I was carrying my big duffle bag, a trip to Costa Rica in the works, leaving that evening or the next morning with my buddy Phillip. I'd public transited all the way up from Santa Cruz, local bus to county transit, transit bus to CalTrain and I was full of vim and vigor and excitement about a trip into the unknown, this first time I'd ever left my own country. And I didn't know shit about shit really, and certainly didn't know SF very well. Phillip lived near 18th and Valencia or something, and I got off at the 22nd street station not yet realizing it was like a 2 mile walk to the Mission.
And I got off the train, and was reshuffling my bag from one shoulder to the other, and I happened to look up and there was a pretty girl facing backward on the train looking down at me, the only person getting off at this stop on a summer evening just about sundown. A pretty girl looking down at me smiling, and she saw me look and smiled wider and blew me a kiss - a slow, sweet kiss from the train as it pulled out of the station.
I blew a kiss back and watched the train disappear into the tunnel there and walked on air the few miles over hill and dale to Valencia.
Maybe it's too late, you know, like five or six years after this happened. But once someone asked after we'd watched Citizen Kane, what do you remember. In the movie, Bernstein says, "A fellow will remember things you wouldn't think he'd remember. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on a ferry and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in and on it, there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on and she was carrying a white pastrol and I only saw her for one second and she didn't see me at all - but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl."
Someone asked me what do I remember. And I told them I remember you, blowing me a kiss from the train as I stood at the 22nd street CalTrain station.