A place you might not want to remember

Light tower, green light, late winter evening sunlight at E 16th Ave., Oakland

In Oakland, despite the freeways, concrete monstrosities that isolate neighborhoods from one another, despite the seeming differences between various neighborhoods and people and the varieties in its character, things can seem surprisingly connected. A man gets gunned down in West Oakland and you learn he had half a dozen close cousins in East Oakland. A man dies in Fruitvale and you find out he had worked for years in the Lower Bottom neighborhood, everybody knows him over there. A police officer on the beat in Eastmont grew up in violent Campbell Village. A restaurant owner in Jack London Square is from the Acorn neighborhood in West Oakland, and he’s committed to hiring parolees from The Deep. Sometimes it feels like every green freeway sign in Oakland is only a degree of separation from everywhere else in Oakland, and a reminder of a place you might not want to remember.

- from Until You Bleed - on life, violence and healing in Oakland - .99 e-book available at Amazon or as an audiobook at iTunes, Amazon and Audible.