated" but are fateful in their outcome.

So one can only react, once in a while, as I did, to the complexity of real genuine life and shake one's head in sympathy and say or think to oneself, "How fateful," as kind of a memorial to the culmination of separate events that intersect in such a momentous way. It will be additionally "fateful" if one finds during investigations that chances to avoid this were missed, but not because it was "meant to be," but rather, how great in sacrifice is the reaping of what might or might not have been sown. For example, if someone had voted down a budget for more safety, and then he or she is on the very train that derails. I'm not saying that this would happen, but that is an example of where one might notice a "fatefulness" of the confluence of the decisions and how they intersect. That starts to go into the subject of "consequences" and "implications" of action rather than fatefulness. Fatefulness has more of a random feeling to it because the intersection is so unforeseen and unforeseeable. Consequences is like sending soldiers into battle without body armor; that's hardly "destiny" or "fate."

I hope you find this helpful and a way to exercise clearing your mind of the gunk of occult enabling and dehumanizing thinking, and seeing human life and its continuum of complexity of options more simply and truthfully.

Am so sad for victims of LA trains crashing

It is just a terrible and sad thing. I was a daily train commuter for many years and grew up in a "railroad town" near the tracks, and I just feel such sadness for all who were killed, terribly injured, traumatized and for the suffering families and loved ones.

I want to make a mention of appreciation for heavy equipment operators, who are essential to these rescues and recoveries. I marvel how they get the equipment in place where there is such unexpected terrain (as they have to get to wherever the accident occurred), lift such heavy wreckage, and yet do it delicately so that rescuers can get within safely and that for those who may survive the odds, that they do not harm any who might be trapped within. Seeing the photos from this accident it reminded me of the iron workers and heavy equipment operators at the World Trade Center. I think these heavy equipment operators all deserve a lot of ongoing credit and appreciation, in addition to the many rescue services.

Prayers and condolences for all involved.

Dock worker dies; no safety equipment available

I just read this article and see that this poor man is the third dock worker to die in an accident in Oakland, AND that basic safety equipment to perform a rescue (like ladders to get down to the water) are not available. I'd be seething if I was the workers and I'm very indignant on their behalf. There is no "bottom line" consideration when it comes to basic safety gear, I mean come on, this isn't the 1920's. Condolences to the families; these are just hard working guys trying to do their best, they deserve better.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10292190

Craig Merrilees, a spokesman for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, said this is the third death on the Oakland docks in the past year.

Merrilees said Blakeney spent 30 minutes in the water because there was no rescue equipment, such as ladders, available to the workers attempting the rescue.

"Workers are furious over this death and fed up with excuses from companies that don't make safety a priority," Merrilees said in an e-mail. "Workers haven?t gone to work since the incident late Saturday night, and as of now, it is not clear that things will be operating normally tomorrow (Monday)."