A Writer Requires A Good Pair of Shoes

I learned to read liquor bottles lined up in saloons even before I even saw the Weekly Reader. I do know my first introduction to civics and the democratic process began when my mother encouraged me, as a child, to vote for "Miss Rheingold" in the "beer garden" -- as she so quaintly referred to the tavern up the road near the New York state line.


I loved the "Miss Rheingold" adventure. In case you didn't know, back in the 1960s, the Miss Rheingold advertising campaign was a beauty contest by referendum which promoted the sales of a brand of beer, popular in the New York area. As a PR idea, it was brilliant. With faces of pretty girls in bathing suits displayed before me, I would gleefully scribble with a stubby pencil on beer-soaked ballots, decide which was my favorite girl -- you know, the one who really deserved to be Miss Rheingold -- and stuff the cardboard box at the end of the bar. We could vote as often as we wanted -- pretty much the way elections are held today. This kept me occupied while the grown-ups chatted, laughed and imbibed. It was a likely introduction to the opposite sex for me, too -- though it was a vicarious sort of encounter.


Another seminal experience in my childhood occurred when I saw The Rockettes at Radio City for the first time. That was psychically explosive. All those legs and all that perfume coming in clouds off the stage into the tender nostrils of a six-year-old boy. It haunts me to this day. In the realm of more mysteries of womankind, I have a friend who told me recently that she actually went to Cocktail Waitress School. Imagine that. I'm not going to disparage higher education. I'm sure she poured her heart and soul into the endeavor. Ah, the days when cocktail waitresses had hearts of gold. But it must be hard on the feet. As Elaine Stritch says about prostitution: "It's not so much the work. It's the stairs."


Isn't it amazing how much stress we put on our feet? Without them, how would we kick our friends? My feet have served me well. In fact, my middle name really is Walker. All my life, when I was in trouble I would go for a walk -- a long walk -- for miles. Here in San Francisco, I'm fortunate enough to have a waterfront to traverse, a windy shoreline where, with collar turned up, and black fedora pulled down to my eyes, I can strike the pose of a man alone, a troubled, pensive man. Sometimes dealing with my anxieties requires walking until my feet bleed -- and yet sometimes I'm disappointed that I have to stop walking. But often the problem that pressed on my mind passes when the walk ends. There's an exquisite weariness in walking for long distances -- particularly on city sidewalks.


Walking is a bit like writing. I came across this Strindberg quote last night. I'm reading him again to cheer myself up. Right. "Evildoers are persecuting me and reducing me to despair!" No, not that one. I think that one was on his Christmas cards. No, no, I was thinking of this: "Write the misery out of yourself. Then it will seem it never existed." Then, go for a walk.


Bruce Bellingham is also a columnist and the Arts & Entertainment Editor for the SF Northside. He's the author of Bellingham by the Bay, a collection of stories about San Francisco that were recalled during a series of long walks.