Becoming gay for a day

About the power of perception and becoming friends with the San Francisco Chief of Police.

Here is another anecdote brought to you by the certainty that memories will fade one day.

After years of working my way from really small town to small town to big city, I ended up in San Francisco, California.

Having a good job in a computer company was one thing, missing immersion into bustling life involving people was another.

But there is always craigslist, where you will find so many different volunteer opportunities. There is no excuse for picking up a gaming console over the weekend.

That American openness to volunteering is another thing I miss in old Europe, where you can do it but much is through clubs and organizations.

Anyway, I volunteered to be a safety monitor at the Pride Parade in S.F. Yes, that big annual event with the dykes on bikes, the flashy "targay" t-shirts that so upset a big U.S. retailer, the raunchy, seriously over 18 playground in front of City Hall.

Before the work, there is the training. Crowd control is a concept I instantly take to. Not the flash grenades or batons that make it on TV, but the quiet voice, the art of holding hands, the psychology of sunglasses.

We are at safety HQ early, get bright t-shirts and are assigned posts along the parade route.
There is a shortage of barriers, and we need to fill that gap until city workers arrive with more.

So, I take my place in a loose chain of other bright t-shirts interspersed with the black-shirted happy policemen (they are on overtime).

We talk to the people gathering on the sidewalks of Market Street. Light-hearted small-talk with simple instructions and explanations, it works magic. Our team chief does cartwheels, too, and soon he has a cheering audience.

A shame that riot police don't get trained in doing cartwheels, but I digress.

The crowd is getting thick, but our human barrier holds without any effort. Folks start climbing on the utility boxes and take to sitting on the walls of the BART train stairs.

We remind them that they may want to get off of there, a fall down 10 feet of stairs is not a good thing.  A young family thanks us for doing what we do: "we love you".

We can see a city truck coming up Market with more barriers, and then the funny thing happens.

This guy from work pops up right in front of me. He looks, calls my name, I respond, answering is "oh, what are you doing here", as nice as I am in real life, too.

He disappears in the crowd, we put up the barriers and space out some more, in preparation for the parade.

The dykes are first, the crowd just loves the gals and whatever other genders on the motorcycles. Then the floats, the marching bands, the foot groups, more floats.

And uniforms, marines, airmen, city workers.

One of the uniforms detaches from the group and quickly covers the ten or so yards to my location. I take the stretched out hand and hear the then police chief Heather Fong say: "Thank you for doing this."

I mumble something in return, ever so slightly stumped, and she is off, back to the group. I can see her sneak up on other t-shirts further up Market.

Epilogue:
Starting the following Monday, the guy from work gave me a wide berth and was clearly not comfortable when we were the only two people in the room. The gay guys, on the other hand, were more friendly, and I never asked if they had been at the parade or seen me on one of those panorama shots on local TV.

Teaser:
Come back here in a week or a year for news about the Folsom Street Fair.