Little Nippers Redux

[School has started across the street. In a shake-up last spring, the San Francisco school board moved International Studies Academy's student body, faculty, and staff part and parcel (what do phrases like "part and parcel" even mean?) down the hill to what was a middle school, and moved the kids who'd dropped out or been expelled from all of the city's other high schools to the campus here on Vermont Street, renaming it "Downtown High School." There was a half-hearted protest by the neighborhood's residents and few merchants (we didn't participate), but here we are.]

[There's no easy way for me to navigate the minefield of race and class involved here. The following are data; draw whatever conclusions you will:]

[-the new sign on the front of the main school building was laser-printed in five minutes and taped to the wall with clear packing tape;]

[-there's been a SFPD squad car parked in front of the school all day yesterday and today;]

[-there's been a constant gaggle of the little nippers similarly parked on the sidewalk. It's impossible to determine who's a student cutting class and who's just...hangin';]

[-when I walked into the convenience store next door, the proprietor had this tense look on his face that wasn't great to see;]

[-the litter on the sidewalks is about 25% worse than it was in the spring.]

[I hope some of these kids get something from this exercise. The odds...]

[Later: all is calm after lunch. I think maybe I mistook the usual first-week-of-school excitement for something more significant. Hey, it gets slow up here on Potrero Hill. The squad car is still there, though; no report on the hotness level of the cop(s).

[Even later: I'm an idiot. (CHORUS: WE KNOW!) This afternoon's been the quietest since I started working across from the school. Maybe it's just a sad fact that D.H.S. has such a small student body actually attending classes; I don't know.]

[Other stuff today: it's the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' last concert (here in S.F. at Candlestick Park), and our local classic rock station (yes, our usual compromise at work) played the studio versions of all eleven songs performed that night - kinda cool; Katrina Katrina Katrina; amazing albondigas soup from Los Jarritos on Folsom; and now I'm going home.]

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