My neighbor Jesse

Shift #47

WEDNESDAY, MAY 12 -- W Hotel to 255 Channel -- $8.95


I’M STANDING OUTSIDE MY CAB in front of the W Hotel when I hear my name called. I swivel my head and quickly zero in on my neighbor, Jesse, coming down the sidewalk with a big smile on his face. “I was just looking for a cab,” he says, “and here you are!”

Jesse and his wife Hillary and their darling 18-month old son Dylan (lately Dylan has been waving to me from his stroller whenever the family passes by) live just three doors down the street from my wife and daughter and me in the Piedmont Avenue neighborhood of Oakland. Jesse used to work for San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, and then for Mayor Newsom, and now he’s a self-employed business consultant. This morning he’s on his way to see a client over in the exploding Mission Bay area of the city. As we ride, we talk a little about work, but mostly about the wonder of watching our kids grow up on a cozy dead-end street in a mostly quiet neighborhood where the neighbors mostly all know each other.

Jesse knows about this blog, and probably even knows he’s not going to get away with paying for his ride, and in front of the Mission Bay Visitors Center he graciously succumbs to my terms, which are pretty simple, and pretty much all that any writer can ask: Every once in a while, please read what I write, and man, we are so even!

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