April 18 - Wednesday "Into the fog of time"

April 18 - Wednesday

My sister Deb and I both arrived at the San Francisco Airport in good shape, although I had a three hour wait to join with her. After hours of white-out cloud filled windows, both our flights opened up over the Sierra Nevada Mountains where we took pictures- almost identical to each other- and then again over miles of vineyards in the San Joaquin Valley. I remembered seeing all those places on Google Earth; the Texas Diggings and the American River winding through canyons. In those same hairpin turns, gold was uncovered in freshets after the winter snows melted.

In this harsh land our great great-grandfather, Anna Flynn's father, David O'flinn and his brother Henry sought a brighter future. As far as I know, David disappeared into the world of mining never to be seen again. Henry can be found in boarding houses in the region up into 1900. But Anna's father met some terrible fate sometime around 1870, according to the narrative of Isaac L. Mylar, who reported that Anna's mother was raising four children alone in that decade. The census of 1870 bears that out, finding the family of Ann O'flinn: Thomas, Francis, Anna, Mary, and William, without a father in that year.

The afternoon had been sunny in San Francisco, but soon the fog came out from the bay, north of the airport, and began to reach into the sky above me. It was the 106th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and the dark floating clouds looked like black-gloved hands. I couldn't resist a photograph of this first fog experience and since I was waiting for Deb's plane to land I went out to the farthest point on the air train to take a self portrait.

By the time Deb arrived I was an old hand at getting around the airport and I took her on her first air-train ride. The fog by now had covered most of the sky and she found the effect to be somewhat haunting.

Reservations for two nights at a four star luxury hotel had been graciously made by cousin Tom in the Redwood area of Palo Alto. We were glad for the short drive from the airport and easy access. When we arrived we encountered the valet who asked if we needed help with the luggage. This was a kind of special treatment we were not accustomed to and we both felt a little out of place. (Deb and I have a kind of telepathy for this kind of situation and we worked out parking the car and unloading our own luggage to save on expenses.)

Once we were settled into our room, which was very nice, we realized we hadn't eaten a decent meal all day. The room service menu had prices that were out of range for us so we dressed up a bit and went down to the bar hoping to find something satisfying at a reasonable price. We shared a grilled Ahi Tuna plate with extra rice and each had a glass of California wine. It was 3AM eastern time and we were punchy. We let the bartenders know which anniversary it was. They didn't guess the Earthquake in three tries, but they knew something was going on about the Golden Gate Bridge - and they were right- 2012 is the 75th anniversary of the opening of the bridge.

The night passed in quiet and comfort. All was well in the morning when we connected with Tom and laid out our plans for the day. However, our work began right away with making an appointment to see a long lost relative of the Lazar family who seemed, to us at least, to have gotten up on the wrong side of 2012.