Hard Life Behind Bars

Over the MLK holiday weekend I was able to visit my family in California for a couple days and a friend of mine who is also a Minnesota transplant in now living in San Francisco. The highlight of my trip was a trip to the ‘Rock’ or Alcatraz Island and prison. I have always wanted to see the island up close and personal. I think many people have a fascination with the island as it has been featured in so many movies, TV shows, and has so many stories about it. I will say it doesn’t disappoint. It is a very interesting place to visit. But I will tell you that many of the things people believe about the island just are not true. It is actually a lot smaller than I thought. The main prison is maybe a ½ dozen rooms. Most of the space is dedicated to four main rooms, the shower room (nothing like the scene in the movie The Rock), the main cell block, solitary/special needs cell block, and the cafeteria. Beyond this there are is a control center and a couple of offices.

The boat ride out there isn’t that cheap but it is a nice view of the bay and the island. The island has several tours. In the morning there are guided nature tours, a self guided nature hike, all day there are self guided audio tours, there are some museum areas, and videos to watch on loop back. Oh, and how could I forget, there are a few gift shops of course. You have to book online a week or so ahead at least, but then you can just print your ticket at home and show up on the pier. I think we spent 3 hours overall on the whole event. This worked out well, you could spend ½ the time or 3 times the amount of time depending on how much you want to do. I thought it was fun to kick around in the cell block and imagine what it was like. I’m guessing that it was probably some of the hardest time you could do there.

The few surprises I had were: That there had been an uprising where the marines were called in and several people both died inmates and guards. I didn’t know that in the 70s Native Americans had taken the island over for more than a year. It was this event that recaptured the public’s attention on the island and subsequently it reopened as a park. The island and prison are much smaller than they are made out to be in movies. Movies make it seem like the prison is large with a lot of rooms, when in reality it is very compact, it only held like 300 prisoners. Finally I was surprised to find out that entire families lived on the island while it was used as a prison. The families of the guards and administrators lived on the island, including their children. The children were ferried across the bay to go to school everyday. What kind of a wild childhood would that have been!

As for the rest of San Francisco I didn’t see much but I liked it. I was able to see the water front and some parks. My friend lives about ½ a mile from the water and a short ride to the downtown area. I didn’t make it to Chinatown or any of that jazz but for a one day trip loved it. The only complaint: PARKING. There is absolutely no place to park, even if you are willing to pay for it. The driveways are every 3 feet so there is no curb space left. And when there is it typically is in front of a store so forget about it. So I got to drive around for 40 minutes looking for a space. Then I didn’t move the car for a day and a ½. The restaurants and bars on the other hand are fabulous. We went out to a good seafood place, and then to a couple bars for drinks. We were, should we say, quite cheerful by the end of the night. Hopefully I can get some time to spend more than one day out there.