It must have been something like torture for the inmates on Alcatraz Island to sit in their cells or out in the recreation yard and be able to see San Francisco and all of its life just 1 mile away. Indeed, from the island it looks like just a short swim but of course, nature has her own plans. You see, there is an enormous amount of water in the Bay, and the bays and inlets surrounding the San Francisco area and twice a day, all of that water makes its way out and back to the ocean. It does this through the only natural opening it has: the Golden Gate. What I am getting at is that the currents running through this body of water almost defy the imagination. Watch, for example, the huge cargo ship trying to make its way into the bay on an outgoing tide. It's like pushing a car uphill with a rope. The mighty motors struggle and strain and yet the ship moves so slowly it appears to be standing still. That same ship bound for the ocean in an outgoing tide would hardly even need its motors and tugs the current is so strong. So, it's a pretty safe bet that the only 3 men ever known to have made it to and into the water were never seen or heard from again. No surprise at all.
I find it highly ironic that we now use this space a recreation. We actually PAY to go there, and good money too. I found the place to be interesting. The juxtaposition of the modern and the old, the current with the past. The fact that the staff's families lived on the island in houses and apartments that were just yards from some of the most hardened criminals ever to disgrace humanity is almost incomprehensible. The innocence of the children who were raised on Alcatraz is (likely) starkly opposed to the constant state of nerves their parents must have felt for that time. Were they (the children) COMPLETELY insulated from what was going on around them? Were they in fact also inmates of a sort? I mean, they lived freely but within a fenced compound. There was no place to ride bikes or skateboards. No field to fly a kite. No beach to take a swim. No movies for the rainy windy days. Yet, freedom was just a 12 minute ferry ride away. I wonder how life on Alcatraz affected those people.
Alcatraz means Pelican in Spanish. Odd. I didn't see a single pelican while I was on the island. I saw about two hundred and fifty million sea gulls, though. And if not the gulls themselves then surely the evidence of where they had once sat.
Overall, my impression of Alcatraz is that I am glad I did the tour. I have memories now that can only be gotten in one way: to go there and actually do it. You've heard it a million times: photos don't do it justice. It's true of course. A photo of an 8x8x7 cell show how it looked, but there is no way to know how it was. And hopefully, there never will be.
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