Moribund No More?

[I've been coming to the upper Haight (the part most people think of as "the Haight-Ashbury") off and on since before I moved to San Francisco in 1996. One thing that was as constant as the tie-dyed T-shirt shops was the whispered phrase "green buds." You couldn't walk three storefronts but some grubby guy walking the other way (and it was always a guy) would make brief eye contact and murmur that talismanic phrase. It was completely nonthreatening, and comforting in its way.]

[Well, I moved here almost a year ago, and I've noticed there's something missing. For the longest time I couldn't figure out what it was. The T-shirt shops? Still there. The head shops? More than ever. The stinky gutterpunks drinking 40s and asking for change at Cole and Haight? Bien sur. The stovepipe-jeaned hipsters and the shoe stores they love? Chockablock. The neighborhood seemed different though; "moribund" is a word I and others have used to describe it, but apart from the lack of a decent grocery store, it was hard to say why. I mean, the upper Haight's always been marginal, one way or another; what had changed?]

[The other day I was walking up to my mailbox at Masonic, taking Page Street because I didn't want to deal with all of the local color mentioned in the last paragraph. Page is a lovely, quiet street just one block north of Haight and parallel to it. It's fairly quintessential San Francisco, and possibly a bit more multicultural than much of this increasingly segregated city. It's not unusual to see members of every socioeconomic class out on the street: kids even play there. I like it.]

[Approaching from the other direction was a rather handsome, tall, younger guy in a white T-shirt and cargo shorts, some sort of Mediterranean background possibly. As he got nearer, I noticed the beginnings of eye contact, and thought the first thing I would think of, and prepared to return gaze. As you do.]

[He drew astern, and in the mildest murmur, said "Need buds?"]

[Ah. That's what's missing from the Haight, I realized immediately as I shook my head and kept walking. What happened to all the weed peddlers?! And how could I not have noticed?]

[It occurs to me now that I may not look like a likely target anymore, and so they don't bother. But as I was crossing Oak from the Panhandle just now, an older, fairly sketchy looking black guy loped against the light to meet me three-quarters of the way, and breathed "Need buds?"]

[Either they're back, or I am.]

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