This festive night was held on July 13, 1996 at The Grapeleaf  Restaurant (4031 Balboa Avenue) in San Francisco. The evening combined our enthusiasms for the wondrous tales of the Arabian Nights (favorites from our childhoods), delicious Middle Eastern food, Middle Eastern music and dancing (many GBACG members are talented dancers).

Late into the evening, after the meal was finished and the music and dancing were in full force, the party spilled out onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. A police car on patrol stopped to listen to the music and admire our costumes. As they walked back to their patrol car Officer A was seen to shake his head and mutter "Only in San Francisco." Officer B responded, "Never saw nothing like this in Bakersfield."

WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights  
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson published in  1830

The noble Caliph James Myers and Prince Joseph Widunas meet Princess Robin Berry in the Medina. Perhaps these noble sirs are asking the Princess to tell them one of her fabulous tales.

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