The “Potrero Hill Kid”

.....boy, if I knew THEN what I know NOW.............

I've written a few blogs about my early escapades with my "Hooligan friends" and our own "Eddie Haskell"......but now that I can DO it....I'm gonna put a few things in photos.

Sometimes I think I was born to be a radical, and it was only natural that my folks eventually moved into the Potrero Hill District in San Francisco, where my dad could be closer to work.

I don't think there's a LEVEL spot ANYWHERE in the Potrero District.  If you were low income, you could live on a street like Rhode Island Ave.

But if you were the Bradburys, you lived in the "slum section" like Pennsylvania Ave.  (These photos were taken on my last visit in 2005-------when I lived there all the cars were from the 40's, 50's & 60's).

We lived at 671...the lower flat of this 2-story place.  By 2005,  the old house had at least acquired some new paint.  The big white double-doors was the garage, and for 5 bucks more a month, you could have it.  Dad made sure HE had it.

I couldn't tell if the old back porch network had been rebuilt or just repainted, and the photo on the right shows the old parking lot still there, where we kids played an awful lot of baseball on the weekends.  If you read "Me & my Hooligan Friends", you might remember us rolling that tire down the hill, that hit the car in the intersection.  You're looking at that hill.

Even after 50+ years, the Hilltop Grocery was STILL there, but like the rest of the neighborhood, it too was cleaned up.  Several of us stole candy bars by the dozen out of that store---------kinda brings a tear to your eye, don't it?

Eventually they got RID of some of us, as we were bussed to Galileo High School way out by North Beach, overlooking Alcatraz, (which was FITTING)......

Home of the "Galileo Lions"-------the WORST football team in the city, even with a young O.J. Simpson on it.  Wall lockers in the hallways were always subject to a raid or some other sort of sabotage if "Mike" or "Tony" were wandering around out there, cutting a class.

I was one of those little "bad apples" that didn't have to comply with rules...............ANY RULES.........

But there was a very ugly surprise waiting for the "toothpick in the mouth"...."Brylcreem-haired"......"know-it-all" little punk from the 'hood.  A "special school" in San Diego for all the "bad apples" who THINK they're bad!

I found out in very short order, that being the "Potrero Hill Kid" didn't mean "JACK" down THERE!