BOW #23: Embarcadero

San Diego, California

March 1, 1974

6:20 p.m. Pacific Standard Time

A long-running boardwalk, the ‘Embarcadero’ is the area along the San Diego harbor on the east side of San Diego Bay.

Located on the downtown waterfront. Looking across the bay, as the bird flies, the Embarcadero is about one nautical mile north-east of the far south-eastern portion of Coronado Island.

A landmark restaurant, Anthony’s is situated on a wide pier jutting into San Diego Bay.

Still light enough to see, sitting elbow to elbow at a window table overlooking the bay, watching as a large sloop with billowing ‘main’ and ‘jib’ a quarter mile into the ocean sailed by.

“I just can’t help myself and I’m going to say it again, but my God, Mitchie, how’d we ever get lucky enough to be able to move to a place like this? It’s so damned…”

“Beautiful, baby!” Finishing his wife’s thought. “I still get the feeling that we’re going to be living in…”

“ ‘Zip-itedy-do-da land’.” Finishing her husband’s thought.

Thoughtful a few moments...“Do you know...” Marsha said, “...that in the day and a half we’ve been here this is the third time we’ve eaten in a ‘fish joint’.” she laughed “...and I don’t even like fish…. Hate ‘em, in fact! But…”

“Not as much as that ‘great’ lunch you had in Mexico, huh?”

“Oh, ‘please’ …” still embarrassed at the mental picture of her hanging tongue cooling in her husband’s margarita “... don’t even remind me of that!”

Cutting the ‘crab cake’ with the edge of her fork. “But this stuff is delicious!”

“Yeah, well, taste this.” Cutting a piece of the near pound lobster tail on his plate, dipping it in drawn butter and motioning for Marsha to open her mouth ….

Ecstatically chewing…

Studying his plate,. “There’s no claws on that lobster?”

“Pacific lobsters don’t have claws like ‘Main lobsters’.”

“How’d you know that?”

“The waiter told me while you were the bathroom.”

“But you love the claws.”

One of Mitchell Lipensky’s fondest childhood memories was…

Actually the reason the Walter Lipensky family gave up all pretense of an ‘even’ semi-kosher home was that while on the road as a traveling salesman for his father’s manufacturing company; traveling through the south Walter had become rather found of — God forbid, ham, bacon and pork sausage, and it was not too long after when Walter discoverer ‘Main Lobster’ which immediately— on special occasions, when he could afford it, Main Lobster...an ‘absolute’ kosher ‘np’! ‘no!’ became Walter’s ‘all time’ favorite meal and after giving his wife a morsel of lobster tail, lo and behold, lobster became Myra’s favorite ‘eat out’ dish also.

One of Mitchell Lipensky’s fondest childhood memories was that— when they could afford a lobster dinner, Mitchell’s mother would always bring both claws home for her young son’s dinner the next evening and Mitchell always...

“Yeah…” he said “...I do love the claws, but...” motioning out the window at the now fading from sight sloop “...for this I’ll live without the claws.”

“And...” looking to her right “...for that, too.”

Though they’d seen it earlier in the evening, having taken an on-board tour.

“My, God, Marcie, that’s the most beautiful ship I’ve ever seen.”

Three sides of the huge restaurant were composed of ongoing floor to ceiling picture windows.

Berthed to the right, about sixty yards from ‘Anthony’s’, the classic, multi-masted black ship clearly visible:

***

Launched five days before Abraham Lincoln’s ‘ Gettysburg Address’…

The world’s oldest active sailing ship, the ‘Star of India’ began her life at ‘Ramsey Shipyard’ in the ‘Isle of Man’ in 1863.

Iron ships were experiments of sorts at that time, with most vessels still being built of wood.

When launched she bore the name ‘Euterpe’, after the Greek muse of music and poetry.

*****

Walking the crowded Embarcadero – even at this time of evening, on a week day— walking the boardwalk, though too late to tour the ‘USS Midway’ and the ‘San Diego Maritime Museum’.

“The kids will love seeing this!” Making an all-encompassing motion, “and I’ve a feeling that we’ll be back here plenty of times, so we’ll see it with them.”

Stopping, sitting on a bench opposite ‘The Star of India'’ watching the multitude of people passing by, “I want to see something.” Mitchell said.

Standing, going to a passing couple,.“Excuse me, but do you live here?”

“In San Diego?” The man asked.

“If you don’t mind, yes. Do you live in San Diego?”

“No...” the man said “...we’re from Los Angeles.”

“Thank you.”

Going to another strolling couple. Asking the same question.

“No, we’re from Denver.”

Another couple with three children.

“We’re from Newfoundland.”

“From ‘Newfoundland’?”

“Yes. We wanted to see Hollywood and Disneyland and now we’re here.”

From couple to couple and there was not one person that Mitchell had spoken to that was from San Diego.

Sitting alongside his wife, “Know what, Marcy?”

“What?”

“How’s it feel to be living in the place people come to for their vacation?”

“Like I said, we’re going to be living in  Zip-itedy-do-da land’.”

March 2, 1974

9:38 a.m. Pacific Standard Time

Feeling a bit ridiculous holding their heavy winter coats over their knees in, by this time, seventy-eight degree weather.

The ride to Lindbergh Field was in total silence as Marsha and Mitchell stared out the window at the passing San Diego Spring glory.

****

Finding two seats on the starboard side two rows of seats aft the wing of the Boeing 707, this time accepting the window seat as Mitchell stood aside allowing her to sit first.

A bit surprised that she was going to sit alongside the window. “You’re not afraid of flying anymore?”

“You ‘nuts’? Yeah, I’m ‘still afraid of flying’! But if something happens, it’s not going to matter if I sit here…” as he was now seated “...or here,” patting Mitchell’s knee.

...The hatch closed and secured, the portable staircase rolled away.

...Within a minute or two, feeling a slight pressure in their ears, the cabin pressurized as, swallowing to clear their ears, they felt the surge of power as the four port and starboard jet engines came to life…

...After two or three minutes of hesitation, the Boeing 707 airliner began to roll.

The plane taxied slowly. It turned to the right then to the right again and stopped.

The roaring of the four engines barely heard within the cabin…

Shuddering, straining to be on its way…

A sudden jerk as the plane began to move forward….

Hext BOW #24: Lipschultz