Chapter 1: The Pier

An introduction

Growing up in a fishing town was not the glamorous life nor was it the easy life, but I like to think that it was the good life; well at least it was for me.  San Francisco was to many people a far away place filled with the mysteries of the past, but to me it was home.  Pier 39, especially, was not just a neat place to visit when you went on vacation, no, for me it was part of my neighborhood.  Pier 39 was a bustling, smelly, nostalgic, mysterious, beautiful place of business and pleasure.  The pier was a place where someone’s catch became someone’s dinner if you were lucky and if you weren’t then getting dinner was a gamble.  It was a place of ruthlessness, a place where the strong people were separated from the weak people.  It was a place where the ruffians of San Francisco met and traded gossip and made deals to make a living.  It was a place where the locals of San Francisco, the ones that had lived there all their lives and still made their living from the sea, met and were just together like the family that they had all became over the years.  It wasn’t a place for people with weak hearts, or weak stomachs.  It was a place for the hardworking and the brave.  The pier was smelly, but at the same time it had an air of wistfulness and mystery to it.  But the pier wasn’t just a stink, it was home.

            I never got why there was so much hype about San Francisco.  I never really understood why it was so different from any other place.  I never really got why people made plans to come to Pier 39 in San Francisco.  I dreaded going over there on the weekends because of all the tourists.  There were so many of them on the weekends, but during the week was when the locals came out, the real machine behind San Francisco and all its supposed glory. It is so true that San Francisco would be nothing without its hardworking locals; well at least that’s what all the locals would tell you.  Without the tourists the pier was a peaceful place and much more enjoyable.  No matter how much the locals detested the tourists they had to admit that they loved them because after all they were the people that kept them in business, they were their bread and butter, and they were the ones that kept them living for the most part.

             The locals of Pier 39 were one great big family.  Everyone knew everyone else’s name here and everyone knew everyone else’s business here too.  But they were a unique family, in more ways then one.  First of all and probably the weirdest thing about this family was that they competed with each other in the business of Pier 39.  They were all competitors of each other when it came to selling their products, but most of the time that didn’t even matter because everyone helped everyone else out when it came to financial issues, but it is a unique characteristic.  Another unique thing that I thought was interesting about this family was that they came from all walks of life, they came from all over the world, and yet their diversity made them closer and more loyal to each other.  Other unique factors were also in play with this family, but right now I am not going to go too much more in depth. 

            And so this family of ruffians from Pier 39 lived and worked together on the pier in harmony and peace.  They lived simply and yet they lived happily.  They had their failures and their triumphs.  They had their drunken parties and their lazy days.  But there was always one thing that was always continuous on the pier and although everyone knew it, no one would dare speak of it because of the fear that they would jinx it.  The one thing that was always constant, the one thing that was always definite, was that the locals were dependent on the pier and the pier was dependent on the locals and if either were taken out of the equation, like any other great and powerful empire, the other would soon fall.

 

Reviews

[Fire Mage Andrea]

Are there main characters? Maybe each chapter could be written as seen through their eyes.

[bluessadmood]

Well you gave me a very nice picture of the Pier 39,and those families living their ,mostly on fishing ,they were competetive
but when at times of need or crisis they would rush for help of others..
They came from all over the world ,yet they were but like a family,their drunken parties ,lazy days
This sound like a very nice beginning of a story ..i really wonder why you stopped here..
You painted a lovely picture here of this community..but stopped short of telling us about whats going to
happen..i really wish you would go on with this..
lovely write..

[Brandon M. Whittaker]

I did like this. I grew up around San Fransisco (not exactly in it), I really like how you described the locals of the pier as a family it gave the story a more homely feel. Great write.