No Scary Cackles - Francesca Is The Good Witch
By Steve Rubenstein, _Chronicle_ Staff Writer

        Francesca the witch is wholesome, of all things.
        She is friendly. She is nice. She is one of those new-fangled good
witches, the kind that are not supposed to exist, the kind that wreck
Halloween for everyone.
        "We witches," she said, smiling sweetly, "have been getting a lot
of bad press over the years."
        From her den in the Outer Richmond District, which she shares with
two cats, Francesca the witch is gearing up for another Halloween of
explaining to people that witches are regular folks who pay taxes, stop at
red lights, and rarely eat their young.
        As for cackling, worshipping the devil, and stirring black posts,
that's out, too.
        "Why do people believe stuff like that?" said Francesca De Grandis,
stroking a cat which, she pointed out, is a white one.
        Anybody can be a witch. There is no school or degree program. If
you think you're a witch, you're a witch.
        What do witches do at the witching hour? Francesca said her coven,
which includes a lot of kids, likes to sit on the floor with crayons,
drawing pictures.
        Any time, by the way, is the witching hour.
        "You can do very good witchcraft while you are washing the dishes,"
she said. "You say, 'As I cleanse this dish, so I cleanse away the blocks
to prosperity.'"
        There being no dirty dishes handy, Francesca instead lighted a pair
of purple candles, sang a tune, fondled some walnut shells, opened an herb
vial, and said she was going to perform a ritual of hope. What she was
going to hope for, she said, was a positive newspaper story about her.
        "Dear Goddess," she said, swaying before the candle while the cat
slunk around and tried to look convincing, "may this article be of service
and may nothing harmful happen."
        She blew out the candles and cast a hopeful glance at the
reporter's notebook.
        Francesca, who grew up in Boston, got into the witch line 14 years
ago. Before that, she was a modern dancer, a pop singer, a housekeeper, a
florist, and a blues singer. When she's not casting spells, the witch
watches Muppet and Star Wars videos on her TV.
        She was raised a Catholic, which, she pointed out, has incense and
black robes, too.
        "So why are *we* the ones who are supposed to be in some kind of
cult?" she said. "I don't get it."
  (There's also a caption to two photos, saying "Francesca De Grandis, who
says she's the daughter of a witch, lit candles at an altar she set up in
her home to honor her mother. The good witch, not a nasty bone in her body,
said she has a lot of explaining to do to skeptics each Halloween.")

- RSH -