Rolling with Lena

Of course she was there right at 10:00 am, early in fact, and I was downstairs and ready.  Off we rolled . . . I just wanted to be with her – see a little bit of her world.

Lots of water; it seemed everywhere we were, we hugged the water.   It was a bright sunny day in early March.  We rambled along up the Embarcadero and I saw the funky artists’ colony I’d read about – and . . .who are these hordes of people?  Humanity streaming in from everywhere . . . to . . . a white elephant sale.  You’re kidding me!  How much fun could that possibly be?  I guess people just love a deal. 


On we rambled into another world, (the whole day was like another world), past cafes in funky painted warehouses, murals on the side, gritty, gritty, gritty Oakland feel; people making a life, creating a raw sort of beauty amid the cement and worn out buildings; not a tree in sight.  But the water was always there – constant, beautiful, achingly bright; lighting up the whole ramshackle scene.

We rolled through the industrial back roads beside 880 and I was surprised at all the pristine beauty back there; MLK Jr. Park, a huge expanse of a space, surrounded by and surrounding water.  Harbor Bay Parkway took us to . . . oh my goodness!  The Raiders headquarters!  A gorgeous black, white and silver building, clean and sharp in the sunlight, with a pool and a fountain in the front.  Lena had a great idea to take pictures of me pointing at the Raiders sign to send to Rob, a Raiders fan since he was a boy in South Carolina of all places.  We rolled around back to the offices and oh goodie, the door was open!  She tried like the dickens to get that hat from the guy behind the counter in vain, but we took pictures of me in the big Raiders chair. 

Off we went on Doolittle, past the Oakland Aviation museum, Rob would love, and back towards home, but it wasn’t near over yet as we rolled by the massive Port of Oakland, container after container; reminded me of the The Wire, and the whole world within a world culture inside there; one of the biggest national ports ten miles, no five miles from my home!  We stopped at Middle Harbor Shoreline park off 7^th St.; an oasis built right into that gritty urban port; never even knew it was there – must be pretty safe; we saw a grandmother pushing a stroller, a father with his kid, two women strolling, deep in conversation; clean, and pretty and well-tended.  Amazing! 

Then came what might have been my favorite part of the ride; West Oakland.  Now that is a world within a world for surest sure.  I got a completely different sense of place than anywhere else in the whole Bay Area.  It is a true neighborhood.  I imagined all the history as we rolled by De Fremery park; site of the Black Panther rallies in the 60’s.  Lena told me the story of riding in Robert Kennedy’s limo through West Oakland the day before his tragic encounter with a crazy gunman in LA.  She didn’t even really know who he was – she was just an excited kid, riding in the back of a limo.  She told me about the day Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and the wailing and rage in the streets of West Oakland and how you sure as shit didn’t want to be white that day.  She was walking home after they had let school out early and she was with a little white girl she watched get beat up, scared to intervene because she’d get pounded her own self.  She picked up the pieces of the shaken girl afterward and stayed with her until they got her home. 

We rolled by McClymends high school, home of the “Macites” and oh Lordy, I can’t even imagine what has gone on in there.  She was lucky enough to have a mom who got her into another high school.  She showed me all the places she had lived; her first apartment, the home she lived in when her mother died, her cousin’s house; the projects; my God, she must have lived in ten different places in 4-5 square blocks.  I just imagined folks not really ever leaving; making a full life for themselves amongst family and neighbors in this ten square block area by the water. 

The houses were beautiful behind the bars, old homes with color and character.  The corner stores were still there.  People had lived and died there in all of the drama of a human life, creating web after web of connection, growing wider and deeper through the years right in that space.  A few tattooed whites were braving it; urban pioneers are they.  We saw a young white woman striding confidently with a pit bull on each side, arms fully inked and decided neither one of us would want to mess with her.

We ended the ramble at I-Hop.  I got this sweet rice milk thing so we could use the bathroom in the taqueria next door.  We are all managing to coexist; black, white and brown in the streets of Oakland.  Really kind of amazing.  I’ll never forget it.  All those images are seared on my memory for evermore.