The latest census data shows that San Francisco was the only major city in the United States to show population growth while at the same time losing children.

            Don't blame the Breinings.

            If ever a couple did their part to keep a city's school enrollment up, as well as a few uniform stores in business, it would be Fred and Louise Breining, two longtime local mainstays who where part of the middle-class fabric that defined postwar San Francisco and made the Internal Revenue Service wonder if they weren't faking their tax forms every few Years.

            There is a rather extraordinary union that is best showcased around the holidays, when if the full brood shows, it means that someone will be cooking for 60 people -- as long as the family members don't invite friends.

            I have known the Breinings for more than two decades, ever since they began tailgating with my father and stepmother to 49ers games back when the Niners were so awful you couldn't give away tickets. The tailgate parties were a lot wilder 25 years ago, as were we all. But it would be fair to say that when it came to the Breinings, you could always count on the convenience of a van and sometimes the spaciousness of a recreational vehicle.

            Their story begins at a chance meeting at a long-defunct hamburger joint known as Bashful Kelly's, a place that once had a perch at the corner of 25th Avenue and Irving Street. Fred was an apprentice carpenter, recently graduated from Sacred Heart High School, and Louise, fresh out of Poly, was working part time at the creamery, helping to pay for her college tuition at Cal.

            People refer to it as the baby boom. Look it up sometime, and you'll find the Breinings' picture.

            "We had 12 children in 15 years," Louise said. "I stayed home and took care of them."

            The IRS at one point, many years down the road, refused to grant a tax break of $2,000 to the Breinings because Louise did not have a job. "They said I wasn't working," she said"I said, 'Are you kidding?'"

            When they started their family, they lived in a studio apartment on Judah Street, then at the princely cost of $65 a month. But it was a true studio, and after Marie was born, the bassinet was left in the bathroom when company came over. Louise said it became cumbersome whenever someone had to use the facilities.

            "We outgrew it pretty quickly," she said.

            So they moved to a two-bedroom flat on Hayes Street, much more space and a bargain at $50 per month. But this was also the home-buying boom, and after a year, the Breinings purchased a six room house on 46th Avenue near Irving

            I can't tell you exactly when it got too small. Was it Kathy, John, Vincent, Paul or Fred? Or was Margaret born there, too? No, Fred insists she was the first in the new house they moved into in 1956 -- a two story, three bedroom, one-sunroom house on 33rd Avenue near Lincoln Way.

            They remained busy. In due order came Francis, Eileen, Mark, Kevin, and Helen. The oldest was born in 1949, the Youngest came in 1965, I can say with some confidence that the Breinings had the largest family on the block, though not by much. The Heneys had 10 children, the Cervellis and Fields had seven. That's four baseball teams by my count, though it would be high school through Little League. But they must have had a pretty good farm system on 33rd Avenue, because Fred Breining Jr. went on to star at Lincoln High School and later pitched for the San francisco Giants and the Montreal Expos.

            In a family of 12 kids, you need some outlets. And there just weren't a lot available at the Breinings. Things were crowded there -- two sets of bunkbeds in each of the bedrooms. The girl's room was separated by a divider, older girls on one side, younger girls on the other.

            But they learned to share. Especially when it came to personal hygiene.

            The Breinings, all 14 of them, had one bathroom. A nice bathroom, but just the one. Fred and Louise still have one bathroom, but now there's only the two of them, 12 kids moved on.

            They don't see it as a living museum, though I do, a place that required a system of order, discipline, patience and intestinal fortitude for it to work.

            "We needed regimentation, otherwise we couldn't have survived," Louise said.

            Louise got up first so she could start making the lunches. Then Fred, whose bathing time could only be interrupted in case of an emergency. There were a few. When Fred went off to work, the kids lined up. I can tell you how orderly it was, but somehow the children all made it off to school.

            All the Breining children went to Holy Name, and then for a year to A.P. Giannini. The three oldest attended Catholic High Schools, but it was beyond the financial means for their parents to send the other nine, so they went to Lincoln.

            "Thank God for uniforms," Louise said of her children's grammar school days." "There wouldn't have been another way for us to make it."

            "We were never able to save a dime." Fred said. "When I started working as a carpenter, I made $2 an hour. That was a lot of money then. We didn't know if we could make our mortgage."

            Everything went to food, clothes, the house and the utilities. The big dinners involved roasts; the others involved pasta.

            "I still can't get used to making spaghetti sauce for two," Louise said, "I just make it the old way and store it in containers." Lots of them.

            Fred and Louise are retired now, Fred from the union carpentry business and Louise from the nonprofit homemaking industry. Their children do everything from work as painters to salesmen, to day care operators. That last job, held by Eileen, seems to make a lot of sense.

            Frank and Louise now have 29 grandchildren and eight great-grand children. And the group on 33rd Avenue will soon be having a block party to celebrate the good old days, when the baby boom was booming and the families, no matter how big or small seem to find a way to make ends meet. They're having the party in Golden Gate Park, where one can usually find more than one bathroom.

            "Raising the kids was the best time of my life," Fred said, while Louise nodded. "And we've had a great life."