Memorial Day Riff In Downtown Oakland

Because today is a holiday, I'm walking all over Oakland, the place about which Getrude Stein said, 'There isn't any there there, ' and I even came across that very quote in a book over lunch, right here in Oakland— a lot of those little coincidences lately— but there is a 'here' here, and armed with my digital camera in one hand, my silver harmonica in the other, I aim to prove it and maybe I'll celebrate some of the city's rhythms, too. At first I'm taking pictures of every flowering tree on the streets behind Lake Merrit, bougainvillea and a stand of banana trees, some unknown tropical plant with a jungle trunk like an elephant that has lamprey eels attached, the pythecanthicus about to open, and more pictures, of the mysterious fresco above the columns of the Scottish Rite Temple, and all the 'there' around Lake Merrit with its strung colored lights and distant hills that feel as much like Italy as California. Then I turn a corner and suddenly Italy's gone, except for the rundown part of Rome near the train station where I saw a guy shooting up once while he sat on an ancient, wooden staircase, and the heat here in downtown Oakland is shooting back from the asphalt now and from the sidewalk that sparkles like a preschooler poured glitter there when it was wet, but that heat's still a merry heat that still hasn't gone over 80 yet this year. Now, silver camera still in my right hand, there's nothing to shoot any more because I don't care to take depression-era photos of stark signs saying HOTEL, but in my left hand, my $5 Blues Band harp is starting to call my name, and I play 'They Tried To Tell Us We're Too Young' and 'In The Still Of The Night' as I walk, and then as I turn a corner, I see a very dark-skinned man in shades motioning and he says, 'Hey, come over here and play with us! ' and he waves me into a small parking lot with BB King blaring from a boombox on a chair beside a baby carriage that has a big teddy bear in it! Not wanting to disappoint the man, I start to play, and I'm lucky, old BB's playin' in the key of C, and I jam as though I play with bands all the time, it's fun, if you're in the right key almost anything works, and I make a note there seems to be enough universal truth in that thought to practically get a person through life. A tall, skinny old dark-skinned man in overalls and shades comes over then and starts rummaging behind the teddy bear in the carriage, and after a whole two minutes or so, pulls out a wooden recorder, nice wood, about as skinny as he looks, and starts playin' Coltrane-like riffs, and I let go of whatever inhibition I'm still holdin' onto, and this uptight white guy is suddenly a jazz musician with the brothers and a few sisters standin' around their cooler of beer and cheerin' us on, and this is a holiday, which means Holy Day, I realize the same way I realized only today that 'Amateur' means 'what you do for Love', and I thank you, my harmonica, for being my passport and translator to the wide world, and I swear with you two silver wands in my hands and this book bag slung over my shoulder, I'm about ready to just set off and start walkin' around the world