Fast forward about 20 years. I have been living in California for nearly a decade (dear god), but trips to San Francisco have not been numerous. It's a six hour drive; I don't like six hour drives. So, despite living on the west coast--and in the same state--as the famed prison for years, it was not until Awesome Day Twenty Eight that I finally made the trip.
You guys, it is worth it.
Technically part of the National Park Service (news to me), Alcatraz has quite the history. It was the prison of all prisons, the place a person was sent when regular prison just wasn't enough. But before that, it was a military fortress, armed with canons to protect the newly developing west coast of the United States, and home to the first functional light house on this side of the country. Later on, it became a military prison, and those military prisoners built the Alcatraz prison that still (mostly) stands today.
(It should also be noted that after Alcatraz was abandoned in 1963, a group of Native American Indians took over the island from 1969-71, hoping to create an Indian cultural center and a place for "Indians of All Tribes." While this movement didn't last long, it's still pretty cool--and a lot of the graffiti and signage from the time is still preserved on the site. Didn't learn that in history class.)
Alcatraz is creepy. It's damp and dimly lit. The footsteps of the hoards of tourists echo in the silence as everyone listens to his or her individual audio tour. Take off your headphones and all you hear is an eerie percussive orchestra of the shuffling of feet and the laughing of the seagulls as they slowly reclaim the island. Fog, of course, clouds the island for much of the morning; standing outside, it's hard to tell there is a world out there, even though San Francisco is only a little over a mile away. (Later on though, when the fog clears, you can see a pretty stunning view. The presence of the modern city must have been a rude reminder to the prisoners of how they were missing out.)
It's crumbling and clammy and cold. It feels haunted, and it probably is. A lot of people died there, or at least wasted a lot of life there.
That's why you go to Alcatraz, though--to get creeped out. To see how people who do the worst deeds may have lived out years and years. To understand just how bad it must have been.
But beyond the prison life, another lifestyle existed on the island: Kids grew up there. Of course this makes sense if you really think about it, but the guards had wives and families--and they all had to live on the island. A whole community was established on one side of the island, with a small grocery store and an area for the kids to play and everything, and that was how a handful of children grew up, right outside one of the most notorious prisons in history. Nuts.
I will say it was a little weird to pay money to see how and where people suffered, to marvel at a jail cell that potentially consumed someone's youth, and then to visit a gift shop afterward. Still, I had to keep reminding myself that a lot of those guys did some really bad stuff. And the money goes to the National Park Service. So maybe it's okay...
I can now also say that I'm thoroughly obsessed with the Great Escape of 1962. I think those guys are still alive, living somewhere in South America. I hope they are. That's some badass, smart, crazy stuff they did--and they didn't hurt anyone in the process, like most escape attempts.
If my vote means anything, I think that's pretty Awesome.
In Other Awesome News: We went to Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley. The food was Awesome. Our server was Awesome. Alice Waters is Awesome. The Slow Food Movement is Awesome. Yum, yum, Awesome yum.
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