Last Wednesday morning was cold by Piedmont standards, and it rained hard shortly before our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking Wednesdays walkers gathered at the Exedra. We wanted to play it safe with the weather and stay in the central part of Piedmont for our weekly walk. Some moisture and weather uncertainty were in the air but there was a good turnout of 30 water-resistant walkers with umbrellas in hand and two of their K-9 best friends.    Before we started walkin

The Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays walkers had regularly checked the weather forecasts before our walk last Wednesday. They had gone back and forth saying it was or wasn’t going rain during our walk. The good news early Wednesday morning was that it wasn’t going to rain until the afternoon.   On past walks we had walked out St. James Drive to the Corpus Christi Catholic Church but never gone inside the church or considered its history. St. James is a l

Our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had another cool, mild, mid-winter morning for its walk last Wednesday. There was an excellent turnout of 47 walkers and four K-9 best friends at the Exedra for a challenging uphill climb to one of Piedmont’s least understood structures, the EBMUD “Reservoir Number Two,” near the top of Blair Avenue.   Two years ago, Karin F and Peggy S told the group about Deep Oakland , a book by Andrews Alden. In it, Alden te

Our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group had another clear, sunny morning for our weekly walk last Wednesday. There was strong turnout of 47 walkers and four K-9 best friends at the Exedra to enjoy it.   The previous week we had talked briefly about Frank C. Havens and F. M. “Borax” Smith’s Realty Syndicate, which they formed in 1895. As part of it, Smith bought streetcar lines starting in 1890 to establish the Key System transit system. However, there

Last Wednesday was a lovely winter morning, sunny and mild, and 49 members of our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group with five of their K-9 best friends were at the Exedra to enjoy it. The weather was great, but the group’s large size was a little surprising because they had been warned that this day’s walk was not an easy one.   The group has a soft goal of going to every safe walking Piedmont street each year, but there were a few that we didn’t to

Members of our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group welcomed the opportunity last Wednesday to get out after the recent rains and walk on a sunny, cool morning. There was a strong turnout of 54 walkers and four K-9 best friends on hand at the Exedra at our regular weekly time.   We had walked the Piedmont High School campus the week before during the Holiday break and talked about its history. This week we could visit the story of one of Piedmont High’