An Evening With Coop and Molly

My visit to Oakland was brief but very nice. First off, the Inn and Jack London Square turned out to be the "Northern California Hotel I've Been Looking For." It was fairly moderately priced, well-run, and was in the waterfront area of Oakland that has plenty of places to eat and drink, etc. It even had Turner Classic Movies (the only California hotel north of Bakersfield that I've found this to be true).

Not that I watched television a lot. Rather the highlight of my two days there was getting to hang out for a long weekend afternoon and evening with my good friend Coop, who suggested we meet up at a lively bar down on 4th and Alice. Getting to see far-flung friends and family on a semi-regular basis is the really the highest pleasure of my lifestyle.

I hadn't seen him in a year, and it was a great joy to get to hang out again.  At his suggestion, we drove across the bridge to Alameda, which I had never visited. Coop gave me a tour of the island, a little part of California that is new to me. Slowly I'm filling in the blanks.

The extra-extra-bonus was that Coop informed me that our Molly was in town, staying at a AirBnB place up in the Berkeley hills. I hadn't seen her in several years. The place where she was staying was one of those spectacular hillside places. Molly was renting a smaller house next to the main one while looking for an apartment in Oakland.  She was hoping to relocate for a year out to the Bay Area, and to rent out her place in Denver.

I've been coming to see Coop in the Bay Area for almost thirty years now, since our freshman year in college when he was going to Berkeley. Likewise I'd visited Molly in several places around the globe, including a very notable trip to Paris back in 1985.

Ironically I had been thinking of her while I was in San Francisco, climbing Coit Hill in the dark by myself for the view. It's the kind of urban night exploration that reminded me of Molly.

I told them I had planned to write an entire blog post about the two of them, specifically about how my appreciation of cities was due in no small part to the time I spent with them. I guess this post will have to do for now. Sometime I write more about the time I spent with them, perhaps if I write my memoirs some day.

The theme I would want to convey is that I've been one of the luckiest people ever to live, as far as I'm concerned, in the people I've got to meet and spend time with.