On the Road Again

I flew into Oakland on Thursday and drove to Berkeley via International Blvd, which I knew once upon a time as East 14th. While we moved much too much in my childhood to actually have a place I can call “home,” we lived several times not very far from the juncture of East 14th & 98th Avenues, so I thought that drive could be nostalgic. And in a vague sort of way it was. International goes through various slums, a largely black area, then a largely Hispanic area and finally a largely Asian, it seemed mostly Vietnamese area. At least the new name for the street is appropriate.

I spent too much time at my all time favorite bookstores, Moe’s and Black Oak. If one is interested in high end used books there may be no better stores than these two. Once upon a time I worked at Moe’s and worked with people who went on to form Black Oak. I try to visit both when I’m in the Bay Area and get grumpy if I can’t. Moe’s has the absolutely largest selection of used and almost scholarly books touching upon East Asian religions I’ve ever found. Black Oak’s selection in this specific area isn’t as impressive as Moe’s, but they pay attention to pamphlet literature, which makes them very much worth the visit. I bought books.

The next day I drove up to Santa Rosa where that evening thanks to my old, old friend bookseller extraorindaire Ellen Skagerberg, I did my very first book reading and signing at Copperfield’s books in the Montgomery Village shopping center. I think I mentioned in my previous post that once upon a time I actually worked in that shop (well, technically, in the intervening years they moved the store to another location in the shopping center). Thanks to several friends advertising the event, some forty people showed, and maybe more important a dozen actually purchased books! ‘Twas a treat.

I’m currently camping out at my friend and Zen teacher John Tarrant’s home while he’s doing some work back East… Yesterday I spent time with many old friends from the UU world, the Zen world and that place where they meet. ‘Twas lovely.

This morning I’m off to worship services at the Santa Rosa congregation and this afternoon I’ll be preaching Chris Bell’s installation as their minister. From there I’ll drive to Oakland to spend the night with some more old friends, and early tomorrow, I’ll fly back to Boston.

Quite the adventure…