Visitors to San Francisco playgrounds are greeted with signs noting that unaccompanied adults are not welcome.
Well, that makes some sense. But, in so many other matters, the trappings of youth are not wasted on the young. Members of this city's Young Democrats don't age out until the rather generous age of 35. People older than that live with multiple roommates out of economic necessity and ride to work on Razor scooters for reasons best known to them.
And so, when grown adults asked the San Francisco Public Library why only young people get to participate in the Summer Read program and win nifty prizes, the official response wasn't "Because you're adults, damn it!" It was "Okay!"
And so, some 5,000 adults this year participated in the program, which concluded last week (timed, naturally, to fill a schoolchild's summer vacation). These adults dutifully logged their reading hours online (30 in 10 weeks, minimum). This was done on the honor system: "We don't go to your house," confirms library spokeswoman Michelle Jeffers.
The prizes they won in weekly raffles, however, aren't kid stuff: tickets to the SFJAZZ Center, the de Young Museum, Giants games, or shows at the Orpheum. Kids, meanwhile, won bouncy house parties.
Unaccompanied adults were likely not welcome.
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