Mabel Watson Payne and her father took me to a San Francisco playground I had never seen before over on Broadway at Larkin.
Helen Wills Park this place is called, with generous amounts of new-built and ingenious climbing and creeping and chasing and sliding equipment. Plus several capacious cement tunnels to thrillingly slither through. The shoes of father and daughter are seen above during the tangerine break halfway through the playground cavorting – to be documented shortly. But those shoes have a particular significance all their own today, because ...
... today I heard Mabel count for the first time. She can count to two. She counted tangerines, squirrels and several other things, including her own and other people's shoes.