Plaques proposed to mark Jerry Garcia's boyhood homes

(07-30) 09:40 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Jerry Garcia may be most closely linked in many people's minds with the Haight-Ashbury, but the Grateful Dead front man and San Francisco native actually grew up in another neighborhood - and the supervisor who represents that area wants to make sure he's remembered there.

Supervisor John Avalos introduced a resolution Tuesday that would let the city install commemorative street plaques in front of 121 Amazon Ave., where Garcia lived with his parents until he was 5, and 87 Harrington St., where he and his brother lived with their grandparents after his father's accidental death. Both homes are in the Excelsior district - which is also home to the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in McLaren Park, site of the annual Jerry Day.

The resolution is chock full of amazing historical facts about Garcia - whom it calls "a reluctant cultural icon of psychedelic music and the hippie movement that helped define San Francisco in the 1960s" - including quotes from Hunter S. Thompson and Bob Dylan and references to the Acid Tests, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Wall of Sound speaker system and the UC Santa Cruz Grateful Dead Archive.

"Garcia's childhood was surrounded by music: His father, Jose, was a swing-band leader, his mother played piano, and Garcia said he learned to love bluegrass and country music through his grandmother, Tillie's, habit of listening to the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday nights," it states. "Commemorating the childhood homes of Jerry Garcia will celebrate Garcia's unique contributions to the social and cultural life of the city and help promote the significant role the Excelsior District played in the formative years of this unique San Franciscan."

The resolution, which will be considered by the Board of Supervisors in September, directs the Department of Public Works to complete the process for reviewing and permitting the installation of plaques outside Garcia's homes and place those addresses on the city's official list of commemorative sites.

- Marisa Lagos

More time to talk: Those free cell phones for the homeless and other people hurting for money just got a little freer.

Assurance Wireless, which began issuing no-cost cell phones to low-income Californians last year as part of the federally funded Lifeline effort, this month expanded its program to include unlimited voice minutes and texts. The change is crucial.

Until now, the program capped service at 250 talk minutes and 250 texts a month - but for anyone looking for a job or trying to connect with family or friends in desperation, as often happens in the street, those minutes and texts run out fast.

"This is a big change, and a very good one," said Bevan Dufty, who as San Francisco's head of homeless initiatives pushed hard for the free phone program last year. "It's going to make a big, positive difference in people's lives."

To apply for the phones, call Assurance Wireless at (800) 395-2171 or visit www.assurancewireless.com. Applicants can also contact the city's Project Homeless Connect at (415) 503-2123 or www.projecthomelessconnect.com.

- Kevin Fagan

Big heart: Being a street counselor for the homeless takes an odd mix of toughness, patience and the savvy for the gutter that comes with hard living. Robert "Bobby" Bernardo had all of those characteristics along with one that's even rarer: a big heart.

Bernardo was a former drug addict who'd cleaned up more than a decade ago and became a counselor for runaways, other addicts and the homeless. He wound up with San Francisco's Homeless Outreach Team five years ago and quickly earned admiration for his habit of buying $50 worth of hamburgers every so often and handing them out to the homeless he'd been trying to talk into rehab or a shelter.

He did the same thing with pants, a prized item for anyone sleeping outside. Every month or so, he'd go to the Gap, buy several dozen pairs and head out to the street. That's not an easy sacrifice for someone living on a meager street counselor's salary.

It all came to an end for Bernardo at age 52 on July 16 when he lost a three-month battle with cancer. But for his friends, the inspiration and memories he left behind are anything but over, and they will hold a memorial for him at noon Saturday at the Potrero Hill Recreation Center park at 801 Arkansas St.

"Bobby just understood people," said his friend and fellow Homeless Outreach Team counselor Scott Conforte. "No matter how many times they relapsed, how many times they blew him off, he would go back to them. That's what addiction is about - he would keep at it, and if you do that, eventually people can come around."

Bernardo, he said, "didn't look at his job for just a paycheck. He looked to it to do good. It didn't matter if a guy was covered in feces in the street - and that happens - he'd talk to him."

- Kevin Fagan

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