I love the neighborhoods of Oakland, love the fact that I can hear so many languages on the street here. I love it that my kids have grown up here. I love the library, and the rose garden, and the views from the hills. I love the tiled buildings downtown, and the Grand Lake Theater.

I’ve been here through the earthquake and the fire and through some personal quakes and fires, and it is HOME. My accent may be from Tennessee, but my heart is forever in Oakland.

Just this morning was down the hill at Peet’s Fruitvale then up to Joaquin Miller to show my wife the stairs/cascase and the park where I take dog to play fetch most mornings. The view astounded from the hills, seemed like you could see 50 miles in any direction.

But no one has mentioned that Oakland has a world class symphony – Oakland East Bay Symphony and a chorus to go with it – Oakland Symphony Chorus as well as hundreds of creative artists who live and work in Oakland. I am proud to be a part of this creative scene. If you check the local papers (including SF Chronicle) on any given day you can find incredible concerts, recitals, open studios, galleries (don’t miss First Friday’s Art Murmur in ‘Uptown’) – in some pretty classy venues – the Paramount Theater, the newly opened Fox Theater, the beautiful new Cathedral of Light, Yoshi’s – you can’t go wrong. You don’t have to cross the bridge to get your cultural fix. Oakland has it all.

Once as I was driving in, an enormous golden eagle chased a rabbit but
missed. The area is popular with walkers and jogglers but the jewel in
the crown is the long pier that reaches out into the bay. Here is
where the endangered California clapper rail thrives and seeing it, if
only briefly, has caused a few friends of mine to wait for me longer
than needed at baggage claim.

The saying “thin as a rail” comes from the ability of the rail to
laterally compress its body to escape into the reeds. On my last
visit, I was running a little late but felt the need to feed my rail
sighting addiction. I passed a couple with a large scope and asked if
they had seen any rails. They hadn’t but had heard their clattering
call, and pointed in the general direction. Within minutes I had
spotted the rail with its distinctive dusky orange bill. I motioned
for them to come see it, but they arrived too late. Another time I
arrived at the parking lot to see at least 30 cars. I thought there
must be a rare bird sighting, but discovered that the tide was
unusually high, and at least 30 normally elusive rails were in view
and sharing the few bits of land not submerged, much like the
survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Only the rails could fly away.

Especially around this corner of the web, I think we see a lot of the best Oakland has going for it — people who dearly care for the city, and have a realistic-but-positive vision for the future. This is a great site and great little community here, V. Thanks to you for facilitating that, too!

I live in Rockridge where the houses are 15′ apart, and about 10′ back from the street. For the last 2 years now, my block does a biweekly “Happy Hour” every other Friday from 6-8pm in front of someone’s house. It’s a BYOB affair as we don’t want hosts to have to put up $$ or go through any effort to host, so lots of people alternate hosting. We’ve all gotten to know each other real well, much more so than just the annual block party or national night out.

Before Oakland, I lived in SF for 4 years, and because I was a travelling management consultant from ’90->’01, have lived or worked in nearly every major metropolitan city in the US. I’ve yet to see this level of camradarie in any city either near or far.