Out in San Francisco Bay

One of the best guided tours Gilda and I ever took was back in 1978, at Alcatraz, the island prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay. It’s most appropriate to recall this tour today as tonight marks the 50th anniversary of the only escape from the prison-on-the-rock that might have succeeded (for details, read: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/us/anniversary-of-a-mystery-at-alcatraz.html?_r=1).

We journeyed to Alcatraz as part of our first trip to California. After visiting my sister in Los Angeles, and taking a trip down to San Diego, we drove north along the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco, stopping along the way in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Simeon (the Hearst Castle), Carmel and Monterey.  We had heard about the Alcatraz tour and arranged tickets for the 15-minute boat ride to the island. 

Today, visitors are given headsets to listen to audio descriptions of Alcatraz as they walk at their leisure around the former federal penitentiary. Back in 1978, Park Service Rangers provided live commentary as they guided tour groups throughout the facility. 

Though it was the middle of summer during our visit, Alcatraz was chilly, with a dampness that invaded our bones. Weather conditions, we found out, were part of the unique punishment meted out to incorrigible prisoners who earned a stay in solitary confinement, what the inmates called “the hole.” There were six solitary confinement cells, as distinct from 36 segregation cells where prisoners were confined throughout the day. Their only relief from the segregation cells was one visit per week to the recreation yard which they “enjoyed” individually.  

To make them as uncomfortable as possible in solitary confinement, prisoners were stripped naked before being placed in the dark, lightless hole, the Park Ranger told us. The walls and floor of the cell were steel, not concrete, because steel would not become as warm from contact with the body. Rather, the wind blowing in from the bay would keep it cold, so prisoners would try their best to maintain a position that exposed the least amount of skin to the surface. They did that by squatting down on their haunches and balancing themselves with a few fingertips for hours on end, he said. He invited us to step inside a cell and assume the position. It was not a comfortable experience.

“Guests” of the hole received one meal a day. As the government had to provide a minimum number of calories to each prisoner per day, the guards concocted what became known as an “Alcatraz cocktail.” All the food from each day was blended together to form what I’m sure was not a savory drink. 

As we walked through the shower room where inmates were showered three times a week, to our surprise the Park Ranger said the showers used hot, not cold, water. His explanation made perfect sense. Prison officials had no desire to acclimate their charges to the frigid bay waters. If they were going to try to escape by jumping into the bay, they wanted them to be shocked by the cold water. 

One final tidbit of information—The “Birdman of Alcatraz,” Robert Stroud, made famous by a biography and a movie of the same name starring Burt Lancaster, actually was the Birdman of Leavenworth. Leavenworth didn’t have the same panache as Alcatraz so  the location name was changed even though Stroud never kept birds in Alcatraz after being transferred to the island from Leavenworth, Kans., in 1942. 

If you’re ever in San Francisco, visit Alcatraz. I’m sure the trip will be fascinating, even if it’s electronically described.

Making the Cut, Religiously Speaking

Making the Cut: I’m still here, and if you’re reading this so are you, which means neither of us made the cut, the select group of 140,000 souls who were to be saved Saturday evening before the world began its inexorable descent to destruction.

No one I know was transported to heaven while the rest of us, according to the prophesy, endure earthquakes, plagues, war, famine and general torment for five months, until October, when everything comes to an end. Of course, we already have earthquakes, plagues, war, famine and general torment, so it’s hard to say what’s different. Indeed, yesterday a volcano erupted on Iceland, an earthquake rocked New Zealand, and we’re still at war in many places.

I’m not here to make fun of Harold Camping, the 89-year-old Christian radio entrepreneur who predicted universal demise. Lord knows there are many more talented wits who have and will continue to do so. Besides, they get paid to be funny. Nor am I here to make fun of those sorry souls who believed in Camping’s image of the future. They are troubled, perhaps desperate people.

Nary an organized religion has eluded the pull of a return to a time when belief trumped current conditions, when reverence for god and his respective messengers was more appealing than the drudgery of everyday life or, worse, intense hardship and oppression.

The Lubavitcher sect of Jews had a schism over the disputed claim that Rabbi Menachem Schneerson was the messiah. He’ll be dead 17 years on June 12, with no outward sign that the world to come has arrived. In the mid-1600s, many Jews abandoned their homes to follow Shabtai Tzvi, a self-proclaimed messiah. He ultimately converted to Islam.

Jihadists clamor for a resurrection of the caliphate blessed by Mohammed. Camping is just the latest Christian to bedevil the faithful. At least those who believed in him didn’t wind up dead, like the 82 unlucky Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, who followed David Koresh, or the 909 who drank Jim Jones’s Kool-aid in Guyana in 1978. But many who trusted Camping did leave their jobs, sell their possessions and confound their friends and relatives.

I don’t think you have to be totally content with your life, but if you reach the stage where your only alternative is to believe the end of the world is nigh and you will be among those who achieve eternal salvation, it’s time to check into the clinic and stay there, perhaps until all the earthquakes, plagues, wars, famines and general torments end.


Cut It Off, Not Out: Sufficient San Francisco voters have signed a petition to place on the November ballot a vote to ban circumcision for male children under 18. No exception for religious practices of Jews or Muslims. Violators would be charged with a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail.

All it took was 7,700 signatures to get the initiative on the ballot (7,168 were needed). Supporters of the ban (now also being considered in Santa Monica) claim circumcisions mutilate the penis and inflict pain and lifelong suffering. They deny any medical benefits from circumcision, such as reduced transmission of AIDS by heterosexual men.

This latest attack on religious practice can be compared to the challenge some states have posed to the ritual slaughter of animals according to kosher and halal guidelines. It’s argued animals suffer more when ritualistically slaughtered.

However well-intentioned proponents of these restrictions are, their efforts should be dismissed as incorrect, impolitic and ignorant. And unconstitutional, as they infringe on religious observance. Let’s hope San Francisco voters, and any others who face such a choice, leave religious practice intact, allowing animals to be killed according to humane religious custom and permitting parents to cut at will the foreskin of their male progeny.