San Francisco Chronicle Bay Area - Spoken Edition

Every army has its front line, and in San Francisco’s never-ending war against homelessness, Kiefer Cropper is an invaluable soldier.

The 1920s were in full roar when the Sir Francis Drake Hotel opened in the fall of 1928. It was one of the city’s first skyscraper hotels — “26 Stories of Luxury,” The Chronicle called it at the time, overestimating its height by five stories. It came with a grand marble lobby, radios in all 600 guest rooms — and a Prohibition-era hideaway where the select few could enjoy a drink of illegal bootleg Scotch.

Think about it: If you were suddenly forced to live on the streets for an extended period of time, what would you take with you to make homelessness bearable and less extreme? You’d probably take plenty of shirts, pants, underwear, shoes, toiletries and personal keepsakes, of course. That’ll probably fit in a large suitcase. You can roll that around all day, no problem.

Famous people around these parts get their names on important places. Robin Williams got a tunnel, Willie Brown got a bridge. Grimes Poznikov got a Porta Potti. Perhaps you don’t know who Poznikov was, but he was famous in his time. He was the Automatic Human Jukebox, among the most celebrated of San Francisco’s street characters in the 1970s and ’80s. He was a free spirit who brought music and a kind of zany zest to life on the street.

Sonia Orbuch, who survived the Holocaust in eastern Europe by joining a partisan band to fight the Germans, died last Sunday at home in Corte Madera. She was 93. In her later years, Orbuch was an author and gave public talks about her life during the war. “She deeply touched young people in particular, teens who were the same age as Sonia when she fled to the forest and fought back,” Fred Rosenbaum, a longtime friend, said in a eulogy delivered at her funeral service Wednesday.

There is a silent force emerging in American politics, and thanks to the contentious debate over Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump is tapping right into it. I’m talking about men. Your husband, perhaps, or your brother or son. It’s a “very scary time for young men” in America, Trump said at a rally last week. “My whole life I’ve heard you’re innocent until proven guilty, but now you’re guilty until proven innocent.

UC’s leaders get same 3 percent raises as workers —... University of California workers fought for and won a 3 percent raise this year. At the same time, the University of California Board of Regents just authorized 3 percent pay raises for UC’s top brass systemwide, retroactive to July 1 in most cases. And while 3 percent may not seem like much for those on the lower end of the ladder, up top it means big bucks.

Make sure your chimney has a spark arrester, and have it inspected and cleaned annually. If you sleep with the door closed, install a smoke detector in the bedroom. Turn off electric blankets and other electrical appliances when not in use. Do not smoke in bed. If you have security bars on your windows or doors, be sure they have an approved quick-release mechanism so you and your family can get out in the event of a fire.

LiLou the pig got a dose of spiritual protection Sunday when she waddled into San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral and received a blessing from the Episcopal dean himself. “May God bless you and keep you, LiLou, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Dean Malcolm Clemens Young crooned as he lay his hands upon the 60-pound porker’s bristly hide. As a professional therapy pig, LiLou usually bestows healing help rather than getting it herself.

The vast majority of fire deaths — 85 percent — happen in homes. Yet, few families, just one in five, have practiced getting out of their house in the event of a fire. Do you know how you’d escape from each room if a fire breaks out? If the answer is no, it’s time to make a plan and practice. Here’s what you can do: • Walk through your home, and identify exits and escape routes, making sure doors and windows can be easily opened.

What to do in 1st critical minutes It’s finally happened: An earthquake is pushing your furniture around like a cat with toys, or a wildfire is roaring toward your house in a wall of crackling flame. Don’t panic. Take a breath if you can. And follow these steps: In the event of fire • Flee the minute calamity becomes imminent, and certainly if you are told to evacuate. It takes only two minutes for fire to ignite a house and five minutes to engulf it.

Tuesday was a special day for history in San Francisco as the Postal Service showed off its new postage stamp commemorating the centennial of World War I. A gathering of old veterans and young men and women in uniform gathered to honor the memory of those who served in what they called “The Great War.” “We are here to honor a generation that can no longer speak for itself,” said Col.

Last week we reported that BART board member Debora Allen was heading off to the annual American Public Transit Association’s conference in Nashville before the transit district’s new policy kicked in that banned travel to states with anti-LGBTQ policies. Well, at the last minute, Allen opted not to go, telling us after we went to print that she simply was too busy. Allen claims she told BART staff of her decision days before the conference.

Mount Tamalpais in Marin County is not impressive as mountains go. It’s no Mount Rainier, the centerpiece of the Pacific Northwest, no Mount Shasta, “as lonely as God and as white as the winter moon,” as the poet Joaquin Miller called it. The east peak of Tamalpais is only 2,571 feet above sea level. It would not even be much of a hill in the Sierra Nevada. But Tamalpais has something else.

Ingrid Seyer-Ochi goes to Grocery Outlet twice a month to buy boxes of fig bars and other snacks. The principal of Franklin Elementary School in East Oakland uses her own money for the snacks she gives to students at her school. She says several students come to her office every day looking for something to calm their growling stomachs. “Kids are hungry,” she told me when I was at the school one recent morning.