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 ...
| Oakland Pride |
Passing a kidney stone is better...
Any city under the corrupt, criminal democrat party yoke eventually becomes uninhabitable.
LOL!
I almost got lost pre GPS in Oakland heading from Monterey to Napa. I thought trying East Bay versus going through SF for a change was a good idea. I ended up semi-lost in Berkeley. Fortunately it was daylight and I knew I was heading north as long as the sun was on my left. I finally got on 101 N. My fear was getting lost in Oakland.
Cambridge Winters are cold. We know that. So, we dress appropriately and do what we know to be proper in climates such as these. You can walk in the summer months. Walking IS wonderful but...doing it at the risk of losing your life is just foolish. I’d take the Cambridge Winters any day of the week.
Emeryville’s waterfront is heaven but cars on the street have recently been broken into. Off street covered parking is becoming a necessity but other than that, it’s still heaven for me.
She just can’t make the logical jump to conservatism. It’s right there in front of her but she can’t see it. She curses the darkness but just can’t light the candle.
LOL at the comments section, especially from el_polacko, it’s worth repeating:
“amusing to note how the barack-voting ‘progressives’ just LOVE the black ‘community’ until they have to live near them. then they go running to the whitest place they can find. even if it’s 40 miles away. it’s “worth it”.
Read the comments. Some idiot suggested they have compassion instead of fear. Others think its the victims fault for having their stuff stolen.
I just laughed reading the article because the writer sounded like a lib. “Ecelectic mix”, community, boring suburbs (as in not getting shot or robbed is boring),
She was making excuses and probably was upset she could not blame “racist white southerners.” She admired Ron Dellums as a Congressman but not as mayor. What a fool. Yeah she is a lib.
San Francisco has more fruits and nuts.
Big mistake to live in a leftist paradise.
Greenbrae is lower upper class yuppie scum.
Susan Glass - a republican in the making?
Funny thing is, moral at OPD is waaaay better than at SFPD; you GET CAUGHT doing bad stuff in Oakland, and they the cops will **** you up big time —not true in SF.
It’s simply that Oakland has sooooooooo many poor, malevolent blacks looking to vicimize anyone with stuff, or just anyone.
This one hit me as well. There have been a few times in my life I have lived thus. Pretty much every white person that lived in the thick of it has moved to the whitest neighborhood possible. I had never really thought about it that way, until I read it. But often it the suburban libs screaming stuff like 'You racists or feed the homeless!" Until one lives night and day with the homeless outside their door in city community dominated by a specific culture, they have no idea of the reality. Every once in a while you meet someone who really loves it and that is cool. It is just not usually the case and at least they have direct experience rather than the suburban libbies that would never ever go there.
Which is in Marin County. Uber Liberal.
As Ballygrl noticed earlier, a comment left at the article sums the situation perfectly.
From the Wikipedia entry for Marin County:
The racial makeup of the county was 84.03% White, 2.89% Black or African American, 0.43% Native American, 4.53% Asian, 0.16% Pacific Islander, 4.50% from other races, and 3.47% from two or more races.
Dellums was a crooked Marxist NIGHTMARE of a Congresscritter. This woman is demented, not to mention a typical liberal hypocrite.
Oakland, Detroit, Gary-Indiana, Brownsville-Brooklyn: available homes for just one dollar but only in the cities noted, which city would you pick?/Just Asking - seoul62......
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