Love letters, boat tours, Mac Dre, and more

Hi everybody,

After getting vaccinated this spring, I was hoping for an amazing summer, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. This Delta variant surge is a troubling sign that the pandemic is far from over, but on a more personal level, I’ve really been struggling to deal with my dad’s worsening dementia. This won’t be a shock to anyone who’s familiar with this devastating brain illness, but it’s been surprising to me how well my dad still remembers stories from his childhood while at the same time having literally no memory of anything that’s happened in the previous few days.

As a historian, I’m always curious about why certain people or events are remembered so clearly while so many others fade away. Of course, personal memory and cultural memory are two totally different things, but spending so much time with my dad lately has given me a different perspective on how we process the past... and the mysterious ways that our brains store information has given me a lot to think about as I contemplate future episodes.

Anyway, I didn’t want to get totally consumed with the sadness that comes from watching a parent deteriorate, so for the past few months I’ve been working on something fun and uplifting: a love story. The idea for my latest episode came when a listener named Aussie Holcomb let me borrow a shoebox full of letters that her grandparents sent to each other while they were dating in the late 1940s and early 50s. Falling down this romantic rabbit hole of young love was a great escape, but I wasn’t sure it would be a good fit for the podcast until I learned about the impact that finding these letters had on Aussie and her dad Mark. I won't spoil anything by telling you what happened, but you may want to have a hankie nearby if you cry easily. But don’t worry, these tears are the happy kind. At least they were for me. [Listen to “Dear Brown Eyes” here.]

New Boat Tours
-Besides reading old love letters, another way I’ve been escaping from this bummer summer is by spending lots of time out on the water. It’s been an honor to have some of my favorite journalists joining my local history boat tours and I expect to have more local luminaries aboard during the next round of trips. (If anybody knows E-40, tell him I’ll hook him up!) Tickets are now on sale for Oakland tours on September 8 and 10, and a Richmond tour on October 17. If you can’t make one of my boat trips, Chris Carlsson is still doing his wonderful tours of San Francisco and “Cool Gray City of Love” author Gary Kamiya has also jumped into the game with a 5-part series.

More East Bay Yesterday updates
-Ever since Mac Dre’s 2004 murder, rumors, accusations, and retaliatory violence have swirled around the unsolved case. Although nobody has ever been charged for the crime, investigative journalist Donald Morrison recently published an investigation that draws on 1,200 documents and dozens of interviews in order to fill in some of the missing puzzle pieces. Here’s my interview with Morrison about what he uncovered.And if you want to dig deeper into Bay Area rap history, here’s Pendarvis Harshaw’s conversation with Trackademics about how “the hyphy sound in the mid-2000s didn't come out of nowhere.”

-The launch party for the Black Liberation Walking Tour that I previewed in a few recent episodes was a roaring success. Here’s some glowing coverage of the Juneteenth event from KQED. Check back in on the BLWT website for details about the next event, which will feature the unveiling of a new mural created by the Bay Area Mural Program in collaboration with neighborhood residents and feature Oakland icons such as Ruth Beckford and C.L. Dellums.

In other news…
-The 1944 Port Chicago explosion was really two tragedies. The first tragedy was the accident that killed 320 soldiers and injured hundreds more. The second was the conviction of 328 Black survivors who refused to return to work under dangerous conditions. This San Francisco Chronicle op-ed makes a strong case for why a presidential exoneration is long overdue – and why this symbolic gesture is still relevant.

-Q: How long have people lived in the Bay Area, and what was life like then? A: “The record is spotty, but humans were definitely here before the last ice age ended around 11,700 years ago…” (Listen to Bay Curious to hear the rest of the answer to this complicated question)

-Tilden Park has so many fascinating attractions tucked amongst its hilly, wooded terrain. This SF Gate article by Andrew Chamings covers the history of the Brazilian Room, the steam trains, and more. (But the real question is… When will Lake Anza finally re-open?!)

-In lieu of their usual selection of walking tours, the Oakland Heritage Alliance has been producing a great series of online lectures lately. The next one, on August 12, is about “John & Sara Lemmon: Early California Botanists, Civil War Survivors and Influential Oakland Citizens.” If you missed any of this year’s previous talks, which have covered everything from “Borax” Smith to “Candy Makers of Oakland,” you can watch the archived videos online.

-“A Victorian house in Oakland is being offered for free to any taker who will pay to have it relocated.” This situation seems to happen about once every year or two and, to my knowledge, most of these “free” houses end up getting demolished, because the logistics of moving them are so challenging. However, there have been quite a few significant buildings that were successfully relocated. If you want to hear about them, here’s my deep-dive on the topic.

-Want to know more about the history of local watersheds? Elizabeth Dougherty of Wholly H2O has organized a series of virtual walking tours on the topic. So far, the series has covered Point Molate, Lake Temescal, and Sausal Creek. Expect to hear more on creek history in an upcoming East Bay Yesterday (and if you have story ideas, I’m still researching this episode, so drop me a line).

-I’m not sure if the Hells Angels would agree with this headline about the East Bay Rats being Oakland’s “most infamous motorcycle club,” but this article about their rowdy fight nights brought back some wild memories of sitting on a roof and watching amateur brawlers punch the bejesus out of each other. Another thing I miss about the Rats’ HQ on San Pablo: The beer vending machine!

Finally
Longtime listeners know how much I adore Oakland’s official bird, the Black-Crowned Night Heron. So I’m thrilled to see the red-eyed, hunchbacked species on the cover of a wonderful new volume from Heyday Books called, appropriately enough, “The Birds of Lake Merritt.” The author, Alex Harris, will be speaking at the Oakland Public Library on August 4th, and if you’re on the fence about checking it out, here’s a sample of the book’s lovely watercolor art. This painting depicts “First Avenue along Lake Merritt, circa 1880.”

Thanks to everyone who read this far and extra special thanks to all of you folks supporting East Bay Yesterday though Patreon. I really couldn’t do this without you!

-Liam

P.S. Shoutout to Pendarvis Harshaw for capturing one of my happiest moments in recent months – hanging out with my favorite librarian Dorothy Lazard during my last boat tour...