A few days ago I started digging through one of many old boxes of slides. I like this picture. It was taken in 1980, a few years after we moved into our current house on Potrero Hill. I remember the clothesline with fondness. My washing machine was on the back porch upon old redwood stilts, 3 stories up.
During earthquakes the whole back of our house would sway. It still does but not so intensely since we reinforced back there. You can see the old stilts on the left side of the photo.
Here are the back stairs after the house was built next door. The smell of Hills Brother’s burnt coffee from the company’s plant up the street permeated the exposed wood on the house. So did the smell of hops from Anchor Steam. 15 years later when we tore down the stairs to rebuild them, we found they were hanging by one humongous nail.
