The Hospital - Melody Cryns

Its shadow loomed over us each and every day as we played in the neighborhood on 2nd Avenue in San Francisco. It was an exciting, mysterious place that always fascinated us and beckoned us. Our parents warned us that we should never go up there to play, that it was dangerous and off limits. Yet how could we ignore this place that we saw each and every day because the massive, far-reaching buildings towered over us, the buildings of U.C. Hospital in San Francisco. Even when we played at the tiny patch of Golden Gate Park we called the Greens, we could see U.C. Hospital. It seemed that no matter where we went, that hospital was always there, with Sutro Forest jutting out behind it.

We had the neighborhoods to play in, and Golden Gate Park, but there were two places that were off-limits for us – U.C. Hospital and Whiskey Hill in Golden Gate Park, a hilly area where supposedly all the bums hung out – it was dangerous, our parents warned us. And they were doing all this construction around U.C. Hospital which meant there were ditches to fall into – and the doctors and the nurses and all the students up there at the hospital wouldn’t like it if a bunch of kids ran around its perimeters.

So that’s why U.C. Hospital and the surrounding grounds fascinated us, and drew us in like a magnet. The more dangerous our parents said the place was, the more we wanted to go.

I remember we started with the Medical Center across the street from the hospital. All we had to do to get to the Medical Center was walk up to Irving Street – just two short blocks, walk into this seven-story parking structure and take an elevator to the top floor – we felt as if we owned the place, and we could get ice cream cones for a nickel at the cafeteria up there and even watch a color TV. It was probably the only time I ever even saw a color TV – we only had a big-screen black and white. There was a lounge with pool and ping pong tables for the doctors we guessed, or these people called “residents.”

I remember the first day we all decided to venture across the street to the actual hospital.

“Let’s do it – let’s go over there,” my brother Michael had said.

“But Mom said…” my little sister, who everyone in the neighborhood called Jenny Pooh said.

“Oh, c’mon,” said Barry Hirrell, the crazy little boy from around the corner said. “You’re not scared, are ya?”

“Yes, let’s go over there!” David Hirrell, the biggest kid in the neighborhood who everyone listened to, maybe because if they didn’t, he could beat them up.

So we ventured across Parnassus and into the massive building that loomed over us each and every day – into its expansive lobby ooohhhing and ahhing as if we were in a museum – even though we’d been to the Natural History Museum in Golden Gate Park as well as the Aquarium dozens of times because they were free back then. When we talked, our voices, made an echo.

Then we saw the elevators and our eyes twinkled because elevators were like fun rides for kids like us. We wondered how far they would go up. These elevators looked much more fancy than the ones we took in the parking structure which were old and cumbersome.

So we pushed a button and when David Hirrell pushed it, it lit up as if by magic! You didn’t even have to press the button, just lightly touch it, and it lit up.

“Wow, this is like on Star Trek!” Barry Hirrell said.

“Yeah!” we all agreed.

There were six elevators, three on each side, facing each other. We’d never seen so many of them. When one opened, we all got on, fascinated – and then we saw that there were well over 20 floors to choose from – where should we go? I pushed a button, Number 7 – and it magically lit up.

“Wow!” everyone said. We were so fascinated by the way the numbers lit up, so modern reminding us that the spaceship age could be just around the corner.

Next thing we knew, almost all the buttons were pushed because well, we just couldn’t help it.

So the elevator opened on each and every floor. We watched the doors slide open and then close again, and as they did the light would go out for that floor. It was wonderful! That is, it was wonderful until a doctor in a white coat strode on to the elevator. He became agitated when he saw that all the buttons were pushed, and he looked down at all us kids who looked at him with wide eyes.

“What are you doing here? What did you do?” he shouted in a scary, booming voice, as the elevator stopped at the next floor up and the doors slid open. “What the…?”

He looked at the lit-up buttons and shook his head. “There should be a law against you being here.”

We were all so scared that we ran off the elevator on the next floor because we could tell that doctor guy was pretty mad. We found ourselves on a hospital ward of some kind…and even though we were curious kids, somehow wandering around the wards filled with sick people just took things a little too far.

So we pushed the down button and headed back down to the first floor – and we just couldn’t help it. We had to push all the buttons.