When the Almond Tree Blooms

It's a sunny Saturday morning in Fruitvale. A bit of chill still hangs in the air. I take a walk down to Fruitvale and Foothill to find something to eat. I pass a senior citizen outside the Posada de Colores retirement home. He greets me with a nod and a smile as I walk by. At the corner, the laundromat is already open and I see families dragging enormous sacks of clothing inside. The taco truck is still closed. On the other side of the street, day laborers gather in the Kragen parking lot, hoping for some work and a bit of pay to send back to families in Mexico, Guatemala and beyond. Picky shoppers crowd around big crates of corn that have just arrived outside one of the many produce stores that line that stretch of Foothill between Fruitvale and 35th Avenue. A dozen workers breakfast on rice, beans, pupusas, tacos and tamales outside the 'Pupusas Mi Lupita' stand. I go into a restaurant to order a licuado to soothe my hunger and still-unsettled stomach. Back at...

Clothes on the line, my backyward The plum tree Plums! In my earlier post, I was lamenting the fact that I was in Oakland instead of out on a wilderness trail. Now, a few weeks later, I am still sitting here in Oakland, this time listening to the various firecrackers and other incendiary devices the neighbors are igniting in preparation for July 4th. I am getting ready to leave on a camping trip tomorrow morning. I am excited to get out of town, but overall, have been very content to be in the Bay Area during what amounts to a five week pseudo-vacation from the elementary children. In the past few weeks, I've been working at the Park Elementary garden in Hayward two to three times a week, usually for four to six hours. I've also helped out with the high school program as well at Tennyson in Hayward. On my sometimes lengthy lunch breaks, I've been savoring the tastes of Hayward: Mexican hoagies, and burritos and aguas frescas from Chavez Market. On my other days,...