Posted on 12/07/2008 12:11:01 PM PST by CE2949BB
I'm lost amid boxes strewn about my apartment in Oakland, packing. This wasn't my intent when I moved here three years ago. Far from it.
I moved West to live near family after 20 years of cold Cambridge winters. First stop: San Francisco. I found an apartment just blocks from the bay. Sailboats raced by with spinnakers flying; foghorns lulled me to sleep. But a new job in the East Bay beckoned. Tired of bridge traffic and high pump prices, I moved east again, only this was a shorter hop.
I scouted neighborhoods for months. At the time, burglars were holding up apartment dwellers at gunpoint as they unloaded groceries in gated garages around Lake Merritt. Punks looking for a quick 50 sometimes hopped trains and robbed commuters at the Rockridge BART Station, so I kept my distance.
Piedmont Avenue - with its artsy movie theater, funky shops and quiet elegance - appealed to me. I rented a beautiful apartment with French doors, antique glass armoires and large windows that let in glorious natural light.
The place was 3 miles from work and closer still to the local farmers' market, where friends and families caught up over fresh bread, seasonal fruit and brewed coffee.
The neighborhood was a walker's paradise. My favorite exercise was running errands: to the cleaners, bookstore or grocery. I invited friends for dinner, and afterward we walked a few short blocks to the movie theater. A wonderful life.
Could this be better than, dare I say, San Francisco? Absolutely! It had heart, community and color.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Time to learn the words to On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away! :)
I asked a liberal once why she lived in Orange County California, at that time it was really a conservative county, and she said the “houses are nicer” LOL. I kind of feel the same way about people like Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, they espouse liberal talking points, but when it comes to choosing where to live, do they choose to live in over-whelmingly democratic counties in NJ like Essex or Camden? no, they live in safe republican counties.
Lived in the Bay Area for my undergraduate. Don’t miss it a bit. Noone ever took personal responsibility for everything and the whole place was a mess.
Lovely weather though.
I worked in nearby San Leandro a few years and my ex-secretary, a gun-hating liberal, lived in a Lake Merritt high-rise apartment. One day she came to work and asked me to help her select a pistol. Frankly shocked, I asked her why.
She lived on the 7th floor and had left her apartment to come to work. After she got to the elevator she thought of something she needed, so went back and unlocked her door. To her surprise she found a guy pawing through her stuff. She let out a terrified scream and started yelling. The man ran through the French doors to the patio and scrambled down, Spider Man-like, patio to patio with her screaming her head off. He hit the ground running and disappeared.
After that we spent some pleasant time at the local gun range as she learned to use her new revolver. She did move to a safer place not long afterward. Unfortunately the lesson didn't "take." She's still a bleeding heart San Francisco liberal who thinks Pelosi's wonderful.
Liberals believe in their fellow man rather than God. And that gets you....
But a gas station robbery on Piedmont Avenue, just blocks from my apartment, finally confirmed for me what shopkeepers and residents here had known for years: The violence in Oakland is relentless. During that assault, a stray bullet hit a young boy practicing piano at a nearby music school; the child was paralyzed, the community stunned. Restaurant robberies followed in quick succession, terrorizing diners in Oakland, Emeryville and Montclair.
Finally, she flees. But she has to be talked into it not by a normal person, but rather....
An eccentric old friend finally persuaded me to do the unthinkable: move to Marin County. It would mean driving over the Richmond Bridge to work, spending untold hours in traffic. For me to give up a walker's manna to commute 40 miles a day spewing exhaust and wasting money on fuel and tolls was ludicrous. But that's how bad it is in Oakland.
The other thing that came to mind reading this is that Oakland is how the Left wants us to live. They don't want people to have the freedom to choose to drive 40 miles to work--think of the greenhouse gases! If it were up to the Left, this woman would be SOL. Choice? That's for pregnancies.
There is a simple solution. Making California a “shall issue” CCW state would clear all off this mess up in a couple of years.
“Emeryville’s waterfront is heaven “
Last time I saw the Emeryville waterfront, it stank to high heaven and had hundreds of tires standing in it at low tide. Of course, the highway was only two lanes wide, with the bay breakers splashing over it at high tide.
If she respected Dellums she still needs to grow up. She still can’t connect the dots of liberal leadership and communities not fit to live in. Are these people blind?
However, the "ooze" is spilling into Marin. Marin can't hold it out and away. TPTB keep trying to keep the invisible "fence" around Marin charged with electricity, but danged those grids...
After that, the Dems pushed to license ammo purchases. AND one would need to be fingerprinted to buy ammo. Didn't pass; but the reaction formation in LibCA to self defense is that rabid.
Another Mormonphobe...
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