First I went to the wrong park …

No, first I had a big coffee when dropping Fern off at work. Normally, I’d know better — Public bathrooms in SF being ferociously rare. But the Starbucks had the Clover brewing system and this beautiful Rawanda blend that had glorious floral notes that are normally foreign in a Starbucks. So I wasn’t going to not finish it. I’d find a bathroom in the park – specifically, Dolores Park.

Nope, wrong park.

Okay, but to figure that out I first systematically circled the block, found a great parking space, looked down on the beautiful park and thought, “huh?” This park is not old. At least not old like I’m looking for. A quick Google explained the problem, which you already know: wrong park.

I wanted Buena Vista Park. Fortunately it was a short drive away. Parking was another story. I circled the park but the only space I could find was on the south end. So be it. I started up the stairs… and more stairs. And more stairs. AND MORE STAIRS. Oh my god, did these stairs ever end?

Eventually they did, and from the top I found the main path leading around the park. More importantly, I found the gravestones I was looking for almost immediately:

In 1900 San Francisco passed an ordinance forbidding any new burials within the city limits. No new burials means no new money for upkeep, and by 1914 the sprawling cemeteries in the Richmond district had become overgrown. The City ordered the bodies to be moved so the increasingly valuable land could be developed. A series of lawsuits followed (shocking) and the bodies didn’t actually start being moved until the ‘30s. But it wasn’t free. If you had a loved one buried in one of the cemeteries it’d cost you $10 (roughly $175 today) to get them moved south to one of the new cemeteries in Colma. If family didn’t have the money, or, more commonly, there was no family to be found (remember, by this point no one had been buried there for more than thirty years), then the body went to one of several mass graves (they were orderly — each body had a separate chamber). And the gravestones and monuments left behind? If no one claimed them, the city did. Some went to erosion control at Ocean Beach, some went to build Aquatic Park, and others went to build gutters in — you guessed it — Buena Vista Park.

Walking the wide paths, the gutters lined in bone-white marble marble stood out. I had heard that a few of the gravestones were installed inscription-side up and I was glad to find at least one example pretty quickly. I’d seen pictures of better examples, and I intended to find them. First, though, I needed a bathroom. I hiked the path down to the border along Haight Street, thinking it’d be there. Nope. I Googled it, and it looked like there was a restroom in the north-eastern corner. Back up the stairs.

I finally found a building… but no bathrooms. I was starting to get desperate. I spotted a Park Services worker and inquired as to whether there was a bathroom. There were no bathrooms. “Crazy, right?” he said. “Especially when this park is 37 acres!” Crazy indeed.

But I still had to pee. And I was even more desperate.

It is pretty wooded….

I climbed up into the thick woods on an unpaved path that looked a little overgrown and unused…

And then I thought about all the signs warning about coyotes in the park…

And then I thought about all the homeless wandering around the park…

And even though this path led through the woods, there didn’t look like the path ranged far enough to be out of site from all the paved paths where old women walked Pomeranians…

Desparate times…

I started hiking up the eastern side of the park. The gutters on this side of the park were no longer bone-white; these gutters were constructed with regular stones. Ahead loomed the top of the stairs I’d come up. Before I reached it, though, a German Shepard-sized coyote jogged across the path ahead of me, slowing just enough to look down at me giving me a look that said, “I know”…

My time was up — I had to meet an old friend across town. And I didn’t find a bathroom or a better example of a tombstone. I’ll be back, and I’ll make sure to skip the coffee.