Reading and Riding

After some early confusion things evened out.

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The second day of the three-day Juneteenth weekend started with a little hitch but got better from thre.

With plans to go to Oakland and visit the renowned Marcus Books I decided I didn’t want to wait for the 11:20 a.m. ferry to get started.

So I loaded my pack and headed out to catch a Golden Gate bus on the regional route from Santa Rosa to San Francisco and catch the train from there.

Checking the website it appeared there would be a bus nearly two hours earlier just a few blocks from our place.

Heading out the only problem I had in mind was the fact with the bus and train stops so close to each other I might not get as much walking as I’d like.

That notion died quickly.

When I got to the bus stop I double-checked the app, not the website, and it told me I needed to go to another stop to catch the southbound to San Francisco.

That stop, however, was a mile away and up by the 101 freeway, about 600 feet in elevation gain from the stop I was at.

Fortunately, I’d blocked enough time to make the hike so that’s what I did. Only to learn when I got there the bus I wanted would now be at another stop closer to where I’d started.

Back down the hills and stairs I went where I finally caught the right bus.

Riding over the bridge an onto downtown was quick and easy. The convenience was especially noticeable on Van Ness Avenue, which is the route Highway 101 takes as it crosses the peninsula and briefly changes from a freeway to surface road.

Van Ness has long been a bit of a slog for anyone cutting from bridge to bridge through The City. And with major construction in recent years even more so.

Well, the construction is complete and the revised version includes two center lanes painted red and dedicated completely to buses, with car traffic in two outer lanes on each side.

The result is what seems to be a smoother and quicker ride with fewer slowdowns.

I got off the bus a few stops ahead of the Embarcadero BART Station so I could get some more walking in and maybe take some photos.

From Embarcadero I caught the train to Oakland and MacArthur station before making the short stroll to Marcus Books.

Marcus Books is considered the oldest Black owned bookstore in the Bay Area.

Founded in San Francisco in 1960 and named after Jamaican nationalist Marcus Garvey, the shop bills itself as a local source for books, “by and about Black people everywhere.”

The San Francisco location is closed but there is a branch on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland that’s crammed with titles. It’s also staffed by longtime manager Blanche Richardson, daughter of founders Raye and Julian Richardson.

I’ve picked up a number of great titles there, including “Never Caught,” a book about a woman named Ona Judge Staines who escaped enslavement by former President George Washington and his wife, Martha, and managed to elude them in their pursuits to recapture her.

My goal for the day was to find material to read during some upcoming travel.

I selected two titles, “We Were Eight Years in Power,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates and “The Color of Law,” by Richard Rothstein.

The former caught my eye because it seemed like a nice followup to “Grant,” the Ron Chernow biography of former General and President Ulysses S. Grant.

Coates seems to be focused on the reconstruction era of Black liberation that Grant used the power of his Presidency to support.

It was a brief moment in time when the arc of history in America was truly turning toward justice and it prompted a vitriolic and deep white backlash we’re still suffering the effects of today.

The latter title focuses on how our legal and law enforcement systems worked to expand and enforce that backlash through the building of cities in a way that’s still punishing people of color today.

After departing Marcus Books I had some time to walk the neighborhood which is in an area of Oakland I really enjoy.

We spent a brief few months there while looking for housing and it was nice to have a chance to revisit some of the spots I enjoyed and experience some others for the first time.

One such new experience was getting bahn mi at Co Nam, a Vietnamese restaurant at Telegraph and 40th. From there I walked over to Mosswood Park to eat. Then it was back to the BART to return to San Francisco for the ferry.

When I got back to The City I had some time before the next ferry so I decided to make a quick run up to North Beach and Caffe Trieste for an espresso.

I love North Beach and Little Italy and don’t need much of an excuse to take a detour through the neighborhood streets.

It gave me a chance not only to recharge with an afternoon espresso but an opportunity to shoot a few more photos and just enjoy the vibrant colors and sounds at Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street.

From there I walked back to the Ferry Building and caught my ride back across the Golden Gate.

If you like the photos above be sure to check out the gallery below.