Growing Up on Alcatraz
On a gray May morning — that’s to say a typical San Francisco May morning — in 2014, my mother, my wife, and I convened at Pier 33 to ride to Alcatraz, along with a literal boatload of tourists. But we were on a secret mission. Hours earlier, before leaving the Peninsula, I had opened the box containing my father’s ashes and portioned out perhaps a pint of the coarse, bone-white powder. I’m afraid we hadn’t planned with an eye for ceremony. There were no satin or fine linen sachets; just Ziplo