One lively day in the Bay Area's city of the dead - SF Gate

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There is something hilariously morbid about eating Filipino food in a casino surrounded by more than 1 million bodies.

On a recent Friday afternoon, this is exactly where I found myself. But I wasn’t alone. Around 11:30 a.m., I was joined by hundreds of people crammed inside Lucky Chances, a card room in Colma, from which the clink clink sound of chips being passed from one hand to the next emanated like a roar into the adjoining restaurant.

A slight tobacco scent hung in the air as I ate a massive plate of chicken silog — a traditional Filipino breakfast dish of chicken, garlic rice and two sunny side up eggs. I finished with a serving of halo-halo — shaved ice with condensed milk and ice cream — and set off through the card room to begin my commune with the dead.

I’ve lived in the Bay Area for a collective 26 years, but never had I spent the day in Colma, known as the City of Souls for the fact that cemeteries — 17 of them — make up 73% of the town’s land mass. I set out on a cloudy Friday to see what the town had to offer, ghosts and all.

The dead outnumber the living here, as the saying goes. There are about 1,300 people above ground and 1.5 million below in the 1.89-square-mile necropolis.

The story of Colma’s conception is well-known. In 1900, San Francisco banned burials of the dead when it began running out of space. By 1914, the city issued eviction notices — to the deceased — and more than 150,000 bodies were carted down Mission Street to fill Colma’s pastures and farmland.

The Circus Showfolks Memorial at Olivet Memorial Park in Colma, Calif., on July 2, 2021.
Michelle Robertson/SFGATE

In Colma, there are famed baseball players, newspaper tycoons, chocolatiers and concert promoters. I started my cemetery visit with a stop at Olivet Memorial Park, where there is a curious memorial to circus showfolks planted in the center of the cemetery. A painted clown’s smiling face is surrounded by flat gravestones with the names of various performers. “That they may rest in peace among their own,” reads a quote on the side of the memorial.

The mood was pensive in Olivet. During my visit, mourners clad in black paid homage to a recently deceased person. The scent of graveside flowers hung heavily in the air. A motorcycle hearse carrying a casket zoomed past me. It was time to move on.

From Olivet, I headed to Woodlawn Memorial Park, where I attempted to find the grave of notorious Emperor Norton. I spent 30 minutes looking to no avail.

Woodlawn Memorial Park in Colma, Calif., on July 2, 2021.
Michelle Robertson/SFGATE

I threw in the towel in search of another grave — this time at Pet’s Rest, a cemetery dedicated to animals. Here lies Tina Turner’s infamous pooch, which, as the story goes, lies wrapped in the songstress’s mink coat. Cars zoomed by outside the gates as I gazed upon the headstones of little Gosha, a hamster, and bulldogs Manch and Bella, “Our sweethearts.”

Pet's Rest cemetery in Colma, Calif., on July 2, 2021.
Michelle Robertson/SFGATE

By this point in the day, I’d spied the grave of Joe DiMaggio at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery. I paid my respects to Wyatt Earp at Hills of Eternity, and the blisters on my feet told me it was time to wrap things up. I was in need of some levity.

I ventured about two minutes outside of Colma into South San Francisco, where I landed a seat at an Irish pub called Molloy’s.

There were pool tables and draft beers galore, along with a heavy helping of locals, many of whom finished work and headed straight to their favorite neighborhood watering hole.

“This is a regulars bar,” said the man sitting next to me, who was himself a regular.

Just don’t forget your Benjamins. I made the poor decision to order a beer without checking if they took credit cards, pissing off the longtime bartender, Pat Lane. He told me to drink it anyway — a crisis I averted by Venmoing a regular in exchange for a $20. Phew.

I was cemeteried-out, but I couldn’t leave without a stop at the Colma Historical Society, where I was joined by brothers Rich and Mike Rocchetta, who sit on the board of the society and have lived on the border of Colma in Daly City since birth.

Train tracks near the Colma Historical Association in Colma, Calif.
Michelle Robertson/SFGATE

They opened the quaint museum for me — it won’t likely open for the public until the end of this year — and I explored its eclectic collection of objects, from caskets and Victorian mourning jewelry made of hair to chamber pots and typewriters. I even got to step inside the historic train depot, where I spied a record of death transits from the early 1900s, the cargo: ashes.

I asked the Rocchettas — who live next door to each other, one brother in the house they grew up in — what it was like living surrounded by so many dead. They shrugged. The consensus: You just get used to it.

Brothers Rich, right, and Mike Rocchetta, board members at the Colma Historical Association.
Michelle Robertson/SFGATE

“It’s your typical small town,” Rich Rocchetta said. He stressed it's an especially exceptional place to retire. Everybody knows each other. The recreation department is thriving. Life is quiet here.

The cemeteries are considered parks — Rocchetta said he learned to drive in them — and people walk their dogs and take their kids to frolic. Crime is low and the community resplendent.

As the town’s motto says succinctly: “It’s good to be alive in Colma!”