A daily dog walk reveals much about a changing neighborhood near Mills College, Oakland.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
You get to know your neighborhood through walking
I live on an island, a hilltop neighborhood sandwiched between the 580 freeway and MacArthur Blvd., Seminary Ave. and Edwards/73rd Avenue. Because my dog Yuki demands it, a daily walk occurs nearly every morning around 9am, and my neighbor Roxanne usually accompanies me. These walks and talks have spawned a constant stream of discoveries--about the neighborhood, about us, and about Yuki. She tells us which way we go, quite often. Quality Donuts pulls one way, Yuki pulls the other. Sometimes a house comes on the market, and we visit, because Roxanne is a real estate agent. We call Yuki, the "real estate dog." Recently, she has seen a fair number of houses. Three or four times the number of houses are for sale in our zip code (94605) than in all of Berkeley. Roxanne can correct this number if she wants. Yesterday, the amazing sight of the day was a wild turkey in someone's backyard, by Chimes Creek, at the end of tiny Nairobi Place. My couch-loving dog suddenly becomes the "bird dog" par excellence and starts barking wildly. Today, a neighbor we couldn't even see, yelled out a greeting to Yuki as we passed by. Today we saw the most amazing giant tulips, on Delmont. Tomorrow?
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2 comments:
Has Roxanne considered stationing you and Yuki in the neighborhood when there's an open house??? My guess is that one look at Yuki's smiling face, and a few pats later, and the house you're near will stand out in every visitor's mind as the friendly one. ;) I agree totally with how wonderfully you get to know a neighborhood by walking it daily. Even if you see only one person/one new sight every day, by the end of the month you've probably spotted nearly everyone in your neighborhood, and talked with 16 times more than you do when you always come and go in the car... Same effect works when you are shadowing small kiddos. Go Yuki!
Yuki and I have attended some open houses and I always chat with the potential new neighbors, if they stop to pet Yuki, so your scenario is right on! We usually do talk with someone during each walk. And curiosity peppers our walk. There's always something I want to find out more about, a stately old house, or an abandoned one, the solar panels on a new house, or an intriguing plant growing in someone's garden...thus, this blog.
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