Every year, this week, my thoughts turn to where I was October 20, 1991 the day of the Oakland Firestorm.
If you lived anywhere in the Bay Area at the time then you likely have that day etched in your memory, as well.
For those of us who lived in the Oakland and Berkeley hills and just below, it was a defining moment in our lives. Even if you did not lose your own home you likely knew a friend or neighbor who did. You may have known someone who died in the fire or lost family members. Those of us who were left behind to rebuild stand witness to the devastation of that day and its aftermath much as I imagine New Yorkers remember 9/11.
The day of the firestorm was to be an especially enjoyable one for us. My husband and I were celebrating a belated anniversary that day by going to eat at an outdoor cafe on College Avenue on the Oakland/Berkeley border.
We had left our one year-old son and eight-year-old daughter in the care of a responsible teenage babysitter and drove down the windy roads from our home near the top of Oaklandâ??s Montclair district. I remember remarking to my husband how dry the air felt and predicted it would be a scorcher that day.
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