We all went home earlier than usual, at about 5:00 PM, to get ready for the party. Woody called us at 6:50 to tell us that, because of a backup on Sacramento, he’d meet us at Hyde and Clay. We found him standing beside his BMW. Woody is a rather good-looking fox-faced man in is thirtes, with a goatee and a bald, possibly shaven head. He was dressed very snappily with a white shirt and dark tie that made me think he was wearing a Tuxedo until I saw his colorful, gold-colored vest. His girlfriend, Dominique, is a tall, frond-like dancer, very delicate featured, with long blond hair.

The drive to the Golf Club was lengthy. I sat in the back and watched neighborhoods spin past, Polk Street, the Tenderloin, Van Ness, Lombard, all the way out to the neighborhoods near the Panhandle with the rows of stuccoed houses. Woody talked to Michael about real estate and the wonderful things Mayor Giuliani had done in New York City. I was too carsick to say much of anything except to ask Woody, after he’d expounded about how MAGNIFICENT New York is now, if anyone could afford to live there. He allowed as how it was a bit expensive, then went on about how concerned he was about certain liberal elements in San Francisco’s current city government, and the possibility of a mass exodus if they pass any no-growth measures. I refrained from observing that there has already been a mass exodus of the middle and working class over the past ten years, but it took an effort. I did demur once, pointing out that, after the Amadou Diallo shooting, I doubted black New Yorkers felt safe walking there at night, but Michael changed the subject and I fell back into sullen silence.

The conversation turned to the much more congenial subject of Dickens. Woody is taking part in a local festival where people wander about playing characters from Dickens — rather like Ren Fair, another institution Woody is involved in. (That was how he met Dominique — through sword fighting at Ren Fair.) Woody is going to play half of the two gentlemen who visit Scrooge asking for “some provision for the poor.” We traded Christmas Carol quotes until he pulled into the long, elegant driveway of the San Francisco Golf Club.