I’ve stretched out the conditioning program for the new Segway batteries, but i’m still actively seeking excursions so as to run the batteries completely down. Today i realized i could zip over to the Seward Street Slides and take a look at that plum tree i noticed on the park grounds just a little too late last year.
Got there and immediately noticed that there wasn’t a plum on the whole damn tree, and shocked at this development since i’d been thinking they probably wouldn’t be even starting to ripen yet, i rolled down the sidewalk a couple of doors to the south and spoke to a woman watering her yard.
Told her i’d noticed the tree covered with plums last year and had been thinking i’d get a couple of quarts off it this year and make an only-in-San-Francisco specialty, Wild San Francisco Plum Jam. She got back to me that i’d just missed ’em, that one night last week a “commercial harvester” had come in and stripped the tree. Well, whoever did it, they did a thorough job, as there was not a plum to be seen.
But then we got into conversation, and she identified herself as a lifelong resident of the neighborhood and pointed out neighborhood features like a meticulously constructed stone retaining wall that had been built by the original owners of the old house next door, etc.
Quite a nice conversation until she mentioned that the neighborhood had been ruined when the slides were reviewed on Yelp and “outsiders” came to use them. And then i realized that she must be the Wicked Witch whose behavior had been glowingly described by numerous Yelpers. Not too surprising she doesn’t like Yelp considering the things folks have written about her there. That said, she was quite pleasant to me.
But then i’d identified myself as a forty-year resident of the city, so maybe that qualified me as someone other than an outsider.
And perhaps more importantly, i wasn’t laughing.
Here’s a shot of the gardens above the slide portion of the park: