Alcatraz

When you haven’t seen your bestie in 6 months, and she schedules a trip home with her boyfriend so he can meet her family and see California for the first time, and she makes plans to be in your zip code for a night and a day, what else can you do but agree to go with her and her boyfriend wherever they want?  Even if “wherever they want” turns out to be Alcatraz.

I learned a lot of things, that day, about the history of Alcatraz and its many uses and purposes.  Here are some interesting facts: 

In the 60s, Native Americans took over the defunct prison and lived there for 19 months, claiming the land for Indians.  In fact one of the first things you see when you pull up to the dock on the boat is “Indians Welcome” which I thought was some kind of prison threat, but was actually totally sincere. 

They do not sell souvenir shot glasses, which really surprises me, as they sell a wide variety of other things, including tin cups (“replicas” of the ones issued to prisoners) and Alcatraz salt and pepper shakers.  Also lots of cookbooks, including non-Alcatraz themes.

The corrections officers used to live on the island, with their families, and the kids would take the boat to school in San Francisco, and come home at the end of the day.  They basically never saw the prisoners.  But I think I would be nervous to have my family there, because if I was a bad guy, and I had a lot of anger, and I broke out of prison, I wouldn’t bother trying to swim to shore – I would just go to the families’ houses and take them all hostage or something.  I don’t know if that whole concept would fly nowadays anyway.  Do corrections officers’ families live on Rikers Island?  I just wikipediaed it, and while there is nothing about families living there, it does say Rikers Island is “the world’s largest penal colony” as it contains within it “schools, medical clinics, ball fields, chapels, gyms, drug rehab programs, grocery stores, barbershops, a bakery, a laundromat, a power plant, a track, a tailor shop, a print shop, a bus depot and even a car wash.”

But this isn’t about Rikers, this is about Alcatraz.  Alcatraz now is all about tourists, and flourishing flora and fauna.  Here’s a picture of a seagull real quick, just in case you’re getting bored.

The day was warm and overcast, not a great combination, but at least it wasn’t raining.  We pulled up to the dock, walked uphill for what seemed like a long time, and got to the main jailhouse.  We picked up our audio tour headsets in the shower room (they even had put in prop soap in the soap holders, to really drive home that this was where prisoners took showers in rows), and started off.

If you are planning a trip to Alcatraz, well, the headset audio tour fee is included in your boat fee.  But if for some reason you were thinking you’d go it alone, working out of pamphlets and handouts, and explaining to your pre-teen children what you think each new room is, let me just make a suggestion: pick up the headsets.  I cannot imagine walking through that building and not having the information from the source like that.  It is narrated (allegedly) by 4 corrections officers and 4 actual prisoners, and they have sound effects and stuff.  It’s actually really cool.  They take you all through the building (although when we got to the outside part we all paused our tours and took a little break) and it only takes like 45 minutes or something like that.

(At some point when you’re in cellblock C, slip your headphones off and listen to the faint echoes from footsteps and rustling bodies, but it will be the only sound, because no one is talking.  It’s kind of eerie.  Now, put your headset back on, you’re missing the story of how the one guy starved himself to fit through the bars and almost got out.) 

We kept being surrounded by the same people: the obnoxious guy who’s filming everything, and keeps just walking in whatever direction he wishes to go, without looking around him because he’s too busy staring in the viewfinder; the fiesty looking kid who chose to forego the “I’m stuck behind these bars!” shot and instead marched right over to the toilet and sat down, doing a Rodin’s “The Thinker” pose instead; the mom-and-daughter team wearing scrunchies and oversized t-shirts, who were buying armloads of stuff in the gift shop when I passed them last; the bored looking 12-year-old kid wearing a Donkey Balls t-shirt.  (I gather Donkey Balls is some kind of gourmet Hawaiian chocolate?)  Actually, I saw that kid (again) in the restaurant we finally landed in on Pier 39, and I thought, what a tacky shirt (again).  I kept wondering what brought those other people to Alcatraz.  Where were they from originally?  Were they bummed out that the weather was so gray?  Was that kid as bored as he looked or was he doing that 12-year-old thing, where everything is boring?

On the boat on the way back, the weather cleared up and San Francisco looked really nice with a backdrop of blue sky.  Don’t worry though because it definitely sprinkled a little later that night.  We got it, San Francisco, you’re famous for your fog, I know.

The best part of the entire day was getting to see Megan and meet Dennis (and then, to steal his pictures for this blog post, thanks Dennis!), oh, and also to eat clam chowder sourdough bread bowls.  I hope that it doesn’t take another 6 months to see them again.  Maybe NYC next time?

(That’s our guardian in the background.  You’re never alone.  You’ll never be alone.)