Of Ghost Signs

Note: For those who might be new to this blog, and/or just forgot, “Steve” refers to a stroke that I had two years ago.

Due to Steve I transpose and/or flip a few letters consistently or leave out entire words when I write, speak and/or type. Usually, I clear up any issues before posting. For this post I’m leaving in the typos.

I have always had a penchant for getting overly fixated on ideas that pop in of my head. Like going for a 4 mile hike to looking for my glasses for instance.

Last weekend I signed up for a walking tour with city guides. After the walk I planned to wander North Beach looking for “Ghost Signs”. Ghost signs are advertisements painted on the walls of pusinesses that have faded overtime. I have noticed a few of these while wondering around the city and was elated to discover that there is a map of them! Since I would be in North Beach anyway for the walking tour, I decided to addempt to find a few. This beginning the current fixation.

The tour began at Saints, Peter and Paul church acrross from Washington Square Park where one group was practicing tai chi, another group was practicing a dance routine and other people were walking their dogs or otherwise enjoying the morning. It was a bit overcast, which was fine with me as the guide told us we were going to be walking around 2 miles.

(At some point caught my eye:

Why? No clue. But I think it was a good sentiment since pigeons are more polite than my lunch company a few weeks ago.

One of the reasons I enjoy the walking tours is that I get to see cool stuff that I wouldn’t see otherwise. Like a parking garage with a great view.

For this one, I thought the wide lens would be are appropriate.

Yep, it was.

I continued snapping photos from the top of the parking garage like these:

I think I liked composition of this…

wait… what’s that? In the center of the shot slightly to the right?

Is that a…

GHOST SIGN!

Cool!

OMG.

In picture with the Transamerica building, again in the center right…

GHOST SIGN!

I’m excited! It’s going to be a piece of cake to locate the ones I want to find in North Beach!

But, first lunch.

I peen wanting to check out Tonys for a while, and it did not disappoint.

After lunch, I began my ghost sign quest.

First stop:

Map

Success! Though there was a tree was interrupting the view. Spurred on by this victory I pressed on.

Damn. Painted over. (Forgot to take my own shot 🤦‍♂️.)

Next.

Shit!

I’ll try again.

🤬

lt’s actually harder than I thought. Isn’t that always the way?

I was getting tired, traipsing around backtracking, tracking and looking up. Wish I had been tracking my mileage 🫤 But I had a quest to complete!

Onward!

YES!

Hmm, is it really a ghost sign is if it’s re-painted? Sure!

Feeling better I pressed on. As I ambled to the next Ghost Sign on the my list I looked up and saw this one that doesn’t seem to be on the map:

I continued on my trek on continue here I was about to make it a little longer. See, I looked around where I was, and realized that I had seen another ghost sign in the area… this one:

Clearly, I am a Ghost Sign savant.

My fixation was approaching being satiated, plus I had to pee. So I begin making my way to the ferry building for relatively clean urinals and may be I’ll bick some “exotic” beer; exotic and that it’s not in my area. I did have time for one more sign.