We seem such a feeble effort, the small crowd that gathers near the subway station in San Francisco’s Mission District. There appear to be almost as many television reporters as demonstrators. Whatever. This is us, the Wednesday interfaith demonstration for immigrants’ rights. There is the usual slightly maddening wait. Then some music, which turns out to be rather good. Then an introduction of the principals from the various religious groups, one of them my wife. And the San Francisco police, it must be said, keep their distance and keep the peace. Which on this particular day, or on any particular day, is the one thing that everyone wants.

Call it rooting for the home team, but I did like the Berkeley rabbi best. He pointed out that the pyramids were built by cheap immigrant labor. Very cheap, of course. And that Pharaoh wasn’t much on worker safety standards. And he stirred up a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment among the Egyptians, job security being what it was. And what did the Hebrews get for enshrining the likes of King Tut, knocking out acres of hieroglyphics and constructing the occasional Sphinx? Jack. Nada. Plus the nationwide paranoia of Pharaoh himself. Watch those Hebrews. They are shifty fuckers. Can’t trust them further than you can throw Ramses.

Let my people go being the only logical response. So off they went. And off we go too, trudging up and a street that depicts in folk art the struggles of the San Francisco…folk. One of the city’s Episcopal clergy, Jane’s colleague, takes a moment to remind us of the shooting, just a few streets away, of Amilcar Perez. A kid in his 20s from Central America who worked, sent money home to his family…and somehow got six San Francisco police bullets in his back. Anyway, his neighborhood vicar keeps demanding answers from the city. He keeps not getting them. And that he keeps the pressure up at all strikes me as most amazing.

We trudge on. And then it’s over. Jane stays. I go. After all, I’ve got to deposit the month’s outlandish rent on my suburban apartments. I get on the 14 Rapid, sharing the five-minute ride with the Mission District’s mid-day crowd of Latinos and elderly. I am, of course, among the latter. I am retired. And having abundant time on my hands, I like to imagine I have done something useful. It is impossible to say.

Bank of the West takes my deposit. I take my time, wandering up the street to have organic pizza with cilantro pesto. Life is good for some in this town.